Elisabeth, Full-time Orange Peeler

Elisabeth loves peeling oranges. She doesn't usually eat them afterward, but you can sure count on her to peel them! Whenever I am eating oranges she will ask for her own to peel.

This One's for the Kitties

In honor of National Jones Kitty Day, I thought I would give you a photo tour of what our kitties do around here. Plato

Socrates

Who needs a dog?

Tutu cuddles

Monkey cuddles

Yummy! Fruity kitty

More School Fun

Rychen is ahead with math and reading skills, but not quite mature enough to understand social studies in higher grade levels, so we have a bit of leisure time to make up fun activities and learn various other things....

So this week we are working on literature. I got this idea to do a mini "Book Report" worksheet to work on handwriting while learning this concept. So he's done a worksheet like this every day, for different books we read. This one is for "Puss in Boots," and this is NOT a good model of handwriting (it's one of those things he can do, but refuses to, because it's much more fun to write sloppy or imitate the font used on the cover of the book. Can you read what it says?

Other times, a learning opportunity just presents itself so easily. Rychen was looking through the newspaper and telling me what things cost in the grocery ads. So I made up an activity and asked him to buy me ingredients for a salad, with only $4.00. He doesn't understand the cost-per-pound, so we are just buying 1 lb/unit of everything. :)

In the end, my $4.00 salad contained 4 bell peppers, 1 red onion, and 1 lb. asparagus.

Girly Boy

When Rychen P. was born, I was aspiring to be a very sentimental mama. I told my husband Rychen I wanted to use a tape recorder or do a video, and tell our child all of our mushy feelings about the day he was born, so he could hear about it when he got older. This idea was returned with a disapproving brow, and Rychen retorted, "He is a BOY. He will not CARE about that when he gets older." I figured he knew more about being a boy than I did, do I surrendered.

 

...almost 6 years later, we have a sentimental BOY who LOVES to cuddle non-stop, appreciates all pictures from back when he was little, and is always begging for STORIES!

 

He would have loved that video... Shoulda gone with my mommy instincts.

I love being active!

We got our YMCA membership mid-January and I've gone 4-6 times a week consistently, even while out of town. I really love it there, it's fun to see the same familiar faces; the childcare is clean and orderly with enthusiastic staff; and there is such great VARIETY for exercise!! It has been nice for me to take a break from running and do whatever classes I feel like, plus some weight lifting, cardio marchines, and my 2x/week swim class.

 

.....I love the swim class! What a great thing to get free swim technique instruction. The teacher is really awesome, and the class is pretty small. My first day I came in as a fairly confident swimmer, having done 2 sprint triathalons. Well, she tore my stroke apart! And I began to flounder, unconfident, unsmooth, uncomfortable with the new technique. But bit by bit I have pieced it together and now I can say, after 6 weeks, I got it down! I feel comfortable and confident, and my new form is much more quick and efficient than the way I was swimming before. Today I swam laps for 40 minutes at a pretty high rate, without stopping. For me, that's an awesome accomplishment. I would have kept going but I had a 4-mile run to do afterward. So I am excited to see if my time has improved in this season's triathlons.

 

I took a break from running but now I am getting back into it as my next half-marathon is on April 9. Which means I don't get to do all the fun classes at the gym :(  I'm working at finding a good balance, just running 3x/week and swimming 2x/week, with 2-3 other workouts. Before I was exercising about 1 hour every day, but I am trying other patterns. Like this week I only exercised 3 days, but 1  hr, 45 minutes each day. It's HARDER!! I didn't even feel the rest days... that endurance aspect makes things tough. Should be great conditioning for triathlons.

Luncheon & Reception

Wedding lunch following the temple ceremony...

My sister Laura and husband Jon

the "happy couple"

My brother Erick and wife Melan, Grandpa Merrill (sorry I didn't get everybody, these are just random pictures we took)

Reception pictures...

This is my best friend Jessica and our kids (a lot has happened since high school!)

Paul & Emily Fotheringham

Some pictures from Emily's wedding (more on Facebook)....




all the Gremliches... (not including Rychen, Jon, and Melan.. that photo was taken but nobody got it on our camera)
Rychen's own photography....who knew? :)



This is a weird thing some Mormons do, if you have never seen this before. My brother Joseph is on a mission and couldn't be there, but we were able to get the next best thing!

Not-so-princess

Just had to :)

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