Pinehurst Parade

The morning Patty & Britt arrived, we went to the Pinehurst Days parade. Kale bought a marshmallow gun for "the boys". Notice who has it the most....

The boys each collected WAY too much candy...

Below: The cars/bikes the boys liked the best.

Sandpoint with Patty & Britt

Patty and Britt drove up for a long weekend. We went up to Sandpoint for the weekend. It was a great weekend, that went WAY too fast!

At the top of Schweitzer mountain...I LOVE this view!

There was a little playground up there...the boys enjoyed it.

We saw two bears...one ran in front of our car on the drive up the mountain, and another was running across the down-hill bike track (while a race was going on). Above pic: Patty is pointing at the bear. Super cool!

Our hotel was right on the beach...we were feeding the seagulls from our patio door. Kale eventually got out the marshmallow gun we purchased earlier that week....

More playground play...

There were some guys doing this cool rope-walking thing, and they let Britt try it. I would have...but didn't want to break the rope. :)

More playground...

We brought the boys big-wheels. They had SO much fun riding them around the park.

For some reason, Brenton started throwing sand at the lion statue. Really weird...

The motel pool...Patty brought the boys the "raft" and the squirt guns (the weird looking stick things). Brenton quickly started using it as a paddle.

This is what we did while in the rooms.

On our way home, Britt & Kale went to a movie, and we took the boys to a park. The park had a nice splash area that Brenton LOVED. Alex wanted nothing to do with the water, but he found other things to do.

Again...

I am once again, VERY behind in blogging. We have done so many fun things the last few months...

I will slowly update as I can. I have felt a little over-whelmed with other responsibilities, lately. This is why:

- I am still doing my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) bookkeeping/registration.

- I have volunteered to do the bookkeeping and help with the Newsletter for "The Fuller Center for Housing", here in our valley. That is ending up taking more time than I thought it would. (I still don't have a complete grasp on how I volunteered for that...

- PLUS, the office manager at my work has a back injury and needs surgery. She'll be out of the office for at least a few months. My 2-5 hours of work per week (most of that at home) has changed. I now go into work on Tuesdays while Brenton is at school, and have LOTS of work to do at home. The last few weeks, I've worked around 30 hours each week. It doesn't sound like a lot, but to me (trying to do most of that at home while one-two boys are running around) it's really hard to accomplish.

- I've started going to Coeur D Alene M/W/F early AM to swim with a Master's swim team. I've LOVING it! This is the first time I've done hard workouts since my first year in college, and I have re-found my love for swimming!

- I have signed the boys up for swim lessons on Tues/Thurs evenings in Coeur D Alene, so we make a trip over there each day of the week. (these have been since been switched to next session due to Brenton's skin problem....so a little break there.)

Anyway, I am busy, tired, but loving life. I'll update as I can.

Back in August....

Kelly came out and did a 5K lake swim with me. Yes...that's over 3 miles of swimming. It was fun, but we don't think we'll do it again. Since it was an official USA swim meet, there were LOTS of regulations. They even made Kelly cut off her fingernails, because they were too long!

We were the first people to get body-marked, and they wrote our numbers in the wrong spot (with permanent marker) so they had to write them again. We had our numbers down our arms, on our shoulders, and across our backs.

The water was freezing, and if we wore our wet-suits, we couldn't get a time (due to the regulations), so we swam in just our swimsuits. I figured since I was going to be swimming kind of hard, the water would feel good after a bit...I was wrong. After the first lap (we had to complete two laps) I was freezing, as well as BORED out of my mind! Way too long of doing the same thing. Maybe I should have swam harder, or changed it up a bit....

Kelly, of course, kicked my butt with a time of 1:35.05, to my time of 1:41.51. I think I have been setting my goals a little low. I was hoping to finish before the cut-off time of 2:30. I did that...plus I wasn't even last! That was MORE than I was hoping for!

The shirt I ordered was a bit large...oops. Brenton wanted to wear it. He didn't keep it on for more than a couple of seconds.

Kelly by the moose on the Lake.

This is where we swam, before the buoys were placed. It was as cold as it looks.

The next day, we did a Lake Coeur d' Alene cruise with the boys.

At the Kellogg park, the day Kelly flew in...

At the Lake Coeur d' Alene park, the day of the boat cruise.

The day we took the boat cruise, the boys REALLY wanted to swim in the lake. The beach was SUPER crowded, and I really didn't want to get back into the water the day after I'd swam over 3 miles in it...so I promised them I would bring them back to the beach after we took Kelly to the airport that next day...so the below pictures are from the beach (at 9:30 AM). Yup...it was REALLY cold!

Above: Brenton trying to warm up

Below: Brenton did get in a swim for a few seconds....my BRAVE boy!