Sunny Skies sleeps in the morning

 It feels like 2020 just keeps having more months. I don't get it. Anyway, here are some pictures from another one-August. 

Andrew and the kids went to return things to a friend's house and came home with an invitation to swim. It was so appreciated!! The kids got to play and get energy out after being cooped up inside so much (and mostly ignored while I worked on the kitchen) and we all got some much needed sun. We got to swim again the next day too. Thank heavens for good friends!

Okay, can we talk about Alex for a second? He is the perfect baby of the family. We are all so obsessed with him. Everything he says is suddenly the cutest thing I've ever heard. He makes me laugh and gets to me to smile when I just don't feel like it. He is sweet, silly, and snugly. I feel like he gives me life and can bring me out of my dark places. I am so grateful for this kid; for his goofy grin and the silly voices he makes to personify his stuffed animals or to be in character when wearing his batman mask. Alex, you're exactly what I need right now. Thanks for being you. 

Still making lots of sourdough bread

Evening hike with friends back when the skies were blue

I should start a photo series highlighting all the places

I find Matthew reading. 

I got ready one day, so obviously I had to take a picture! I mean, I have on my paint shirt since I was headed out to the garage, but still! I found make-up and a hair straightener and figured I'd see if I remembered how to use them. Side note: so far I don't love looking older every time I look in the mirror

Just trying to document this season of running. 

Starting with the end of summer 2012, I've had 7 continuous years of my body supporting someone else (pregnant with Adaline and then pregnant, nursing, or both until September 2019). Not only that, but I was barely 21 when I got pregnant with Adaline so physically, I gave my body to birthing and nourishing my kids for almost all of my twenties. Now that I'm not growing any people, and all of my kids sleep through the night, I am able to be so much more consistent with running and it has been FUN. I still ran races over those years (including pushing a double stroller while running a 5k two months post partum-easily the hardest race I've ever run), but now I'm really able to set some goals and not be set back by morning sickness or being up all night with a newborn. So here's a picture of me headed out for a run before the rest of my family wakes up-it's for sure my favorite part of every day.  

so. much. bread. and I can't even eat it

Have you seen the video of a grandma trying to make cookies with her grandson and he just keeps trying to eat every ingredient as it goes in the bowl? It totally cracked me up because that's exactly what it's like to cook with Alex. He lures me in with his cuteness, earns my trust by follow my directions initially, and then starts shoving food in his mouth as fast as he can.

Still turned out alright

I don't play with my kids that often-we read, hike, and bike together, but playing pretend just isn't my thing. But Adaline asked me to build princess houses with her one day and we made these. 

I think hers turned out better

Somehow Adaline convinced me to print out this template and then cut, fold, and glue it all together for her. It's adorable, but I have no idea why I did this. 

Andrew and the kids spent a lot of lunch breaks building the big ball factory and the kids have loved it 

Stair step kids

See what I mean about this kid?? Just so cute and happy all the time! Also, he's naked, not me

Alex needs all of his cuteness so that I can handle it when I find that he stuffed alllllll of this into the dryer vent hose and that's why the clothes weren't drying.

Now time for the kitchen reveal! Between having to repair all the doors AND deciding to paint all the shelves(!) it felt like it took a very long time-though really it was less than a month. It's been such a nice improvement and I am glad I went ahead and did the shelves even though the thought of it was super overwhelming in the moment. I'm glad to have it finished, but I also miss having something that I knew I was going to wake up and work on every day, something where I could see measurable progress each day. And I'll be honest, I miss having an excuse to spend the day alone in the garage listening to music. Kind of made me miss being younger with basically no responsibilities. 

BEFORE

DURING

This wallpaper in our "pantry" was my favorite touch. 

It just took me 3 days to convince Andrew that it would be awesome.

AFTER

Of course I took the opportunity to get rid of some things and reorganize. The only downside here was that we left town for a few weeks shortly after this, and when we got home I couldn't remember where some of my stuff was. 

Kids, man. Just a couple hours after I took the "after" pictures, Matthew and Michael were fighting in the kitchen and one of them got shoved into this drawer and pushed the handle right through. I totally lost it. Enough that Andrew came out of his "office" asking what in the world was going on. It wasn't good. Anyway, I fixed it, but now I feel slightly stressed every time the kids are in the kitchen because I'm afraid they'll do it again. I guess that's a drawback to putting time and effort into your home. 

At least 50% of the time that I ask Matthew what he would like for breakfast, he says mac&cheese. I finally made his dreams come true. 

He's just so silly. Do you plank while you eat breakfast?

Here's a friendly reminder that "thank you"s are always appreciated. Whatever form they come in, whenever they come. Go tell someone why you appreciate them-it will mean a lot. 

So I did something spontaneous and a little crazy. First of all, in July I told Andrew we should just go somewhere because he will be working from home indefinitely, school was announced as virtual only, and it just didn't feel like there was any reason to stay at home. We through out the idea of visiting my parents in South Dakota since they live so far away and normally it's out of reach to travel that far. I mentioned it to my mom, but also said that I needed to finish the kitchen first. We didn't talk much more about and then my mom called a couple days after I finished the kitchen saying my brother and sister were ready to see us and did we decide if we were really coming? I told my mom it didn't look like it was going to work anymore. Even though school would be virtual, I would still have to come in and pick-up work periodically. The big kids' music class had just started in person. Our garden was just starting to produce veggies, finally. We were planning to pick back up the work on the bathroom. Anyway, I told her no, we weren't going to be coming. 

I don't know what sparked the thought, but at some point during that same day I said we should have just left because life was picking up and if we had just gone earlier it could have worked. This turned into me asking Andrew at 4:30pm if he would be up for leaving the next morning. He did not take me seriously and pointed out all the things that would need to be done, including an oil change and our regular place was booked till Monday. After convincing him that I wasn't joking, he found a place we could take the van in the morning and went back to work while the kids and I started packing. They were so excited that they were actually super helpful getting everything gathered and packed. I texted my mom that we would see her Saturday night (that was our estimate for the earliest we could arrive) and we managed to leave the next day at 10:30am. We felt a little crazy and I kept saying there was no way we would have signed up for a 1700 mile drive if it hadn't been so spontaneous. We were on our way!

Harvesting what we could from the garden before we left. 

Sadly, this guy didn't survive while we were gone-it was just too hot and dry.

I have to give my kids a shout out for how awesome they are in the car. We drove in mostly 6 hour shifts and when we did stop it was always a quick 20 minutes to get gas and potty. We have no screens in the car, and they all get carsick so they aren't able to read or color. They pass the time by looking out the window (literally their only entertainment for the first 5 hours), listening to audiobooks, playing I spy (very boring in Nevada and western Utah), listening to music, and sleeping. In fact, I think I'm converted to driving through the night with kids, because it was so nice to have 9-10 hours of them sleeping. The GPS said it would take 25 hours to drive the 1,735 miles, and we managed to make it in almost exactly 25 hours even after stops. Only two kids threw up and only one time each (is that a new record???) My parents called to check on our progress at one point, thinking we had a few more hours to go since it was about noon, and we got to surprise them by telling them we were already in Sioux Falls. It felt like quite the accomplishment and getting out of that car felt SO good. Drive highlights: watching the sun come up while driving through Wyoming, the buck in the road being in the other lane, and I always enjoy the scenery in the Sierras.

For how long we were driving, it really felt like we should have passed through more states.

We had no real plans of what we wanted to do, and my parents certainly didn't have a chance to think about it much since we sprang this trip on them, so we passed that next handful of days with reading, harvesting things from the garden, playing with Boomer, running around outside, and just hanging out. My mom had the idea to celebrate holidays since we haven't spent any holidays with them for a few years, so that became a driver of our activities. It was nice to be away from our house, be away from the fires, and see some new faces. It almost felt like the world wasn't crashing down all around us. 

goofy guys on segways

I love caprese salad right out of the garden

These two became quick best friends. 

Making "Christmas" cookies

Adaline loves riding the segway; one morning she watered all the plants she could find while riding it.

3 monkeys in a tree

"Oh hi ducks"

I really enjoyed these blue skies while we were away. It was also nice to have a change of scenery for my runs

I mean, come on, doesn't that just make you want to run forever? 

Alex is all too happy to be their pet

Sarah petting a dog? and liking it? 2020 has brought all kinds of crazy things. I'm still not getting a dog, but it was fun to hang out with this sweetheart and I think we're friends now.

Being 2 is hard. He wants to do everything by himself, but he also put his shirt on inside-out and upside-down.

Merry Christmas ya filthy animal

We sent this guy off to college and that boggles my mind! How is he old enough? He was like 6 when I left home. Even though he had a ton to do and friends he wanted to say good-bye to, he still spent a whole evening playing plants vs. zombies with Adaline and Matthew and they loved him for it. 

Cute little pupper

I haven't yet found a track that's open to the public in Pittsburg(I just barely started looking), so getting to do my speed workouts on a track was a real treat. In a weird way it felt a little like going home; I spent so many years doing workouts and races out on the track and it was super fun to be out there again.

Chloe and I experimented with making macarons. We learned that we are both type A and it's a little difficult for us to share the kitchen.

Daniel also took an afternoon to take us fishing per Adaline's request. Again, they absolutely loved him for it. 

Bike ride with my girls

What a cutie

Taking the pigeon for a walk?

harvesting potatoes

"please, human, can I have some popcorn?"

This time we made lemon poppyseed. Chloe was not interested in my suggestion to add cream cheese to the filling, but once she tried it, she only wanted to eat the ones that had it. Winner!

Just some cicadas gettin' it on. We were all super fascinated by this.

Another pretty morning run

I kept trying to get a picture of him cocking his head to the side, but I was never fast enough

My baby sister started high school and is in marching band. She had two performances while we were there so we all got a turn watching her even with the attendance limits.

Oh my gosh, these two were hilarious to watch. They are both toddlers and totally act like it. Boomer would come stick his face in Alex's face while he was trying to eat, so Alex would push his face away and Boomer would push him back. They'd chase each other around the kitchen, share their food, and Alex loved to constantly let Boomer in and out of the house. Seriously such cute little buddies. 

wondering what trouble the kids might be in since it was so quiet, but then I found this

Water Park!

Adaline was tall enough to go on the slides so she did all but the skinny white one in the background (got on the slide, could only see sky once she sat down, and changed her mind). Matthew was too short for most of them, but we went down the loopy white one together a bunch of times. They also loved jumping into the waves in the wave pool. We did bumper cars and I completely crushed everyone. I don't think there was a single person I didn't lap, and a few people I lapped twice. Meanwhile, Matthew was holding on tight and suggesting maybe I should use the brake, please.

You can't go to South Dakota without going to a corn maze. For the most part it was super fun, but also slightly terrifying when the little kids took off running into the maze alone, and responded to our cries for them to come back with hysterical laughter. Don't worry, we left with everyone we brought. 

So much corn and flat and open

For our St. Patrick's Day celebration, my mom got lucky charms, which lead my dad to ask if any of us had done the experiment where you separate the iron in iron fortified cereal using a magnet. "Uh, no, let's do it." It was pretty cool.

Harvesting carrots

Our garden struggled this year, so at least we got to enjoy theirs

My dad is starting to condition Boomer so that he'll be ready for hunting season, so he made a harness and has this whole situation to hook him up to his bike. Andrew and I went out for a ride with him and to be "rabbits" for Boomer to chase. I thought my dad might like a video of his set up, so I started filming him while on my bike. Unfortunately, I was watching him through the camera instead of real life, so when he stopped, I thought I was much closer to him than I actually was and that I need to stop right away. With only one hand on the bike, I braked hard using only my front brakes and flipped straight over my bike and had it land on top of me. It hurt like heck, but I started laughing shortly after. When Andrew came over to see if I was okay, I'm pretty sure he thought I had some brain damage. I managed to get going again and it was still a fun bike ride even though everything stung and was sore. 

a few of the injuries

We got to see her play in her uniform!

Shamrock sodas for St. Patty's

Halloween! Fun fact, I wore that pumpkin costume like 3 years in a row when I was a kid. In fact...

Sarah keeping it real circa 1997

after effects of the bike flip

Learning about sausage making. One of the things I love about my dad is that he's always making something. It might be food, leather products (purse, harness, notebook cover), sourdough, RC airplanes, wooden puzzles, or any other number of things, but he's always making something. 

See? I think we're friends. He'd follow me around or just lie down next to me and watch me wash dishes or cook. we're buds now

I promise this is the last time I make you look at these bruises

Making a home for a caterpillar or bug that she found