Silver Falls Trail Half Marathon

Rychen and I did a trail half marathon today at Silver Falls State Park. It was our first experience with trail runs, and it went well. Lots of rocks, puddles, some major hills, and tons of stairs!!

Staying warm in the car, waiting for it to start.

Here's me finishing. (Rychen's time was 2:01) I feel pretty good about that time, considering it's the same time I got in Seattle last June, a much easier race!

Conversation with Elisabeth

I was just laying Elisabeth down for bed when she spontaneously starting rattling off "Ha Ha Fresh! Beans and rice! Guacamole! Tomatoes! Water! Chuck E Cheese Mouse!" It was so hilarious, I grabbed the video camera. We actually took this video 3 times and she was happy to just repeat it over and over. We watched it back, and she answered all the questions over again (live) while watching the recording (that is kind of freaky actually, ha ha). This girl is intense!

Mysterious Door Signs

We've been finding mysterious signs in this house. Post-it notes taped to the bedroom doors proclaim various messages.
"Rychen's Bedroom" was declared some time last week.

This morning I found this on my bedroom door:
I had absolutely no idea what it said. If you can make it out, hooray for you! I had to ask Rychen and I just fell over laughing! "I feec eew meen - Dad frum Rychen."

First Grade!

I made a big "homeschool" purchase and bought a ton of Easy Readers from Usborne (now I'm a consultant, but mostly just for my own discount). I love these books! There are also non-fiction readers, so you can learn about animals, social studies, space, etc. while the child is learning to read. I also bought several advanced easy readers--Rychen won't be ready to read them for a while, but they are great stories for parents to read to the children, simplified stories of classic literature, and more non-fiction books.

 

Elisabeth is finally sitting still for reading time, so now we can all cuddle up in bed and read for 30 minutes every day. This is the foundation of Rychen's "first grade" education, meeting both his emotional and academic needs.

 

So we are keeping it pretty simple. Besides the 30 minutes reading time, he needs to read a book to me every day, and practice piano, then he gets 30 minutes of Wii or computer games. The point store idea didn't last long, he didn't care that much, and I had too many check marks on the list. So now we are just making a point to do these three things every day, and then whatever else comes up through questions and discussion, and looking at other non-fiction books.

 

Rychen is suddenly very interested in geography and space. He has a little globe ball and every day he says "Let's learn about this for school!" Another book I got from Usborne is a colorful children's world atlas, where we can study maps, flags, learn trivia, and learn about most countries. For example, Rychen is amazed that the Arctic Ocean is FOUR MILLION square feet big! (haha, it's so funny to hear him say it).   We've read a few different books on space, including a story version of the Apollo 11 first landing on the moon. I just have to say, it is so incredible to read these books to my child and be a part of the learning process. Most adults don't know this stuff! Rychen P. lost interest half-way through this book, but I just kept reading it. I was so AMAZED! I never realized before how many things could have gone wrong, how risky it was to send astronauts to the moon. It really is such a miracle, and God helped us achieve that.

 

I am so happy to have Rychen home with us, being a good, involved big brother too. The kids play together so well now! Of course, it's usually all on his terms, but Elisabeth is easy-going and happy to oblige! They are best friends, and I am so excited to raise a family of closely connected children. It is A LOT OF WORK and sometimes headache, but I know we will have such invaluable blessings from homeschooling.

Harvest & Preservation

Some people can their surplus harvest...

Then there are people like us who freeze as a way to preserve fruits and veggies.

I freeze extra veggies, chopped up, for future stir-fries. I freeze extra fruit, in peices, for future smoothies.



Today I bought 25 lbs of roma tomatoes, half of which to eat fresh, half to freeze for stews this winter.

Also purchased 80 lbs of peaches (for $48 altogether!) mostly to freeze them all for smoothies.

Also in the above picture is 2 boxes of pears, which we will stagger-ripen and eat fresh.

Bangs!

Elisabeth got her first haircut by my own clumsy hand -- and now she has cute girl bangs!

Yes, I buy birthday presents from garage sales

Happy Birthday to my sweet little 2-year-old! Here is Elisabeth enjoying her birthday presents

new shoes!

kitchen set

My Little Ponies

Playing with food and plates

My mom made her this darling Tu-tu!

What a great big brother to open her presents for her!! Sit back, Elisabeth, you can count on Rychen to do all the work for you.
Cute dress from Grandma Jones
...and also a book

She had a fun birthday. After opening presents, we went to a family reunion at Rychen's grandparent's house, swam in the pool, and enjoyed the sunshine!

Tri-For-Life Triathalon

My first triathalon was a great experience. It was really fun except for the exercising parts. But of course it was all worth it and felt great!

Juicing up before leaving the house

Really crammed in the car, with my bike across the back seat!








Swam 500 meters in about 12 1/2 minutes
















Transition 1 (from pool to bike)























Biking was harder than I prepared for. I felt like a little volkswagon bug getting passed by a bunch of Ferrarris. In other words, I paid $75 for my old mountain bike, and not $2,000 for a speedy little Tri Bike. And the course was very, very, very boring!! The 12 miles took me about 55 minutes.

So at this point I was just a wee bit tired, so I walked some of the 5K, timed about 30 minutes for the run portion, and got 1 hour 45 minutes overall.

Here I am with Renetta Fredericks who is pretty much the triathlete role model of our stake. So I was honored to do a few minutes with her.

...and I don't know why my blog post got all weird but I am done, so it's just gonna have to look like this!