August

MY FIRST GARDEN
This year was my first time to plant my own garden. I was really proud of myself. Back in April Garet and I road-a-tiled the ground and I started lots of little planters with cucumbers, green beans, squash, zucchini, and tomatoes. Then in May Renee my sweet sister in law came and helped me plant the garden. I had no idea what I was doing so it was nice to have her help me. She was so sweet to take time out of her day and help. Along with the starter planters I had previously done we also planted some string beans, watermelon, cantaloupe and okra. Garets mom also started some cherry and grape tomatoes that we planted. I really tried all summer to keep up with the water and the weeds. Of course some days/weeks were better then others. Over all though I think I ok. I did learn though if you stay on top of the weed picking it is much much easier!!! So when it came time for harvesting our fruit....we ended up doing ok. We had plenty of okra, and cherry/grape tomatoes, and green beans. We had an ok amount of cucumbers, not very many large tomatoes, a couple watermelon(that were quite tasty I might add) no cantaloupe and not very much squash.
Things I learned this year that I hope to do different next year:
- plant my tomato plants A LOT further apart. They were way to close this year made it hard for sun to get to them, water to get to them and hard to pick the fruit.
- I would like to install some kind of drip system. Our water bill went up way to high. I think If I watered it less more frequently (if that makes any since) I'd save a lot on the water bill.
- And lastly...I am not going to plant my zucchini in the shade.- I didn't mean to do this I thought they would get enough sun where they were but nope.....apparently they need more!

Backyard..looking at the garden..see how big and how close my tomato plants were?

Just one picking of grape/cherry tomatoes in a morning. (paige and Garet loved the "baby tomatoes" as Paige would call them.)

The rest of my picking for the day

WEEKEND FRIEND RETREAT!! (8/13-8/15)

Over this past weekend Friday the 13th through Sunday the 15th we got to go to Phoenix to have a fun time with our friends the Woodsides. We stayed at The Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort in Phoenix(price-line is the best). Our friends Justin, Kiri and there son Jaran, stayed in the suite next to us. It was a wonderful weekend! It was so nice to get away and do something fun as a family and to be with amazing friends! We got to Mesa late Friday night. We met Justin and Kiri at Pei Wei. (one of our favorite places to eat) Then we went to our resort and visited for a bit and checked out the pool before bed. The next day we went to the pool for a while and had a blast. This resort had a fun water slide and all of us adults tried it out! Paige was a little fish that we had to watch really carefully. I wish she was big enough to go down the slide. I think she would have liked it. However the end kinda had a little kick to it and that probably would have really scared her. We then went back to our rooms and got ready for the day. Then the shopping began. With 4 people all wanting to go different placed all over the metroplex we had alot of places to go to. Garet and I didn't get to finish all we wanted to but it was alright. Garet and I didn't spend much money shopping so that was kinda nice. We shopped all afternoon together and we did not get back to the resort until 9:30 that night. We were all so tired and bummed that we missed out on going swimming again since the pool closed a 10pm. So, we stayed up and talked like old times. Kiri and I visited while Garet & Justin talked Chiropractic. It was a lot of fun. The only thing missing was Adam and Hillary who live so far away from us. We missed them being with us. Sunday we said goodbye to the Woodside and we left the Pheonix area and went to the Mesa area. We tried to hit a church but unfortunately it didn't work out. I can't really remember why but I do know we tried 3 different buildings with no luck. I do remember though how frustrated we were. After trying with no succcuss we stopped by Marcos and Estthers house before going out of town. Esther was kind enough to let us crash there Sunday dinner. It was nice eating with them instead of trying to grab something on the sabbath. After dinner and a quick nap we headed back to Thatcher. It was a great weekend and lots of fun. I really hope we can do it again with them!!
Now here are some pictures: :)

Jaran and Paige were so adorable! They got along really well. Paige is a year older than Jaran and he is a good 2 inches taller than the tiny and petite Paige. I think all our kids are destined to be like this.....sorry guys!!!

Garet and Paige at the pool. I couldn't really get either of them to look at me.

Kiri, Jaran, Paige and I

Paige and Jaran in the car....they had no idea of all the shopping that lied ahead of them....(actually either did we..:))

Our little family before leaving the resort Sunday morning.

OUR FIRST TRIATHLON (8-28-10)

My family has really gotten into Triathlons. Marlee and Spencer were the first to compete in one. They then talked Justin into it, and then Landon. Garet and I always said we were going to do one but we never kept up in the training. I think the next people to do one was Allison and Mom. Well this summer Garet and I decided that we really wanted to do one. We chose the local triathlon as our first one. Landon and JJ (old volleyball friend) also came down and competed the tri along with Allison and Mom doing the relay. They also had a mini triathlon that Garet talked Renee, Brinlee, Mitchell, Reed and Jordan into doing. The Training wasn't to bad. Garet and I had already been biking around 1o miles a couple times a week and had been running about 3 miles a couple times a week so we thought we would be ok in those areas. It was the swimming that had both of us scared. Garet mapped out a training program and made it possible for each of us to do what we needed to do. Like I had previously said in another post we started spending lots of time at the Safford pool. From what we have learned most triathlons have the same transition areas. Here, at this one it was different. The race started in Pima at the city pool there = 600M. We then rode our bikes from Pima to Safford= 12miles. Then in safford ran a 5K.
Garet did so good in the race and had good times. I don't remember what they were. He did good in the swim....better then he thought he would and then did good on bike and then awesome on the run. I didn't do good at all in the swim. I was really frustrated. I had goggle problems. I know this sounds dumb but I was so nervous I forgot to put them on when I first started swimming. Then when I realized I didn't have them on I was underwater so then I put them on...duh on my part. Of course I am going to have water in my goggles if I put them on underwater. So the rest of the swim I was messing with my goggles and swiming with my eyes half open. It was really frustrating. After the swim I did pretty good on the bike. The entire ride my goal was to catch up with mom who was doing a relay with Allison. Near the end of the ride I finally caught mom. I didn't do to bad on the run. I could have done better but I was still happy with it. It felt great to be done. I was so proud of myself.
We only have pictures of me during the race because Garet gave Jordan the camera after Garet had already finished the race.

Me just finishing the run portion!

Mom and I after the race.

All who came to participate in the race.
(a friend of Allison's from SV) then Allison, Landon, Garet, Me, Jordan and Mom

I just wanted to add one other piece of information about the triathlon. So Garet and I really wanted to have a baby. We'd been trying for what we thought a while. Well the Tuesday before the race I found out I was expecting. Garet and I were of course excited. He then said, " So how are we going to celebrate you being pregnant?.....Lets run a triathlon this weekend!"....and that we did!

PLAY TIME AND PLAY DATES

Paige is a funny girl and constantly is entertaining Garet and I. One night while Garet and I were busy doing things on the computer Paige came walking into the Kitchen dressed like this. She thought she was so funny....and she was. So when we started laughing and taking pictures. She really ate it up and acted even more goofy. (8/9/10)

See look how funny I am!

She didn't even get matching shoes!

Paige is a busy little girl. She is usually pretty good at playing by herselft but she is constantly doing things. Don't get me wrong she loves loves loves her movies and TV shows and will watch them forever if I'm not careful but once they are turned off little miss active comes out. She likes to play dolls, kitchen, Dora, puzzles and she likes to color. Anyways one day I decided it would be fun to make some play dough together and let her play with it. She loved it. I made a big batch and then made lots of different colors. I tried to separate the colors at first but after awhile I gave up. All Paige wanted to do was mix them. She had a blast playing though...and it actually didn't get to messy. I kept it in an air tight closed container so it lasted for months!!! (8/2/10)

She loved making all the shapes with all my cookie cutters.

Paige has also reached the age where she has realized that she loves to play with friends! She is lucky enough to have lots of kids her age to play with. When it was warm..(and not to hot) we would go to the park 2x's a week where I could visit with the moms and all the kids would play. Our other favorite thing to do was (and still is) go to the library's story time. Paige loves this. The lady that runs it does a good job. Library day usually consists of story time of course then craft time, then play time...and then we like to end it with picking out books ourselves to take home. Not only is library time good for Paige because it teaches her about books but she again has lots of little friends that go and I can visit again with their moms. Paige has also discovered how fun it is to go to a friends house to play and have them play at ours.

Paige and Braden Bryce (neighbor) (8/11/10)

Paige and Lanie eating lunch in her room (8/30/10)

Isn't this a cute picture! Lanie and Paige (8/30/10)