what's new honey dew?

stuff!  lots of fun going on!
on june 15 i did the dilettante women's triathlon.  ok, not the whole thing, but i did the bike and run as a race buddy for a woman completing her first triathlon.  it was SO MUCH FUN.

other things:

 big fat narwhal stuffy.  ??

 I love the Rock.  and here he is looking teeny tiny.  keep in kind he is 6'5" and i think he said 260lbs in this photo. 

 

fussy had an accident and needed an emergency bath first thing in the morning.  he was actually quite agreeable during the whole thing

 we bundled him all up and seamus cuddled him for a while.  he was actually purring!

 i did the flying wheels 45 miler which was actually only 41 miles.  i asked this guy to take a look at my front end because it was feeling wobbly.  it was all messed up. too complicated to explain especially since what happened was something he hadn't ever seen before, but it does explain partially what was going on way back HERE when i thought i was having a brain tumor moment.  and i need a new drive train. sigh.

 i took the kids to grasslawn park.  they love that park.  they could be there all day long if i let them.

 sirus made this lego rock concert.  i like the drummer.  the fans are actually quite entertaining, there is one girl in the front row who is totally rocking out.

 eric took the kids mountain biking and then later took them swimming.  those kids do not get tired.  they keep going and going.  we have found the problem with trying to tire the kids out with physical activity is that if you do it too often, they just gain endurance. 

 i took the kids to yo plateau.  not because they wanted to go, but because i am an addict.

 this bald eagle and its little friend were flying over head on our way home.

 if we walk to get the frozen yogurt, then it cancels out the 4 cups of mini M&Ms that i put on top of mine.

 i got another tattoo.  at lunch time.  on tuesday.  i got the kids names done in their hand writing.  i got it done in white ink, like the E i got for our anniversary.  this wasn't the very best thought out - right after, when it was still red and swollen, it reminded me of in the exorcist when her belly has the words Help Me on it.  i was going to put a link to a picture of that scene in the movie, but it is too horrifying.  now that the swelling and redness is mostly gone, it just looks like the kids carved their names into my belly while i was sleeping.  might have to have them go over it with a color someday.  we'll have to see.

 we took the kids mountain biking at duthie hill.  eric takes them all the time.  he runs, they ride.  but i haven't ever gone with them.  seamus is taking a class there, too.  she got a new grown up bike with 26" wheels and an adult size frame in XS and ever since then, she is a mountain biking maniac!  she is amazing!  she dropped me on a few of the descents and even gapped me a few times on some of the short uphills.  what is that about?

 and then she had enough energy to climb a random tree.

 sirus is a pretty good mountain biker too.  its hard when your bike weighs almost as much as you do, but he love to bomb down the hills.  now if we can only get him to stop wearing blue jeans to ride in when it is 70 degrees out.

 my wonderful friend jody sent me these flowers.  i made her some necklaces for her son's teachers and she sent these to me.  they are so pretty and they make my office smell amazing!  every time i leave my office i forget that they are in there, so when i return it is always a surprise!

 

eric took this photo of me running the other day.  wasnt' thinking much of it until we looked at it later and saw my quads!!  

 lets zoom in on those quads!!  there is some flab there on the inside and some blurring since it is an iphone picture, but who knew there were muscles like that in my legs!!  WOWzers.  WOW.

i graduated again!

 I went to Boston University.  because i did that, i get any number of magazines and stuff.  this most recent Arts & Sciences magazine had an article called Brain: It's What's for Dessert. A psychology professor, Alice Cronin-Golomb, conducts the Edible Brain Competition allowing her students a chance to create some brains.  I of course, sent off this photo of the cake that eric and the kids made for me to celebrate the end o my radiation, thanking her for all of her good work and expressing how people like me depend on people like her and her students.  She wrote back asking if she could share my note with her class, to which i replied, of course! 

i wore this.  i bought this Burberry dress off of ebay like 10 or more years ago and haven't ever worn it.  it still had the tags on it.  damn, its really cute and i do say that i managed to style it quite effectively.  i wore it to tea!

 we went to the Queen Mary Tea Room to celebrate both my birthday and xtie's birthday.  ok, well, really janet asked if i would be interested in going so i hijacked it as an opportunity to celebrate birthdays.  all the kids went and my mom came too.  it was very fun!  the foods were super tasty, although i have decided that i really only like the desserts at tea time.  the tea was good too.  the kids loved it, maybe because instead of tea they got their very own pots of hot chocolate and they each had a brownie with a big blob of cotton candy on top of it, or maybe it was this delightful sugar?  i don't know, but it was a fabulous idea on janet's part, and super happy we went.  we lived right around the corner from the tea room for several years and never went. 

this was me in highschool.  i was like 15 or 16.  they told me my nose was too bulbous at the end and i should work on contouring it more.  i wondering what they would say now about the giant witch's wart growing on the end of it and the piercing now?

sirus got me this shirt for mother's day.  i love it!  i paired it with the lovely infinity scarf from allie.  i wore it all to celebrate brain tumor awareness month, which was May, you were supposed to wear gray.  is it a coincidence that i was diagnosed with my brain tumor on a May 1?

thanks to susan's sister, we got to go to a Sounder's game.  i hadn't been to a pro soccer game since i was little, and the kids hadn't ever been to a pro sporting event ever.  this football helmet display was the first thing we saw when we walked into the stadium and both kids were fascinated by it.

 when we first walked out into the open air, the sounders had just scored a goal.  the fans were yelling, the cannons booming, fire was blasting and the kids jaws dropped to the ground and they both just stood there, frozen in their tracks.  they had no idea what to do!   Once we got to out seats, which seemed to be practically on the field, we all got settled.  it was a fun game with lots of fire and booms.  the sounders won and both kids agreed that soccer games are pretty darn fun.

we went up to edmonds on mother's day and hung out at the beach with grandma.  some guy dug this giant moat and sand castle, and sirus brought a dead crab over to decorate the castle.  the tide came in and filled the moat and eventually washed the whole thing away.

kids on the stone sculpture.  the tall guy has his mouth open and all i want to do is put my iphone in there.

sirus had to write a persuasive letter at school.  he wrote trying to persuade eric to let him get a pet fish.  so he got a pet fish.  it has been a big deal.

this squirrel climbs up the window framing and gets into the bird feeder.  i can pound on the glass and it doesn't even flinch.  i think its cute, i don't mind that it comes around.

oh, that squirrel drives fuzy crazy tho!

 i have a new hobby - metal stamping.  so fun!  the brain tumor group i belong to is having a picnic in southern california this weekend.  i'm not able to go, but i wanted to send something for them, to let them know i was thinking of them.  so i made them all survivor medals.  seamus sat with me the entire time i made them, surprised and fascinated that there were other people, including kids who had the same tumor as me.  she picked out the ribbon colors for each of the girl's necklaces.  sirus wondered why i didn't make one for me, he reminded me that i am a survivor.  he's got a point.

i graduated from the wound healing center!  no swimming until july, they want to avoid the chlorine for a bit longer, but i can wear a bike helmet! 

 we went to leavenworth.  a few times. and since i can wear a bike helmet not, this time was for the Bike n Brew Bash.  I haven't ever raced it.  I have only gone to spectate once, when seamus was only 1 and i was pregnant with sirus. i was miserable that time.  this was my first mountain bike race since the race i did the weekend before my diagnosis.  i was excited to race but not sure what to expect either.  i was happy with how my race went, although i gave up two spots on the descent. still it was super fun, and i can't wait to race some more. this is the view from the top of the race course where i hiked to after my race to watch eric.

look!!  here i am on a bike, with a bike helmet on!!  this was the weekend before the race, pre-riding.  so fun.  riding bikes is fun.

eric did some weed whacking while in leavenworth

and of course we went to the munchen haus for some big bobs.

i had this for dinner not too long ago.

i went to the neurologist's today.  and i graduated!  It has been a busy few weeks with all of these graduations!  i hope i don't have to go back for summer school, but since my migraines have been pretty much non-existent, we are thinking maybe i was just going through a really bad spell.  so i am weaning off of my medication over the next week.  fingers crossed that i don't have to go back!!

this is a big pork roast

a reasonably offensive bacon wrapped dog in Leavenworth

you see that red spot that looks like a mosquito bite?  that is my allergy to cats!  gah!!!  cats!!!

this Big Green Egg has that giant pork roast from a few photos earlier in it

i am somewhat obsessed with Tilda Swinton

friday