Coming Up for Air

I give fair warning that this post will include no pictures or anything terribly exciting ... just an entry for no other purpose than journaling what I have been up to so I don't forget (which could be very easy considering the week I've had). Sorry for the lack of "fun." Hopefully you had some fun last week looking at AnnaMarie's blog and participating in her giveaway ... which my good friend Chrystal won!! I'm sad that those gorgeous earrings won't be mine but perhaps Chrystal will loan them to me ;)

I guess I should start by announcing that I am training for a triathlon. The race in on April 19th and although I don't see myself as any form of competition I am enjoying (if you can call it that) having a goal to get me back to exercising on a regular basis. It will be a 300 yd. swim, 8 mile bike, and 3.2 mile run. Let us all pray I make it :) Thanks to Tori for giving me the push I needed to try something I would NEVER have considered before!!

In other news, I don't believe I have mentioned that I got a new calling at church about a month ago. For those of you who aren't of my faith that will probably not make a lot of sense ... if you would like a better explanation let me know ;) Our stake was split in December and I have been called to be the Stake Young Women's Secretary. With Girls Camp and a Pioneer Trek coming up in the next few months we have been busy meeting, trying to figure out what we are doing, and making plans. I am lucky to work with great women and love the chance I have to work with the youth. I have been at church and in meetings for 6+ hours the past 2 Sundays (since we had ward conference visits on top of our regular church meetings and presidency/stake meetings, too)!!! Steve is glad when I can make it home!

This past week I had stampers group on Monday morning at my house which involved designing and prepping projects (until 3 AM) and getting the house together. Tori and I swam that night to get some training in. I then made sugar cookie dough in preparation for the bakefest I had on Tuesday. I also cut and prepared 150 invitations for the General YW Broadcast on March 29th so we could hand them out on Wednesday night. After biking 3.5 miles and then running 1.5 miles Tuesday morning I rolled out and cut over 12 dozen star shaped sugar cookies for our Girls Camp "Psych Night" on Wednesday night. The Stake YW President came over Tuesday night to frost cookies and assemble the invites. Wednesday brought 1.75 miles on the treadmill (have I mentioned that I DETEST running? It is definitely the hardest part of training for me) followed by me and Kendyl going for haircuts. From haircuts we went to the girls' school to see Brinley play the narrator in her 3rd grade music program. After school it was haircuts for Brinley and Ashton before heading home to load up the car for Psych Night (the activity where we "unveil" the Girls Camp theme for the year, staff, etc). Steve took the crew to the evening performance of the 3rd grade music program and had everyone in bed before I got home ... which was a good thing since I didn't get home until after 9:30. Thursday I had my friend Beth's kiddos while she helped her sister with her new baby in Utah. Alex came in the morning and then Amanda and Kayla came in various methods after school. They are such great kids and always easy to have around!! I had fun taking pictures of Alex to send to his mom via text message ;) I left the kids with Steve just after lunch so I could bike 6 miles before the entire crew came home from school. After Beth's kids left it was time to get the house ready for my evening stampers group meeting. It was a small group with sickness and other things keeping people away but was fun none the less! Friday was a "lazy" day of hanging out with Alex, Cougar, and Kendyl, running 2 miles, picking up kids from school, letting them all play outside in the glorious weather, and dropping my kiddos at babysitters group so we could have some time off ... to head to Costco and get the house ready for the baby shower I hosted on Saturday morning!!!! No time for training on Saturday while I cleaned the house, got food ready, hosted the shower, cleaned up after the shower, picked up the babysitter, and headed to the theater to see Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy. It was such a fun time to go downtown and see a show ... something we don't get to do often enough!! Sunday brought church, my last ward conference visit (for 6 months), friends coming over for dinner to help eat the leftovers from the baby shower, and a 2+ hour stake meeting. Makes me tired just thinking about it!!

Today was the first day of Spring Break - we don't have anything planned which is a problem!!! The girls spent the entire day arguing about what channel to watch, which Wii game to play, who's turn it was on the computer, etc. The added bummer was that it cooled off significantly today - mid 60's vs. the 80's we've been basking in for weeks now - so they weren't near as interested to play outside!! We'll be back up in the 80's by Wednesday and we do have plans to buy Enchanted on DVD tomorrow, go see a movie, hit BounceU or the bowling Alley, and will probably head to the park at least once. I ran 2.75 miles today which was big for me (don't laugh Carolyn)!! I wanted to run 2.5 but made myself keep going once I got to that point. I was actually going to push for 3 miles but I've been pretty congested the past few days and breathing was getting more difficult so I decided to walk an extra .5 mile instead ... at a fast pace ;)

Now I did warn you, didn't I?! Is anyone actually still reading this?! Probably not ... I don't blame you! But if you are and would like a chance to win an iTunes gift card, leave me a comment by Friday, 3/21! We finally got Steve's iPod Touch that I bought him for Christmas up and running so we are having fun picking out some new (and not so new) music and downloading ... right from his iPod!! Seriously the coolest thing ever!

Lots of pictures, hopefully some layouts, and more specifics on some of the "other" events that have occurred in our lives the past few weeks to come ... catching up on my blog surfing, too. I really need to carve out some time for me that doesn't involve doing things for other people. Does that sound selfish or what?! Hope I'm not the only one that feels that way sometimes ....

One final note: I get to register for my 3rd online digital scrapbooking class - Digi: In Deep - with Jessica Sprague next Monday night!!! I've been waiting since November for this class and can hardly wait! THAT should give me some of that "me" time I'm looking for ;)