Goodbye, May...

... hello, June!

(But, before we so hastily start talking end-of-school, sprinkler frolicking and all things summer, let's close up the lovely month of May, otherwise known as the soggiest month of the year in Seattle AND the month of my dismal blogging.)

Happy Memorial Day to everyone! Dave spent today doing self-arrest training for his Mt. Rainier climb, while I spent the day doing wedding stuff with a future sister-in-law. This evening, we met up with his family to have pizza and hang out at Phantom Lake for a bit, which was great because the sun and blue skies made a brief appearance. After heading home, we fellfast asleep (well, two of us did). I should be asleep, but instead I am blogging, facebooking and swagbucking - all while nursing sore muscles and a loopy mind swimming with crazy fatigue. Thus is the life of a busy mom, I suppose.

So, while trying to find the always-sought-after, but never perfect balance of sleep, work, church, MORE sleep, family stuff, training (details later) and general chaos every day, I am making a little goal to blog more. "More" is such relative term, it should be an easy one to achieve.

As to the "training" part of my last paragraph, here is a fun, little hint to that reference; as promised, more details will follow soon.

So, stay tuned, to those few faithful folks who still check in here! I will not let you down.

High Altitude Aspirations

Where In the World is Dave Goodwin?

Right now... it's hard to say, exactly.

All I know is that he's somewhere on this mountain.

Can't keep a mountaineer away from his mountains, you know. After the Mt. Adams summit expedition, he will have climbed four of the five volcanic peaks in the Pacific Northwest.

Summit Day is tomorrow; here's hoping that it is a safe and uneventful day.

Last Week Shorts, or My Lazy Post

Lots going on, so little time to blog. Thanks to my trusty camera and some quick summaries, you'll get a glimpse of what's happening in our neck of the woods.

Saturday

This year's YW Fundraiser, Rustic Italy, was a huge success, but was also a lot of work. After decorating the gym, Benjamin & I went for a little run on one of the most lovely spring days, thus far. Doesn't hurt that we got some gorgeous views of the sound. That night, little white lights illuminated a room as we dined on spaghetti and meatballs, sourdough bread and Caesar salad, while the little ones were provided crayons to create elaborate, one-of-a-kind designs on the paper tablecloths. The dessert auction provided lighthearted bidding wars and tons of sugary goodness; the table overflowed with desserts such as Chocolate Lava Cakes, Grasshopper (ice cream) Pie, Chocolate Raspberry Trifle, Almond Lime Cheesecake, Yellow Sunshine Cake, "Everything But..." Brownies, Fruit Torte, Texas Sheet Cake, Decadent Chocolate Bundt with Strawberries, M&Ms Polka-Dot Cake, Chocolate-Covered Cake Balls and Homemade (giant) Fortune Cookies (dipped in chocolate). Suffice to say, the ward was extremely generous and we made enough money to send all of the girls to camp!

Sunday

Mother's Day was another pretty day, but very busy. Dave had meetings all morning, so we rushed to get ready & prep the house for another day of staging. Long-stemmed red roses were a lovely surprise for all of the moms in the congregation that day. Someone called to look at the house, so after church B & I took a Sunday drive to check out one of the houses we liked last week. Dave was so sweet because he got me Photoshop, which I had been wanting for a long time, but then also surprised me with a running shirt that is awesome and much needed. Feeling the love.

Monday

Had such a long, late night with the kiddo due to teething. Hospital Blood Drive provided me the opportunity to "save a life" - and have some awesome Cougar Mountain Chocolate Chip Cookies! All of that combined with the busy weekend we had meant a very early bedtime that night.

Tuesday

Mom was gone for Mother's Day, so she, Kali & I got together for lunch at a Thai restaurant in Stanwood. I had the Pagoda Basil, which is filled with chicken, basil, tons of veggies and an aromatic sauce. Love love love it. Plus, it was fun to hang with two of my favorite women! Then, I came home and made High Hat cupcakes. It's been on my to-do list to try these out, but - oh my - they were amazing!! That afternoon, I had a PPI with one of my YW, so we went for a walk. The weather here has been fantastic, so we had to take advantage of that opportunity. That night, Dave watched the kiddo while I went to Red Robin with girlfriends from 5th Ward. It was an absolute delight to see all of those good friends and just spend several hours catching up, chatting and laughing.

Wednesday

Lots of errands to run today, and yet another showing. Things have perked up since we lowered the price, so we are hopeful that things will start to move now. During the showing, I took Benjamin on another walk. That night, Dave went to the gym while B & I went to YW. Tawnya did a Fitness night, which was awesome. Did a 40-minute video from P90X. Loved it and loved the good soreness afterwards, which tells me that I worked hard... but need to do it more.

Thursday

Worked all day. Person who saw the house yesterday wanted to come see it again! So, had to skip my workout, head for home and spruce up the place extra nicely. Note to potential buyer: You Want This Place! Had a YW Presidency meeting that night, but was late - always seems that a diaper disaster foils my plans to be on time. Good meeting, nonetheless.

Friday

This was another busy day, in a good way. With a 70-degree forecast, Michelle & I traded our usual walking plans for a trip to the Woodland Park Zoo. I wasn't sure how it would go for Benjamin, but he went hog wild. Highlights for him: hanging with Ethan & Evan, getting a peek at the wildly-swimming penguins, squealing at the enormous elephants and taking in some much needed Vitamin D! For Date Night, Dave & I went to see Iron Man 2; by no means Oscar-worthy, but pure awesome entertainment.

It was a very busy, but amazing week!

Tulip Run

On Your Mark... Get Set... Go!

The Skagit Valley Tulip Run celebrated it's silver anniversary this year. Although I have not done the run even since it began, I really enjoy this particular race and this year was my fourth time participating in the event.

This year, Dave and I talked about training and running in it together. No dice: he had an 8-hour CPR cert course that day. Then, I ran the idea past my walking bud, Michelle. No dice: she works on Saturdays and couldn't get the day off. Finally, I mentioned it to my MIL and SILs. And I finally found some people that wanted and could do the run! This was good because my boss' 85-year-old mother got wind of me training for the race and she knitted a special yellow hat for Benjamin because she was worried he would get cold.

Race day was beautiful but pretty cold. Due to a delay in our caravan, we got to the Skagit Valley Airport minutes before the race. My SIL Rachel ran in and grabbed everyone's bibs, then she headed for the 5-mile run. I was going to do that and was training for that - until I discovered that I had pneumonia two weeks prior to the race. So, I opted for the 2-mile fun run. Which was fine by me.

So, our 2-miler group consisted of:

Me and Benjamin

My mom

Dave's mom & dad

Dave's grandmother

Dave's sister, her husband and their two sons

Dave's other sister's (the 5-miler) two daughters

Initially, I walked the course with my mom while pushing Benjamin's stroller - and carrying him. He was not a fan of the stroller at first. After another 2-miler caught up with us, I left the walkers after about 1/2 mile into the race and started running with the stroller (and Benjamin strapped in now). I ended up running/walking as I dodged tons of walkers, strollers and meandering talkers through a gravel path through the woods. When we finally emerged onto the road, I was able to get a bit more room and pick up the pace.

My final time was 25:12, which was AOK as I had to walk for a good stretch of the run; it felt good to finish and get a nice run in too. Plus, Benjamin fell asleep shortly after I started running. The best was the smorgasbord of food available post-run: bagels, cream cheese, whole wheat bread, juice, bananas, cheese cubes, crackers, gummy bears, Cheetos, chocolate donuts, raspberry cream-filled donuts. Yeah, gummy bears and donuts for after a race - what an awesome event, huh?!

After the race, my mom took us out to lunch at Calico Cupboard (yum!) and then we swung by Super Wal-mart before heading back to hang out at her house until our Open House was over. It was a very lovely Saturday.

Utah Adventures

The Trip - in Pictures and Lists

When we were interviewed to be married, our sweet bishop gave us a few pieces of advice. Surprisingly, his most important piece of advice was to take family vacations. I thought it a bit odd that that item would take higher priority over other things, but he explained that although it seems that we have all the time in the world, life speeds by extremely too fast. Taking vacations with your family allows you to slow down for just a bit, savor those precious relationships and build lasting memories.

He was so right.

And so, as I said in the last post, on a bit of a whim we took off for Utah. We had actually blocked out that time for the trip to go to my brother’s wedding, but because it was called off last month, we figured we wouldn’t go. But then, suddenly we did!

Without boring you with the minutiae, I figured a pictorial collage and some lists would give a lovely snapshot of our trip to the motherland.

Top 10 Most Memorable Parts of the UT trip:
1. Two 13-hour car rides – it was fun, but tough & tiring too
2. Road construction in every state
3. Dirty diaper tales – kindly sparing you the details
4. Trying to change a dirty diaper while in a moving car
5. Eating fast food gets old, fast
6. David’s dog was cute, but dander from the hair made me pretty sick
7. Banning infants from swimming in the hotel pool due to last summer’s outbreak of Cryptosporidium in Utah
8. Randomly stopping at The Little Stinker gas station to change a little stinker of our own
9. Utah looked a lot like Washington with darkened skies and a constant rain, although they also had a little snow and some intense sleet too.
10. Not unexpectedly, we were greeted with our familiar friend, Rain, once we reached the Cascades in Washington; the storm was monsoon-like, which made it highly unpleasant to navigate through Snoqualmie Pass.

Top 10 Best Parts of the UT trip:
1. Seeing Aunt Susan, President Keith Garner, Dave & Rach’s family (as well as my parents and Brent & Azzlinn, who were visiting, as well)… and then running into Bracan & Rachel’s family too
2. Eating tasty food at Café Rio, Applebee’s & Hires
3. Listening to a book on CD (“The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown), which was especially helpful in passing the time through desolate and less scenic parts of the drive
4. Road trip – it was absolutely delightful to unplug from tv, computer, cell phones, & life in general, and just have time to talk without the noise of our regular life
5. Singing “10 Little Monkeys”, “The Wheels on the Bus”, Disney songs, primary songs and anything else we could think of to help Benjamin survive two 13-hour car rides. A personal favorite was when “The Wheels on the Bus” morphed into "The Wheels on the Bus in a 3rd-World Country", as it was filled with Old McDonald’s farm too.
6. Lots of Firsts for Benjamin: 1st trip to UT, 1st time in a hotel, 1st time swimming, 1st time bowling, 1st time meeting Nali the Dog, and 1st time tasting a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream cake
7. Celebrating Rhees’ 4th Birthday
8. Watching lots of the NBA Playoffs
9. Getting a hotel through Hotwire. We scored an awesome suite for a rock-bottom price… not to mention the wonderful continental breakfast each morning, free WiFi and an endless supply of fresh cookies, 24 hours a day.
10. The Clearfield Aquatic Center – indoor waterparks provide some seriously fun family times!