I guess it's time for an update on what we've been doing, lest you think we've fallen off the end of the earth.

First we have a follow-up on our girls night at the ballet. We had so much fun! Jantzen sat so still through the whole show, which lasted almost three hours. There were lots of little girls about her age there, all dressed up for a night out with their mommies. I was really impressed with all of these little girls and how well they behaved. We will definitely be going to more of these events when they come to Hermiston.

Next we have her birthday. I promise I DO HAVE other children besides Jantzen, but she's had a lot of excitement lately. We had a small party with a couple of friends and our family. I came to a new conclusion on her birthday. Kids love their birthdays! She was such a chatterbox all day long, and kept asking me jokingly, "How many sleeps until my birthday, mom?" When I would tell her none she would say, "RIGHT! THAT IS CORRECT!" And she would get all school teacher-ish on me, looking down her nose at me. It was pretty darn cute.

Last Friday was Carson's annual field trip to the corn maze and pumpkin patch. They go on this field trip EVERY YEAR, and somehow the kids never get tired of it. Carson and his buddies, Parker and Nick were so excited that they just couldn't stand still! They were determined to be the first group to make it through the maze, so we ran the whole way. I was really thankful for all the running I've done lately because that maze is kind of long. Especially when you take as many wrong turns as we did!
After the maze, we took a hay ride to the "pumpkin patch". And I use that term VERY loosely. Check it out:


Yes, they truck them in and spread them out on the ground for the kids to find. Hilarious, huh? But the kids didn't seem to care. They had a blast.

13.1 Miles

Yep, I did it. And I'm still alive! It was an awesome experience. 1000 women poised at the starting line, ready to do something amazing. The energy was so incredible, that it carried me for two hours and twenty minutes to the finish line. I wish I had pictures of that part, but my camera weighs like THREE WHOLE OUNCES and I wasn't about to carry it the whole way. So you'll have to settle for some before and after pictures.

See these feet? They are getting ready to do something they've never done before. They thought they never could. But they worked hard, got sweaty and often endured pain so that they could carry their owner where she wanted to go. Thank you, feet! You deserve some new running shoes. And a replacement pair for the other ones I left in the hotel. I liked this picture because it shows the chip that they use to record your time on my left foot AND my early birthday present on the right foot. The technology that's available to runners these days is amazing. And I like it. I also like this picture because someday I might develop cankles and I'll enjoy looking back at the good ole' days when you could see bones and things there.

This next one is gonna take a lot of humility to post. Because it's the dreaded after picture. Not only that, but it's a self portrait. So it's pretty terrible. But I was alone in the hotel and what's a girl to do? I had to document this experience. So brace yourselves. Here it is.

Notice the little white dots in my hairline? No, it didn't snow, although it was cold. That's salt. Like from sweat. EEEWWW! Now would someone please send me the "MOST CRAZIEST AND HUMBLE PERSON WHO POSTS A TERRIBLE SELF-PORTRAIT OF THEMSELF AWARD?" I'm pretty sure I deserve it. Well, except for that saying about how as soon as you say you're humble, you're not humble. And the fact that I'm TOTALLY BRAGGING about running this race. But I am pretty proud of myself. In case you couldn't tell. I think I was a bit delirious at the moment, too.

This next picture is of me (on the right) with the three other women that I went with. I can't say that I ran with them because we run at different paces, so we split off and ran separately. It was good to just be able to zone out with my ipod and not worry about anyone else.

All in all it was a fabulous, amazing, inspiring, awesome, wonderful, terrific, and cool experience. And I just might do it again.

Plea, leap, pirouette and run

Tonight the Eugene Ballet Company is coming to OUR little town to perform Swan Lake! Amazingly, none of the boys were interested in going so it's just Jantzen and me. A girls night out! We rarely get any sort of arts or culture here so I have to jump on these opportunities when they come. The last time we experienced anything like this was when we went to the harp concert in Utah last March. Yes, it's been that long. Well, unless you count the boys playing guitar hero on the Wii.
I've only got three more days until my big half-marathon and I'm SO NERVOUS!! I'm excited for it to finally be here so that I can quit worrying about it. I missed my 10 mile run last weekend because of some back problems so I'm feeling a little under prepared. But I just have to remind myself that it's not the end of the world if I don't do well. Like what's gonna happen? Will I not make it to the Olympics or something? Please, I know the IOC will be busting down my door come 2012, begging me to compete. And I'll just turn my nose up at them and tell them that the Olympics are so BELOW me. I need some real competition here.

Where to start??? Well, how about where we left off last week. Apples. We have so many apples we don't know what to do with them all. We have made applesauce, apple crisp, apple pancakes, apple scampi, apple gumbo, chicken fried apples, apple alfredo, apple burgers, apple foo young, apple burritos and curried apples. Just kidding on most of those. But we did make these. The kids didn't have school on Friday so I conned them into helping me.
I'm hoping to make lots more, but we'll see if time permits.

The kids' teachers all received at least one apple this week. Their grades haven't improved like we were hoping, though. I guess we'll have to go back to old fashioned homework.

In other news, we had the Richland Invitational meet on Saturday. And by "we" I mean Daniel.

You can't tell from this picture, but it was stinkin' cold! The wind was blowing which didn't help. I thought it was really cruel of the race officials to call the runners to the starting line 20 minutes before they started the race. So the kids stripped down to their running clothes and then they had to stand there and try to stay warm.

But eventually the gun went off and the race started.

I don't know anyone in this picture. I just thought it was cool.

Oh, the excitement of the race!

I know this guy, though.

He ran a really good race and improved his time by about a minute and a half.

And this is him with some of the members of his team. Go Bulldogs! Oh, and by the way....Those bulldogs won. Both the boys and the girls. Did I mention...

GO BULLDOGS!!!

You're welcome for the favor

Ahhh, doesn't that sound better? I couldn't stand those Beach Boys any longer. (Sorry mom. I know you love them, but I've had enough!)

Trains, football and apples

Well, another week has gone by in the Wrathall household. First up, we have a girls trip to Hinkle Yard to see the train station. The boys weren't interested in this, even when I mentioned free hot dogs and soda. Go figure. So Jantzen and I went with our friends to go check the place out. I found it so fascinating and was a little embarrassed at how many pictures I took.

This is Jantzen and her friends standing next to a battery that they use in the locomotives. HUGE, huh? Notice the supermodel in front. Too funny.

We got to go inside and see where the driver sits. Jantzen accidentally bumped some sort of alarm which gave her mom a little bit of a heart attack.

This is the girls in front of some sort of supersized locomotive that never gets used because it keeps jumping the tracks. Probably a good idea to put this one away.

Moving right along to our next item of business...We have Carson's first football game of the year. We love this football program that he plays in. He gets the same coach every year, which is also his basketball coach in the winter and his track coach in the spring. The kids love him and he does a great job with them. We also love it because it's so simple. Every Saturday at noon the teams practice for 45 minutes then immediately after that they play their game. Then we're done for the week. Well, except for the extra practice that Coach Dave holds just because the kids want to. And he is nice enough to do it next door to our house at the school. So I can cook dinner and check in on practice all at the same time. Gotta love it. We've lived in this house for 2 1/2 years and have never been on a team that practices at this school. I think I'll start demanding it. It's just too convenient.

And for our final event of the week we have apples.

Lots of them.

It was definitely a group effort.But it was a lot faster than picking blueberries.

It was nice having a TALL exchange student on hand to reach the apples.

We finished in about 20 minutes, which is good because everyone was still in a good mood.

No time for any whining to start.

We had warm applesauce with our breakfast this morning. Then for lunch we had apple pie. Yes, apple pie for lunch. I'm a terrible mom. But right now the kids are loving me. Tomorrow we'll start eating healthy again. And everyone gets an apple in their lunch.

I love the fall harvest.