Unfinished yard

WARNING: this post is a little graphic...not Joe in Iraq graphic, but you will see blood.

Saturday we finally decided it was time...or we finally found time...to clean up our yard for winter. The kids were helping me clean out the garden while Phil was doing a final mowing of our weeds. We were really getting a lot done when suddenly the mower stops and I look up and see Phil hopping around. I'll admit, my first thought was disappointment that something was slowing down our great momentum, but then Phil was still hopping around so I got over it and went to see what was wrong. His leg was bleeding a little and you could see whatever it was that caused the damage still lodged in just under the skin.
First thing he said was, "Get the camera!" so I figured he wasn't too bad off and went back to my tomatoes. He hopped inside and got the camera himself. At this point he was starting to feel a little more pain, so I offered to pull it out...I even got out the hydrogen peroxide...I thought it would make a really cool youtube video (not really smilebox material). He declined and drove himself to the ER. After a few x-rays they discovered the small object we could see in Phil's leg was just the tip of the iceberg...or in this case...twisted, rusty wire.
So he got a tetanus shot and the doc sniped open his leg and pulled it out.

Now it's setting on my counter as proof of...well, that you shouldn't mow through the weeds just wearing shorts.

In Trouble?

Austin had a great week this week in school. In fact his teacher stopped me today to tell me how awesome he was...."a completely different person"...I think were the words she used. So of course I have been laying on the praise to encourage this behavior. I guess he feels like a fish out of water because tonight as I was putting him to bed he told me that he got in trouble at school.
What?
So I began to ask questions...when, what happened, with which teacher. The details were very fuzzy, and he was having a hard time remembering. Austin is a pretty bright kid, so the whole time I'm wondering how could such a smart kid not remember why he got in trouble. Well, as we talked it out, it seems he didn't get in trouble...yet, but he was so sure he was going to forget to give me a message about the upcoming Halloween party that in his mind he was already in trouble.
I can't even imagine what goes on inside this boy...

Slumber Party

Ahhh, we finally did it...succumbed to the pleas of our first born and granted her her first slumber birthday party. Ok, I'll admit, I was pretty excited myself. We had her birthday early this year, knowing from experience how hard it is to get excited about celebrating life with sugar only three days after Halloween. (early Happy Birthday to Joe...although, I'm sure the sugar isn't as much of a problem for him :)) We invited five giggly girls and all came but only three stayed over night...phew! They helped decorate the cake...which tasted horrible, but looked awesome.


Then we went out and did punk rock tie dye shirts...now I'm not sure how child friendly this really is, but they had a blast twisting their shirts again and again spraying with spray paint...hopefully no permanent brain damage occurred with all those fumes. We did some other painting and then the girls just played outside making up their own games. We had such a wide variety of personalities, but they all got along great and amused me all evening.
I'm sure they stayed up a little too late...even with me laying on the couch just so they would finally hush up and sleep, but hey, you only turn 8 years and 50 weeks once in your life.

Sunday Afternoon

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The Marathon (s)

We had everything ready to go the night before and were on the road by 5am on Friday. Phil has been training for the St.George Marathon with his brother and the time had finally come. The trip there went pretty smoothly and we even had time to drive through Cedar City and reminisce about old times. Then we stopped at Red Cliffs and the kiddos had a blast...we really need to reinstate that camping get together.

We got to St.George by about 5 and met up with Phil's parents and Spencer and his family. So good to see them all again. After swimming and pizza we got the kids in bed so Phil could get a good nights sleep. They were up and gone by 4:30...in the rain! There hasn't been rain for the St.George marathon in 25 years. By the time I got the kids up and breakfast, it was time to go meet the guys. Very weird to think they could run a whole marathon in the time it takes me to get my kids ready every morning...it puts a different time frame on things. We met up with Spencer just as he had about 3 miles to go, so I got out there to wait for Phil and sent the kids with Grandma. My plan was to run with Phil the last couple miles, and I'm glad I did. For anyone who's run a marathon, you know what kind of a moment that is.

Spencer finished at 3 hours and 20 seconds...or maybe it was 19, because his goal was to go under 3 hours and he just missed it by 20 seconds! Ahhhh! Although he did win his division, Phil got 12th in the same division coming in at about 3:33...which is what he trained for. Very proud of both of them. They both just wanted a big ol' hamburger when they were done.


Now for the real marathon..hehe. See, we hung around St.George probably a little too long, and didn't get on the road til about 5pm. I knew it would be a long ride home, but I had it easy compared to poor Eve, who started throwing up about half way home. It was a continual thing...so we just gave her something to puke in and kept driving. Soni also started spewing, but quickly went back to sleep. By the time we got home, at 4:30 (yup, the whole trip was done in less than 48 hours) the van was pretty messy. So we have spent this week taking turns with the flu and doing ALOT of laundry. I'm hoping desperately that last night was the end...

Now the kids have all of next week off of school and after a week like this, what in the world will we do to keep busy?

Red Cliffs

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