Batman Mania!

In case you've been living under a rock, the new Batman movie opens this Friday. My boys (who will not be seeing the movie) are huge Batman fanatics at the moment. They both love to run around the house wearing their Batman capes and chase each other. Preston's even a fan of Joker. Anyway, I must hand it to the movie marketing people, they are delivering an all out assault! Because it's summer, I had to take both boys to the grocery store with me. Bummer! By the time we got out of there, our cart was stocked with Batman Honeynut Cheerios, Batman Trix, Batman Go-gurts, and Batman Fruit-roll ups! If only they made Batman apples, Batman carrots or Batman broccoli we would be set! It's only a matter of time before my boys start begging to go to ____________ (fill in the name of a fast food restaurant) to get Batman prizes in their kids meals! You know one of them has got to have them soon.

Attitude of Gratitude

It's been too long since I've done this.  I was on a roll there for awhile, though.  I'll try to do better.  Here a few things I'm grateful for right now.

1.  My sweet husband who took great care of me and the kids when I was really sick Tuesday night.  He made dinner, cleaned up and got them to bed.  I was overcome with fever, but hopefully I said Thank You!

2.  The flowers that Jared sent me on Wednesday to say 'Hope you feel better.'  (see picture)

3.  Great swimming teacher, Ashley.  She somehow got our timid, Chandler to swim without assistance across the pool, float on his back and jump off the diving board without his life jacket.  He made amazing progress!  Far exceeded my expectations!

4.  Progress toward Preston being potty trained!  He's not there yet, but he's getting closer.

5.  Health!  After being sick, I really appreciate how good I feel right now!

The rest of our 4th weekend.

So our 4th of July weekend actually included more than just the 5K.  After the race, and a shower (trust me, I needed it) we headed down to Provo for the big parade.  The last 5 years we have been lucky enough to sit with our great friends, the Shallenbergers, on their bleachers.  Parking is still a problem, but finding good parade seats is not a problem anymore.  Thanks a million Shallenbergers!

Jared, our boys, and both Steve Shallenbergers.

Jared and Dave Shallenberger.

Chandler holding Rob's daughter, Lana Rose.  Isn't she gorgeous?  I think Chandler has a crush already.  I double and triple checked my camera.  I can't believe we didn't get a picture with Rob and Tonya!  Sorry guys!  At least we got their cute baby.

Jared being the "pyro" in our neighborhood.

My cute boys enjoying the fireworks at home.  From this picture, you'd never think they fight!

The next day we finished off the do-it-yourself fireworks at Jared's parents house with the Hansens, who were in town for the holiday weekend.   It was a great weekend.  We can see the Stadium of Fire Fireworks from our back yard so we watched those from home and saved ourselves a wad of cash!

I did it, but it wasn't pretty!

Remember how I was going to run the 5K? Well, it's over! Due to an ill-timed vacation and then Jared being out of town the following week, my training suffered a lot at the end. Notice the old guy in front of me in the picture (sorry if it's anyone's Grandpa or anything)? I did manage to shave off 10 minutes from my Oregon 5K time and beat my goal for this race by about 4 minutes, so that was good, but I may be retiring from running. I still don't like it. I'll probably still run occasionally because it's good exercise for the amount of time spent, but that's probably it.

I know this is not a flattering picture, but I just wanted to prove to y'all that I really was there! Sweat and all! The iPod made it a much more pleasant experience. Making my special 5K playlist was fun. I put some songs at the end of the playlist that I hoped I wouldn't get to; luckily I didn't get to those ones.

My sister, Natalie and her husband, Matt ran as well. Natalie ended up getting 5th in her age division and Matt did well in his too. They were long recovered and rested by the time I crossed the finish line. :) That's why they are runners and I am not. The race atmosphere and running down the parade route with all of the spectators was pretty fun, though, I must say. Who knows, I may do it again someday. Never say never!

It's here again!

What would July be without the Tour de France! Jared and I have been huge fans since the early-Lance Armstrong days. We even upgraded our cable just so that we could watch the Tour a few years ago. (The Melrose Place re-runs were an added bonus, but I digress). Due to all the doping scandals of the last few years, there is no favorite in this years Tour. It's anyone's race! Versus has 4 hours of coverage each day, and it is a huge time committment to watch it all. Fortunately, we can use our DVR and fast forward to the last bit to watch the finish of each stage. I'm sure we'll watch more on the weekends. If you haven't checked it out in awhile, or if you have 4 hours to spare, tune into to Versus each morning;(The commentators are a hoot as well). You should know there are 2 new American teams this year too! Go Team Columbia!

One of my favorite shows!

I have to share one of my new obsessions with you.  It is a show called 'Flipping Out' on Bravo.  It is a reality show about this guy, Jeff Lewis, who is a real estate investor who buys houses, remodels them and resells them.  He is very good at what he does, but he also has OCD.  It makes for some very funny situations.  I really like it because I find 'flipping houses' really interesting and I guess I can relate to the guy in a very slight way. You know the basic everyone is imcompetent but me kind of way. (Note: sarcasm!)  It is on Tuesday nights.  I don't know what time since I always just watch it on DVR when I get around to it.  You should have seen the episode in which his assistant forgot to order 'no onions' on his salad.  It was hilarious!
Check out the clip below (pause the music player on the right sidebar):

Basement update

Sheetrock is being hung as we speak!  CAN NOT WAIT!  Yes, I know I'm a nerd for even taking this picture, but cut me some slack; I'm excited!

My favorite Jedi

Chandler chose The Empire Strikes Back (don't ask me why) for his movie from the library last week.  I guess he's half Jared, so that explains it.  I caught him pretending to be Luke while he watched it and just had to grab the camera.  He was making the light saber sounds and swinging his light saber.  I wonder what was going through his mind.  "I'm going to defeat Darth Vader!" or something like that.  It was hilarious to watch.  I guess you had to be there...