Idiot

well I am a true, blue idiot. I am so foolish, I hurt myself again running and I have been too ashamed to even tell people. It's 100% my fault and I should have been smarter and avoided it, but I was too overzealous and eager to increase the mileage on my long runs - oh, and go from working out 2 days a week to 5 days a week, all at once!

the good news is, my knee is now completely healed, and my toenails aren't a problem anymore (and probably won't ever be again, now that they are dead). and so hopefully I will have a new left foot as good as new, 4 weeks from now. At that point I may decide to train for the Mesquite NV Marathon November 20th, or I may decide to never don my running apparel, ever ever again!

in the meantime I am a helpless bed addict and my children could really benefit from getting out of the house! thanks to a friend in the ward for lending me crutches to use when I do leave the house. but frankly I'd rather not.

(if you're re-considering trying to get into running, let me assure you that running is safe. however, not if you are an idiot and refuse to follow training schedules.)

Let's Go Shopping!

My kids just love going to the Gilbert House kids museum. Today was Elisabeth's first time. Her favorite things were the train set, the grocery store, and what we call the "Dance Room," which is a dark room with cool techno set-up where your silhouette (yes I had to spell check that weird word!) is dancing across a big screen...hard to explain, and impossible to photograph. Sorry! But here are the photos from the grocery store. Elisabeth and Rychen were pretty much racing their carts around the place. She had a lot of fun recognizing her fruits and saying her words (her vocabulary has really exploded lately!)

Wet!

Thanks goodness for water parks!!!! We really love the new N. River Road park here in Salem. The kids were shy for about 20 minutes but then got really soaked and didn't want to leave.

This picture is hilarious. I just now realized there is no water going on. Ha!! I didn't take a picture of the water. *doh*

Daily School

I'm so glad, I finally got a system set up for homeschool, and I've actually stuck with my intentions and got us all in the habit of it!

Right now we just do about one hour of structured time, first thing in the morning (after our runs and breakfast).

Rychen and Elisabeth sit at the table--Elisabeth with her coloring book and crayons; Rychen with his worksheets, scratch paper, reading book, and pencil. He gets a clipboard to keep his daily work on--this makes him excited to do each page and get it done.

Rychen has a daily checklist with a reward system. Each check is a point and if he does them all, he gets bonus points. He also has the option of doing extra work for additional bonus points, and then there are various games throughout the day for more points (e.g. in the car, he gets a point for every word he can recognize out the window).

For the summer, his daily list consists of: reading, math, handwriting, piano, housework job, exercise, Spanish/ASL, and teaching Elisabeth. If he gets all of these done, he gets 30 minutes of video/computer game time.

Meanwhile, we keep track of his points. At the end of the week he gets to "spend" his points at my Points Store--things like stickers, games, puzzles, and coupons for special outings or privileges. He enjoys doing school without the reward system, but I think it's fun, and it keeps us accountable (by reminding us to do the checklist).

So far it's been fun, and he's really happy to do it. This morning I told him to hurry up so he can get done, and he told me "I don't care if it takes a long time." ha! Okay then!

This set-up is pretty good... I am able to do my own activity sitting at the table, or kitchen housework, as long as I'm available to give directions and help. Elisabeth is really cooperative, which is a relief. In past months, we had to do school time during her nap. But now she enjoys being a part of it. She loves coloring, and then Rychen helps her learn her shapes, colors, and alphabet.

Food Storage Teamwork!

Today we canned 300 lbs. of dried food to store for future emergencies. At first we parents planned to do it without the kids, but then I realized what a fun, educational family "teamwork" activity we could have.

Our first task was to spread cans out across the table and fill them up. Rychen P and I did this while Elisabeth took her nap, before Dad got home from work.

Rychen P. got to scoop grains from the large 25# bags into the cans, and then put these oxygen absorbers in each one.
...then with Dad, we used the canning machine (borrowed from the LDS facility) to seal the cans and label each one with a permanent marker.

Then Rychen P. got the "super special" job of labeling the boxes!


After boxing up all the cans and labeling the boxes, I had a sudden brilliant idea. Hopefully we won't be opening this box of wheat for another 5-10 years, so I thought Let's put a Time Capsule in it! Nothing fancy, just a hand-written note about where we were that day. We had Rychen P. write on it, since he'll get a kick out of seeing his preschool handwriting (it says "Now I'm 5").

Tennis Tournament

Felt like I was in high school again. Ehhh yeah, not a good thing. I think I'll stick to hitting for fun at the park.

Happy Birthday Rychen P!

Rychen Parker had his 5th birthday July 1st. Wow, time flies!! Here he is opening his presents.

Grandma and Grandpa Jones, Madison, and me enduring the horrid party hats


...and then requested that for his birthday we take a trip to Chuck E Cheese, his favorite place to play!

Take note: Frog is the "new" Lion!! Buzz-the-Birthday-present has replaced Woody!!

The Time Traveler's Wife

Okay everybody, I have a new favorite movie. Seriously, this is the most beautifully written, profound, touching, inspiring, and gospel-symbolic movie I have ever seen. Hands down.

The Time Traveler's Wife touched my soul and really shows the reality of eternal families, the omnipresence of the spirit world, and various events in life being meant-to-be (and also the theme of fate, which I do believe in to a certain extent). Anybody struggling with the loss of a loved one will really be uplifted by this movie. I don't know if the author of this book is familiar with LDS teachings but it's just so beautiful how true the message of this movie actually is.