Summer=5K…good Lord help me

 

What plans do you have this summer? Zoo? Picnics? Library? Our house needs to make our summer list. But unlike most everyone else, I’m focused to plan for rest and relaxation. It’s not too hard for this house to find business and plans.

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Summer is suppose to be about enjoying a LAZY warm afternoon right??

And in our family, we need to schedule these times or we will get busy doing tons of other fun things. And yes, we plan on being lazy with friends. 🙂 It’s totally possible. Is our family like yours?

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I am doing a couch to 5K with a couple friends and am excited and unprepared. One thing is for certain: I am going to lean heavily on friend support. Wish me luck! 🙂

However, I was reminded while I heaved, breathed sighs and almost passed out (kidding, drama makes everything more interesting) I had thoughts like, ‘Um, I can’t do this.’ ‘I’d rather be exercising another way’ ‘this is too hard!’

These are normal I think, but when I think about some of the stories of people who have overcome so much to do something like a marathon, Special Olympics or Hood to Coast (Portland race) a clearer perspective is in front of me and I have more determination. They are so insparational and their stories give hope to myself and Ibegin to say, ‘this is doable’, ‘I have friends who are doing this with me-I’m not alone’ and ‘I have a goal’

Donut World

I remember my dad and mom bringing donuts to Sunday school. They were my teachers in a couple grades. They were smart- the way to a pre-teen and teenager is through their stomach. Today, they have fancy dancy donut places that I only read about and am dying to try but sadly there are no fancy donut places near me.

Instead, we went to a huge red barn looking building that has a mega sign outside reading DONUT WORLD. Classy my people. Classy. They had the fake wooden siding, limited red vinal seating and cramped bathrooms. HOWEVER, they hand make their own donuts (you can watch the guy-which the girls liked) the most sweetest owner (yes I talked to him), cartons of milk, HUGE donuts the size of my head and honestly the best nostalgic feeling place. They had old pictures of Portland and it just made me smile. I just felt like I did when I would go with dad to pick up the donutsfor our Sunday class. Sweet memories.

Only it was 10am and the most liked donuts were gone. But there’s no way I’m waking up this little lady to pick up a few donuts. Hah. Unless we are driving to an airport, we’ll pick some up on the way. Yum. Hot fresh donuts. Great healthy breakfast.

My friend, Amy, and I went to Donut World with our girls. They got a little impatient waiting for me to fumble with the camera to take a picture of their donut they couldn’t eat. Hah. It’s not like they’re 2 yrs old with a treat in front of them.

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Emma and Rylee (Emma’s best friend) had to have sprinkles. 🙂

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Why do parents have the most boring donuts? I was looking forward to tryng some interesting ones but there were only traditonal ones. No Bacon Maple bars or Salted Apple donuts. Oh well. The girls didn’t notice.

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Here’s Amy and Rylee. We’ll so miss them while they’re away! Her husband and her are looking into being missionaries to a country and are visiting this next couple weeks. Rylee is visiting Grandpa and Grandma in L.A.

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And finally the after. Not much icing was left but a lot of the donut was. 😉

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It seemed like the girls felt the sugar like imediatly! They were boinking off the walls! Here are some action shots 🙂

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Then they crashed. Hahaha

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Happy Wednesday Donut Day 🙂

Chicken Noodle Cassarole

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This was chosen by Amy. Such a comforting food with some of the colder winds wiping up here. This was close to a recipe that I grew up with and was planning on making anyways so it was nice, convenient and familiar. Oh yeah. So the only changes I made to the recipe was the veggies. I put in broccoli instead of green peppers. I have a mental block with green peppers- well with all peppers I guess. I just think that soy sauce has to go in the dish. No choice. Peppers are only in Asian dishes. How horrible is that?

If you have any good pepper recipes send them my way. I need to branch out of my limited scope of the veggie. 🙂

Thelast change I did was with the noodles. I just made it with the last remaining noodles I had. I made me feel spontaneous and silly. I mean who makes meals with different noodles? I usually don’t.  Travis didn’t notice or comment. But he did eat it so that was good. hehe

Thanks Amy for choosing this dish. And thank you Pioneer Woman for the cookbook. It’s yummy so far.

Christmas Update

Yeah, so I know it’s been FOREVER or something like it since I’ve last posted. So this will be a picture overload post because so much has happened in a week. It’s the holidays, so we fit TONS into this last week. LONG post. You have been warned. Enjoy!

Emma and Erin Emma found the candy...oh man :)

Our sweaters We're such posers

The above pictures are of a Christmas party (no duh) Charis threw at her home. It was a lot of fun, a white elephant exchange, lots of Christmas goodies and then ending with a movie. Thank you for hosting it Charis– it was wonderful! Don’t you just love my sweater?! Yeah, totally rockin’

Heaven on a plate

Oh Spaghetti, how I love thee…let me count the ways…thank you for meeting me for dinner. I love your company.

Below is when Amy, a friend who’s daughter is Emma’s BFF, came over and we frosted cookies. Fun times.

Leaning tower of cookie

My leaning tower of sugar cookies.

Before After

You can’t see it, but I also sprinkled Cinnamon on top of the powdered sugar. So pretty.

Rylee thinking outside thebox with coloring Emma

Half the finished product

Sorry for the blurriness, but here is a sample of half the cookies we made.

Family photo #1

Awww, I know it’s a little blurry, but it was the best one. This is Emma’s fake smile, when someone tells her to ‘smile’ for the camera. But of course I didn’t want to take just boring pictures…take at least one funny one!

Hehehe

I think Emma missed that memo.

Cutie-pie more

Is that a present?! Here mommy

My favorite

My favorite. She’s co cute, down to her sparkle shoes. So right now, as I’m typing this in my oh so attractive fleece sweatpants, Trav and I are in a hotel for a little getaway to Leavenworth. It was all planned by him and was a surprise the whole time. It was awesome. We took a train from Everett to here and am having a great time. The hotel is nice, with a fillig breakfast, but one thing that’s weird is the silly wallpaper in the bedroom. Observe below.

The wallpaper..what the?

Nice huh. Hehehe. Nothing says romantic like crayon banner wallpaper. Sexy.

Us

Awwww

It was slippery Hey Trav

It was really slippery slushy and I almost fell a couple times. Trav thought to capture it on film. How thoughtful of him…

Hi Trav Our path

Jamie

This is for you Jamie

Mom's home

This is for you Mom. Found your dream home.

If you have lasted this long and read the entire post, pretend me hugging you. I consider you my friend. 🙂