Officially Over the Hill

The big day finally arrived...my 40th birthday. So I decided to celebrate with a nice easy run with Dave in the morning followed by a visit with the family to Krispy Kreme donuts. I had found the coupon card for "buy one dozen get one free" that I bought from the PTSO at our school two days before they went out of business. That of course is a whole other story for another day.


I figured that it was my birthday and one donut would be a great treat to start the day off. Dave had made arrangements for several of my friends to get me out of the house for most of the day. We spent some time at the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, then we went to lunch at Joe's BBQ in downtown Gilbert (where they give you a free meal on your birthday). We chatted and ate and then off we went to watch Twilight. After the movie I went shopping for a while by myself to kill a little more time before the big birthday shindig that Dave had planned for me.

I came home to a decorated house and this birthday cake and chocolate chip cookie. I freshened up and soon people started arriving.

I thought the saying on the cookie was clever!

Okay, I put this in the right way, but something turned it around...technology...I seem to know just enough to get in trouble, but not enough to fix things when they go haywire! Dave had made a questionnaire about me to see how much everyone knew. It was multiple choice, which could make it easier or harder depending on how much information you knew. Some of my friends brought me some gag gifts. See that big red package below...you know that saying...beware of the big ones? Okay so maybe there is no saying like that, but there should be!


We played several games including, name that tune...which ended up being harder than Dave thought. He had gone through our old cassette tape collection and cued up the songs and had people guess the song and the artists. We played another game that he called "Big 40" which is a clapping game like "Categories" that we, as a group, struggled to figure out. It made me laugh so hard that once we figured the game out it wasn't nearly as funny to me.

Here I am with the gifts open. The glasses are part of the gag gifts (hopefully I won't need them for a long time:)!) I can't tell if you can see, but the plunger has an electric cord coming out the top! Someone has a good sense of humor, or too much time on their hands...just kidding...it was hilarious! Yes, that is a real commode. There is a story behind that one too. If you really want to know, just ask me.

We ended the evening with a PowerPoint answering the questions on the questionnaire. Dave had gone through my old photo albums and baby book and put together a great presentation. I really appreciated the work that Dave put into making my birthday fun for me...I hope the other people had a good laugh at least.

Christmas PJ Tradition

PJ's with Grandma Hugh

Every year for the last 5 years my mom has come to our house and made pajama pants with my kids. She is very patient and lets them do the sewing with her tutelage. It took a few years to figure out the best pattern, but we have it down now! Here are some pictures with everyone except for Amber who was playing at a cousins house that day.

As you can see the instruction becomes more advance with those that have some experience!

It is a great tradition and it is fun to look at our pictures and guess the year by the pj pants that we have on on Christmas morning!

Turkey Trot & Thanksgiving 2008

Here we are before the race began. It was a little chilly and had rained off and on, but the most rain didn't come until we had finished the races!

Check out Lindsay, Kent & Amber "stretching" to get ready to run the one mile fun run. My dad ran with the kids, he was a great sport! He said that Lindsay would run and then stop and walk and just as he would catch up to her she would turn around and start running again! She was determined to beat Grandpa to the finish line!

We met up with my niece Kourney after the race (she also did the 10k). We took a friend from our ward with us and he came in 2nd in the 2 mile run. My mom took 1st in her age division. (If we would have stuck around she would have taken home a turkey...but we had a timeline:), sorry mom!). It turned out to be a great day. Both Dave and I improved our times from last year! Dave came in at 47:37 and I came in at 57:23.

We went to Thanksgiving dinner at Dave's brother Richard's house...we affectionately call it the "Garner Resort". There were about 45 people there including my parents and several other "in-law" parents. It was quite the group and we all had a grand time.

My sister-in-law took our family pictures with her nice camera and they turned out really nice and will be on our family Christmas Card. While we were waiting to get our pictures taken one of my other sister-in-law took this one with our non-fancy camera with my mom and dad in there with us. I thought they turned out pretty good too.

Sunday Happenings

This is an example of Kent's artwork during Sacrament Meeting. Each week he creates a detailed design of whatever has caught his fancy. This week it was space. I am amazed at the details that he includes. I just wonder what he is thinking about when he is creating these masterful pieces.On the other hand, Lindsay goes through about 5 or 6 pieces of paper with lots of color, flowers, rainbows, stars and whatever names or words she can remember.

Lindsay cracks me up. Today while we were waiting for our turn to meet with the Bishop for tithing settlement, a large man walked up and as he walked away Lindsay said to me, "He ate a lot of food, because he is really fat." Maybe we have been watching too much Biggest Loser!

Update on Lindsay

I kind of fell off the blogging wagon once Lindsay got better and so I thought that I should post a picture of her without the eye issue. Even though she doesn't look too happy in this picture (remember how I said ice skating was MOSTLY fun) her eye does not bother her anymore. However her legs have been bothering her on and off for the past three weeks. I kept her out of school last Friday because she wouldn't even walk. She started complaining about it on Thursday afternoon and by Friday morning I had to carry her where she needed to go. After a day of nearly no movement, and cries of pain when she did try to move her leg, she did improve by the end of the evening and was generally okay by Saturday morning.

All week she has been fine until she woke up from a nap yesterday screaming that she couldn't move without pain again. As I have been talking to people I wonder is it growing pains or could it be something left over from all the antibiotics that she had with her eye problem. I am open to possibilities. I looked on the internet and couldn't find much...other than growing pains, and other stuff that I am not sure about or maybe don't want to think about. Motrin seems to be helping a little. Anyway...if you have a thought let me know! Thanks!

When is my hard work going to pay off?????

I just looked at the picture of us ice skating and got frustrated that after over a year of running and trying to eat healthier...I STILL have huge thighs! Now, I don't want any comments that it is not true to try and make me feel any better, I just want to vent today! I told Dave this morning..."With thighs like this you think I would be a super fast sprinter right?" I say that because when I watched the Olympics this past summer I noticed that all the distance runners are SUPER thin and all the sprinters are muscular and powerful. In my heart I want to be like the distance runners in build, but I am built more like a sprinter (that is if I were really in shape the way they are)...the sad part is I can run farther than I can run fast. I think there is something wrong here. What do you do??? I guess I will just keep running and hope that maybe someday I will really look like a distance runner :)!

Dave's Birthday

When I asked Dave what he wanted to do on his birthday and he replied that he didn't really care, but it would be fun to do something physical...I don't know if ice skating was really what he had in mind. He was a good sport and for the most part (at least when we were taking pictures and smiling) it was fun!


Lindsay was a good sport except when she decided that her feet hurt, but she did last for about an hour!


This was the second time Kent had gone ice skating and at first he thought he was an expert...that is until he actually got on the ice and then he was happy to hold onto someone who could help him keep his balance.

I think this is my favorite picture from the whole experience. The shot of Dave and Paige skating was just very sweet.

We didn't have a fancy cake, and the pink icing might be a little tacky, but Dave loves us all anyway and made a good show of loving everything about the day! We are so blessed to have such a great man as the dad at our house!!