More birthday, snowboarding, ten years of FiA, DARE graduation

We had one more family birthday party Sunday evening and celebrated mine and Spencer's and my brother's birthdays. 

Bill has been giving me tiny succulent lego sets to build plus sweet notes to accompany them for months. He gave me the last four for my birthday and I finished my little lego succulent garden. I just might like it more than my actual succulent garden. It's so cute. 

We sent Bill and Spencer snowboarding as his 12th birthday gift from us. They had a fantastic time. Spencer loved it. This is their smiles early on. 

And this is their smiles at the end, completely beat, hahahahah. They had a great day. 

This week marked ten years of FiA. I love this exercise group. We've had some growing pains in recent months. The group has contracted quite a bit. We only really have one solid workout day a week now. The group has dealt with injuries, health problems, changes in leadership, the pandemic. It's been a hard winter. Utah has been in an extended drought for 20 years and this year the weather is trying to catch up it seems. It's rained and snowed and snowed and snowed. While I'm so grateful for all the snow and what it's doing for the health of our state, it's hard on the mental health. There's a lot of gray days, a lot of really cold weather, a lot of bad weather. It's hard to get the motivation to get out and exercise. The ski resorts have more snow than they've had in years. Bill told me today that Suncrest, which is the subdivision above Draper on the top of that mountain, has 6-12 feet of snowpack. I'm relying heavily on my South Jordan Run Club scheduled runs. I can't get to many FiA workouts, but I rely on the ones I can to get me out the door to exercise with friends. Otherwise I'd be in a much worse place mentally and emotionally. 

I led the workout this Saturday after running seven miles with my Run Club friends and I can barely walk today. I love it. I mean I'd like to be able to do that and not get sore, but I haven't been to enough FiA workouts of late to be able to accomplish that. It's good to feel strong. It's good to burn 800 plus calories on my Apple Watch and have the energy to do more stuff the rest of the day. Yes, I'm super sore. Yes, it hurts like the dickens to squat down to the ground right now and walk up the stairs. But I feel STRONG and I've fought health issues and half a dozen injuries over the last five years and especially the last two and I feel triumphant right now and that feels GOOD. We celebrated after the workout Saturday. Sweet Tea broad a beautiful spread of treats and we laughed and chatted and ate tasty food and had a lovely little party. These are good people and I'm glad I know them. 

Last but not least, we got to go to Genevieve's DARE graduation on Friday. This is the mayor of Bluffdale shaking hands with her. Way to be, Genevieve!

40 and 12 and 14

This week is a great week at our house. It’s Bill and my anniversary and then just four days later is mine and Spencer’s birthdays. It’s so much fun every year and especially in the depths of January when everyone else is struggling through winter and snow, we’re celebrating, and it really helps make this month awesome. 

Bill and I celebrated 14 years this week. We kept it pretty low key this year, but we had Monday off for Martin Luther King, Jr like we do every year, and so we were able to get away and get a treat and go shopping together and drove around looking at places we might like to live at some point down the road. We even bought a plant! Hahah! Anyone that knows me well, knows I love plants, and Bill loves me so he likes plants too. He picked this one and it’s cute. We went and tried a cupcake place. Was it good? Yes. Was it worth $6 a cupcake?  No. Definitely not. 😂 Did I enjoy every bite? Oh yes! 

I got some work swag this week. I like it! I really love my job and I hit my first anniversary there in a few weeks. It’s the biggest blessing in my life to have a job I love. I spent a solid 15 years at a job that checked a bunch of boxes but loving it was not one of them. Hat job was exactly what we needed for those years. This one is what I need now and I’m so grateful. 

Friday Bill and I took the day off to celebrate my birthday, and Genevieve’s teacher happened to ask me if I was an available to help that morning and I was! They did an Ellis Island activity where we basically made it really hard for the kids to get through the process to show what it was like to come to the U.S. back then. Genevieve dressed up so cute for it. It was pretty fun! 

That afternoon Bill and I went and got a couples massage and it was amazing! I’ve never done one of those before. So good. 

This is a big year for me and Spencer! 40 for me, 12 for Spencer. It’s always fun to share our birthday, but I can’t think of any future year that is so meaningful for both of us at the same time! 

We played hard on Saturday. I’m ramping up my half marathon training this spring. I ran 6.5 miles at 7am. I ran the first half by myself and met up with my run club to run the second half so I could get home sooner. I love these running friends! 

Then I headed home to my crew with some maple donuts. We had donuts and then made some German pancakes and bacon for breakfast and then headed out to adventure. 

We went to Yellow Fork Canyon and snowshoed up a ways with our snowboards, hoping to play around a bit with them. The powder was so deep that we totally couldn’t snowboard at all, but the snowshoeing was great and we had an awesome time! It was quite the adventure. We killed the battery on the way up on accident. We got stuck in the parking lot and a kind soul pulled us out with a rope. Neither thing took a lot of time. Good times. 

Spencer and I finished the night swinging by Crumbl for our free birthday cookie. My realtor hooked us on them and I definitely took this picture on purpose and then messaged it to him. 🤣 Yay for business turned friends. 

 It was a GREAT week!

Painting, car show, new glasses for Aaron

 

Bill and his dad and uncle took a few of our kids to a car show yesterday. I wanted to do some home projects and I’m deep in the midst of some running training, so I spent my day running six miles and rucking a couple miles with my FiA ladies and I painted an accent wall in our living room. It was a great day. 

Aaron got his glasses this week. I have known since he first put Bill’s old glasses on when he was about two years old that he would look good in glasses, and sure enough, he does! 

Finished room. The light is terrible on my old, junky phone at night, but I really like it. 

Projects

Funny how some of the simplest projects take a long time to fully finish. I made these bathroom shelves and love them, but I've been working on them for probably two months. Had to cut the wood down to size longways, which is a bit hard. Then sand and stain. Then spray paint the metal ends. Like four times because they kept getting scuffed when me or Bill dropped them, lol. Then I did that other table in my bedroom and hated the finish, so I went back and figured out what I'd used on my nightstands I did a few years ago, bought that even though it was super expensive, and finally did the clear coat and assembled. I'll be painting these bathrooms at some point too, but at least now we have a place for extra toilet paper. 

This is one of them with a basket for the toilet paper, plus a bonus blue poop pencil sharpener, courtesy of Bill, lolol.

Spencer started young mens last week and passed the sacrament for the first time yesterday! Big milestones! We got him a new suit and he looks SHARP in it! 

Genevieve came home yesterday with the most amazing artwork she'd done at her bestie's house. She free drew these. I love them so much. She and Spencer take a weekly art class and I love that they keep developing their skills. 

Last Sunday at church Aaron asked me what time it was. I pointed at the rather large wall clock and said, why don't you check the time? He said he couldn't read the numbers. My jaw dropped! It is not a small clock. Apparently he said the numbers were really fuzzy. So I took him to the eye doctor on Friday and sure enough, the boy has 20/150-175 vision! He told me he'd just had his eyes open for too long. Lol, nope! He joined Genevieve in getting glasses at eight and a half. Now we're just waiting for them to be finished so we can pick them up. 

I decided to start a chore chart of sorts for the kids and got this white board to mount them. They're magnetic and we write on them with dry erase markers. 

The basement is coming along! We bought 75 2x4s and ended up using all of them up with I'd say 85% framed. I just need to frame out a closet, a hallway wall, the windows, and about a third length of one wall. Next up will be running electrical for lights and outlets. Bill will get in more on that part. He assisted significantly placing the framing, but I did all the building. Drilling into concrete is definitely a two-person job. 

I had a serious quilting kick over the holidays. These are my last two projects. One more winter-ish, Christmas-ish table runner. And this fall quilt. I've wanted to make that design of quilt for years and also had that packet of fall fabrics for a couple years and the stars aligned. I finished the quilt top yesterday. I will quilt both of these at some point. Chloe already tried to claim the quilt, but I'm not sharing. 😂

Genevieve is my favorite little fashionista. She and Spencer are growing and growing and needed some new pants, so we swung by Walmart after art class today and scored some for each of them. I did get him to model them for me, but no pictures. But Genevieve curated each outfit down to the earrings and posed for me. 😍