Merry Christmas!

We woke up to 2 children who got really spoiled by Santa. Jenna' Christmas wish came true and she got an American Girl doll (Kirsten),a bed and bath tub for her. Jake had asked for a real lizard but Santa did not bring that, but brought him a Nintendo DS instead and that was a big hit-he hardly stopped playing it all day.


Lily thought the doll bed was for her.


George got a Blu-ray player and some special nut mix that Jenna made him. My favorite present was a brownie pan that has all edges. I can't wait to try it out.

A few days before Christmas George's sister had found some long lost recipes of his Grandmothers. One was for German Chocolate cake that George remembered being so good. So we decided to make that for our Christmas dessert. I made everything from scratch even the frosting. (that does not happen very often-if ever). Well it turned out pretty good.

One day while Jenna and I were out shopping the boys decided to put Christmas lights on her house bed. It was really cute!

George and Lily taking a Christmas nap.

Garden of Lights

Last night we went to the Garden of Lights (we had never been there before). It was a great time. We were not sure what to expect from it since it was free (donations being accepted). We were pleasantly surprised to find plants and animals made out of Christmas lights-pretty cool (there was even a slug). I really liked the vineyard and corn stalks.

Snowflake Lane

Last night we headed to Bellevue Square for Snowflake lane. They have drummers and snow princesses and fake snow. This was the first time we went to this since we moved here, it was a fun evening. Oh yeah and free peppermint tootsie pops!

Wedding Dress

One night Jenna and I were watching Say Yes to the Dress, so we decided to have her try on my wedding dress. Jenna had fun putting it on. It was great to see my dress after so long, I was surprised how many stains were on it. We must have been having a great time. I tried it on to see if it still fit and it did-yeah!

Little weekend getaway

George needed a little weekend get away so we headed to the Great Wolf Lodge. It's kind of nice going there knowing it will be 84 degrees at the waterpark (especially when its been between 12-and 20 degrees here.) This time we decided to splurge and surprise the kids with an upgraded room that had their very own Wolf Den, which also had their own TV!!!

The kids dumping water on George!

Before going on our little trip the kids got to visit Santa at the Santa Breakfast
at school.

Thanksgiving

Wasn't it just Halloween?

We had a quiet Thanksgiving this year. Just us!

Jenna cooked the tastiest Pecan Pie! If anyone wants to visit us we have a guest room!

After Thanksgiving Jake, Jenna, and George went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in Seattle.

Halloween

Ok I should have posted our Halloween pictures awhile ago. I could not log into our blog-thought it was a password problem but today I realized I had spelled the log in name wrong.This year once again George decorated our yard-but we were quite disappointed we did not have many trick or treaters (probably because it was raining so much)all that work setting stuff up for just a few kids-not worth all the work involved. Here are some of our Halloween pictures.

Fall Activities

We had a very busy day today. We started out by going to some pumpkin patches and having my mini van get stuck in the mud. The fist pumpkin patch was not very good so we headed to another and then drove down the street to a 3rd patch where we picked our pumpkins (nothing fancy at the last one but the best prices for pumpkins). In Snohomish there are pumpkin patches everywhere.

Then Jenna had a Halloween carnival at her dance studio, while Jake had his last soccer game and party. Jake also got covered in mud, which I forgot to take a picture of. George worked on his Halloween decorations-making spiderwebs with his web shooter.


Check out the spiderwebs George made in the background.

Soccer

Soccer season has started. Jake had his first game today. He did a great job as goalie and blocked a shot. We lucked out and had great weather-a nice 80 degrees. We made sure to enjoy it because we know sooner than later the rain will come and we will all be sitting under umbrellas. His team the Wolverines won!

Sewing and back to school

The other day we were at Joann Fabrics and found a cute pattern for making your own stuffed animal. Jake and Jenna both decided to make a stuffed animal. They picked out their fabrics then we headed home to start on the project. They did such a great job.




The kids went back to school yesterday and I went back to work. It was a hectic morning. Jenna was not happy that just Dad was going to take her to school so she cried all morning long. Once I left for work she was fine. They had a good day and like their teachers. Although Jake was very grouchy after school. I am ready for the school year to be over already. We had such a great summer I was not ready for it to end. I feel sad to not be home with the kids all day. I guess I have next summer to look forward to.

Signed up for Ironman Canada next year

Since my comeback to competing in Triathlons in 2007 - I have been keeping in the back of my mind to do another Ironman, especially once I age up into a new Age group category 45-49 (How did I get so old?) Well, last week I signed up for Ironman Canada that will occur August 29th 2010. The last time I did this event was in 1993. I finished the 2.4 mile swim in 51:20 and had the 11th fastest swim. The 112 mile bike in 5:52, and finished the 26 miles in 4:31 minutes My total time was 11:15.

Overall, this race was a disappointment - I had mechanical problems on the bike where I could not shift down into my lower gears for the 2 mountain passes that were on the bike (plus somehow I did not quite realize in my training there were 2 mountain passes) By the time I got to the run my legs were shot, and I did all I could to just hang on.

Well now having signed up my goal is to somehow improve my marathon time by 30 minutes, improve my bike time by at least 15 minutes, and be competitive on the swim. Its hard to believe that what 17 years has transpired. My goal time is 10 hours 30 minutes.

I think will be creating a separate training and triathlon blog - to blog my progress to my goals.

Weekend camping and Triathlon

This past weekend we went camping on the other side of the mountains by Wenatchee. We had never been out that way and enjoyed seeing some new sites. The weather was great except for the severe wind storm that came through the first night we were camping-I thought our trailer was going to blow away with us in it. It was Lily's first camp trip and she did really well. I think she really likes camping-today at home she is being awful.

Jenna and her Giant Peach-we stopped at one of the many road side fruit stands and Jenna had picked out the largest peach 1.38 pounds. She did not want to share with anyone-but she eventually caved and let me have a bite and I was quite surprised that it was actually a really good peach.


George participated in an olympic distance triathlon-swimming in part of the Columbia River. He had the 2nd fastest swim time and came in 7 overall. He was 3rd in his age group. It was nice that the triathlon was at the campground we stayed at.
George's triathlon Pictures

Black and blue cobbler

Today we took the kids blueberry picking-which is down the street from our house. We picked quite a bit to fill a decent sized box. Then George took the kids around the neighborhood to pick blackberries (they grow wild here like weeds). Then we decided to make a black and blue berry cobbler. It came out so good. Now we just have to figure out what to make with the rest of the blueberries.

Good Bye

Well my parents have finished their mission and headed back to Texas on Tuesday. We will miss having them here. It was so nice to have family here to celebrate holidays with-now we go back to just us again. It has been such a great experience for Jake and Jenna to get to know their grandparents. We will really miss our Sunday dinners with them. Hopefully we will get to visit them often.

This week has been extremely hot here in WA. So much for our always cool weather-I could use some rain now. We have broken all the records (over 100 in Seattle-hotter here in Snohomish)-which may not sound that bad for those in CA, TX and AZ but homes here are not built with air conditioners so that makes for some pretty miserable days and nights. We have gone to sleeping in the living room for the last few days since its much cooler downstairs. We decided to look at Sear's last night for a fan or A/C only to find there was about 100 people already in line. Well here's to hoping that the weather cools off soon.

Twilight vampires!!

We survived our trip to Forks, WA. It was very warm and sunny so we did not have any vampire sightings. It was amazing how many Twilight tourists there were in Forks. The locals seemed to embrace all this fame Twilight has brought to their community. Grandpa was a good sport about all of it, Jake was not too pleased by the trip. Here are some pictures from our trip-my parents have the rest
Bella's House with the fake Edward that some other fans let us use for the picture.
Bella's Truck