Camping Out

Nothing like the start of summer to bring the first backyard campout. Nathen is spending the night tonight and they decided to pitch a tent and sleep in the backyard. Well... they decided to sleep in the backyard and I pitched the tent.. they did help some though! As you can see from the pictures, they are all set up and ready to go. I even fixed Zach's telescope so they can try to look at some stars while they are out there. Last time they camped out in the yard the wind blew the tent down.. hopefully they will have better luck tonight.

Emma apparently thinks the tent is a scary monster. She stood outside barking at it for about 10 minutes. My main goal is to keep her from knocking it down before morning.

Fantastic Weekend

What a great weekend we had over the holiday! The fun started Saturday when we went to The Lion King play at the Civic Center here in Oklahoma City. I had bought Wendy the tickets for Christmas and she was very excited to go. The show was great and the costumes were phenomenal. Some of the movements the actors do make the animals they are portraying seem very realistic. If this show comes to a venue near you I would recommend going to see it. Saturday evening we relaxed at the house with a game of Scategories.

Sunday we went to church, out to lunch at Spaghetti Warehouse and then off to the movies to see Night at the Museum 2. This was a very good show. The animation was amazing. If you haven't seen the first one, go rent it and then go to the theater to see the second. It is worth the ticket price or your money back.. not from me mind you! Sunday evening we decided to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather with a game of tennis at the park. The weather was beautiful, probably much better than our tennis.. but we all had a good time.

Monday we went to White Water Bay, the water park in OKC. We bought season passes for unlimited visits to both the water park and the amusement park. Again, the weather was great and the park wasn't too crowded, so we basically didn't have to wait in line for any of the slides. After about two hours we decided to head out. We picked up one of Zach's friends, took a quick shower and headed over to Frontier City, the amusement park to ride some rides. They have a new show, Survivor Live and I got picked to play but I did not win. The jury picked the darn little boy to win instead of me! I still had fun playing. After we had ridden all the rides we could stand we came back home, sent Nathen and Zach to the back room to play and we watched Lakeview Terrace with Samuel Jackson. Excellent movie and again, highly recommend watching it. Jackson plays a very convincing bad guy!

Monday was also Emma's birthday, so we bought her two new toys and some treats to celebrate. Here is a picture of her with her new dragon. Zach was too cute, he was very excited about her birthday and buying her presents. Hope all of you had as much fun over the weekend as we did!

Lord Help Us

It's official. Zach survived the 6th grade. Today was his last day of school. I can't believe how fast this year has gone. He had some struggles at the beginning of the year, but wound up doing a great job. We are very proud of him and all the achievements he made this year.

Now for the funny Zach moment of the week. We were talking about something.. I honestly don't remember what and Zach gives Wendy and I a fact about something. I said, oh that's interesting, where did you learn that. He tells us, I'm not sure... That's what happens when your almost in 7th grade, you just know things and you don't know how you know them! Took everything we had for Wendy and I to not burst out laughing.

The other thing that we will need help with is the fact that Zach now has a cell phone. He is going to be flying back from China by himself in July and I wanted him to have a way to call us on his layover in Chicago, so we bit the bullet and bought him a cell phone this week. I made sure we have unlimited texting in case he gets started with that and increased our minutes. Hopefully we won't have any cell phone horror stories at our house! He has been very excited about using it this week, so don't be surprised if you get a call this weekend!

Hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday weekend!

The Weekend

The weather over the last several weeks has been less than desirable... Well, for me anyway. I like the rain ok, if it rains and then clears up. Unfortunately the last couple of weeks have just been rainy all the time. Seriously I think we went seven days without ever seeing the sun. This weekend, however, we finally had nice weather. I mean, Saturday and Sunday you really couldn't have asked for much better. Low 80s so not too hot but warm and sunny. It was so nice. We took advantage of the weather by getting out and doing some spring cleaning yard work. Zach mowed while I picked up trash, the annoying spike ball thingies the neighbor's tree drops in our yard and did the trimming. It felt good to be outside working. Orin also came over and helped us do some improvements on Zach's fort.

Zach is very excited that there are only three days left of school. He has about two more weeks until his Dad gets here. He is getting really excited about his trip to China. Wendy and I are getting very excited about our trip to Vegas while he is gone! He is convinced he will have more fun in China though. I am excited for him that he will get to spend that time with his Dad.

Ok, Terry came by to visit for the night, guess I better go bug him while he tries to do his homework.

Frustration

Ok, so its been a little over a week since the 1/2 marathon. I took the next week off from the gym because at the end of the race my left knee had gotten pretty sore, so I thought I would take a rest. Wednesday morning I decided it was time to get back into the routine. My knee was feeling pretty good and I needed a run. After just 1/2 mile on the treadmill my knee started aching again. I stopped after only one mile, did another ten minutes on the elliptical, lifted and called it a day.

At that point I decided maybe I should get it looked at to make sure nothing serious was wrong. I headed to the doctor and was told that I have bursitis in the tendons on the outside of my knee. Apparently this is much better than something being wrong in the joint, but it doesn't really feel better at this point. I am on limited activity (ie no gym) for one week with instructions to ice it and take ibuprofen every four hours. If it is not better after a week then I have to go to physical therapy to see if they can determine what is going on.

This whole thing has been super frustrating.. I mean, I thought I did everything right to prepare for this race... I trained, I bought good shoes.. all the things that you are supposed to do and this still happens. I really hope the week off takes care of it. Noel wants to run another 1/2 marathon in Dallas and I would like to be able to join him. Think happy thoughts for me over the next week.

Happy Birthday Zach

I still can't believe that Zach turned 12 this weekend. I'm certainly glad he is getting older but I'm not! Saturday was a busy day, breakfast at IHOP, volleyball game, party and sleepover. I think I need another day off to recover. The birthday party was great though. We had it at Cactus Jack's and if you live in the Oklahoma City area, I think it was a great option. You can take in your own food, so we ordered $5 pizzas from Pizza Hut, took in our own sodas and then the kids got to play video games and trampoline volleyball after pizza, cake and ice cream. There was no charge to reserve the party, you just had to buy at least $75 worth of tokens. All in all I think a good time was had by all. Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.