Blog Moved to www.brendenandjulianne.com: July 2014

Monday, July 21, 2014

1st grade

Here in Utah, they have year round school which means we had a 3 week summer and are now back at school! I didn't post her last day of school pictures because they were literally taken 3 weeks ago and look pretty much the same as she does now.

I am a little more sad having her in 1st grade than I was having her in kindergarten. She gets to go all day and will eat lunch at school. I think Pete and I are going to miss her!

Here are some of her favorites...

Color: Pink and Purple

Movie: Frozen

Thing to do: Play with Anna and Elsa barbies at Eliza's house

Food: Mac and Cheese

Place to go: Chuck E Cheese

What she wants to be when she grows up: Ballerina (which is really funny because she chose not to do ballet again)

Kindergarten 2013-2014

1st grade 2014-2015

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Washington Summer 2014

We just got back from a road trip to Washington. It was so fun and beautiful I might add.

Do you remember watching good idea, bad idea on Animaniacs? This is my inspiration for this post.

Good idea: Road trip to visit grandpa and grandma

Bad idea: Giving the kids too much liquid and having to stop 9 times (no joke)

Good idea: Launching waterballoons

Bad idea: Standing across the yard where they are launching the waterballoons

Good idea: Going to birch bay with your cousins

Bad idea: Being a weenie about stepping on sea weed (Peter)

Good idea: Digging in the sand

Bad idea: Eating sand

Good idea: Riding your bike

Bad idea: Riding your bike into the garage

Good idea: Having cute hair with flowers

Bad idea: Crushing up babies breath in your hair so it looks like dandruff

Good idea: Pretending to fall in the water

Bad idea: Falling in the water while saying "hey I almost fell in the water"

Good idea: Eating ice cream

Bad idea: Ice cream is always a good idea

Good idea: Looking for crabs in the tide pools

Bad idea: Getting your shoe swallowed by mud

Good idea: Playing at the spash pad

Bad idea: Playing at the splash pad in 70 degrees when you are used to 90

Good idea: Doing leaf rubbings

Bad idea: doing leaf rubbings with stinging nettle

Good idea: Climbing rocks

Bad idea: Not being able to get down and have your mom rescue you

Good idea: Taking a bath with your favorite cousin

Bad idea: Taking a bath with your favorite cousin who is not potty trained

Good idea: Building sand castles

Bad idea: Building sand castles too close to the water

Good idea: Getting a pedicure

Bad idea: Getting a pedicure and then going to the beach and having your hard earned pedicure come off

Good idea: Touching sea life at the touch tank

Bad idea: Being too scared to touch the sea anemone (Peter)

Good idea: Picking up rocks and watching the crabs run for dear life

Bad idea: Screaming at the crabs (Noah)

Good idea: Going on walks on the trails with Grandpa Pete

Bad idea: Getting caught by this wild band of bandits

Good idea: Skipping rocks

Bad idea: Throwing rocks (Peter and Noah)

Good idea: Playing in the sprinkler

Bad idea: Hiding under the sprinkler while your 2 year old cousin braves the spray

Thanks to everyone for the fun! We sure did enjoy ourselves!

Ballet Performance

Emmie had her first ballet performance back in June. It was so cute to watch her. It is funny though how you sit through 2 hours of performances and your kid only dances for 30 seconds. It was worth it to see her run around on stage. I asked her if she was scared to dance in front of that many people. Her response? No.

The picture above is of our neighbor Eliza and Emmie. They are good buddies. And if you are wondering if ballet is in Emmie's future, it is not. While she enjoyed it, she would prefer gymnastics. We are going that route this year.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Running the Ragnar Wasatch Back

For some reason (thanks a lot Rusty!) we decided to run the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay Race with some friends and family. Neither of us ended up training enough and the runs ended up being quite a challenge for both of us. Our team had 12 people, divided into 2 vans. The course is just under 200 miles, going from Logan to Park City. Julianne was runner 7, running a a total of 12.4 miles split into three legs of 4.7, 3.6 and 4.1 miles. Brenden was runner 11, running a total of 22.6 miles split into three legs of 7.3, 5.5, and 9.8 miles. That is a lot of mileage for both of us. In addition, there was a good deal of elevation gain on some of the legs. Ouch. Our van was full of family and friends and that made all of the pain and suffering worth it. It was so much fun!!!

Van 2 before we started running.

Julianne right before her first leg. She was first to run from our van.

Julianne off at a break-neck pace. Still smiling at this point...

Brenden off on his first leg climbing up to Snow Basin.

Julianne starting her 3rd leg.

Brenden at the end of his 10 mile third leg.

We made it! Medals and all.

Team Awesome!

10 Year Anniversary Trip

10 years ago we honeymooned in Victoria, BC and have always wanted to get back. This week we were lucky enough to make the return trip happen. Brenden's parents and sister were kind enough to watch our kids so we could go have a few days to ourselves and it was great. We stayed in a great hotel right on the waterfront of the inner harbor and were present for Canada Day. It was fun to see everyone walking around decked out in Canada gear, seeing concerts, fireworks, etc... We hadn't see so much red and white since we lived in Nebraska Husker country.

On our second day we walked around quite a bit and rented a scooter to ride around the south shoreline and around to oak bay - it was gorgeous! We did notice how tired we got from walking around. It could be that we were just tired from running the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay Race a couple days ago...or maybe we're just getting old. I don't remember getting this tired walking around 10 years ago.

Here are some pictures: