Randomness of the past few days.

*Had lunch with my sweet soprano friends and sisters on Monday.
*Bought new phones for the house...our other ones were cutting out on me in the middle of conversations, not holding a charge and more or less just infuriating me.
*No cavities for Rebekah at the dentist. But braces may be in her near future.
*Julianne went snowboarding for the first time. Results of which included x-rays on her wrist to determine if it was fractured because of a fall. Just a sprain. Splint, ice and ibuprofen are her constant companions.
*Brandon went skiing. He didn't fall and hurt anything. But he is still on ibuprofen 24/7 for his injured chest muscles/ribs. I think he is getting better. Boise meet coming up in a week and a half...
*New semester started. Rebekah dumped Geography and Computer Tech and replaced them with T.A. and Social Dance. Julianne gets Utah Studies and Art replacing P.E. and Choir.
*Amaryllis and paper whites are growing. Plants make me happy. I wish I didn't kill them so often.
*Found a few new recipes that I'm anxious to try out for dinner. I wish I liked to cook more.
*Got all excited about setting up a new excersize and diet log on-line. Now if only I could get myself out of bed to do a work-out so I actually had something to log.
*Lilian is having more timeouts lately...the result of more screaming temper tantrums. I don't love this. Good thing I do love HER.
*Have a horrible feeling that I accidentally deleted months worth of pictures off my computer. Hoping and praying that Bryan has them backed up. I think he does.
*Saw "Born Yesterday" at Hale Centre Theatre with my sisters, mom and friend Linda. Having season tickets is awesome.
*Had lunch with Rebekah. Talked about boys. I love that she likes to share stories and experiences, concerns and excitements with me.
*Haven't seen much of Bryan this week. Long hours. I miss him.

*A picture for those of you (Dad) who feel like a post must always include something to look at besides just words... :)

First gymnastics meet of the season

If a picture is worth a thousand words then this one kind of tells the story of Brandon's meet this morning. He says he had fun....hanging out with the team, the whole excitement and atmosphere of a meet. But he is NOT recovered from his injury of a week and a half ago. The look on his face as he gritted his teeth and powered through his rings and parallel bar routines made me cringe. It was extremely obvious he was in a lot of pain. This picture was taken after his rings routine. I told him it would be completely okay if he sat out and didn't do parallel bars. His coaches told him the same. But they also gave him some tips and encouragement and Brandon decided to do it...mostly so he could have the chance to place in all around when the awards were being given out. And place he did. He took 7th place all around in his age division. Pretty good for being injured!
The boy that Brandon has his arm around is his cousin, Davis. Well, second cousins really. His mother, Camilla, and I are cousins. How awesome it has been for the two of them to be teammates! They are two years apart in age but both competing in level 5. In a few weeks we have a meet in Boise and the four of us (Brandon, Davis, Camilla and myself) are doing the drive up together and sharing a room. Brandon is hugely looking forward to having all that time with Davis. Frankly, I'm rather looking forward to it myself!

Brandon did some gymnastics drawings a few days ago. Just more evidence that the kid eats, sleeps and breathes gymnastics these days. :)

Iron Cross on the rings

Pommel horse

High bar

Hand stand on the rings

Vault

Brandon's coach emailed this picture over. An extra from the photo shoot they did a few weeks ago. Makes me smile. :)

Favorite Photo Friday: Graduation Twins

My 20 year high school reunion is coming up this summer. I knew it, of course, but just recently I've started to receive info about it. Time, place, date. The planning has begun. So I'm freaking out just a little bit. 20 years....really?? It makes me feel so old!
This picture is Bryan's brother, Steven, and me. We graduated the same year. Obviously at this point we are high school friends and not brother and sister-in-law. Bryan was on his mission and none of us knew what the future held. But Steven and I always thought it was funny that we look so similar in the picture despite any blood or even in-law relation.
June 1991

Temptation

This right here is 4 brownies, 6 cream puffs and 3 eclairs. They are leftover from last night's book club that I hosted at my house. And right now they are looking mighty tempting....

I think resistance is futile at this point. Good thing I ran 4 miles this morning. Maybe that will equalize things a bit.

(And yes Mom, I giggled a bit thinking of the Borg from ST:TNG when I typed that "resistance is futile" line.) :)

A note from Rebekah...

Found this in Rebekah's chocolate drawer today. And no, I was NOT having a chocolate craving, actually. I was in her room for another reason and she had left the drawer open....

A couple of days ago I begged for a slice of her chocolate orange. Mine are gone. And they aren't in stores any more now that Christmas is over. But Rebekah still had one! I told her I had seen it in her drawer. She was a little appalled to find out that I knew she had a super, secret, chocolate drawer. (Like it was hard...she's always leaving her dresser drawers open.) After sharing with me I suppose she saw wisdom in moving said chocolate knowing that it would be vulnerable with her at school and me at home. To my credit, I did not immediately start searching for the new hiding place...

Favorite Photo Friday: Hippies

My cousin Tom found this picture recently as he was going through some old things. It's a picture from 1972. Those are my parents in the middle! Depending on what part of 1972...they are either engaged or newly married. My Dad's siblings, Mike and Shannon, are also in the picture.
Tom's take on the picture:
" I was going through those old slides of Grandpa's that Dad scanned. Look like in 1972, some hippies got hold of the camera and took this picture of their festivities. Those crazy hippies and their mumu's and Louis L'Amour paperbacks. Man, the past was sure a weird place!" :)

We all got a hearty laugh out of the picture. But honestly, I think they look great! And I think my Dad still has that hat....

Our handsome gymnast

Is this a handsome boy or what? Not only does he have some serious gymnastics moves, you should see his six-pack! He is one buff kid! He's competing at level 5 this year. He has 2 hour workouts 4 times a week...and he absolutely loves it. His first meet for the season is in a week and a half. Unfortunately, he injured himself at his workout yesterday afternoon. A strained chest muscle? An out of place rib? We're not quite sure yet what is wrong but he is in a lot of pain and we're watching him closely. Whatever it is, I'm sure some rest and time off is in order. He has worked so hard and has been so excited about these upcoming meets! I hope this injury doesn't sideline him for long.
Brandon loved this action shot at first. But since bringing it home, he's continually bugged by the fact that his knee is bent. :)

Roses = Smiles

I was grumpy yesterday. Really grumpy. Nothing seemed to be going my way. Brandon throwing up at school and needing to be checked out early? Yeah...didn't see that coming. He seemed fine when he woke up. Someone turning off my oven while I was baking a casserole for the neighbors...so that after 40 minutes after supposed "cooking" the meal was still raw? That about reduced me to a frantic puddle of frustrated tears. Or maybe my problem is that I'm hormonal. Yeah. In hindsight that's probably it. But. When I was at the store yesterday (not at all happy to be there since I had done my big shop the day before...) I saw these huge, fat, gorgeous roses. And in my hormone befuddled mind I decided that they would make me happy. So I bought them. And put them in a vase next to my bed. And you know what? They have made me smile every time I have walked into my bedroom. Maybe today things will go a little better.

Year round Christmas decor?

I took down all the Christmas decorations this past week. It's taken me a few days, actually. Little by little. Yesterday the tree that has been sitting dark and undecorated in the corner of my living room since Wednesday, finally got hauled downstairs. But I decided there was one decoration that I wanted to keep up a little while longer. I'm thinking that the mistletoe hanging from the ceiling fan in my bedroom could be a good addition to my bedroom decor year round...


(Oh shoot. I didn't realize it was that dusty up there till I took this picture....)

Ice Skating

It was 11 degrees outside today. I was shivering non-stop all morning...despite the various layers of clothing I had put on to combat said shivers. It was on this ridiculously cold day that we decided to go ice skating. Contradictory, you may ask? And I haven't even yet mentioned the ice cream run we made later in the evening! But ice skating had been on The List. The "activities-we-will-do-during-Christmas-break" list. And here we were on the last day before school starts again (well, if you don't count Sunday) still having not gone skating despite trying to get it planned and done almost daily since school let out.
It took us a little while to get the hang of it. It'd been over 5 years since the last time we went ice skating as a family. Lilian, of course, needed constant hand holding. She was terribly proud of herself just for keeping her balance at a dead stop on the ice. The kids all fell a few times. Mostly in the pursuit of speed and tricks. They laughed and popped right back up...still skating circles around me. By the end I was feeling a lot more comfortable and was taking a Lilian-free spin around the rink when somehow I lost my balance. I'm not even sure how it happened. All I know is that one moment I was upright and exhilarated...the next I was on my back on the ice. I laughed if off and shakily climbed back up to my feet. And then carefully and gingerly made my way back to where Bryan and the kids were. It's too bad none of them saw my fall. It was rather spectacular! And I have some good bumps and bruises to show for it.