Halloween at Hogwarts

We had a very fun Halloween weekend, and took way too many cute pictures. After trick-or-treating, we got to visit Hogwarts. Apparently, a wealthy doctor who is SO kind and fun turns his home and grounds into Hogwarts every year. This was our first trip, and it was incredible. Many of the characters from the books are there, and they have some little magical activities. Sammy and Riley loved it all, but they were also pretty nervous about seeing these characters in real life. That's why Sammy has such a strange expression on his face in the photos. But afterward, he told us we were "the best mom and dad in the world," and they both are anxious to go back next year. It was a perfect non-scary, totally enjoyable activity (and it kept the boys up until 10:30!!).

Here are the photos, with captions. (And I will say that our kids are at the perfect age to enjoy Halloween without getting into all the gory, gross, scary stuff. I love it!)

Happy boys looking forward to the weekend's sugar rush:


Agent 007 and his girlfriend of the week.


Trying too hard to look like dangerous spies.


Don't the kids look great? Here they are, on their way to trick-or-treat with some good friends:


I love our neighborhood, and this creepy old sign. Sadly, we never saw the headless horseman this year. (He's real--Bruce saw him once.):


Sammy chose a very tricky jack-o-lantern pattern for me to carve. He was supposed to help, but it's really not practical to let a 6-year-old use a carving knife:


George and Fred Weasley were the life of the party, true to form:


Gilderoy Lockhart autographed pictures of himself for the boys:


We met Albus Dumbledore. This was the highlight of the evening:


Riley dodging bludgers as he plays quidditch:


Hagrid gave the boys a ride in the sidecar of Sirius Black's motorbike:


Moaning Myrtle cheered up when she met Harry:


Luna Lovegood kindly informed Harry that a nargle was eating his brains:


Professor Umbridge acted sweet to Harry, but he was afraid of her anyway:


Harry landed in Gryffindor House, of course:


Ry getting sorted into Hufflepuff; Bruce was also in Hufflepuff, Zeke in Ravenclaw, and I ended up in Slytherin:


Medical attention from Madame Pomfrey and Dobby:


Harry getting interviewed by Rita Skeeter:


Ginny Weasley went through a strange time warp and is now older and taller than Harry. He is excited to catch up to her so he can ask her out on a date:


Colin Creevy was excited to have his picture taken with Harry.


With Stan Shunpike, about to get on the Knight Bus:


Getting our fortunes told by Professor Trelawney:


Harry with Uncle Vernon. Aunt Marge floated up and got caught in a tree:

Half Madness

***Note--I added five posts yesterday and today. They are all long but as fascinating a read as "War & Peace," or at least more interesting than "Twilight." Scroll down (and down some more) to read them all!***

Yesterday (Saturday), I survived my first (and possibly only) half marathon. I signed up for it last spring on a promise of a really cute finisher shirt--technical shirts, they are called (not t-shirts at all!). Well, the shirt was disappointing--it's a very nondescript gray. My third gray shirt this year. What's up with that; can't race organizers be more adventurous in their color choices? Also, the swag bag was disappointing. Usually I end up with all kinds of free granola bars, drink mixes, and other stuff. Leah, as far as that goes, your friend's 5k last year is the best race I've been to.

Now on to the real race report. The race location, Hobble Creek Canyon, is a little over an hour's drive from my house. I was supposed to be at registration before 5:30 Saturday morning. Yuck! So, my friend Kellie and I spent the night with my good friend Megan, who lives just 5 minutes from the park we were supposed to go to. Thank you, Megan, for an extra 90 minutes of sleep! Not that I slept much, since sometime in the night I realized I was at least half crazy for signing up for this race. I enjoy the training, but come race day I usually wish I was at home sleeping in or making pancakes.

Kellie and I got to the park, picked up our packets, put our race bibs on, and got on a bus. The 13-mile ride through town and up the canyon seemed like it took way too long, especially since it went from dark to daylight during the trip. Then we got off the bus and waited 30 minutes to use the port-a-potties, and waited another 30 minutes for the race to start. I'll remind you that we were wearing only racing shorts and very thin running shirts, and we were high in a shadowy mountain canyon--brrr!

The race finally started (late, thanks to a lost bus), and we ran for 13.1 miles. The first 10 miles were fun. The last 3 were miserable, which supposedly just means I should have trained a bit more. Happily, Bruce and the boys met me at the mouth of the canyon with cheers and waves, then met me at another few places on the route. By their last stop, I didn't want to see them because those soft seats in the car looked way too inviting. Finally, after counting the minutes I had left to run, I crossed the finish line for a total time of 1:55:24.5--easily making my goal of finishing under 2 hours. That is a pace of 8:49 per mile. I was in the 46th percentile, so in the bottom of the top half of finishers. Woohoo!




My take on the whole thing? Madness! I really like running, but 8 miles seems long enough for me, in general. Half marathons are harder than triathlons (at least sprint distance), and not as much fun. I love doing a different activity in each portion of a tri--it keeps me more alert mentally, and isn't nearly as hard on the body. Not that I will rule out doing another half-marathon someday, but I don't feel like I need to and I hope I am NEVER crazy enough to try a full marathon. (Kudos to those of you who enjoy running 26 miles without stopping.) Finally, I am surprised that my knees and calves are not even slightly sore today (they usually are, a little), and I didn't lose a single toenail, but my quads are pretty stiff--I think that's mostly 'cause I just sat around all day after the race. I'd better go for a little run tomorrow morning...

A Fair is a Veritable Smorgasbord

Last week I took Sammy and Riley and Zeke to the county fair. I decided that it would be a much better experience than the state fair, mostly because it is tiny. Some people judge fairs by how much cool stuff there is to see and do. I judge them by whether we can see everything we want to before the boys are so tired they fall apart. This one was the best ever.

We spent a lot of time looking at farm animals, all of which scared Zeke immensely!




We participated in a local sport complex's fitness challenge: doing pushups, shooting baskets, kicking soccer goals, etc. (Turns out I had the high score for the whole weekend in my age group for one of the challenges--not sure if it was basketball or pushups!)



We got free balloons and goodies, gave out our phone number to a few insurance agents, had a free pony ride (which also scared Zeke into hysteria), and ate our brownbag lunch.

Next we headed to the midway, which I wouldn't recommend for anyone over age 7. It was perfect for us--an assortment of rickety little-kid rides. We spent $20 for a few tickets, which only took us about 15 minutes to use up. Good thing admission to the fair was free, since rides are always and forever a rip-off! Then we went to the food booths to find our treats, and ate them while watching a great pie-eating contest--the boys thought it was hilarious and now want to try eating their pie without using hands. If we had only gotten there a few minutes sooner, Sammy and Riley could have entered. I thought about joining the adult competition, but managed to resist the temptation.


My only disappointment of the entire fair: the booth selling deep-fried Twinkies and Oreos did not have Snickers as well. The lady said they tried it once and it was too messy. I think that's because they didn't start with frozen candy bars. So my craving is NOT satisfied, and I have decided to attempt this culinary delicacy myself. I will choose a date soon, and invite anyone who wants to experience complete chocolate bliss to come over for a homemade deep-fried Snickers bar!

Sixteen Pounds!

We had a great camping trip in Idaho this year, even though it rained most of the time. The frustrations of wet weather were tempered by two things: first, the rain cheered me up and got me out of a weeklong grumpy funk; second, we wimped out and ended up cooking meals and hanging out in Leo and Tricia's convenient rental condo. Since there were four families of us (including 6 small boys), we couldn't all sleep there, but sleeping in a tent during a rainstorm is actually just great as long as most of the water stays outside.

Really, what we mostly did was pick huckleberries. Day 1 was in the rain, Day 2 was partly sunny. A late, wet spring made for the most fabulous huckleberry picking any of us have ever seen.

For those who don't know, huckleberries grow only in the wild, and are usually sparsely scattered on low bushes. They are tiny and take a long time to pick, but they are worth every hour.

This year the berries were huge and grew very densely on the bushes. We found several wonderful patches near our campsite. We brought home 16 pounds of tasty berries, and we have a happy, full freezer now.


We have already had the most incredible huckleberry bread pudding with pecans and homemade caramel sauce. Future goodies await for visitors we like a lot, or who pay us enough money. As Sammy learned, huckleberries are as precious as gold (currently trading at $957 per ounce, though we do offer a small family discount).

Summer

Here's a brief (okay, lengthy) rundown on our summer activities:

Grandma and Grandpa came to visit from New Mexico over the 4th of July weekend, and brought Melissa with them. We visited BYU for a day, and overwhelmed Melissa with all the exciting campus activities that await her.


We had a fun time with the Barbers at the Independence Day parade. We ended the day with them and also Dan and Deanne's family, watching local fireworks displays from up on the mountains. Sammy loved it that the fireworks aren't noisy from far away, although the noise of a few crying (way too tired) kids was louder than any fireworks display I've seen.


Here are pictures from Sammy and Riley's water party in July. We invited all the kids their age that we could think of, and almost all of them came--I think it was about 25. Deanne helped keep order, but the kids were surprisingly good--with two wading pools, a slide, sprinklers, and a slip-n-slide!


Sammy cried and moaned and finally tried out his training-wheel-free bike. It turned out not as scary as he thought, and he's getting pretty good. If only we lived in a flatter neighborhood so he could practice on his own! He's also overcome his fear of swimming, as long as he's wearing a scuba mask that covers his nose. He's a great little fish underwater, so if we can get him to let go of his "magic feather," he'll be all set! Lately he spends his time wiggling his first loose tooth (almost ready to fall out) and counting the minutes until he starts first grade (which happened today.)

Riley has gotten pretty comfortable in the water too, by which I mean he will sometimes put his face in the water a little. He keeps asking me when he will get to be in a triathlon, so we might let him try a kids race next summer. He has started sounding out words, and hopefully will be reading on his own soon. (He gets really bored when Sammy is off reading by himself, which is a lot of the time.)

Zeke is talking up a storm--and the first word out of his mouth every time we go to grandma's house is "cookie." We love his words for grandma and grandpa: "ba-gam" and "ba-gamp." He cries a lot as more teeth try to poke through his little gums.

I got my own wetsuit and have finally started to enjoy swimming in cold lake water. Bruce apparently thinks it looks like fun, and has started swimming a lot at our pool. He's making great progress and will maybe do a triathlon with me next year.

Finally, a picture of all the jars of apples I helped my friend Stephanie can. Some have cinnamon, some are plain. Aren't they beautiful?

And with that, summer is just about over! It went too fast this year, but I guess it's nice that we had lots of fun stuff to fill it with!

New Mexico

This post is way overdue, and I'm sitting here hoping I can remember enough details to make it worthwhile.

Last June we loaded up the kids, some clothes, and a whole bunch of snack food and made the long trek to New Mexico. This is the highlight of Sammy and Riley's summer every year. It amazes me what kinds of details they remember from previous visits--and they expect the same or better on every new visit. The biggest excitement comes from the "Magic Treasure Box," whose mysterious fairy leaves small gifts for the boys each afternoon. This year they scored magnifying glasses, bubble wands, piles of pennies, and candy, among other treasures.

Another required activity is hiking up to the nearby mesa and feeding the family of bunnies that has lived in the bushes for at least 20 years. Grandpa and Dad usually orchestrate that outing. We also had fun with my friend Rachel and her two boys at a really interesting park--it has the most unusual climbing toys I've seen at a park.

Grandma spoiled the kids (and us) with fabulous food, as usual. Pancakes, strawberry shortcake, banana cream pie, etc. Zeke was in heaven, since no Grandma can resist a baby's request for "cookie?" Sometimes I fight against the nonstop flow of treats that come from grandparents, but I fully plan on doing that for my own grandkids someday, so I might as well be resigned.

The big event every year is a fishing trip with Grandpa. We've given up on driving 2 hours to a really great fish pond in the mountains. Instead, we drive for 20 minutes to a little trout farm in town. After trying for an hour to catch a big fish (they are big because they've been smart enough not to get caught for so long!), we moved to the small fish pond where the boys quickly caught their prize fish. Unfortunately, the water is so warm that all the fish taste like mud, so while the boys ate their trout for dinner, the rest of us ate wild Alaskan salmon (from the store).

All three boys cried when it was time to go, and are already talking about their plans for next summer's visit.