MY DAILY 3

1. sleep
2. peanut butter (it just tastes so good)
3. the smell of baby's breath

We went to the zoo today with most of my sisters (minus Bea and the kids). Dawn is in town from Dubai and Allison just moved down here from Montana. We always love a day at the zoo (and so did the rest of the world, the zoo was packed).
My saint of a sister Dawn let Rayce lead her around from animal to animal. She made it into a game and they had to find out what each animal liked to eat. I think that Rayce would like to eat what the animals eat instead of what we want him to eat. He has always had a taste for dog food! He had a blast with Dawn. The only thing that could have made it better was if uncle Scott were here!







The Ghost of the Bayou. The white alligator. You will have to ask Rayce about it, it was for sure his favorite. It was the last thing that we saw and the first thing he asked to see. What a patient boy we have!

Here I am with my sweet baby girl. She is one for crowds or loud noise, especially when she is tired, so she didn't have the best first half of the day. I did get her to cat nap a bit and the second half of the day went a whole lot smoother!

We went to the bird show first and it was awesome. Here is a pic of a "sea eagle", I just loved his cool beak! I think that they are from Russia. This bird here is only 2 years old, so he has a bit more growing to do. They are some of the heaviest eagles in the world.

Here are a pair of my favorite animals. I love ZEBRAS!! They are so dang cool. My mom calls them tatooed mules.

Giraffes are another one of my favorites. I think that most of us Twede girls love giraffes, we covet their long necks and skinny legs!

Here is mi madre and mi hermana jennifer "cheezing" it up for the camera.
What a fun day at the zoo. I am lucky to have such a great family.

THANKFULLNESS

A couple of months ago I was going to start a "Thankful" daily entry on our blog. Today is the day that I am going to start. It is just a little way for me to keep focused and grounded on a daily basis. In our super fast-paced world it is way to easy to be over concerned with the future, "I can't wait till...", "when....then....", "I wish I had....", "when the kids are older then we can....", etc.. I feel like all I think about is what I have to do next instead of just enjoying the present. Our life is a gift, each and every day of it, so I am going to start trying to reap as much as possible out of each and every day! So here is goes....

WHAT I AM THANKFUL FOR TODAY
1. Big morning smiles
2. morning snuggles with Rayce
3. How long the sun stays up in the summer
4. sunsets always
5. baby sneezes
6. the internet ( so that I can keep in touch with old friends)
7. Daily walks
8. the smell of Honeysuckle
9. white noise
10. back yard blow-up swimming pools that smell of sunscreen

Lanie's First Camping Trip

Over Father's Day weekend we took Lanie on her first camping trip with the Helm clan. By camping trip I mean in a pop-up trailer at an RV park with lots of wind and no trees. We didn't start packing until Friday (the day we were supposed to leave, I highly discourage this because packing for camping takes longer then you ever think it will). I worked in the morning til 11am then came home to start packing. We wanted to get up there sometime in the afternoon. It ended up being evening, somewhere around 6:30pm. I remember my mom always complaining about going camping when we were kids and now I know why, I don't hate it (in fact I LOVE it once we are there), it just takes a long time to get ready to go. Eventually we will have the trailer all stocked up on old dishes/pots/pans/towel/utinsels etc... so it will cut a lot of preparation time. By the way if any of you out there have tossed around the idea of getting a camping trailer, I highly recommend it. It makes camping with kids so much easier. We bought ours used and got a screaming deal. You can camp during more months of the year due to the "choice" furnace they come with, and ours is an off-road trailer (that means it sits higher then the normal tent-trailer), and we can camp anywhere we would normally take our tents. As long as a 4-wheel drive vehicle can get there, we can camp there.
Well any how, the camping trip was a success. Rayce had the most fun, I barely saw him. He went fishing for the first time and caught his first fish, "Frank the fish" that is. Mike said he couldn't keep his hands off him in the boat. When we got back to camp he kept wanting to see Frank and make sure that he was okay (like he was his pet), he was very sad when we had to break it to him that Frank had died, and fish can't live out of water very well. He moved on to catch a beetle and name him "Frank". How easily "Franks" are replaced! Frank the beetle died too, Rayce said it was because he ate too much of the cheese that he had so kindly placed in his petri dish. His stink beetle and grasshopper survived until the very end, they even got to ride home with us. Aside from some break downs due to not eating or taking a nap he was an awesome little camper.
Lanie did pretty well herself. She struggled with her eating schedule because she loves to eat in private, with lots and lots of white noise. The girl cannot concentrate on food if there are a million things to look at and listen to. She slept through the nights even with her mom touching her face every hour to see if she was cold. She loved being outside, except when it was breezy. Her cute little cheeks stayed rosy the whole time due to all the fresh air. All in all I think that she enjoyed it.
We had lots of fun with all the family, we even had some yummy cake for grandpa's birthday! The nights got a little cold, we felt bad for those braving it in the tents. Grandma Faye got so chilled she could barely function. It was so fun we wished we could have stayed a day longer!

My Opinion.

This opinion has two parts. If you have read this blog in the past 12 months you may have picked up on the fact that I love to be on a bike. I try to put in 85-120 miles per week. I know Lance Armstrong does this in a day, but he doesn't weight in at 220 and he has all the latest and greatest performance enhancing drugs. Sorry to all you believers out there, but yeah I believe he is a doper. I don't care either. You have to dope as a pro athlete anymore. It's the only way to play at the same level as the other pro whatevers. Sorry, I am getting off point. So one of the reasons I love to bike is because you get to see things you otherwise wouldn't. Like the dead cat stuffed half way into a storm drain. Did someone try to hide some evidence or did it try to make it there after being hit by a car. Who knows. Notice things you never would have. Like how well cared for some yards are and how ghetto some people can let their's get. Smell things you otherwise wouldn't smell. This can be sweet and terrible all in the same ride. One thing that I notice is garbage cans. I know it's weird, but they are always out due to not everyone of us having the same garbage day. People will try to get away with throwing anything into the ONE can they get. This brings me to the first opinion. Recycle Cans. We have one. It costs us an extra $3.00 a month to have it. I also notice which neighborhoods have them and which don't. The most people that have them live in what I would consider medium to low income neighborhoods. All you richie rich types out there think you are above having to recycle? I mean it does take all the extra effort of lifting the other lid. Which could result in a broken nail or a collar being flipped down to it's natural position. So I have come up with a few reasons why this may be. One, people with money (sorry some people with money ) feel like they don't have to do their part. I back this up with the following. They all drive the biggest nicest gas guzzlingest vehicles on the road. I mean they can't have their neighbors seeing them drive something economical. What would they think if the Jones didn't see them driving the newest Escalade or Denali. I know, I know we have an SUV and a Pickup, but the truck is for sale so I can buy a used civic and I work from home so if I go through two tanks of gas in a month it was a busy month. So get off me. Two, they aren't really well to do at all and really don't even have the $3 to spend because they are over extended. Three, they are the cheapest person ever. Four and last but not least they just don't care about doing their part. Come on people lets see some more blue cans out at the curb. Recycling doesn't take that much more effort and you will be amazed at how much longer it takes you to fill up your regular garbage can. We probably only take out the garbage can every other week. So get with the program. Now opinion part deux. I think I am a pretty nice guy. There are those that will disagree, but overall I try to be pretty nice. While on my bike I say good morning or wave to just about everyone that is out exercising whether walking, biking, or running. But most people look at me like I just told them I want to kidnap and cook their cat. It really irks me. I mean hell are we so detached from others that we don't know what to do when someone waves to us or says hello. I will say most women young or old reciprocate the gesture, but most the guys act again like I just spit at them. If you have been next to me when this happens you know that what happens next is me being extremely childish and yelling something derogatory at them. Most the time it is "too cool huh". I have had people look right at me as I wave and give me the stink eye. I have in the past called out other cyclists for being such jackasses. This will be a shock I am sure, but most road cyclists think that no one else should be out on the road when they are. I have let a few of these guys have it on occasion. Once Lez and Rayce almost got hit by a roadie up the canyon because it was just beyond him to have to slow down or make his presence known as he went by at 25 mph. He got the wrath and if he had had the huevos to come back with attitude it would have resulted in an assult charge on yours truly. So in closing, get off your backside and call your city to see about getting a recycle can. Just make one less stop at the gas station once a month and the money you save will pay for it and if a stranger offers you a hello, holla back. If not you may end up with a water bottle to the back of your head. But thats just my opinion.

I have to write about this before I forget. Lately Rayce has decided that he is a little comedian, and the other day he tried his stand-up on me.
Rayce: "mom do you want to hear a joke?"
Mom: "sure Rayce"
Rayce: "how do you get a baby monster to sleep?"
Mom: "I really have no idea"
Rayce: "you feed him"....(at this point he is laughing histerically)
Mom: ( I am laughing at how much he is laughing)
Rayce: "mom do you want to hear another one?"
Mom: "sure, ( as long as it is as funny as the first one)"
Rayce: "how do you get a baby house to sleep?"....
"you feed it!" (followed by more laughing)
He proceeded to tell jokes on and off for the next couple of days and even called Grandma to tell her the jokes that he came up with all by himself. He was pretty proud of his humor and to be honest, so was I!

Here are just a few current pics of us and the kids. We still don't know who Lanie looks like, although her chin resembles mine! We see the doctor for her 4 month next week so we will have to update eveyone with her stats. She got a mild form of RSV over Memorial Day and was a little wheezy in her chest, and had an ear ache. We nebulized her for over a week and she did really well. The last time we were there they weighed her and she weighed about 15 lbs 13 oz. She is just a little gush baby and we love her!
Rayce loves her tons and tons. He is always talking to her and calling her "peanut" and "princess", "oh yes you are". Yesterday he loved her a little much. She was in her exersaucer and her was talking to her so I ran upstairs to put some clothes away and the next thing I knew she was screaming. I ran downstairs to see what was going on and she was tipped over stuck in her saucer, head on the floor. I might have over reacted a little bit and scared the crap out of both of them. After we calmed them both down and established that Lanie wasn't hurt and that we weren't mad at Rayce, he proceeded to tell us that he was hiding under the exersaucer and accidentally tip it over when he was climbing out. It is a good thing babies are resilliant because having a big brother is sometimes rough (physically).

My Opinion.

I think "My Opinion" will have to become a weekly to maybe every other week thing. But this post is directed at what I like to call "douche bags". You know who you are. Walking around with your collars standing up on your polo shirts. I've had enough. This look isn't cool. Your not cool. Hell your not even cool with you collar down and you are trying to be cool with it up. Please. Lets not look even more foolish than you are. This is a look that wasn't even cool in the 80's, but they did it and it's in the past. Where it should be. Now your trying to bring it back. The only way you can pull this off and I can't stress "only way" enough is if you are over the age of 40, don't shave your chest, have some sort of gold nugget necklace with bracelet to match and the shirt truly is Polo brand. Then and only then is this look aloud. Still bad, but aloud. Now just because you saw this in an Abercrombie and Fitch ad doesn't mean you can pull this off. And shame on you even more for buying into some weak sauce advertising ploy to make young impressionable youths fall victim to the fashion industry. You are probably the same guy that actually wears jeans priced over $75 and has some sort of skinny pointed shoes that go with said jeans and polo with the collar up. If you are wearing said jeans or have a pair in your closet you too fall into this douche bag column. I can't even condone females buying these jeans these days that cost $150 and much much more. But, that is for another post. So until next time, remember, only tools wear their collars up.

If I offended anyone..................put your collar down.

DATE NIGHT

Mike has been itching to go out on a date lately, and by a date he means anything with me just by ourselves. We decided that we would drop the kids off at our good friends in Lehi and head to Alpine to do some mountain biking. If any of you know my husband you know how much he LOVES biking, probably more than most things. Mike bought me a sweet mountain bike two years ago and I ride it as much as possible up the canyon but I haven't been out on the dirt much. Mike chose Alpine because it isn't super steep and he thought that it would be a good first ride this season for me. It was perfect weather, not too hot and we were both excited to have some time together. We pulled our bikes out of the truck and were geared up to start our ride. Mike wanted me to check to see if my suspension was locked out, I bent over to check it out, forgetting that I was clipped in my left peddle and fell over on my left side barely missing the cassett on Mike's bike. I banged up my knee and elbow and I hadn't even peddled once, boy am I graceful!
We finally started our ride, and Mike was right, it was not very steep, but he did forget how rocky the trail was. If any of you have mountain biked before, when you are going up hill you are not necessarily going super fast, therefore going the speed of a snail over big rocks is a bit more technical then you think. Needless to say about five minutes into the ride I ate it big time and jacked up my knee and arm. I got a little mad at myself and a lot mad at the stinking huge rocks! After my venting I climed back on and finished the ride. Luckily there were parts that were not as rocky and going over the rocks downhill was much easier. All in all it was a fun ride and made me want to get out more often so that I could get better at it. Most of all it was great to hang out with Mike all by my lonesome! Anything I do with Mike always ends up being fun, even if I come home with sweet battle wounds!
THANKS FOR THE DATE MIKEY!