The Pet That Almost Was

June decided a while back at the end of summer that she wanted a pet ladybug. She did research on it and knew all the ins and outs about the care and maintenance of your common spotted friend. And then...she couldn't find one.

I was definitely okay with the lack of ladybugs. Because really, I feel if you keep a wild thing penned up, you soon will have a dead wild thing.

And so time passed. Should I do one of those symbols for time passing?

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One day, Daisy found a ladybug outside. They were playing with her (Are they all hers? Well, I guess not because the one in A Bug's Life was a boy) and letting her crawl all over.

I even got out the macro lens and took some closeups.

June was expounding her knowledge of ladybugs and I asked how she knew some of that stuff. She said, "Remember when I was going to have a pet ladybug and I researched them....wait....A PET LADYBUG!!!"

She was so excited. I couldn't say no. We found a nice container and gave "Treety" (as Daisy named her) water, and honey. I guess Aphids are sweet, so you can substitute sugar or honey. We fed her regularly and she was as good a pet as one could expect from a ladybug.

And then I mistakenly told the kids they should hold her again. One moment she was there...the next, gone. She literally disappeared. She fell off Daisy's shoulder and didn't seem to hit the ground. But she wasn't anywhere else either. We couldn't find her anywhere. And we still haven't seen her to this day.

I hope she found a way out of the house, because I'm sure a little ladybug corpse would only cause a fountain of tears around here. But she was a good pet while we had her.

June's 10 Year Gallery

I've been looking for some new photo locations in our area. I have a whole list that I need to check through, so I thought that I would use the girls' photo shoots to explore new places. June just turned 10, so we needed to go get some pictures. I decided to take her to Gardner Village. It is such a fun place all the time, but it is especially awesome at Halloween time and on a Saturday when they have a Farmer's market as well.

It was a day out with just the two of us. Besides the fact that we both forgot jackets, and it was quite cool, we had a blast. We took pictures, shopped around, drank Pumpkin Hot Chocolate, took more pictures, had lunch, did face painting, took more pictures, and finally went home. I love one on one time. And I hope my kids have good memories of it too.

As for pictures, I felt that Gardner Village was an excellent spot. There were so many pretty backgrounds. Since I only display ten pictures, you will only get a small feel for all the variety. But I would go back and shoot there any time.

So here is the cuteness that is June. Can't believe how fast she is growing. But I sure love the age she is right now. And I'm glad we have photos to capture a moment.

Oh, and if you wanted to see the face painting, here it is.

I'm such a blessed mom.

Mention of the Running

My last official running post was here. I had been running consistently for a month and I was happy with the results.

And then....McKenzie decided that we needed to run a HALF MARATHON. If you go back and reread that post, you will notice that there is NO GOAL to do a Half Marathon. If anything, I think I was working up to a 10K.

But things change. I agreed to run the Halloween Half with McKenzie and we have been training hard ever since. That is why there have been random mentionings of runs here and there. The weekends are usually when we do our long runs. There was that 8 miler in the canyons that was terrible. We thought maybe that was the end of our road. But we went on to run 10 miles the next week and it was nice. Here is a picture from that run that McKenzie took. We were at Bridal Veil Falls. (Yes, I look a little stoned.)

In the course of these long runs, I have learned some things about myself:

* I don't like to listen to music. (This is probably because I have never had music to listen to, and I enjoy talking to McKenzie more.)

* I don't need a lot of water. (Unless it is sunny, and then please pour a bucket on my head. But these cool Fall days are wonderful, and I don't need to replenish much.)

* I am comfortable talking or being quiet. McKenzie is the perfect partner. We chat and run, and sometimes just run.

* I am think I am more of a 10k girl. I feel really good up until mile seven or eight and then my knees really start to hurt. I have been taping my knee and that helps, but I would rather skip the pain.

* I do like to run. But I like to run with someone. I know the only thing getting me up in the morning is McKenzie. I would not be so diligent by myself.

We did 11 miles a week ago, and it was great. There was knee pain and some really questionable footing after dark, but other than that, it was a good run.

This last weekend was 12 miles. It gets a little tricky finding a good route that goes so far. I feel like we are running ALL OVER the city. (And we are!) This time we started over at Kiwanis park. It had a great view of the 'Y'.

Tyler and I were trading kids. (Have I mentioned how awesome he has been supporting me through all this running?) Here are the kids being cute.

And then here we are about ready to run our epic 12 miler.

It was a good run. However, the last couple miles my body went on autopilot. My knees were very sore, and I knew that I needed just to keep a rhythm and finish the course. There was a downhill at the end, and that was probably the worst of the whole thing. Downhill is very unfriendly on sore knees and I hobbled down the hill like an old woman. I'm pretty sure no one would call it running. But we did it. 12 miles!!

We rock!

And then in an ironic turn of events, my knees felt fabulous the next day...and I threw my back out playing Volleyball. I guess it is good that we only have filler runs until the race. And I think my back will be fine tomorrow when we run again. (Finger crossed.)

I do know that we can do hard things. And I am not worried about the race. It will come, I will run it, and I will finish. I will get my personal best (since I have never run that far before) and I will be happy that I did it. But if you asked if I would do it again...the answer would probably be no. I think I'll stick to the shorter runs for a while and work on improving my speed. We'll see.

Stay tuned for race results. We are going to do this.

Fete Day (Continued)

I hope you are prepared for a whole lot more pictures. Because, I've got them. And even more after that. But I have been nice to limit them to my favorite.

Let's highlight some of the other events.

Shotput:

Jordyn made this face.

Right before she hurled her balloon. Look at those muscles.

Here are some other fun ones.

Jaylee used her toes. Is that legal?

Three legged Race: (Everyone ran in this, so Tyler carried the Go Pro with him and recorded the race. He can take still shots off it, and I had him pull this particular picture. That would be Jordyn and McKenzie celebrating their victory over Tyler and Ryan.)

Baton Relay Race: (This also was recorded by Go Pro. I had Tyler take a starting shot, and then one of the finish. I think you can tell who won with my helpful hints.)

And then Long Jump. This one was so fun to see pictures of. I am including one of everyone. And we'll introduce the people we missed in the Obstacle Course. Starting with the men:

In case you were wondering. I was there to watch that toes didn't cross the line....not just to have a front row seat.

The medals were given out at the end. It probably should have been more formal with a podium or something, but we were running out of daylight and we had dozens to give out. So most were received much like this.

Then we exchanged gifts. And had ice cream cake. Of course, I forgot the forks. :)

And if you have been confused as to where all these people fit together, here are the cute families and their medals.

Too bad my children decided to put the medals over their faces. Those medals were pretty cool though.

And so ends another awesome Fete Day. (Or perhaps it ended two months ago, but for those of you who weren't there, does that really matter?) If you feel bad that you missed it, you may wear orange tomorrow in honor of Fete Day.

Orange Fete Day

Seriously so slow in getting to this. There are just so many pictures!! And it was such a great time that I wanted to put a LOT in to remember. The ironic thing is that I have forgotten a lot of the details that weren't captured on film. (figures.) So I will include a ton of photos because I can. And it helps me remember. And I have to start somewhere, or it will never get done.

If you have any Fete Day questions, like where it came from and how to celebrate, you can go here. Or here. And then you should really consider doing Fete Day with your family. Who doesn't need another family tradition.??

So, here is our sign we made for Fete Day. Our color was Orange.

Our activity was the Olympics because we had just finished watching them and it seemed like a great idea. And it was SOOO fun. We had several events.

1. Obstacle Course
2. Shot Put (with Water Balloons)
3. Discus (with a frisbee, but we ran out of time to do this one.)
4. Wheelbarrow relay
5. Baton relay race
6. Long Jump
7. Three legged Race

We started with the Obstacle course. Wait, let's rewind a minute and introduce our athletes:

Men: Tyler, Kevin, Ryan
Women: Maleen, Amber, McKenzie
Young Adults: Tim, Jordyn, June
Kids: Jaylee, Robyn, Ivory
Littles: Daisy, Addi, Adi, Pearl

I divided everyone up into classes so we could compete in similar age category's and everyone would medal in most events. I think it worked out pretty well. (Not exactly equal, but wouldn't that be impossible?)

We started with the Obstacle course, because it was an individual event that everyone could try out and get into the spirit. I will freely admit that I didn't take any pictures, because I was in charge of everything, including timing and measuring at points. So, Tyler was the hero of the day once again. But he started taking pictures after the men and Amber competed, so you just get all the rest of us. But trust me that the men (and Amber) were fantastic.

The course included the following:
Walking backward along a balance beam
Hoola-hooping 10 times
Crabwalking around several cones
One cartwheel
Jumping over dowels to the finish line

Here we go...

The balance beam was trickier than we thought. And if you fell off you had to go back and try again. But McKenzie rocked it.

I got nine good hoola-hoops in a row, then dropped it and had to pick it up for number ten. It took seconds off my time. :)

June was our youngest 'young adult'. She was awesome.

Jordyn was a great crab-walker.

Tim was such a trooper. Obstacle course was not his main event. He didn't even know how to cartwheel, but gave it his best.

Jaylee looked elegant the whole time.

Robyn can hoola-hoop like nobody's business.

 
Ivory was concentrating. See the tongue?

The littles were hilarious. Adi had some help from Mom.

Pearl had help from everyone.

 
Addi did it mostly by herself and she was fab.

Daisy (who went very last) was awesome. I kept her company for part of it.

So fun huh? That is probably enough pictures for now. Stay tuned for more Fete Day Olympic Events.