i don't know why

she makes this face:
when she is fuly capable of making this face:

i made her the dress that she is wearing!

eric took this photo. one day she decided she wanted to wear tights. these are her birthday tights she wore when she turned one. the other day i got her up from her nap and she had taken some other tights out of the top drawer of her 6 drawer dresser and put them on all by herself. i was pretty amazed. yes, the dresser is anchored to the wall, thank goodness.

this is what happens in the house every day, at least once to each parent:





no wonder we are so tired.

i had a good surgery

i got a note in the mail today from my doctor saying that its a good thing i had surgery because the moley moley mole had atypical cells in it. ok, so i am imaginging that atypical cells are ok to have since i got a postcard and not a phone call. i imagine the doctor might tell me more about it when i get my stitches out?

seamus is at camp grandma tonight. we went and dropped her off to have a slumber party and sirus and i will go pick her up tomorrow after dinner. this evening i got to have some quality time with sirus and he just laughed and laughed. i think he now says "whats that?" when he points at stuff and he also says mama, dada, bottle, ball, duck and he can do the sign for more. all of these are of course up for debate but i am pretty sure that i am seeing and hearing what i think i am.

eric told me a funny story how he and the kids were in the car the other day and seamus was teaching sirus to talk. she would make the t sound over and over and then sirus would repeat it. when he repeated it correctly seamus would say "thats right sirus, good job" she is so funny.

i went for a trail run with heather today. 6 miles about. it kicked both of our arses. i was kind of hung over from having gone out the night before and having had 3 tasty margaritas from the cactus. those drinks were so damn tasty. i love 'em.

eric pointed out to me that my shirt with the jack-a-lope doesn't really have a jack-a-lope on it at all. instead it is just a giant bunny with a cow boy on it. yes, i do pride myself on my attention to detail skills. i still like it though, it would have been better if it was a jack-a-lope. maybe i will make a shirt like that and it will be how eric and i make out millions. maybe instead we will make a shirt with the pawpi-lope on it instead.

even more hate

so, i really hate that i got sucked into the last few episodes of Rock Star Super Nova. OH MY GAWD. But i was sucked in and i watched it and was more the sligtly fascintated by it. i also hate that tommy lee is so damn hot. what is up with that? i was concered every time he stood up that his pants were going to fall off because they were so low but i guess he has things in those pants to help keep them up. i did see his wedding video, afterall.

i think that america's next top model starts next week. i can't wait!

i was going to go to the foot doctor today but my orthotics issue seems to have corrected itself. eric got me some yankz shoe laces and ever since i have started to use them my feet go into my shoes and line up perfectly with my orthotics. problem solved. awesome.

the day after my surgery i went for a little run around the neighborhood. i was feeling pretty good about that, since i had just had surgery and all. when i was being operated on i asked the doctor about all the twitching i was having after i gave blood last time. she says it was most likely due to an electrolyte issue and maybe some dehydration tossed in there, too. that would makes sense since i am no longer twitching.

big plans for the weekend? i can't remember if i have any or not! well, that is boring.

surgeried on today

today i went to the doctors. i thought i was just going but then my doctor said that actually i was having surgery. wow, that is pretty nutty. so i had my surgery and am now back home recovering. actually, my doctor is just pretty funny. i had a mole removed but since it was being all cut out and i got two stitches she said that it is technically surgery and that i should milk it for all it is worth. next week i need to milk the fact that i will have to go get my stiches out.

we did the last triathlon of our triathlon season yesterday. i did not want to go. i was so exhausted and i pretty much rolled out of bed and into the water. it turned out to be fun and i did pretty well. at least i felt pretty good, placing is another story. i came in 25th in my age group out of not too many more then that. mission accmolished though, i felt good when it was done. eric came in 11th overall and 4th in his age group. he had the fastest bike time overall, came in 7th in the run but then managed a 120th in the swim. out of 316 men, that is still pretty good.

the past few nights i have actually fallen asleep quite easily. we have The Stick and i have been using it right before bed. i still have all the ice packs in the bed, too, but i haven't taken and aleve or anything and its been pretty good. maybe i have a circulation issue?

i had an accident over the weekend where the computer wound up broken. so i went and bought us a new one. its nice. its not too high tech and will basically do just what we need it to. it was a pain in the arse trying to get it hooked up to the information super highway but eric did the job and got it taken care of.

i bought a shirt with a jack-a-lope on it and i got some chuck taylors for sirus. i also got the kids some running pants, ya know, to go running. seamus has had her's on ever since i brought them home. she is so funny. when she saw my new gaping wound, well there are stitches so its not gaping and there is a bandaid so really, when seamus saw my bandaide she got very concerned, wrinkled her brow and said - oh you have an owie. she is very funny.

later this week i go to the foot doctor for some help with my orthotics and then next week maybe i will have more surgery. i am going to a dermatologist to discuss my options surrounding the thing growing off the end of my nose. eric says my mustache is not really there and is instead a shadow caused by the growth. the doctor will let us know if he is indeed right or not. if he is not and i really do have that crazy hairless mustchew, the doctor should be able to help. while i am sure her job can be totally grosser then gross at times, her schedule is to die for, she works mondays, tuesdays and thursdays but only every other week. what is that?

american idol

when i audition for american idol some day i will sing ceclia by simone and grafunkel for my audition.

i just ate a mystery cheese stick thing that does not require refridgeration. it was packaged next to a peperoni flavored beef stick. it was damn tasty.

why? i will tell you why.

i didn't buy the dress because it was like $345 and that was too much at the time but maybe i should have gotten it - more on that later.

so wednesday night racing was fun. weird but fun. i felt like i was in highschool again. it was strange but i got to hang out with eric and his friends. on the way there i wondered out loud to eric if his friend loren would notice and comment on my new hair. last time i had my hair done we went to a party and loren commented that it looked nice. that was in december i think and that was also the last time i saw loren. sure enough he commented again and eric and i had a little laugh about it. it made me happy though.

thursday we took seamus to gymnastics. her coach is Sheila and she is a little freaky but seems pretty nice. the first lesson we learned is to not take seamus into the building until right before her class starts. she saw all of the amazing things to do and went crazy. everyone thought she was scared and didn't want to do it but no, it was that she wanted to start running around and it wasn't time yet. it was only seamus and a little boy in her particular class although there were a bunch of other kids there. it will be interesting to see what happens. seamus needs to learn how to wait and take her turn. that is one thing she is not very good at.

friday morning we headed out to mt hood for chad and charity's wedding. first we had to go to yakima to drop the kids off at eric's parents. 5 minutes after we left the house eric mentioned that maybe we should have brought the wet suits to go for a mtn lake swim but we decided against turning around. an hour later i realized that we did not bring eric's suit. we would have to stop in yakima and get him something to wear. hours later we got to eric's parent's and dropped off the kids and then went shopping. we found him some snazzy pin stripe pants and a salmon colored shirt. he didnt like the shirt but too bad. we also got him a new belt.

finally, 7 hours after we left the house we got to the timberline lodge. it was so awesome although our room smelled a bit like pee. we changed our clothes and headed off for a run. we decided to run to the silcox hut which was a mile away and at 7000 ft. we started at 6000 ft. at about 6050 ft we stopped running and walked the rest of the way. it was very beautiful there. afterwards we went swimming and realized that doing anything at altitude is rediculously difficult. we met up with the laylands only to find out that they forgot their clothes, too, which is funny to me. we all had dinner and some beers and then met up with the drunken bride and groom to be. i slept horribly.

in the morning we went and had some tasty breakfast and headed out for a hike. this time we chose a 5 miler with no mention of elevation although there was quite a bit on the way back. then we went for a swim and then had some lunch and then relaxed until it was time for the wedding. the ceremony was beautiful, right in front of the huge mountain. lots of girls there had bra straps and other under garments were making appearances and the lady that sat infront of us had a spider in her hair.

we had some tasty wine at cocktail hour and then the reception started. dinner was awesome and the wine was flowing. eric finally managed to get us up dancing. the best part of the evening was when eric went up to the dj to make a request and when he finally go around to playing it announced that the request was made by the guy in the salmon colored shirt. he is my favorite dj.

more later.

more hate, and some love, too

i hate that i kind of like snoop dog. maybe i like to see him in movies but not really his music. maybe that is it. i definitly like to seem him in starsky and hutch in just hi boxer shorts because he is the tiniest man in the world.

i hate that last week i cried at work. twice. oh my god, it was terrible. the worst and to make it even worse i cried on the phone to my boss. oh my god, talk about humiliating. thank god that i am now on vacation. for a week plus the extra day for labor day. ugh, what a mess. i am so embarrassed and its just so lame.

i got my hair done. every 9 months to a year i get around to getting my hair done. i had it done back in december so i was due. i had the faboulous duo of richard and james dean work on my color and cut. richard is my new best friend. we are both totally grossed out by richie sambora, denise richards and kid rock. we both love america's next top model. the best part about richard is that i told him i wanted a good hair make over and that they could do whatever they wanted just as long as it didn't make my face look fat. after he washed the color stuff out and was putting my hair in the turban he said to me very sincerely that he thinks its funny that i woul be so concerned about having a fat face because my face was the futhest thing from being fat. he is my new best friend. james dean was awesome as well i think he did the whole cut using a straight blade. i wasn't really expecting it to be so short but its not too bad. james dean is a little asian man who works out and has a little bit of facial hair. he doesn't talk much and when he did i could barely hear him. i think he is pretty shy because the girls next to us were trying to get all chatty with him and he seemed to be getting embarrassed the whole time. while i am not sure that he is a new best friend, i do think he is my new hair cutter.

seamus is getting so tall. her jeans that she got at the beginning of the summer that were falling off of her are now on the verge of being too short. we took her to the zoo on monday. she almost didn't get to go because she hit me. she didn't just hit me, she was wailing on me. so not cool. but we eventually got her to apologize so she got to go. sirus slept. but seamus saw a giraffe that was "really, really, really, really tall." a lot of the animals were out and about so it was a fun visit for us all.

later in the day we filled up the pool and seamus and sirus played for hours it seemed. a friend from work gave us an awesome treadmill but we have no where to put it, so its on the patio under the deck. this actually works pretty well because i was able to run on it but also be in pretty much arms reach of the kids while they played. it made the time go by quick. we have a tarp for the treadmill for when it rains but really we haven't had much rain yet. it will likely have to make its way into the garage.

we went and saw a bunch of people's babies recently. we saw sunna last friday, oliver on sunday and i saw zander yesterday. man, there are a lot of babies going on.

tonight is the last wednesday night mtn bike race of the season until the cyclocross wedneday nights start up. my mom is coming to watch the kids and i am going to head out with eric for some social interaction and adult beverages. tomorrow is seamus's first gymnastics class! i hope she has fun.

we are headed to mt hood this weekend for chad and charity's wedding. we are leaving the kids at grandma and grandpa's and it will be two nights away! oh my goodness. yesterday after getting my hair done i stopped in at betsy johnson. i hate that place but managed to exercise some self restraint i found an awesome dress that i was totally digging but managed to not buy it. it was pretty rocking though.maybe te dress wasn't as flattering as i thought? maybe it was the platform stilettos they let me try on with it that made me look extra tall? maybe it was the lighting that made my shoulders and collar bone be acentuated or maybe it was that awesome mirror there that makes you look totally awesome in anything you put on at that damn store.

instead i imagine i will wear my standard wedding attire. its betsey johnson, too, but i have managed to wear it to adam's wedding, nathan's wedding, derek's wedding and now i will wear it to chad and charity's too. i think actually that i wear betsey johnson to everyone's wedding - luan's, nate and andrea, mark d's. those three were at least different dresses, all that have made appearances at various other events. i even almost wore a betsey johnson dress to my own wedding reception except that i don't know if bright red would have been totally appropriate?

ok thatis all for now. eric and seamu sare outside. eric is working on his cross bike and seamus is playing with a cheerios's race car. sirus is napping. ok, later.

is she ready?

i think she might be. seamus starts gymnastics next week. after today's display of agility, i think she is ready.

yes, that is the wall that she has her feet on. she kept telling us that she was exercising.


and if you were wondering, this is what "playing cushions" looks like:

hate

there are a few things i hate. one being that i loved watching hell's kitchen and i hate that the season is now over. that show was pretty much dumb but i watched it religiously every week.

so it turns out i was the last official finisher. we know there were more that either dropped out or just came in after me because i had passed those people that never passed me again and the girl with the broken elbow was still waiting for her friend to finish when we left. like i said, i am ok with coming in last. there was a woman there who finished 50th overall, 8th among women, at 2:16 who was the overall winner of the women at the Seafair tri. she was only 6:31 per minute faster then me. ha!

we had the nicest evening last night. i was so tired when i got home and still really sore. but we loaded up the kids and walked down to the u village for dinner. seamus ran the whole way down and was really good at dinner. the food was awesome the atmosphere was great, we had an awesome waiter who asked seamus directly if she wanted grated parmesian on her penne, and seamus was really well behaved. after we went to the play area and she and sirus went nuts just running around and climbing up and sliding down and having a great time. then we walked home. it was just so relaxing.

i have made some sleeping changes that seem to be helping. my left foot hurts when i go to sleep i will start to doze off and then they start twitching and it wakes me up and then they start aching and then my legs and then its just terrible and it seems to be in my wrists a lot lately too. the left foot has been an issue ever since highschool. it doesn't happen when i take naps during the day, only at night time. so i usually get up and take something. lately though, nothing seems to help and it was getting really bad. so, my new thing is icepacks in the bed. I just lay them in the bed and rest my foot and leg on them while i doze off and it seems to be working quite well. the past two nights i have gotten some pretty good sleep and i haven't had to take any pain medicine at all. hooray!hopfully it will last. i still seem to be having this weird kind of upper body twitch that i don't seem to understand. i gave blood a few weeks back and it has been happening ever since then. i have no clue.

17 free sandwiches

right now we are 5 of 7 towards our 17th free sandwich. do you know how many sandwiches that is? 117 that we have paid for plus 16 free ones. that is a lot of sandwiches!

looks like i can post photos again

the progressions of sirus at the JC Penny photo studio

there would have been some at 2 weeks but they LOST them

here he is at 1 month




here he is at 2 months




i have some at 3 months but i can't find them and i totally missed 6 months

here he is at 9 months!





and now the little guy is almost 10.5 months old!

13 miler

all week i have been feeling not quite right i'm not pregnant, it turns out, so that is good. but it leaves mewondering why i have been feelign the way i have. all week i debated about the 13 mile trail run on saturday. i decided to do it but debated up until the time they sent us off whether it was really a good idea. here is how the race went.

i start out the race thinking ideally i would like to come in at 2:30 but realistically i think 3:00 would be more on target.

Pre-race meeting: they tell us there is 2700 ft of vertical, they tell us there is a water station at 3 and 9 miles. they say at mile 10 there is 600 ft of vertical in that mile so to make sure to be ready for it but then after it the rest is flat or downhill.
they send us off.
15 minutes into the race - there is a hill, the same one from the 5 miler i had done a while back
20 minutes in: i am thinking this was a really bad idea
35 minutes in: i hit the 3 mile water station. eric, the kids and the photographer are here. eric took some pictures.
42 minutes in: i stop to pee on the side of the trail
1:07 in: i am starting to feel pretty good and think this is actually going to be ok. i catch a girl who asks me the time and i tell her i think we are probably a little over 5 miles in. she doesn't believe me but i think that is where we are. about this same time i set my new goal to hit the 9 mile mark at 2:00
1:48 in: i am thinking i might not get to 9 miles by 2:00 since the trail does not look to be heading in any direction where there might be a water station. about this time, i think, ok, next year, i will come better trained, less vertigoed and i will kick some ass.
2:20 in: i start heading up hill. seriously up hill, like so up hill that its straight up switch backs and they are kicking my ass. i think - is this the hill that was supposed to be at mile 10? did they close down the water station because i was taking so long? i was totally ok with that idea i keep going straight up. it never ends. i have to stop a few times, i almost start to cry because it just keeps going and going. i don't cry because if i did two things would happen: i would wind up totally bawling and then i would never get out and the other is that i would then be "they cryer", ya know, the person who isn't hurt but is crying anyway. at this point i decide to screw coming back next year and instead i will drop out at the 9 mile water station.
2:40 i get to the water station and am like "what the fawk!" 40 minutes past my revised goal. ugh. i hang out, have a pretzel, joke with the lady there, some guy tells me that that hill was the big hill and there aren't any more, the lady assures me there isn't anything tramatic in the last4 miles. i grab some more water, some more pretzels and head out. i tell them it will be another hour until they see me at the finish.
2:54 they are big fat liers!!! there is that 600 ft climb. i go way slow, slowere then slow, slower then the slowest of all slow. then i get to the top.
here is when i lost track of time pretty much. i take up a new tactic where i will run for 5 minutes and then walk for 5. it turns into run for like 2 and walk for like 15. i get to some markings on the trail where there are arrows and ribbons pointing in both directions and i just stood there for the longest time tryingt o figure out what to do. i pick my route and run into some horses who say i am almost done. i hit one last water station and they say its .6 miles to the finish. i can run .6 miles! ok, apparantly i couldn't, but i did run most of it.
3:40 i finish. there was no feeling of releif, there was no feeling of great accomplishment. i just wanted to sit down. seamus and i walked to the car. she wanted to watch the water run down the parking lot. and i just couldn't stand up any more so i sat on the ground and she wound up sitting with me.
the two people who came in right before me was a man who was doing the race in tevas and a woman who broke her elbow and cracked her hip mtn biking three weeks earlier. i as not last, i don't think, but i very well could have been the last finisher. i had passed some people at the three mile water station that didn't pass me later but we did not stick around to see if they ever finished.
today i feel sore but suprisingly ok. i tend to kick myself in the left ankle when i am tired so i have a bruise there and i have a really big blister UNDER a callous on that same foot. i have a few other blisters as well, but luckily i didn't discover them until after the race. they did their job and did not pop.
so, i might not do this event next year, but i do think i might try the seattle 1/2 marathon in november. the danskin triatlon is next weekend, the issaquah triathlon is the weekend after that and then the escape from the rock, mercer island is september 10. then i can rest and decide about the 1/2.

oh my gawd

i think i have the vertigo again. this is so not good. last night around 930 the room just started spinning. round and round it went. and round and round it is still going. its not as bad right now that i am at my desk and not moving at all, but once i do anything it makes me want to puke.

as i was leaving to come to work eric sent me off with these parting words: maybe you are pregnant again.

this scares me because i got the vertigo very early in both of my previous pregnancies. i think i am going to cry and then throw up.

the drama, oh the drama

since there isn't anything on tv right now except for the number one comedy, 2 and 1/2 men, oh my gawd, how can that be the #1 comedy? how could charlie sheen be nomintated for an emmy? what is going on? i decided to fill ya'll in on the drama.

i bought a sewing machine and have been sewing a bunch i made seamus a pair of pants and two dresses. i had ordered the fabric a long long time ago and even cut out the patterns but never got around to it. so now they are done. just the one dress needs some buttons.

eric went on a mtn bike ride with his friends yesterday. he left the house at 730am. he got home at 930pm. the ride was 3 hours long. what was the other 11 hours for?

while eric was out seamus and the neighbor girl were playing in the backyard. i was back there watching them play and taking photos and all was great. until the neighbor girl fell off the slide and hit her head on the cement retaining wall. blood was squirting everywhere. luckily her dad was right there. she stopped crying as soon as they went home and she wanted to come back and play with seamus but everyone stayed indoors the rest of the day. she turned out to be ok but man, i am so overly protetive and paranoid about that stuff and then boom, i was sitting there watching as it happened. it makes me feel terrible. i am glad she is ok. she wa over here playing in the yard again today, so that is good at least.

my car is in the shop. yeah, we all know that. its been like 20 days now. i called vw and told them i was lemon lawing them. they are looking into it. their customer care people are so awesome. and the people at the dealership where i bought the car have been really great, too. except when at first they weren't going to give me a loaner car. but they have been really helpful so its been good. now i am faced with if they buy the car back from me, what kind of car do i want? i could do it all over again. that vw eos looks pretty fun but that's not around until september i think. i do like the passat, though. we will see. all i know is that i don't really trust getting it back on day 29.

i signed seamus up for some gymnastics classes. it will be interesting. its for 2 1/2 - 3yr olds and does not involve parental participation. eric will be taking her on thursday mornings. i will go to her first one though. i hope she has fun. she is pretty advanced in all the physical stuff already so it might not be challenging for her that way but she will have to take turns and there will be other kids there, too.

eric, the kids and i went on an aproximate 9 mile run on saturday. it was actually not that bad. until saturday and sunday night when we have both had terrible insomnia.

for dinner tonight seamus had a very spicey bratwurst. it was really spicey but she just ate it no problem. she is a funny one.

we took the kids to a baby and kids modeling and talent agency and they want to sign up sirus. seamus's screaming and running around when they tried to see how tall she was didn't really impress them, but sirus layed the charm on pretty thick as he tends to do. we will have to see what happens next, if anything.

everyone is having babies. starla had hers this weekend, and david and stephanie had theirs, too. erik's is on its way, craig and jean had theirs just a few weeks ago and luan's and also mikki's will be coming here pretty soon, too. so that is 6 babies. that doesn't include kathleens, jamie's, bradie's or brandy's all from earlier this year, or rena's a bit later. add onto that my sister's friends john and rajesh and the population just doubled.

ok, that is all.

bye bye

so this morning, after waking up all cranky and sick with what seems to be a fever and a running, snotty nose, sirus said what we are pretty sure were his first words! eric was holding him and i gave them kisses and i waved and said bye bye and sirus semi-waved back and said bye bye, too!! eric an di looked at him and that each other and were both like - hey - did we just hear that!

this moring sirus and i played donuts. its a new game that i think he made up this morning. i sit on the floor and he brings me the colored plastic donuts that stack on the thing, ya know the toy i am talking about? so he gives me a donut and then he would take it away. turn to the side and then turn back and give it back to me. this was apparently a lot of fun.

seamus plays cushions. that is a game where she takes all if the cushions off of the couch and does whatever with them. last night she told me she didn't want to play cushions.

on sunday she told me she loved me, but i didn't hear it. i was busy talking to my mom and she said somethign and hugged me and then turned to my mom and said the same thing to her and hugged her. my mom heard it and said she was saying that she loved us. i wish i could hear it.

so, the word of digital cameras is great. you can take 100807 photos and really the only thing you pay for is the initial investment of your camera. i got an email from a friend who stored their family photos on their computer and their computer recently died. they lost all of the ir photos from the past two years, including all of the ones of their son's birth and everything since then. eric kind of makes fun of me for making 237874589273 copies of our photos and stashing those copies in various locations like my office and work and the safety deposit box, but once those photos are gone, they will never come back.

my car is still in the shop.

how lame

so, i havn't said anything in a while. partyly because i have been really busy and partly because it won't let me load photos and that annoys me. but this morning i just had to comment on one of the most disappointing things i have heard in a long long time. floyd landis tested positive. that is so annoying. sheesh!

lets see what else is annoying? my car has been in the shop since last wednesday and they have no idea what is wrong with it. lemon? what i am i going to do. at least i have a loaner.


lance bass is gay. that is not lame, just obvious. if you didn't see it coming then you are lame.

seamus is talking up a storm, like real serious sentences now. it is so crazy. i love to hear her say real things. she is amazing. i have so much more to say but i have to get a bunch of stuff done and wanted to express my annoyance.

huge headache

my head hurts a lot. its a tension headache i think. its been hurting pretty much since last night when i went to bed.

friday - eric asked if he could go mtn biking. since i had been gone the previous two days and will be headed out of town here again in another week or so, i said ok. i took seamus and sirus to the park for a while which was fun. when it was time to leave seamus took off running. i had sirus in the stroller and was wearing flip flops and you would never beleive how fast an almost 2.5 yr old can run when headed down the middle of a caldesac headed straight towards an intersection. boy did she get in trouble for that one. i yelled and yelled and told her we won't ever come back to the park if she does that. she just sat there and didn't say a word. i was so freaked out by the whole thing. it was terrible. ugh.
eric had also asked if he could go mtn biking on saturday. i agreed since his lover russel was in town and he and the boys needed some good man love in the woods. seamus, sirus and i took a walk to the uvillage to return some stuff and we stopped in and they both got hair cuts. they were both so good and look really cute with their new doo's. sirus got some hair gel, too which is funny. they got into their first fight, too. seamus had a balloon and sirus wanted. they were both in the stroller and he kept reaching over seamus to get to it and she kept freaking out. if she knew how to say "he's touching me!!" i am sure she would have. anyway, she was screaming and he was crying the big old crocodile tears and next thing you know seamus let go of the balloon and off it went. problem solved. everyone stopped the crying and yelling and everything was better.
sunday was the xterra. i was not really in the mood for it. i am feeling fat and tired and slow. eric wasn't so sure about it either since all of the loving from the guys the day before left him dehydrate, thrashed and 10 pounds lighter then when he started out earlier that day. he was not in good shape. but we went anyway.
the swim was twice as long as any i had done and even though the water was super smooth, a lovely color and just really nice, i for some reason could not convince myself to swim crawl. i started out and went for just a little but then started with breast stroke and kept at it. i have to get this swimming thing figured out.
out onto the mtn bike portion i was pretty excited. it was a two lap, 12 mile course that started with a big road climb. it kicked my arse. the single track was fun and the first 1/2 of the loop wasn't very technical. there was an amazing view of mt rainier and then into the woods we went. the 2nd half was a little more technical with lots of giant logs a few tricky downhill sections and a drop off right at the end. on the 2nd lap i had a total crash which was pretty funny. i was coming up to a log that i knew i couldn't clear so i clipped out, stood on my other foot and was closing into a stop. but then something got stuck in my back spoked and i went down. there i was laying on top of the log with my bike on top of me wondering what happened. as i was entering the transition area, the leaders were already done. that was a little disheartening but oh well. the run started with a pretty big climb so i walked that. at the top of the climb i saw eric coming down headed towards his finish. that was kind of neat! i started running. after a while i had to pee so bad i didn't know what to do! i was contemplating stopping just when i saw someone a little a head of me! so i kept going and passed her. then i couldn't stop because then she might pass me again! i was so close to last overall that i couldn't stop! i thought that maybe i would run the first 10 minutes and then walk for a few but i kept running - especially after i passed that lady. finally i headed to the home stretch! i was so happy to be done. i think it was one of the most challening things I had ever done. i was so tired that when we got home i had to lay down. today i am so sore. i haven't been this sore sine the first time i tried snowboarding.
here are some photos that eric sent me.

i don't want to hear that song no more

so, i just got back from la. it was a really great trip. i have a new boss now. i was pretty concerned about the whole thing but after meeting him i think it is going to be very good.
lets get back to that - its been a while since my last post so i will see what i can do about getting everyone updated and i apologize if i repeat.
my brother came for a visit. hooray! it was good to see him. we only hung out for a little bit but as always it was pretty fun. my mom was there and christie and jon came too and we all got to meet rick's girlfriend, so that was good, too.
after rick left jen came for a visit! she brought her bf brian. the last time i saw them was at the hs reunion in 2002.

here are some photos from that reunion. not of jen and brian but of some of our other classmates.















it was so great to have jen for a visit! even though it had been so long since we had hung out it was like old times, maybe even better. she is awesome. we met up with our friend goat from HS, too. he hasn't changed one bit. what a great guy! i have known him longer then pretty much anyone other then my family which is kind of crazy. one of the days luan from work took us out on his boat. it was very fun. what the hell? i am trying to load some photos from their visit but it won't let me. so lame. anyway, it was good times. jen took seamus for a ride in the convertible and seamus wasn't as interested in that as i thot she maybe would be. i on the other hand thought it was very fun. it was about 7342 degreed for their visit which never happens in seattle in june. i loved it and i now have some nasty growth on my arm that i am going to the doctor on monday to get checked out. it is the melanoma?
we got a 4.5 day weekend over the 4th of july holiday which was very delux indeed. we took the kids to my moms on friday to go swimming. one of the days i went for a 7 mile run and then another day i went on a 6 mile trail run. how fun is that? i was all amazed with myself. i slept a lot over the weekend and i sat in the sun a lot, too. it i am going to have the melanoma i better get my money's worth since my insurance will make me pay for 20% of my hosptial bill. but now i am tan - more tan then i have been since i was in costa rica. i am loving it. eric even says that my mustache isn't as noticeable any more - ya know the mustache that he told me before that he couldn't see.
we went and got some family portraits. can't wait to get them back!
on the 5th i woke up super early to head to la. i went out to get in the car at 445am and my neighbor was there standing on his driveway. he said he was waiting for the newspaper. he is a crazy man. he is going to do the exterra with us this weekend! hooray!
the flight to la was mostly uneventful except that the guy sitting next to me reeked of alcohol and shaved his arms. the stubble was growing in - arm stubble is not pretty.
we got the rental car with the Never Lost, typed in the office address and it took us a route neither of us had ever gone before. that is fine but what made it great was that it took us to the one freeway on ramp in all of LA that was closed. whatever.
i can't really remember anything else about that day except that i went to the hotel and watched a lot of TLC - real stories of the ER.
the next morning i got to meet with the new boss. so cool, i am very excited about the whole thing. hopefully i made a good first impression.
on the flight home i got bumped to first class and sat right behind smokey robinson. he is in town playing at the emerald queen casino. the lady that was sitting in the seat accross the row from him told him how she really liked it when stevie wonder was on american idol. what he? regardless, what a dumb thing to say.
the kids were asleep when i got him but sirus was so huge when i checked on him. seamus was so snuggled in her bed it was adorable and then i went to sleep.

one up me

so eric always has to one up me. when i crashed on my bike at the bear tracks and beez wax mtn bike race a long time ago and the end of my handle bars rammed into my sternum to the point where i couldn't breathe, i called eric and he told me how he crashed up at the test of metal and tore off his leg.
when i swallowed a fish bone and had to go to the ER and i had to be totally put under to have it taken out, eric put some rusty metal chunks in his eye ball and had to go to the ER in the middle of the night to have them taken out.
after having sirus when we were still in the hospital, even though i was the one with the swollen yoohoo and guts coming out everywhere and having my motherly parts chewed on nonstop, eric was the one who was more uncomfortable because the weird chair they had in the room for the dad was vinyl and he kept sticking to it because he tried sleeping on it in just his boxers (which i couldn't understand at all)
when i was so excited about finishing my first triathlon eric came home from the trail run race only to have come in 10th overall and 5th in his age group.
when i finished 3rd in my age group at my next triathlon, eric went and did his first triathlon a week or so later and won the whole thing. he came in 1st overall. oh the frustration of always being one upped.
but here are some photos from the most recent triathlon. i love the one of me crossing the finish line with the double chin and belly rolls. i will always be able to one up eric at looking bad. the goal for my next race - do better on the swim and look less horrid in my running photos. eric says it looks like i am using my head to slow myself down - leaning back to come to a stop. he might be right. why is my shirt flying up like that though?

people i want to hang out with

Barney from How I Met Your Mother
House from House
Wilson from House
Willie Wonka - the Johnny Depp one
Captain Jack Sparrow - the Johnny Depp one
Johnny Depp, but WW and CJS need to be there, too, as their own people
Ed Deline from Las Vegas
- I would actually like to work at the Montecito with all those people except for Mary because she is gross
Will Farrell as himeself and probably as Buddy, too

i hope my gut instinct is wrong this time

so, i had some eggs for lunch today and i have a feeling that maybe they were old and bad. they tasted fine so lets keep our fingers crossed.

i also got a free treadmill and sold a bunch of crap!

when i am good, i am so good

lets see. i went to california last week. it was so warm and sunny that i almost started to cry when i first stepped out of my hotel. i am so sun deprived it is rediculous. i went swimming at the club next to the hotel on wednesday evening. pool swimming is so nice. the water is clear, there isn't any poo on the bottom, but i have noticed the occasional ball of hair that floats by which is gross but not quite grosser then gross. wednesday night i had asparagus, snow peas and cheesecake for dinner. can't beat that.
thursday morning i went to the club next to the hotel and ran on the treadmill. treadmill running is now one of my favorite things. ok, that is pushing it, but it is fun because I can watch my progress some.
no comment about being in the office. i will do that some other time but it was good to see everyone.
we all went out to dinner and i got relatively hammered. i haven't done that in a long time. i even did a shot which i really haven't done in a really long time.
i had to get up at 530 to get to the airport to catch my flight. i felt a little dizzy but not bad. once i got home though i realized that felt dizzy simply because i was still drunk and once i got home the hangover was taking over. splitting headache and just all around not feeling good plus i was exhausted. seamus was so cute though because she told me over and over again that she missed me. that made my day! mom stopped by late that evening because eric was going to take her to the airport to pick up rick and his girlfriend. i passed out.
on saturday, i woke up at 530 again to head out to triathlon #2. I was no longer drunk or hung over but i dind't want to do the race. like really really didn't want to do it. i was totally freaked out about the swim since the last one was so horrible. i kept telling charity that i didn't think i was going to do it and i was trying to find some way to bail on it. next think ya know, its 10 minutes to start time, i am in my wetsuit and at the start. the guy running it was so awesome in that he asked who wasn't a very good swimmer and then suggested to all those who raised their hands to move to the back and to just let the others head out a little bit before going out. this helped so much! and combined that with that the water was so much more calm then lake washington has been i actually had fun on the swim! only once did i start to think about the possiblity of their being horrible things on the bottom and that was only a very quick thought. i came out of the swim and was able to actually prance my way up onto the beach and run to the transition area - something i was not able to do last time. i jumped on my bike and was on my way. the bike ride was fun, it was a two lap course and i was only caught by two of the guys who had started 5 minutes ahead of my field. eric installed a computer for me so i was able to keep track of time and speed and all of that. then it was off on the run. i started out slooooow. like - was i really running? but then after probably 10 minutes i started to pick it up. since i was going so slow i had decided that the 3 miles would likely take me over 30 minutes and i told myself that any time over 30 i would go as fast as i possibly could. i wound up rounding the corner and heading toward the finish only to see eric, seamus and sirus by the fence with seamus jumping up and down yelling "run mommy run" and i was totally inspired. she is so amazing and to see her so excited to see me running like that made me so happy! i picked up the pace and finished! I finished the run in 26 minutes which was amazing to me! i was so happy to see seamus and eric and sirus and i felt so good. hooray! to top it off, i came in 3rd in my age group and they announced my name and gave me a little trophy which i now have sitting on my desk at work. I think now that maybe i will take it home and give it to seamus.
after the race we came home, eric went for a bike ride and run, the kids took a nap, i layed on the deck and then took a nap. when eric came home he and seamus cleaned out seamus's pool and even though the water was so cold and the air was kind of cold too, seamus splashed around in there.
sunday we went for a short family jog and then did some shopping. then everyone came over for a BBQ - christie and jon, mom and rick and his gf. seamus wanted her "wet suit" on so she could go in the pool, so even though we were all in sweatshirts there she was splashing around having a great time. it was so fun to hang out with everyone!

they are GONE

we went swimming in lake washington yesterday after work. it was eric, charity, lindsey and me. it was kind of cold but much better then last time. it was pretty wavey, too, but with all of us there it was pretty fun. i didn't panic at all and we swam in deeper water this time and it was ok. we talked to some guy who was also out there. it was funny because he was foreign but was telling us the distances in yards and we were trying to convert them to meters. he asked what we were training for and i said the 5 mile lake triathlon and he thought i said the 5 mile leg of a triathlon. he was all impressed with us for about 1/2 a second and the we got it all figured it out. i hope we can all go out again sometime soon!
so after the swim we went home, played with the kids some, put them to bed, watched some reality show team fear factor which was actually pretty entertaining and then i took a shower. this is when i noticed that my boobs were totally gone. where did they go? they were GONE. i showed them to eric, much to his delight, and he said they were still there but they are not even close to being there the way they have been in recent months. luckily this morning, i woke up and at least my right one deicded to come back. i don't know how i feel about all of that.
the other issue i am having right now is my mustache. people keep telling me it is all in my head and i keep saying, no its right there on my face. its not a hair mustache but more a skin discoloration mustache. they talk of the mask of pregnancy which can cause some stuff like that, but ya know, i am so not pregnant right now and i didn't have it when i was pregnant. dude, it is so not cool. i am wondering if the small amount of sun that i have been exposed to could be making it stick out?
i am headed to LA here in about 5 minutes. ok, so i am headed to the airport so i can go to LA in about 5 minutes. i come back on friday. my brother is coming for a visit on friday! horray! but i will be arricing at the airport about 12 hours before he does.

that was my pitty party, but here are the photos

i tried to email myself

27 megs worth of photos but it didn't work. it was full of giant photos that i wanted to post here. i will try again tonight or tomorrow or somehow i will get them posted.
i can't remember friday night other then that eric went and got us a cheesecake. ugh he is intsistent on sabotaging all of my weight loss efforts.
on saturday jenifer was in town from colorado (formerly of CA, formerly of Seattle) and some of the girls met up for brunch at the hi-life. it was damn tasty. eric went and ran the cougar mountain trail run. it was the 2nd race in the series and was 7.5 miles. eric came in 10th overall and 5th in his age group. he had only run 7.6 miles once before and that was on wednesday so it was pretty impressive. we are now seriously considering bagging the xterra on july 9th all together and doing the 10 miler that is july 8th. we will have to see for sure but it is pretty impressive and he had a lot of fun.
saturday afternoon lindsey, mo and amelia come for a visit. seamus wasn't so sure about having another baby in the house but amelia and sirus seemed very interested in each other. amelia is so cute with big hazel eyes! so fun and it was great to see mo and lindsey as always!
sunday morning i woke up in a big old funk and cried and cried about how i am worthless and incompetant, and the best i will ever be at anything is bad to mediocre. eric tried to cheer me up by telling me how i do such a good job keeping the house all together and everything and i had to ask him when the last time anyone ever stopped by to tell me how i did such a great job on that last load of laundry. i am old and flabby, i can't lose the last 5 pounds, i don't make enough money, i have no real job skills and all in all i just suck.
to that, eric told me to get out of bed, we loaded up the kids and we went for a jog. we ran to greenlake and around the lake for a total of 6 miles then we stopped at the park and let seamus play for a while. it was fun and i felt better but i am still feeling pretty damn inadequate as a mother, a wife, an employee and person in general. i hate being so damn mediocre.

genius child

here i am getting out of the water at the triathlon. now do you beleive me that the swim was terrible? at least i am still ahead of that guy that started 3 minutes after me! charity and i went swimming in lake washington last night and it actually went pretty well. it was very cold at first but then it got better. i got over some of the things that were causing me issues. i realized that part of why i didn't want to put my face in the water was because i just didn't really want to see what was in there. we swam in some really shallow water so i do wonder what will happen with i get to a part where i can't see the bottom. the water was pretty choppy so i decided it simulated a race quite well. charity and i did keep crashing into each other which was pretty funny - we think her left arm is stronger and my right arm is stronger but we figured it out eventually. i was totally dizzy when i got out of the water and kept falling over when i was taking off the wetsuit. i also found out that my car has an alarm and i had no idea how to turn it off. cool but not cool at the same time since i was standing there on the side of a busy street in a dripping wet bathing suit with the horn of my car going crazy.





so here i am during the run. this is the one i was talking about where i was trying to not have a double chin. no double chin! but apparently while concentrating so hard on that i totally spaced on what to do with my arms. what is going on there?? pretty funny if you ask me. also, i was wearing the cliff bar jersey that eric wore when he and his team of 3 other guys won the 24 hour national championships a few years back. maybe that is why I was so fast? my knee doesn't really hurt any more so i probably don't need the brace but i keep it on there just in case.








seamus is a genius! check out this drawing she did! it pretty funny because all of those mouth lines are actually mouth parts. if you ask her she will tell you, mouth, teeth and more teeth. she is amazing. i watched her make another drawing and she says all the parts as she draws them. later she went back and colored a bit more on it and i asked her what the new thing was - "another nose" is what she told me. of course! what was i thinking? one day she was drawing circles and when i asked what she drew she looked at me like i was a total idiot for not knowing it was a circle and said matter of factly what it was. sometimes she draws ovals though.
she told me this morning that she had the hiccups. apparently she told eric several times yesterday that she farted. she told me that there was a pencil stuck in the drawer. she is talking in total sentences now. it is amazing. for some reason though she sleeps with 4 blankets in her bed. 4. that is a lot of blankets especially since she has about 2792375 stuffed animals, 45235235 books, a mirror and who knows what else in there with her. her bed is very small. what will she do when she gets a normal sized bed someday? sirus is on his way. he is starting to be very mischevious. he gets really pissed off if we put up the baby gates. if we don't have the gate up to the kitchen he will slowly make his way over there, go into the kitchen and kind of head towards you until he has determined that you might not be paying attention then he quickly turns and make a run for the cat food. if he is downstairs and sees that the gate to our bedroom is not up he makes a b-line right for it. yesterday eric even caught him going UP the stairs. he was all the way on the first step and trying to make it onto the second. that is no good. seamus is going to be so mad when we gate off the stairs and she doesn't have as much freedom any longer!

try tri

eric says that the only reason people do triathlons is that they aren't very good in any sport so that do one that consisits of muiltiples. he says this in jest, for the most part.
i did my first triathlon today and it kicked my arse. it was fun but maybe i should have listened a little more to some of the advice i had been given about the swim. my friend charity did it too. this was her 11th triathlon so she helped keep me under control before the race.
the wetsuit was great. it kept me warm and it helped keep my arse up. too back i had such a terrible swim. i made it to the first marker in crawl when i realized i was pushing too hard and needed to back off so i switched to breast stroke. big mistake. my crawl technique was terrible - for some reason i wouldn't put my face in the water. was it because i was afriad of the goose terd? was it because i was afriad i wouldn't be able to tell where i was going? whatever it was, it totally contributed to me getting too tired too soon. breast stroke was no better in that i still couldn't put my face in the water. this was terrible. i rounded the second marker and thank goodness i was as slow was i was because the front group of women totally missed the 3rd marker and headed straight for the 4th. they all had to swim back up and around. by the time i got to the 3rd maker the 35-40 men started mixing in. this did not help my situation because they started grabbing at my legs and splashing me in the face. on no! my face was getting wet!! what the hell? i finally made it to the shore and was totally spent. what a mess. the beach was totally rocky and i had no idea i had such delicate feet! once i made it to the grass i was able to sort of start running. sort of.
i made it to the transition area and remembered to take my time with the wetsuit. it came off fine. i dried my feet, put on my socks and shoes and my jersey, helmet, gloves and sunglasses and headed out. once on the bike i had so much fun! the ride was a blast! i was crusing along. i don't know how fast i was going or what what going on, but i was having fun. i had ridden this route before a long time ago and passed through the intersection that i totally plowed over this guy on my old mtn bike team. no one had gotten hurt so i had a little chuckle. i passed people on the hills and then some of the would pass me on the down hills. it was so fun. until the last two miles or so when my foot started cramping. i haven't ever had that happen on the bike. it has cramped during the swim, and it cramps during most swims, but i have never had it happen while on the bike. so i lost time there in an effort to constantly stretch it out to aviod major distaster.
once i was off the bike, running into transition the foot was fine. i changed my shoes, put on my knee brace and headed back out for the run. i had been told that my legs would feel like bricks and i never did any of the brick work outs because i had a three week taper which consisted of not exercising, but i think my foot issue and the fact that my run was starting out so mellow, my legs felt fine. most of the run was on a grassy trail which was a lot of fun. when we did hit the pavement it was so awesome to feel how easy it felt. i had told myself at the begining of the run that i would run the first 20 minutes and then re-access the situation. after 20 minutes i was feeling good so i think i even managed to pick up the pace a little, but that might just be me thinking that. i was slow but i ran the whole thing! i finshed the whole triathlon!! i am so proud of myself and i am looking forward to my next one. ok, actually, no im not because the next one has a swim that is twice as long, in salt water. i have some work to do. i will now take the advice that was given to me and i will, i have to, go for some open water swims in a non-stress environment. i have to get that under control! my new goal is to complete the whole swim in crawl. ok, well, maybe i will start with completing the swim with mostly crawl, or how about without panicking and without hyperventilating? ok, thats a good goal.
results aren't posted yet and neither are photos. i saw them with the cameras and i tried to stretch my neck so that maybe i won't have a double chin in them. we will have to see what that is all about. i am so vain, but i am ok with that.
all in all, it was totally fun and a great experience! i can't beleive i did it! eric came out to watch and to cheer me and charity on. he managed to be in several places along the course and i saw him in each leg! it was so great to have him there and that he was so supportive of my race!

clothing

i had a conversation with a co-worker in which we discussed thongs. he made the good point that thongs are the only article of clothing that are specifically designed to touch the pooper. that is a good point. i love my VPL and will not wear a thong even before this conversation.

the story behind the photo

back in 2000 i worked at a company for a short time that was run by "co-presidents". one of these presidents had a side project called MetroManUSA
of course i went to the site to check it out, had many, many laughs and then sent the link to everyone i knew. it was just way too funny to keep to myself.
i shared the link with eric and together we laughed and laughed. we laughed at the mitch , we laughed at the rocky, the jason and well, you get the picture. we liked that each one had its own name and we looked up everyone we knew. we especially laughed when we saw the dale and how patriotic it was (and currently sold out!). eric races with a guy named dale and it instantly became a big joke with us that we would get the dale and give it to him. it was just something we only talked about, until ERIC ORDERED IT!!!
it showed up at the house, from snohommish, they hand signed the packing slip with a little smiley face. eric took it to south seatac park for the wednesday night races there and put it up as the prize to whoever happened to win that night.
mid race eric was too anxious, stopped in the middle of the woods somewhere, stripped down and tossed on the dale. apparently when the real dale pedaled past erics clothes in the woods he said in his very dale voice "atwood's naked" which wasn't 100% true - he had on the dale. he did a few laps, had a great time and discovered that mountain biking in a g-string is not comfortable at all. he then poseded for a few photos and then put his clothes back on. he tied the soiled dale to the real dale's seat post and we have never seen it since.
i, of course was at home, probably pregnant and miserable. as soon as he walked in the house he said to me "before you hear it from someone else...." and then told me about his stellar race. its all in good fun. i can't remeber though if this was before or after he had his picture taken while posing like a sports illustrated swimsuit model in his pink speedo.
really, he is very manly.

random photos and stuff

my husband at one of his finer moments.












i am very tall. why is everyone so short?

there are funny things happnening in this photo
my new car!


my old car if it were covered in snow in wisconsin.

bye bye sunfire

so i am dropping the sunfire off today to its new owners. its an end of an era and i am kind of sad. i took some photos so i will post them when i can get around to it. eric took the bike rack off the roof and now the car looks all nekkid. so sad, i hope i don't cry!

diaper free weekend

but first, we had date night last night. highlights include:
the fancy hotel downtown
the stick on bra i wore under my dress
the look eric gave when he saw me all dressed up - one i had always wanted to see but he had never given, although he claims he has that look every time he looks at me, whatever
dinner. this is what we had
smokey met martini
dirty russian martini - tasted like butter, the olives were stuffed with blue cheese!
yellowfin ahi poke salad with whipped avocado
huckleberry blood orange barbeque prawns
spinach salad
tomatoe, sweet onion & blue cheese salad
a glass of red wine each
prime new york peppercorn steak - served with fries
filet mignon & premium australian lobster - served with garlic mashed potatoes
chocolate lava
five layer carrot cake with vanilla carrot cake - our server was all amazed by us. not just because of the phat tip he was going to get but because we ate everything
the table of prom kids next to us
a king sized bed
the trashy super model shows on cable tv
walking around downtown before everything opened
going shopping and getting stuff for the kids before heading home

then we came home and started diaper free weekend for seamus. in the 5 hours of diaper free weekend that we had before she went to bed, she went through 6 pairs of underpants, she peed on me, she peed on eric and peed once in the "oval on the potty" and she pooped in her underpants but then went and took it over to the potty only to tell us about how big her poopy really was. the whole time we had to try to keep sirus away from the potty because he was so interested in it the whole time. tomorrow is going to be a loooong day. i was so worn out from today that i had to take a nap and i went on a little jog - the first exercise i have done since the trail run. i am so happy that i can go out for 1/2 and hour and not feel like i am going to die.

now it is raining so hard that the sewer lines are backing up! oh no!

sleeping through the night...

results in growing teeth! i came home from work yesterday and sirus had a tooth! this morning he was cuddling in bed with me and eric and i wanted to cry. he is growing up way too fast!

ah....

happieness is sleeping through the night. not sure if sirus has been doing it, but i sure have been. tuesday night he woke up once, well, i think only once and cried for just a little, well, i think for just a little. last night he didn't wake up at all, at least i don't think her did. seamus woke up though - yelling "bottle time!" over and over. but then she stopped. seamus doesn't get bottles any more. she is a big girl, and sirus is learning to sleep through the night because he is a big boy. and wow, i feel quite well rested after these two nights. i have been exhausted!!

someone at work was giving away some cross country skis, so i picked them up for eric. they are on the floor in the living room and this morning seamus was standing on them doing funny things with her knees and arms - like she was really skiing. she is a natural! those skis are pretty long for her but never underestimate the seamus!

other exiciting news, i bot my car! finally - new car on the way. it is coming from idaho so i don't get it until tuesday. damn - that was some process and i have had a headache over the whole thing. i talked to one of the meanest audi sales people ever. he was mean, he was condesceding and he even insulted me! what is that about! i guess it was good he was such an arse because the audi was just too expensive and not the right choice for us right now, so i went with the passat. still a very nice car and i think it will work better with our life style. once i made that decision my headache went away most of the way. the passat guy has been so nice and so helpful, i have actually been dealing with him since february so i imagine he is ready to be done with me and is probably just as excited that i will have my car on tuesday as i am! hooray!

do you want to buy the sunfire? i can make you a good deal!

rainbow blankie

seamus and sirus like to be rolled up in the rainbow blanket. its really a big giant beach towel but seamus has adopted it has her rainbow blanket. she LOOOOOVES it.





Sirus had some run ins with some pee. i went to go change him before i went to work and he was totally drenched. i couldn't just put him in some clean clothes so i tossed him in the sink for a little quicky bath. how cute is he??

whoohoo!

look at me! i ran a trail run race this weekend and it was so awesome except for my double chin! it was so fun we are evening thinking about doing the next one which is 7.5miles! eric did really well and i came in right at my goal so i was pretty happy. what a great experience!! the one thing that was a little strange was that for the 250 ppl there they had only one porta potty. 25 minutes before the start we got in our car and went in search of someplace to go. we found a park that had the nicest puclib park restrooms ever. they had two options for flushing - low flow and high flow. because it was race day, we both took advantage of the high flow. aunt christie hung out with the babies!
saturday evening my mom took christie and i out to celebrate both of our birthdays and mothers day. the food was amazing and i ate a ton of it. after dinner mom wanted to go and drive by the ocean and take some photos. so christie and i acted like we were 10 and posed for the photos.









my work is sponsoring a Second Chance Prom in the bay area in which Rick Springfield will be playing. my work is going to send one employee and their date to the prom but to be eligible you have to submit a prom photo. the one with bill hanlon is from freshman year home coming the one with kirk hendrickson is from my sophomore year but his senior year. i want to go to thr prom with eric, that would be so much fun!

so much

lots going on. sort of. well, so much that i made my self a little outline of things to write about. ok, its not an outline, its a list and it will disapear as i write about each.

first off, i feel extra special this week because not only was sunday mothers day but i was mentioned in two blogs this week! that is always a treat! TWO! i am practically famous. that makes me happy!

seamus is so amazing. she is so so smart, its almost scary. for quite some time now she has known all of her letters and numbers and can count things and tell you their shape and their color. all of that is totally amazing. the new thing that is amazing is her memory. she has a stack of 52 cards that have different animals on them. there are mammals, amphibians, birds, reptiles and one other? what is that 5th one? fish, maybe? anyway, she loves to look at these cards and she knows what each of them is. if you put them on the floor and then ask her to find the mudd puppy she will find it for you. if you ask her for the red spotted newt she will find it. she can tell the difference between a canary and an american robin, a sea turtle and a giant tortiose, the tree frog and some other variety of frog that i can't remember now. she knows all of them. it is so cute to watch her while she thinks. she is amazing.

the other day eric and i were eating dinner. seamus and sirus were done so they were on the floor playing. seamus got down on her tummy just like sirus and they sat there looking eye to eye. seamus thought this was very neat and would laugh because sirus would reach out to touch her face or her hair. she would say "sirus touch the nose" and then just laugh and laugh. last night in the car they were playing together too. seamus would make sirus laugh and that in turn would make seamus laugh. there is nothing greater then hearing two laughing babies!

last night i went on my very first trail run. it was so fun. i went out for 40 minutes and the time totally flew by. i had decided it might be a good idea to try it out before we go this weekend to do the cougar mountain trail run. its supposedly 5 miles although the map on the website says it is 5.9. i won't do it if its is 5.9 but i will try it out if it is 5. who knows how far i went in 40 minutes but i felt like i could have gone longer. i would hope that i could finish the 5 miles in an hour but we will see!

on the hunt for a new car. looks like in the next two weeks! whoopee!

brick workouts

so, allie suggested i start doing some brick work outs. these work outs are when you go straight from on the bike to a run to get used to the transition and used to your legs feeling like bricks. i have not done one of these yet and i will tell you why. last week i rode my bike home from work. i did not ride it into work the next day and i didn't do anything the whole week until saturday because that ride took it out of me. sooo lame. i also seem to have some sort of weird connection between my right ear and running. my right ear has always caused some issues for me. i don't hear very well out of it and then when i got the vertigo and told my doctor about that he said, oh, that is interesting, and that maybe i should get that checked out, which i never did. anyway, at about the 30 minute mark it seems that my right ear starts to totally plug up and i can't hear anything out of it. not totally deaf just mutted and weird. is that normal?

tequila

so, for dinner tonight eric made tequila lime chicken without the lime. it is always very tasty but also always creates a lot of smoke in the kitchen and the rest of the house. so much smoke that this evening, seamus went running through the living room commenting on all of the clouds! she is getting to be very funny.

having babies for lunch

so, lots of exciting things going on in june. first - jen is coming for a visit. that is very exciting! and not only that, but we are hooking up with our friend goat! and we are going to go on a mission to try to find maria. it will be a total high school reunion. i am very excited about this whole thing, very much indeed!

second - another jen is coming for a visit! how exiciting is that! june is going to be a 2 jen month! jen and i have had our babies at pretty much the same times. she had a little girl 6 weeks after i had seamus and then she had a little boy like a week before sirus was born. they are named fiona and bruce! anyway, she is coming for a visit and we are going to have a slumber party at my house with the girls in this photo. eric OKs the slumber party but says that panties and pillow fights are mandatory.

my brother is coming for a visit in june, too! he hasn't ever met sirus and its been well over a year since he has seen seamus so this will be fun! busy busy busy!

and i am going to do my first triathlon june 3 which is terrifying for me. i have lost all motivation for training. could it be that all i ate yesterday was M&Ms and powdered sugar donuts? i have to get my consumption back on track.

and the car search is back on. it maybe happen by the end of the month! whoohoo! wouldn't that be exciting. i want a new car so badly but at the same time constantly struggle over it - its not the responsible thing to do. but hmph, maybe i just need a new car.

i am iron man

so, seamus is making some steps in becoming a grown up kid. no more bottles. she really only would have one at nap time and that was it, but since the trip to disneyland when she had one any time she pretty much wanted one, she hasn't had any. its all sippy cups. and now, too, at meal times she is using a normal cup, which today, she showed us how she can accidentally spill it all over. next on the list for seamus is potty training. we think over memorial day weekend it will be a no diaper weekend and we will just see if that will do it. there will likely be lots of crying and lots of pee all over the place but hopefully it goes ok.

sirus's new thing is getting a big mouthful of food and them blowing it all over the place. he seems to think this is pretty neat. he is also army crawling all over the place. he can get up onto his elbows and knees and rock back and forth and squel with excitement, but the army crawl is how he gets around right now.

other big news - we went and got some wetsuits today. big fun. we chose to buy instead of rent since i have already registered for 3 events this summer and will do at least one practice open water swim, too, and to rent a suit 4 times would be about 3/4 the cost of buying one. we bought one for eric, too, just so he can be cool. his has red arm pits. i am excited to try it out. i am a little less freaked out about the lake swimming now that i have tried the suit on. i do know that the guy at the place where we got them had ZERO sense of humor or maybe i am just not that funny. i think it was him.

the plan is to drive my bike into work tomorrow, ride it home tomorrow evening (if its not raining) and then ride it into work on tuesday then drive home tuesday evening. its been so long eric and i were discussing that i may have forgotten the route.

nadj puked on our bed. i sat here and yelled to eric and he came and looked at it and commented that it was a good thing it was on my side. then nadj went out and puked in the family room. eric cleaned that up but left the puke on the bed so i had to clean it up. sirus puked on the bed earlier today. i think we need to wash the bed spread.