Grocery Shopping

Well today was the day that I had to go grocery shopping. I really don't find much pleasure in it except when I see how much I saved. I am a sale + coupon junky and save big $$ because of that. Anyway, I had to take the kids with me today, which just adds another element to the whole experience. The kids are constantly asking "Mom can we get this?? Is it on sale??" Funny how they know that I don't usually buy anything that isn't on sale. Micah is getting good at looking for the yellow tags sticking out and then knows that it IS on sale and can ask for it. It is much cheaper to go by myself (the real culprit is Kevin though, b/c he doesn't even ask if we can buy it...) Halfway through the store I had to send Micah upfront to get us another cart. we were so loaded up already that things were spilling into the kids laps.

When I have the kids I have to shop with the cart that has a bench on it for two kids to sit on and even that huge bus was packed full. Micah being the helper that he is got the cart and started to unload "my" cart into "his". It was cute for about the first 30 sec, then I was getting impatient and wanted to keep moving. After we settled the cart issue, we headed on our way.

Micah being the boy that he is, thinks that pushing a cart is like driving a race car on the race track. He was flying up and down the aisles. I kept having to tell him to slow down and not run into people. The good thing is he didn't hit anyone (even though there was close call) and he had really good maneuvering capabilities.

After we piled all our food in, we headed off to the check out lines. I am always amazed that Meijers had about 30 check out lanes and only 3 are open. Unless I want to do the self check out ( with unlimited items....yeah right!) Thankfully we were walking past a lane that was just opening up and I quickly took position. Micah again was a big help by unloading everything. I felt sorry for the guy, b/c I normally try and put all the boxes together and frozen stuff together to help them bag. It didn't happen this time around. We finally get all check out (saved $148) and then we walked by the dreaded brown ride.

I know that when I was a kid I always asked for a pony ride too, I was just tired of being in the store for 2 hours (yes, 2 hours) and dealing with two carts...but how do you say "no" to a thrill that costs a penny? Being the softy that I am, all three of them got pony rides. Then it was out to the van.

There was a nice old lady that insisted that I have help getting all my groceries out to my van. The young man that was helping us insisted on loading the van too. It was really quite funny seeing his face as he was running out of room. The groceries were piled all the way up the back of the bench. Most of you know what kind of van I drive (a full sized van) and I was running out of room! So we ended up packing it upfront by me and behind the drivers seat too. Micah of course was helping through all of this. The greatest disappointment came when we had everything loaded up and Micah ran to grab the cart. He LOVES to push them as hard as he can into the cart racks (trying to get them to bang and make a really loud noise), the young man said that he would take them back into the store with him so Micah didn't need to "put them away". He was crushed. In his mind he just suffered through 2 hours of gruelling grocery shopping for nothing.

That was my afternoon/early evening in a nut shell. I don't have any pictures of the carts, although I should try and take a picture with my phone the next time. It really is quite a sight to see. Instead I will share a picture that I took the other day, of the three of them.

Okay, so my picture isn't loading up and I want to get to bed. I will post it tomorrow with a few more (if my computer works...having problems with it again).

Blessings!

Reading Time

Last night Micah sat down and read Jillian a Library book for the first time. It was so cute. There were a couple words that he didn't know, but he did a great job. I think to him it was a great accomplishment that he could read a book to Jilli.

Of course Pooh enjoyed the book too!

Blessings!

Starting back up again

Tonight I decided that I should get back on the horse and start training for the next race. My legs screamed as I pushed them to run. I wanted to run 1 1/2 miles tonight as a "starter upper" after my 3miles on Saturday. Man, was that one long mile and a half. I got back home and told Kevin that I have no idea how I ran 3 miles on Saturday, I could barely run half that tonight!

One thing I do love to look at as I am running is all the trees that are in bloom right now. Spring is such an amazing time of year. Everything starts new again. The kids discover bugs all over again. Just tonight Tyler was all excited about seeing a black ant. They like to watch black ants work, but if they see a red one they scream and come running. Last year while hiking in Grand Haven I stopped to wait for the family to catch up. I didn't realize I was standing on a red ant nest. They crawled up my shoe and stung me. I screamed, and since then the kids have had an aversion to red ants.

I think ants would be a good subject for school tomorrow. We will see what kind of fun facts we can find about ants. Have a good night!

Blessings!

I ran and I am still here to tell you about it!

I woke up Saturday morning to a beautiful sunny morning. It was pretty cool outside, but great for running. My neighbor and one of my partner's in crime, Marla, picked me up at 7am. We headed off to get our ringleader Raquel (the other partner in crime), and find our way down to the starting line.

Wow, all the people amazed me. I heard that there was thousands of people, but I guess I never realized how crazy it was. We had to line up with all the 5K runners. Then you had to line up under how fast your pace is (how fast you run a mile). OK, no one ever told me that I had to know my pace time. We ended up lining up under a 12 minute pace (the last one).

The race started, mass people started running, and I was running with them. I was still thinking at that moment how I could possibly be running in a 5K race. I wondered if I would be able to make the whole race. My goal was to run it in under 45min.

I turned on my music (Thanks honey for my early Mother's Day gift...ipod shuffle) and started my pace. I was feeling pretty good, then I hit my first of three hills. my lungs started to burn and my next song started....As The Deer (panteth for the water). I hit fast forward, I did not need to be reminded that I was panting. I made it to the two mile marker and stared to question whether or not I was going to be able to run the whole race. Up to this point I had not yet run a straight 3 miles. I kept going determined to keep running. Then the last of the three hills came and I was gasping for air. I started to walk very quickly to get up the hill and to catch my breath. I walked about 30 sec and then started running again.

As I (and all the other runners) started down the hill people started cheering. I started looking down the side streets and seeing runners crossing the finish line, I was almost there. We rounded a corner and people started clapping and yelling for us, encouraging us to keep on, not to give up (which I was just about ready too). Then the huge white sign that hung over the road came into view. I was almost there and from some where deep in my shoes, I started to pick up speed. I turned off my music as people where all yelling, and I needed that more at that point than my music. I crossed the finish line and felt like I could just about fall over. There were some very nice, but firm ladies telling me that I had to keep moving, not to stop, I would feel better if I kept moving. You'd think that I just ran the 25K!

I kept close to the finish line waiting for my partners in crime to cross the finish line and they did soon after. What a feeling of accomplishment. For someone who never thought that they could run, I just ran 3.1 miles in 34min 1.75sec, beating my goal by more than 10 min!

So, you are probably wondering how I got all of these pictures. Marla's husband Steve had my camera and he took all kinds of pictures for me. He even took a ladder to stand on, so he could get a better vantage point! It really has been fun going through all the pictures to discover what he took. Thanks Steve!

The rest of the day I just kind of walked around aimlessly. I just didn't have any motivation to do much of anything. But, I was happy and proud of myself for doing something that just a few short weeks ago I thought was impossible. I CAN do all things through Christ who strengthens me!

The next on our list is the Reed's Lake run the end of June. Then the Byron Center race in July, then the Race for the Cure in Sept. God might make a runner out of me yet!

Blessings!

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY

I am sure most of you can't believe this, but I am really running tomorrow morning. By the time most of you are waking up I will be well on my way running the 5K. I am having a hard time believing this all myself. I still don't really know how I got talked into this, but I am glad that I did. I have started to actually enjoy running.....Those are words I thought that I never would write. I have actually talked my sister into trying the running thing too (she is starting on Sunday....Laur, you have to now b/c I just blogged about it).

All of you, pray for me, I am going to give it my all tomorrow. I will let you know how I did.

Blessings!

My Cousin Has Come Through!

OK, so the question we were all asking....why did the diet pop explode and not the regular pop....has been answered by my very intelligent cousin. Here is the excerpt from his email to me regarding this all important question:




...Second, you're lucky I'm such a nerd. First, I'm so nerdy that I have a nerdy fiance too, who got the ball rolling with a suggestion regarding differences in properties of nutrisweet and sugar. This made me think of freezing point depression, and jogged my brain about a class Last semester. Here, too, my nerdiness came through in spades, as this class was poorly-taught and most of my classmates typically skipped it. Those of us present saw a table about relative sweetness of sugar products that (I think) can be brought directly to bear on this situation. I'm even so nerdy that I download and keep all the presentation files from all my classes, so I looked up the table in question just to make sure I remembered it right.
Using some arbitrary value for "sweetness" (how sweet a certain sugar tastes), sucrose is valued at 1.0, fructose (which I assume is used in regular coke) is 0.84, and glucose is 0.46. In contrast, Aspartame is valued at 200. So if you can generate a certain amount of sweetness by adding 1000 molecules of fructose, you only need to add about 5 molecules of aspartame to get the same degree of sweetness (unrealistic numbers--for illustration only). This brings us to freezing point depression/boiling point elevation. When you dissolve particles in water, those particles disrupt the interactions of the water molecules with each other so that it takes more heat to boil it or more cold to freeze it (this is also how antifreeze in the car radiator or salt on the roads works). The more particles dissolved, the greater the depression or elevation (add more antifreeze to the radiator in the winter to make sure your engine doesn't freeze even down into the teens). So my guess is that the diet soda had less sweetener dissolved in it and therefore was able to freeze at a higher temperature than the regular soda which required more sweetener to attain the same relative sweetness. The temperature must have dropped enough to freeze the diet, but not enough to freeze the regular.





So, there it is....I would like to clarify something. I don't think that he is nerdy and even though I have never met his fiance, I have seen several pictures (thanks to his proud Mom) and she in no way looks nerdy either. I am sure you will all agree, when I post pictures of this cute couple come Aug (that is when they get married and Tyty is the ringbearer, so my camera will be clicking). Richard has an incredible mind that I can't even begin to comprehend. His sister has the gift also....hard to believe we are family...I missed out on the "smart" gene, but I more than make up for it in looks..LOL!

This picture was taken last June on a camping trip. It was our afternoon break and they were eating apples and watching a video (how did my Mom camp with four kids in a tent!), we had just gotten back from swimming, it was really hot, so we cooled off in the AC:-) I love the way we camp! Can't wait to go again this year and start creating even more camping memories with them!

Blessings!

Trailer Clean-up

Yesterday was the day for cleaning out the trailer and getting it ready for another season of camping. This year it needed cleaning more than usual do to the way our camping season ended last year (see January's posting "Flashback" for the complete story). I spent about 5 hours cleaning and was just about done when I discovered a surprise awaiting me under my bed.

The "master" bed flips up and has a large storage area underneath it. I was vacuuming and decided to make sure everything was "in order" under the bed. In our state of illness last October/November, we never thought to look under the bed to make sure everything there was Ok to winter in the trailer. Well, we left 3, 12 packs of pop under the bed. To any of you who have ever left a pop can in the freezer (hint...hint...Kelli) you know what happens to the can. They explode. The good news (if there is any good news) is that only the diet pop exploded (12 cans)....hmm why do you think only the diet pop exploded (Richard, you probably could come up with the scientific explanation for me). We had blankets, sleeping bags, trailer lights, cooler, vacuum etc. all in the way of exploding pop cans. What a mess, there is now mold growing all over everything...it's all in the wood of the bed, blankets, sleeping bags......I am following the instructions of a certified mold "cleaner upper" (my Father), but I don't know if I will be Ok, with all that mold in the wood and not replacing the wood. I really don't know anyone who is talented with wood and building things....so we will have to see what happens.

I did think about taking a picture, but decided against it....by the time Kevin and I cleaned everything out of it, it's was working on 10:30pm and I just didn't have the energy to run in and grab my camera. So besides the master bed, the trailer is ready to go. The kids even packed cookies and movies, can't camp without an array of movie choices (is that really called camping??). Micah even wanted to pack the milk, can you tell my kids are excited to get back out on the open road and camp...with the TV, DVD, microwave (for popcorn), frig, a bathroom located within viewing of the TV (don't want to miss any part of the movie) and AC, just in case it gets too hot. Living life in the great outdoors!

Blessings!

My Little Photogs

Micah and Tyler really enjoy being behind the lens of my camera. It has been fun to watch what gets uploaded to my computer after one of them has had it. So here are some of the pictures that they took.

Micah took the above picture.
Tyler took the above picture and Micah took the picture below.

Tyler took both the above and below pictures

Have a great day!

Picture Personalities

After escaping from the butterflies, the kids decided that it was safe enough to sit and have their picture taken together. Again, their faces tell their personalities. They crack me up! I look at this picture and I am again reminded how blessed I am that I am able to know my children. I know what makes them tick. I know what makes them happy and what makes them sad. They are my very precious miracles.

I have a lot more to post from this day including more pictures taken by the hands of my two budding photogs. So stay tuned!

Blessings!

Butterflies

Two weeks ago we went to see the butterflies at the Gardens with Ama (Kevin's Mom). It was a beautiful day and the butterflies were very active. Which was great for me, but not so much for the kids. They all developed a fear of the butterflies for some crazy reason. They all loved to take pictures of them, but they better not fly by them otherwise they would be jumping and running for cover.

Here is a basic rule for trying to take a picture of all three kids with butterflies flying all around. DON'T! Otherwise you will get pictures that look like these:


I love these pictures because they capture the faces (especially of Tyler) that I saw every time a butterfly came around. Micah was the bravest of the three and since he is a "pleaser" he would have continued to sit there until Ama and I were happy. Tyler was having none of that he wanted out and his face shows that. Jillian was trying to sit like a good girl, but she couldn't stop keeping a lookout for those sneaky little flyer's.

I love all the butterflies, but my favorite is the blue one (sorry I don't know it's real name). The outside of it's wings are brown and you would never know how beautiful they are on the inside. But for the life of me, I couldn't find any that weren't in flight to capture with my camera. I gave up trying so I handed my camera off to Micah. Then a whole colony came flying by and Micah captured them in flight. Try and count how many there are in this picture.

So how many did you count?? There was 6 of them. Then he captured the next one and I was truly amazed. Perfect composition (if your following the rule of thirds), perfect exposure (he had a little help with that) and it's as clear as if the butterfly was just sitting. With the wings flapping at like 100 miles an hour (slightly exaggerated) I couldn't have taken a better picture!

OK, next post I will show you another picture of all three kids at the Gardens....again it just makes me smile!

Blessings!