~ Finally, the Day arrives... ~

(I don't know why the text and pictures are all wonky...that's not how it looked when I typed it up.....) Today we leave on our summer holiday. This has been a much anticipated trip for us all. I've been talking about it since Christmas, planning it for a couple months and organizing for it for over a week now. It's now 6am and I'm wide awake...and have been since 4:00. Tonnes to do still. My family is still sleeping, and I hope they all stay that way for a few more hours. Don't need to start this trip off with fighting. The van is actually all vaccumed out and ready for us to load it up, that's a major accomplishment for all of you that know me and the general condition of my van. We live in that vehicle and it shows. The laundry is all done and packed, the fridge needs to be loaded into the cooler, and then load up the kids. We're excited to get away, excited to swim everyday, excited to spend some quality time with our kids and show them something new in this world. Some of the items on my life list are to show my children as much of the world as I can. This is our first step, small, but a start.

A couple pictures to catch up on the last couple weeks...

We have a pool for our backyard. It holds a lot of water and has to be level. Brian spend a lot of time each year putting down planks of wood to even out the ground for the pool to go on. The kids were 'helping' and also checking out what has been living under that wood since last year when we did this. I love how Owen was holding on to his big brother so he wouldn't 'fall into the bugs'.

Canada Day - They are finally old enough to stay up late and watch the fireworks. The picture is a big blurry as it was 11:00 at night, the extra girls are our neighbors. They had such a great time together. It's the first time that Owen has seen fireworks. They were going off from our local Stampede Grounds, but they were high enough we could see them from our front lawn. So fun!

It has been so hot for a couple weeks now. The kids have spent a lot of time in the backyard, swimming in the pool or just sitting on the deck. It's usually cooler on the deck than in the house.

And finally....the littlest man in his own pool. He's a fan of splashing if you couldn't tell...

These are actually action shots....he's really going absolutely nuts splashing the water. And of course screaming in delight as he does it.




That's it....stay tuned to the blog for the progress of our trip. I hope to update the blog as computers are available. I'm off to get my run in before the troops wake up....16 pounds so far...just a pat on the back for me = )

~ School's Out ~

So the kids are off school....not my most favorite time. Not because I don't like my children...just because I need to get work done in my office during the day, and that becomes harder with two more children in the house. You'd think it would help that they are the older ones, but no, I find they fight and tease and bug and yell.....more than the younger ones. So it's a struggle everyday to not send them to live with someone else!! = )

Training is still progressing...lost more weight, able to run longer now. Running 10 and 2's ...which is 10 minutes running with a two minute walk and then run again. I can do this three times. Have another race coming up in September. The goal this time is to run the whole time...or at least beat my time from the last race.

Speaking of my last race....here are the official results.


33:29 2486 Tiffany ...... 19-39 F 5K

Not the best....but I finished and that was the goal.

Nothin' exciting happening around here. Trying to get work done as we'll be getting ready for our holiday next week. The kids are pretty excited to go on our trip. Brian is not all that excited to take a road trip with 4 children. That is just too many potty breaks for him.

That's about it.....later gaters.

~ The Big Race ~

So I did it....ran my first race. The MidSun Run is a 5 or 10K family run. Nothing serious, but a challenge. It was hard as I did it in the morning, which I don't usually run outside in the morning. My morning run's are on the treadmill. So I definately was feeling it, but I finished, and even had people that finished after me. It was a little emotional for me to cross the finish line, and even more so when I saw that Randy and Brianne had come to take pictures of me finishing. Christine and I didn't bring our kids because it was too early. It was lots of fun. Such a great atmosphere to be in. And to actually cross the finish line was amazing. The pictures aren't pretty....but here they are anyway.

Set a goal....work hard....make a small accomplishment.....wow! Feels Great!

~ Busy Busy ~

So it's been a busy week. I'm training for my race on Saturday. I had been doing all my training on my treadmill. That works for me as I can get Tyler and Syd out the door to school, then set up Owen and Jack with a cartoon. However since the 5K race this weekend is not on my treadmill...I figured I better hit the pavement. Christine and I are running the race together. So Monday night I ran with her. It's definately harder running outside. For one, you don't have to propel yourself as much on the treadmill. So it was hard, but I did the whole 5K. Then last night we were supposed to run again. She got hit with allergies, so I ran it on my own. A little better than the first time around. Runinng again tonight, then take Friday off to keep from getting too tired for Saturday morning. My knee has been 100% since I had Melanie adjust it...so that's good.

Sydney is on her last week of school...and Tyler is done next Thursday. So they're pretty excited about that. I'm not dreading it as much as last year. I was too pregnant last year to want to do anything. Whereas this year I've got lots of stuff planned for us to do. We'll be home bound a bit the first two weeks in July as I try and get all the GST returns done before we leave on holidays. But I've tried to make my schedule so I work on three days of the week and generally have Thursday and Friday to take the kids to places. So we'll see how that works out.

So that's it...nothing earth changing to report. Hopefully I'll have some pictures on Saturday of my race...and let you know if I died on the road. = )

~ Beiseker Parade ~

My friend Melanie is a Chiropractor. She practices in a couple different offices, the newest is in the small town of Beiseker. They had their parade day this past Saturday, don't really know what it was in celebration of. She'd told me about it a couple weeks ago, I wrote it on the calendar and then didn't really think much of it. Then Friday night I decided that it was time for our summer vacation to begin. Brian had to work on Saturday, but I loaded up the kids and headed to Beiseker. It took a little longer to get there than I was intending, but it was well worth it. The kids got to spend some time with their friends Cody, Kayla and Mandy...they haven't spent quality time together in a while. Plus....the CANDY!!! That's always the best part of any small town parade. The funny thing about this parade, it isn't particularily long. So everybody goes by waving and throwing candy, and then they get to the end, turn around and come back. Waving and throwing candy again, as if we hadn't seen them already. The kids thought that was great....double the candy.

After the parade we all got adjusted, which was much needed. I'm getting ready for my race in 10 days and my body was definately screaming "What the heck!!" The back is tight, the knee is sensitive and my muscles are generally screaming at me...but hey....10 pounds down so far. We then went into the city to Grandma's house. It's rare, now that we live out of the city, that we can spend time with Grandma and Grandpa on a saturday. We stopped in for lunch and hangin' out then Tyler and I did a little shopping. He's been growing again....which means $$$ for me. He's always had a sense of style, which has been developing lately. He likes to look put together, and doesn't like to get his clothes dirty. This was the first time that we have gone in the mall and he's started noticing the cool stores. "Can we go in that one mom". So we head over even though I know he's way to small for that store. But he wanted to check it out. We get in and he's looking around for something specific. Then he looks at me and says "Mom is this a skater gangster store or something" Well not really, but it was a skateboarding store with all the clothes that are generally associated with that. So we decided this wasn't really was he was looking for. We spent a couple hours together and he got everything he needed. Such a classic little man though...all excited to look for items for himself, but if I want to stop into a store quickly...he's rolling his eyes and asking when we'll be done. So it was a nice time with my son, having a little one on one time with him was great...and a rare thing.

Sunday was an impromptu Stake Conference as our Stake President is moving away. As always we're rushing trying to get out of the house on time, and it's worse when we have to leave early to get into the city on time. So we had left pretty well on time...maybe a couple minutes later than I wanted, but nothing we couldn't make up on the highway. Then Brian can't remember if he had closed the garage door. So we had to turn around and drive back...sure enough it was already closed, but don't you hate it when you can't remember. You're pretty sure you closed it, but can't really remember. So that made us late. We ended up watching it in the RS room on a TV. That would have been fine but the sound was bad and we really couldn't hear much of it. So we bailed before the end. The kids did great for the first hour, but the second was a fight. I can't blame them, I didn't want to sit there any longer either...so we headed to Grandma's again for family dinner. Grandma's two days in a row!!

So that was our fun weekeend. Spending quality time with the kids...nothin' better!

~ Training ~

There are two type of training going on at our house. Mom training for her first 5k race on June 23rd. And Owen wearing the big boy underwear as he potty trains. Here is Owen doing both...with is little baggy butt because he's so skinny.

~ Mom Tip ~

Here's one from Bobbi-Jo:

Just a note you may want to add on your blog - this place is giving away a free photo book (you pay $6.99 shipping). It's a 4X6 inch album - 20 pages which you design, then they print and mail it out. I've heard from a couple of friends that they are beautifully done, so I thought I'd check it out. Here's the link:

http://www.pictureslide.com/

The offer is good until September 2007.