Charity Never Faileth

Oh My Heavens! I SO need to go to bed earlier. Seriously, as soon as I'm done blogging, I'm going to sleep. It's only 9:36 pm right now on Saturday night, but seriously, girls, I'm wiped. I need a good 9-10 hours of sleep - hehehe.

I was up at 7:45am on Saturday, trying to get ready for the McKelligon Canyon run/walk with the wrestling team and my kids. It took me a long time to wake up, and Eme and Jake didn't wanna wake up either. Jim and Joe were already awake, so that part was easy.

We got ready, and hustled up to the canyon. We actually made it there on time. I had to drive Captain America's car, which is a stick shift. Going up hill makes me nervous. I'm afraid that I'll get stuck on a hill at a traffic sign, and not know what to do. That it'll roll back and hit the car behind me, or that I'll kill it. Lots of stress. BUT, I managed to get greens on all the lights up the canyon. Thank goodness!

We parked, and the kids got ready for the walk/run. There did a bit of stretching before we actually started walking.

Here's Eme and Joe before the walk. I don't know why Joe didn't want his picture taken. Funny kid!

Group shot! It was SO bright and sunny, that the kids didn't wanna pose for me. Notice all the hands over the faces. Jake and Eme did a GREAT job of actually looking decent. hehehe.

See, even I'm squinting, and even have on sunglasses.

There's my nice Joe face!

Here's where we go jogging. Up the canyon between the mountains. We follow the driving path (um, road - ha!)

So, I bring the stroller this time, because Jim freaked out last time. I start pushing, and the child is a ton of bricks! Seriously. What do I feed the kids, rocks? Gravel? Cement? Lead? He's SO heavy! I push him up the very steepest part, and feel like I'm pushing weights up a stair step machine. I was definitely sweating bullets this week!

We got to the top of the first hill, and coach said to start running. Eme and Jake and Joe (Tom's camping remember?) did SO good. TONS better than last time. About 1/2 mile before the turn around place, I make Jim get out of the stroller and run/walk. Oh, he was not happy about it. I was, but him? Not so much.

I frankly don't know what was worse. Pushing him in the stroller and DYING from the exertion, or listening to him whine and moan and scream and cry while I drug him the remaining way to the turn around. Seriously, after we'd gone about 50 feet, we passed a family going the other direction. Jim was screaming. They looked at me with such sympathy. I pointed behind me (to the stroller), and said "I just barely ditched the thing. I don't know why he's screaming". They got a good laugh out of that. I'm glad that someone did - hehehe.

2 other parents were dealing with "I quit" children. All about the same age 3-5. It's a hard walk for the little ones. But, I drug Jimmy to the turn around, then at least had the "keep walking till you find the stroller" ploy. There's always the standby "don't be a straggler or the Mountain Lions will eat you." I really like that one. It worked well for Eme and Joe as well - ROFL!

Eme tripped and fell at one point, and came and ran/walked with me. She didn't get really hurt, but she was tired. When we got the stroller back, I pushed, and Eme held my hand, and I walked as fast as I could. She had to 1/2 walk 1/2 run to keep up with me. She got a good workout.

Here's the kids running. Jake is in front, in front of the chickie with the pink shirt and pony tail. And Eme with jeans and a sweater. Yeah, clearly not the "exercise" clothes I told them all to put on before we left the house...

Joe in the red shirt.
We stopped right before coming down the final hill, and as the kids stopped, the coaches said to put their hands on their heads. Anyone know why? Seriously, anyone? I assume it has to do with keeping your heart rate going? Or your blood flowing? Or something from not cramping? OK, I'm just making stuff up. I have no idea why. Any runners out there with an answer?

Yeah, not quite to your head, Jake. Come on, kid! Try a little harder :)

And Jim, I don't think they were talking to you - ROFL!

Eme knows what she's doing! Good listening to the directions, sweetie!

After we were done, coach gave us water, told the kids to practice their moves, and we headed back home. First thing I did when I got there (after making sure everyone was inside and safe) was take off my shoes and crash on my bed. I SO needed a nap. But I couldn't fall asleep. I even turned on my fan, shut my blinds/curtains, shut the bedroom door, cuddled up in the blanket. No luck. It just wasn't gonna happen.

I threw on some flip flops, put my hair back in my bandanna, and got the kids ready. Kayley was doing a Pampered Chef party, and I was debating going. Since I couldn't sleep anyway, I decided to go. The kids were excited to go to ANYONE's house and play. Apparently I'm not that much fun. Who knew?

The had ALL sorts of yummy foods there. And again, somewhat stress eating. Kayley had made foods with different kinds of chocolate. Pudding with Mexican chocolate. Dark chocolate covered peanut butter balls, zuchinni bread with semi sweet chocolate, white chocolate chip cookies, tarts with milk chocolate. TONS of chocolate. Plus some bread and strawberries. And chips and nacho cheese. OMHeck. WHY did I eat the foods. See, this is why I need to be on a diet. Because I have absolutely no self control. I NEED structure.

My tummy hurt SO bad about 30 minutes after eating. I'm SO not used to those kinds of foods. Not good. At one point, the spinklers came on in the backyard, and the little boys were out there playing. Rather than scold them, I grabbed my camera and ran out to take a few pics. Funny, eh?

Joe's in the blue tube, and Kayley's Joseph is in the red one.

Here's the girls. The ones on the left are friends of Kayley, and there's Katy and Adela on the right. Um, are you gonna beat someone up, Katy? hehehe.

Jake just LOVED this chair. I was a little concerned that it was gonna get popped. The kids ALL loved to flop on it. It did make a cool noise. hehehe.

And here's Chelsey making some chocolate monstrosity thing. It had 1 cup chopped chocolate chips in the brownie mix, Bake for 20 minutes. Then, she took chopped mixed nuts, more chocolate chips, brown sugar, and sprinkled it over the warm brownies. Then she pushed Rolo's into the brownies, and chopped up some Rolos too, and sprinkled them on. OMGosh it was chocolatey. Had I not just had a chocolate eating marathon, I'd have liked it better. She served it with vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm.

I got done with the party at 2:30, and headed home. Captain America was home from his camp out, and Andrea was picking me up in 30 minutes to go to Women's Conference. And I was still wearing the same clothes from the day before, with a bandanna. After having just hiked the canyon. Sigh. I rushed home, and hopped in the shower. Beauty doesn't just happen by itself, you know. ROFL! Here I am in Andrea's car while she drops her kids off with the sitter. What else was I supposed to do while I was sitting in the car? Taking pictures of myself is one of the things I do best, don't ya know!

So it takes about 40 minutes to get to the Stake center. Andrea had never been. It's a BEAUTIFUL building. We go in the gym, and they have tables set up for different crafty projects. The one we sat at was making cut out candy cups for the nursing home people. At Christmas time. We got to color with colored pencils, and cut them out and use glue dots to assemble them. It was very fun, actually. I like to color.

At first it was just Andrea and I. Then Kayley and Chelsey joined us. We had SUCH a good time at our table. A little irreverent, but SO much fun. We convinced Chelsey to come "threading" with us next week. She needed it - hehehe. Just like Andrea needed it when we went the first time. We love ya, Chelsey! You'll like it. Sure, it's painful. But it looks SO stinkin' good when you're done!

These ladies also joined our table. They're from a different ward, but were fun too. I don't know what they thought of Andrea and I - hehehe. We may have been too much for them. BUT, they stuck it out, and stayed with us for dinner too.

There was SUCH a long line for dinner, that we just went to the short dessert line, and got dessert first. After we were done, the dinner line was much shorter. See, we're pretty smart and resourceful, eh?

Here's a pic of Andrea and I.

And Chelsey and Kayley and Andrea. The first one I took Andrea had her eyes closed. So I took another one, this time telling her to keep them open. This is what I got. Nice - LOL!

After dinner, we moved into the chapel and listened to Womens Conference. We had the General Relief Society president, 1st, and 2nd counselor talk to us, a bunch of music, and President Eyring talk to us. It was a wonderful conference. I came out feeling uplifted and good! And, you know, that's the point of the meeting :)

Andrea and I headed back home, first to the babysitters to pick up her kids. When I got home, Captain America had already put Jim and Joe and Eme to bed. It was about 8:30pm. He was in the garage working on the Hot Wheel derby track. It was looking FABULOUS! Jake and Tom were playing computer, and my house smelled like freshly mopped floor. AWESOME! What a great family I have :) They do love me!

So, in honor of Womens Conference on Saturday, I thought I'd make up this WordArt for you guys! Click on the link below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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