So Long, Farewell...

Things are busy here. I'm leaving really early tomorrow morning for quite the trip, and I'm still trying to do laundry, pack and get the house decent. I have a lot of new pictures to share, and not much time at all, so I decided to share one from Micah's spontaneous 9 month shoot before I leave. I might still post while there, but there won't be any pictures until I get back home. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up again when I get back home. But for now, I leave you with this.

Lllllllllllllllaadies.

Nothin' But Blue Skies...

It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL outside. Today's high? 70 degrees, and it's already gotten there. There's the perfect amount of clouds in the sky, a bit of rain here and there, and deep blue everywhere else.

Yesterday, after church, we ate lunch and decided to go for a bike ride. We rode around to random places, and then decided to go to the Chena Lakes Recreation Area. Once we got there, we rode all the way to the lake itself, then decided it'd probably be best to get home. We rode roughly 10-13 miles. It was a PERFECT day for it, too.

As wonderful as these warm, sunny days are, there is one tiny little problem. I got in the car yesterday, and it hit me.
"What. On. EARTH is that horrible smell?!?" 
When it gets warm, anything we've missed that's been in the car for far too long unleashes its deadly odors and makes for a pretty disgusting car ride. Of course you don't notice when it's -60 outside.
The terribly unwholesome smell was eeking from...where? I couldn't tell. Scott told me after that he thinks something had spilled when he took the garbage to the transfer station the other day. He sprayed some Lysol on it. The next time I got in the car, it smelled like Lysol and sewage.

So today, I went and got the carpets shampooed. That must have been where the smell was, because praise God...as soon as they were done the smell was no longer there. The wonderful girl even sniffed the carpets in the gross-looking areas to make sure she'd gotten everything.

So, that saga is over and now we can enjoy it all!

Random Fact #2

Biscuit cans frighten me.

Happy (Late) Mother's Day!

I know, I know, this one is a bit late. But we did stuff all day that day and yesterday, so I wasn't able to post. I had an excellent Mother's Day, with a big gift: a bike! It was a birthday and Mother's Day gift combined. This makes me happy, now we can all ride together as a family! Also, I can cross-train on it on those days where I REALLY don't feel like running. So that's what we did on Mother's Day, got a bike, a little helmet for Micah, a big helmet for me, then we went home, geared up, and rode. It was an absolutely beautiful day for it, too. 60 degrees and sunny! Definitely one of the more pleasant days I've had. :)

I hope all of you mommies had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Bad Mommy Moment

I'm just beginning my morning. I have just finished my coffee, my husband is still asleep, and I have already changed Micah and fed him. When I changed him this morning, it was poopy, so I figured he was done with that for the day. But as I am sitting here, the familiar stench of my young son's bottom is arising yet again and enveloping the living room.

And I am very, very tempted to just let Scott change it when he wakes up.

My Boys

Here's a bit of silliness to perhaps brighten someone's day. :-)

I love them, SO very much. I am greatly blessed to be wife and mother to them.

Random Fact #1

Despite much bickering and many yelling matches, when we WEREN'T ticking each other off, my brother and I had a lot of fun together.

We still do.

The Great Escape: In Which We Get to SLEEP IN!

It goes without saying that the next day of our wonderful get-away was very restful. After we finally woke up, ate a delicious breakfast, packed up, and checked out, we went to the town of Port Angeles to walk around, then went to the Dungeness Spit and walked about a mile up the beach. It was a beautiful day, quiet except for the waves, and of course I got a lot of pictures.

I hope someday we can go back again.

Running the Race and a Birthday

The day marking the start of my 23rd year of life (I had to think for a sec how old I'd turned) came and went Saturday without much ado. I suppose I'm getting old now and since I'm a mom, birthdays aren't going to matter anymore. I DID do something exciting that morning, got up early and ran the Chena River Run 5k. I'm hoping to run the Midnight Sun Run 10k at the end of June, so I'm trying to get serious about training for it, since I want to do well. Maybe even beat my personal record of 1:16:45.

I finished the 5k in 0:34:47, which definitely wasn't bad considering I just started really training the Monday preceding the race. I am rather disappointed though that I'm all the way at the beginning again with running. The race was at least good motivation to keep it up.

It started out as a beautiful morning despite the weather prediction of 52 degrees and raining. Scott burned a "motivational" CD for me to listen to on the way to the race. It is officially my favorite CD at the moment. The first song was "Stayin' Alive." Very helpful.

I was at the starting line with two friends who've been running a bit longer than I have, so I expected them to lose me after about the first mile or so. As it turns out, I overestimated my abilities. They lost me within about 20 seconds. I was even more discouraged when I passed the first mile, and someone was calling out first mile times. Mine? 10:53. I must have gotten frustrated and pushed harder somehow or another, because I finished better than I thought I would. It was still quite frustrating though.

When I was in sight of the finish line and saw the clock read 0:34:23, I booked it, trying not to break 35 minutes. All-in-all, I was pretty happy with the finish, although it's Monday and my muscles are still sore. So sad.

The rest of the day after that was rather anti-climactic after such an exciting start. We DID go out to dinner though, at a nice place with delicious food and renowned in Fairbanks for their desserts.

And my birthday gift? A pair of chickens to a third-world country. I couldn't have asked for a better present. :)

The Great Escape: The First Evening

As I sit here alone this evening with a rather cranky little boy, exhausted both mentally and physically, and longing for an hour more to go by so I can finally put the baby to bed and have some peace and quiet, I want to escape. I am so tired. He keeps crying and I want to just break down and start crying with him pretty soon. Either that or take it all out on a poor, unsuspecting stuffed animal. This desperate want to escape brings back a rather fond memory from our month-long sojourn to the Lower 48.

For the first time since Micah was born, Scott and I were able to leave the baby with family and get away overnight together, just the two of us. It was so wonderful. We went to a beautiful bed and breakfast called the Sea Cliff Inn and Gardens, in the quaint little town of Port Angeles. I cannot even describe how incredible it was to be in such a peaceful, inviting, breathtaking place with just my husband and not a care in the world about Micah's bedtime, time for Micah to eat, trying to calm Micah down, trying not to cry myself because I'm about ready to snap. (Can you tell my mind is still in the present situation?)

Rather than spoiling this memory with too many words, here are pictures to describe it all.

A plate of tiny, delicious cookies greeted our eyes when we walked in. 

                               Enjoying the peaceful vista together.

The view from our window. Lovely. 

My very handsome husband. :) 

And some of the scenery from the backyard...

Trying to be artistic.

The front of the B&B

And all THAT was just the FIRST evening we were there. The next installment will be -The Great Escape: In Which We Get to SLEEP IN.

Happy Little Guy

Micah now gets very visibly and audibly excited as soon as Scott walks through the door. Yesterday, when he came home, the little boy went from quietly playing with his toys in the living room to shrieks of delight, huge grins, and frantic inchworm attempts to cross the living room and hallway to get to Scott.

As soon as Scott picks him up, pretty much everything Scott does produces ecstatic giggles and more shrieking from Micah for about half an hour.

Just another little thing that makes us realize how wonderful it is to be parents. :)