Let the outdoor adventures begin!

We decided we needed to get outdoors while the weather was nice, so we went on a three hour hike up at Kelly's Canyon.


It was a beautiful day for a hike with only a little rain shower, which felt so nice!


Some of the hike was hard for Alyssa, so this is Lance carrying her down the mountain, I tried to see if I could get a ride down too, but that didn't work too well!


We tried to look for sheds, but couldn't find any, but we did find a toothbrush, a golf ball, a beaver dam, snail shells, and a lot of colorful rocks.


These three had way too much fun, they were made for the outdoors! We decided Mason and Taylor should be trail runners, they practically ran the whole way back, except to stop and throw rocks every once in a while. It was a great day with hopefully many more adventures to come!

TAYLOR'S BEST DAY EVER!

Taylor is the youngest member of the Fairview Robotics Team, but that didn't stop him today. They had a competition over at Hillcrest High School where they had a competition called Sumo Robot. This is where they would try to knock the other robot out of the circle or beat them in points, and if they did they would be the winner of that round. Taylor designed his sumo robot by himself and competed against high school students. He was so cute, he was nervous at first and didn't think his robot would be good enough after he saw all the big metal robots that he was up against, but Mrs. Funke told him just to try and have fun! Taylor had fun alright; he won the whole sumo competition, even beating the 12th graders! He had the whole gym cheering for him! I have never seen Taylor so proud. Mrs. Funke kept yelling, "That is my third grader!!!" (She is not shy and will belt her cheers right out there!) All of the 12th graders kept coming up to Taylor telling him that he did an awesome job and that his robot was "sic"! Way to go Tay, we are so proud of you!


Taylor and his sumo robot. The spikes on the front would get caught in the other robots, causing their gears not to work, so Taylor's robot could push them out of the circle (very clever!) They modified it a little bit for the last round, trying to add some weight and some colored tape to confuse the sensors of the other person's robot. My camera died so I didn't get pictures of the robots that he was up against, but I have video which is hilarious with everyone cheering for Tay.


This is the Fairview Robotics Team. Mason and Austin also built a robot to compete in capture the flag, but something happened with their program and they couldn't download it right. They all had fun cheering for Taylor though!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MASON!

I can't believe my Mason is 11 years old. One thing about Mason is that he will still let me hold his hand while we are shopping, tells me he loves me, and lets me cuddle him. I tell him no matter how big he gets I will always get to hold him on my lap and give him loves!


For his birthday he really wanted a telescope. He is really into astronomy and looking at all of the constellations.


He wanted his friends to come over for a late night. We had pizza, ice cream, treats, movies, Wii games, and a lot of fun! Some of his friends are hiding in this picture so you can't see them all. Matt, JW, Zach, Sterling, Austin, Tegen, and of course Tay and Lysa came to party!


I love this picture because Mason and Matt have been friends since Kindergarten. On the first day of Kindergarten they were both crying on the playground because they didn't want to go and me and his mom were there crying too. They have been good friends since then! No Mason is not sitting down on a chair, Matt is just that tall!


Mason loves legos and is in a robotics club where they use legos to build robots so I thought he would love a lego cake. I was just glad that he could tell it was legos.

Everyday I tell Mason to stop growing up and to stay little, but Mason just tells me, "Mom I want to get big so I can drive!" We love you Mace!

ALYSSA IS 6 YEARS OLD!

I can't believe my little Lysa is 6 years old! I keep telling her that she needs to stay little and not grow up. She is such a fun little girl that is always by my side. She loves to go shopping, paint her nails, do her own hair (which she is really good at) and telling me and Lance that we are her best buddies just to get whatever she wants.


Alyssa and princess Jasmine. This was at an event at Barnes and Noble.


Cinderella was there too!


Alyssa is involved in the Kindergarten Club at Fairview Elementary for AR reading. She loves to read. This is her friend Gracie. They had an assembly for those kindergartners who were in this reading club.


They get prizes when they reach a certain amount of points when reading.


She decided that she wanted to have her birthday at Leo's Place. She didn't have one last year because I just had my tonsils out and wasn't up for throwing her one, so we had to make it big this year. She had about 25 kids there, friends and cousins. She opened presents for about 10 minutes straight! Who wouldn't love that!


Lysa loves Hannah Montana so she told me that she would like a Hannah Montana cake. Her Aunt Jarae made her this cake, which I think turned out so cute! (there is a link to her website, Frosted Tops, to the right if you are interested on more of her cakes).


Here is the shot of all her friends and cousins who came to her party. I was just very happy we didn't lose any kids! What a fun day for Alyssa!

THE ULTIMATE LOSER

For the past 2 1/2 months I have been doing a competition called the "Ultimate
Loser" at the Apple Athletic Club. I wanted to lose some weight so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity. We competed against another team, the Green team, for 10 weeks. I met a lot of fun people doing this and one of my favorite friends did it with me too, Katie (she did fantastic!!). I can't say it was always fun, but it was well worth it. They even did the pinch tests and measurements so you could see how you changed over the 10 week period. Our trainer liked this part way too much, we would wince and he would laugh! I had a goal of seeing 115 pounds on the scale, and I got to 114 and my body fat percent is now at 15%. Oh, ya I even won first place for the ladies! I won a free membership and a personal trainer, Steve, who is AWESOME! (This is the Steve Gardner that I have known since I was like 7 years old).





I am very self-conscious so to put these pictures on here is really hard,but hey I worked hard for this and I want to look back in a couple of years and realize that I was in pretty good shape!

My main focus now is to maintain. I am going to start a Beyond Fitness II class with the same "White team" so this will help me do that, oh and training for a half marathon (Lance is doing the full marathon, what a show off!!).

SNOWBOARDING

Mason and Taylor have absolutely loved snowboarding this year. Mason was a little hesitant at first, but after the first time he wanted to go everyday after that. Taylor has just loved snowboarding from the beginning.

Mason, it looks like he is still but Lance is taking the picture while he was snowboarding too.

Taylor jumping, they found a fun place with jumps and places to "grind" they say, whatever that means... I wish they had a picture of Lance, he is just as crazy as the kids when it comes to jumping!

Mason and his friend Sterling.

Taylor and Dylan.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

We decided to make Valentine's Day a family affair this year. It started off with the kids getting their own heart chocolate boxes for breakfast and they gave me roses. Lance is easy to please with just red vine licorice. We drove to Twin Falls and stayed in a hotel so we could get away, relax, and go swimming. They were so excited about staying in a hotel, I guess it has been a while since we have done that. Lysa was so cute, she sat at the desk in the hotel room and colored forever with the pad of paper and pen, which she took home and the boys told her she was stealing :) All the boys wanted to do was go downstairs and "work out" while Lance ran. That night we ordered pizza and just hung out. The next morning the kids went swimming again while I did homework and then we met with Lance's parents for lunch. It was a great weekend! I even brought home an elliptical with me, it makes my treadmill look tiny! Yes, I had way too much chocolate and loved every minute of it!