Fenton's

You know the movie, "Up?"  The old man and the little boy scout end up at Fenton's Ice Creamery at the end of the movie.  That's a real place down in Berkley and we LOVE it!  My favorite thing to order is the toasted almond ice cream with jersey topping (malt, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce) and a side order of caramel.  Sooo yummy!  Well, Fenton's is obviously quite the drive from our little house so the kids and I figured out a recipe for toasted almond ice cream.  And let me tell you...it was delicious!  The kids had a blast using the ice cream maker and we all had fun devouring our treat.

Hot Day at the River

Lu Lu cheesing it up for the camera.

It was hot enough that no one really complained about a stray shot of water from the kids.  Actually few of the shots went stray...the kids aimed for anyone within range.

Lu Lu had fun getting Sarah wet. 

Arni takes the big jump...she did it a few times...and perforated her ear drum on one of the jumps.

If Arwen's going to do it I had to too.

We had lots of fun!  Matthew and Bethany and the cousins came too along with our friends the Dickinson's.  That and about half of the drunk young adults in Portland.  We had ourselves a few really good laughs at people so wasted I'm pretty sure they won't even remember.  Good times!

Hood To Coast 2010

I just finished the worlds largest (not longest) relay.  Some 12,000 people ran the relay.  Hood to Coast is a 197 mile relay from The top of Mount Hood to the ocean at Seaside.  We had a 12 man team and each ran 3 legs.

See how good I am at pretending I'm not terribly tired and sore?

Team "We Eat Dust"

There was another team we followed for a while in the van named "Eat Our Dust".  I thought that was pretty funny.

 I told Arwen I'll probably never run this race again until she talks me into it.  So she strapped on my bib number and started training.  Registration for next years run starts in 3 weeks.  I guess that's time enough to forget the pain.  I hope so.

 I had 3 shirts I ran in on each leg...one from Intel, they payed for my run and gave me a nice dry fit shirt to do a littl advertising, one they gave me at HTC, and my real one "TEAM SARAH"  Who was my real supporter for this event.

We had 31 hours to do the run to qualify, we came in at just shy of 30.  The top team came in around 17 hours.  The record is 15:44:55 hours (that's a crazy 5.19 min/mile).  We had a few guys on the team get lost (other van)  and after my last leg I came into the finish line and the other van was not there.  It felt like I was waiting for ever but the whole thing only cost us 6 min. I guess.  All in all the race went smooth and most of us met or exceeded our goals.  Though I think I did have a goal of a little sleep that I wasn't able to meet.  I was up a lot of the night before we left for the mountain at 4:00 AM, then over the next 30 hours I got about 2 hours of sleep out in some field.  No sleep added a lot to the difficulty of the relay.

We also took Road Kill stats in our vans.  A Road Kill is anyone you pass on your leg.  It got me running faster than I probably would have, especially on my first run.  I got 9 kills in the first 4 miles then chased some guy for the next 3.4 miles before passing him just before the finish line.  He heard me coming (I had an annoying rock stuck in the tread of one of my shoes) and kept looking over his shoulder and speeding up.  I just had to out run him in the end.  I was a tick mark on two of the vans out there.  The first guy that passed me was on my night run.  The cars driving by would cast my shadow on the road in front of me and then all of a sudden there was two shadows.  I tried my best to keep in front of him but with each car his shadow got taller, then I could hear him and he made a break for it.  I tailed him for a while but he was just too fast for me.

My Road Kill stats:

Leg1 Kills 10

Leg2 Kills 4  Killed 1

Leg3 Kills 6  Killed 1

Huh.  Look at that.  I've become such a lame lazy blogger that it has been taken over by a more responsible party. 

Anyways, there have been a few things that have really made me giggle lately.  This morning, during family scripture reading, Larkin waved her hand as if she had a question.  She waved it around until Aaron stopped talking and asked if she had a question. 
"Yesh."  She said.
"What is it Lu?"  He asked.
"So...ummm...I got germs."  Then she lifted her hands to show him. 

I think Noah's wig has made an appearance or two on the blog.  Let me tell you about him and his wig.  First off, we found 4 hilarious old lady wigs at a thrift shop in Aurora while visiting my mom and dad.  Noah is obsessed with his so much so that I don't even notice when he has it on and wears it on all our outings and errands...that is until all the comments start.  They don't even phase him.  It's like it's his real hair and he's always had to deal with the admiration of everyone around.  I usually just suppress a grin and let people oohhhh and aahhh.  He spends hours combing and brushing that thing to get it to look just right.  In fact, I just noticed him on the couch and laughed at loud at the wig today.  It is extra full and standing straight up.  He informed me that he was able to acheive this by using my brush.  Nice.  

I put the kids to bed in the tree house the other day then came in to watch a movie with Sarah.  It was already late and dark as it's not easy getting the kids to sleep when are all together, throw in the tree house and it's even harder.  Anyway, about an hour into the movie we see a flashlight bouncing around this way and that in the back yard.  It didn't look like it was going to get back into bed by itself so I went out and found Lu-Lu hunting for strawberries.  I wonder if we'd gone to bed how long she would have wandered around foraging for food in a big dark backyard by herself.  I don't have a picture of Lu-Lu sneaking around the back yard but here's one from her sneaking out of bed the other night...she's set up camp in the living room.


So here's a look at the club house nicked named "Death Star" (Not yet completed but fully operational).  I still need a door and to cut out the windows and to paint it and...but it's getting there.

Noah found his brother from another mother at the county fair.

He got lots of comments on his sweet hair.

Day 5

All is well, Sarah's home.  They sure work the craft lady ragged up there, that and no sleep, poor Sarah looked tired.  We sure did miss her.  I interviewed the kids today at lunch to see what they missed most about mom.  There was a "She's so fun", but mostly they all said, "She's just soooo beautiful".  Looking at dad all week must have been wearing on them.

We did a little cleaning this morning to impress Sarah and get ready for her trip to Colorado next week.  When we were cleaning the van Lu-lu decided to turn on the headlights, I didn't catch it.  Later when we were going to hunt for the DI-pods we were dead as a door nail.  After a jump from the neighbors we searched in vain for the DI-pods.  Does anyone know where they went?

Made some more progress on the tree house today...We have three walls now and not enough wood for the fourth and the roof unless I figure out some fancy tricks.  I'll be making another scrap wood run I have a feeling.

Larkin fresh out of the bath has been coloring on herself with marker...got to go.

Day 4

6:00 AM: The kids are not up yet...

6:30 AM: Still no kids...

7:00 AM: Larkin wins but soon falls back asleep in my bed...

Joshua was up next but put himself to bed right after our doughnut breakfast.  He fell asleep again this evening in the hammock  The doughnuts were an celebration for Joshua not using a pull-up at night again.  No need to mention the only reason he didn't have a pull-up on the last two nights was because I forgot to put one on him.  Tonight we did it on purpose, gotta go for the turkey right?

We worked on the tree house all day, we didn't even go swimming to Arwen's dismay.  The kids helped now and again trying to finish pounding nails and what not but lost interest pretty quick.  At one point I told Noah the story of the Little Red Hen, which he lost interest in when he started to understand what I was getting at.  Larkin was about the best helper fetching me nails when I needed them.  She calls them her babies and when I nail them into the wood she'll cry out "you killed my baby!".  The little cutie will also push imaginary babies on the swing and sing to them.   I did a little math on the wood I have left vs the wood I need to build the walls and roof and came short unless I build really big windows...on all four sides.  So I went wood scavenging today and got a pretty good haul.  Though I think I may be short still.  

The kids ate peas and strawberries all day from the garden, which kinds looks like it's been trampled by horses.  I did notice the broccoli is starting to flower.

Noah, Arwen and Joshua went through the secret passage today (a hole in our back fence).  Noah came back breathing heavy and talking fast about a glove he'd found under a bridge...which he explained meant there was a man back their that was trying to get them.  The poor little guy's imagination got the best of him and he's scared to go back there again until I go with him.  

Arwen cleaned the whole house today for when Sarah comes home tomorrow.  It looked really nice for a few minutes.  The plan is to bath the kids in the morning then clean up all over again before Sarah get's home.  

Day 2 & 3

Went jogging in the morning with Peter.  We'd planned on seeing what our 10K time was on flat ground so I mapped it out on the relatively flat farmington road.  I missed our turnaround point and we just kept on running until things didn't feel right and then kept going for some reason.  We turned around at River road.  I'm sure we were tired from the run the day before but that run killed us, joints, feet, and connecty thingys were complaining.  

I got back from my jog and Noah was making himself breakfast, caramel sauce, chocolate syrup, and strawberry jam toast.  He made similar delicacies for the kids while I took a shower.  I dropped the kids off at the Dickinsons and went to work.  They were showing the US vs Algeria game in the cafe with free berakfast so I worked from down there while watching the game.  We won 1:0 scoring at 90min.  It was an awesome game.  Watched Germany win over lunch time and snuck home early to get the kids.  We had dinner then went swimming then back to Peters to help build the club-house.  We got one more wall built then it was 9:00.  The kids had a blast just running around and from what I could tell they were pretty good.

Jogged an easy paced 5K this morning in crocks, and I think they are better running shoes than my running shoes.  We worked on the tree house all day, with a lawn mowing, campfire and swimming to break things up a bit.  After dinner we went over to Peters to work on his guest-house and got the walls raised.  We pounded the last nail of the day at 10:00.  Poor kids haven't gotten to bed on time in a few days, I don't think they've minded though.

Arwen replied to some question of one of the kids with "This is bacon, it's the best kind of meat in the whole world", then she looked at me and added, "except for fish, of course".  I'm pretty sure she was referring to shrimp.

We roasted some huge marshmallows after eating lunch.  Larkin won for being the cleanest (she ate hers un-roasted).  Joshua won for being the dirtiest.

Day 1

Sarah shot me an FYI email as she was walking out the door for girls camp: 

"Freezer is not cold..."

So I came home as soon as I could escape from work to save the years supply of delicious strawberry freezer jam Sarah had just made. 

Arwen and Noah helped me mop up the water and clean up after defrosting the freezer.  

Larkin was getting a little fussy so I suggested she go take a nap.  I sent Arwen and Noah down to the pool while Joshua and I finished cleaning up.  After an hour or so we woke Larkin up and joined Arwen and Noah at the pool.

 Yesterday at the pool Larkin was so excited to get in the pool she ran over to the side and was about to jump in before I could get her floaties on.  She was pretty independent...even abandoning the watter noodle after a while.

 Doesn't that look Olympic?  We'll other than the beach ball :)

Couldn't resist another shot of Lu-Lu

That poor shark Noah has by the tail mysteriously popped.

Joshua was sure glad Larkin preferred the floaties over his ring-o-ma-bob thingy.

If only the day ended there...I was on the phone trying to help with some stuff and shushed Arwen when she tried to talk to me.  Apparently Larkin had pooped her pull-up.  I think Arwen attempted to change her but there had been some malfunction of both bowels and pull-up.  I'll skip forward to allow any of you that have just eaten dinner (or have ever eaten anything) to keep it in your stomaches.  Suffice it to say the rug and Larkin got a nice hose down, the rug out back, Larkin in the bath.

And then it was bed time.