Amazing

The Komen Race for the cure in St. Louis was once again an amazing sight to behold and be a participant in! 

Just the stats:

71,802 participants(that doesn't include volunteers btw)
1,090 teams
4,500 Survivors
over $3.4 million raised!

It is the largest Komen race in the world!!!!  And it truly is an amazing event like no other that I have ever experienced :-)

Here are a couple pictures from when we were in the crowd!

There are people all the way up to where you see the end of that street!  Basically as far as you could see either direction, east or west there were people...it was AWEsome!

 And then looping back and heading east towards the Arch....a little bit thinner as people slow down and pause :-)  It was hot!

Everyone on our team did an awesome job!  And thanks to everyone who supported the race in any way, in fact if you support any of the races-thanks :-)

So that was the crazy Sat-awesome and crazy!

Then my in-laws arrived for a too short but very nice visit.  The girls had a wonderful time and thoroughly enjoyed entertaining Nana D and Papa G.  They are in fact planning a newscast to record and send to them next week!

We then went to the pool for the first time of the season yesterday and it was wonderful!  And I have gotten up and walked several times, but not today-it stormed!  Instead I did a ballet workout and so I am pretty happy with the way the summer is starting.  

I do have one tiny issue...the constant bickering and fighting and screaming and fuming.....

Why can't we all just get along?

Oh well, I guess that is just as much a part of summertime as everything else!

Have a good one-

Blog ya later-

K

Week 2

The second week of summer has come and gone...already?!?!?

It was actually rather constructive all in all!  Over last weekend we redid Lexi's room!  Cleaned, removed everything, painted, replaced and rearranged everything and it is now the residence of a official pre-teen!

We went from a Winnie the Pooh room(which Ed and I painted when we first moved in) complete with Pooh's tree in the entryway and then rolling meadows around the walls.  Later I added a "clothesline" with painted clothespins nailed to the wall where she could hang all of the artwork brought home from preschool and then elementary....sigh...it was a sweet room, for a sweet little girl.

Not that she isn't a sweet girl...just not so little anymore, in fact she is past my shoulder and zooming towards eclipsing my chin any day now it seems and that means soon enough it will be eye to eye...shudder...but I digress, the room is actually great.  She picked the colors, light blue and lilac, and painted two walls each color.  However, she did spare Winnie's tree!  Yay!  It actually fits really well with the colors and "hangs" right over the bookcase and her bed so it really works-yay!  and now she just has to decide how to rehang things on the wall and what those should be...I don't anticipate that being done for a while as she is like her mom in that area and our living room walls are still bare and I repainted in what...Sept.?!?!?!

Anyhoo, that took up all weekend for everyone and Monday for me and then we have just been doing stuff...cleaning, sorting relaxing...and of course the required sister bickering as well.  That I truly just don't understand...it might drive me to .... I don't know...I'll keep you informed on precisely what it is driving me to along the ride :-)

The only other thing we have been doing is getting prepared for the Komen STL Race for the Cure which is this Sat..  We got the tshirts and distributed them.  The girls made special bracelets for all team members and we packed up our special pink ribbons and extras to take with us.  I have to say it is the most amazing sight and this year as of right now, there are 69,960 people registered and by the time I finish writing there will probably be over 70,000!!!!  That is crazy, insanely, awesome folks, it truly is!  And I will post pictures here after it to show you just what I mean if you are unable to be in the area for it!  We are also going to be a part of what the organizers are hoping is the largest flash mob ever doing the "The Strawberry Shake for Survivors" that morning so if you catch that on the news look for the blond in pink...I kid...but I will be there!

And so on that note I leave you with some of the best buttons I have found in recent days regarding BC.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I did I only wish I'd thought of them myself!

Ok so those pegged my serious, sincere, uplifting, encouraging, strong, hilarious, irreverant, and smart-a$$ thoughts as of late regarding BC :)

Blog ya later-

K

June, eh?

Apparently so! It seems just like it was minutes ago that I was lamenting that our calendar for the next two weeks was jam-packed with various end of the year events and now they are all done and gone and I have a 9 year old fourth grader and a new middle schooler and we are already in week one of summer....gasp...time sure does fly when you have kids!!!!

Basically it was a very nice end to the school year and Lexi's elementary school experience. even had the principal choking up at the "promotion", as this was his first class that went all the way from K-5 while he was at a school. Then it was a very good last day where they have games in the am and then booths in the pm, outside if it is not raining, and the kids have a blast. This is the first one I have been to! When Lexi was in K and 1st I didn't help because of Belle being little and with me and then Belle ended up being sick the next two years and totally missing the end of her Kindergarten and first grade school years and then last year I just didn't have the energy to do it...so this year I gave it my all and actually had a great time and got a wonderful workout from all the lunges I did and some nice rays too.....only two small patches where I forgot to put sunscreen, and boy does a burn hurt on the back of your knees!!!!

Then we spent some time up at the lake with my parents and enjoyed the pond and nice weather for walking and swimming and roasting marshmallows for s'mores :) Belle turned 9 with not too much hoop-la ...well...there was a small parade down the steps and onto a float (rolling footrest) and across the living room and back....I'm beginning to think Disney had a much more profound affect on her than I previously realized! ;-)

Then we have come home to cleaning and relaxing and just sort of feeling out how the summer is going to go. If yesterday and today were any indication...it will be fine for about and hour while they wake up and eat and then there will be fighting, followed eventually by separations when it gets too loud, followed by remorse and pleading, followed by half an hour of wonderful playtime, followed by fighting, followed eventually by separations when it gets too loud, followed by remorse and pleading, followed by half an hour of wonderful playtime, followed by fighting...and repeat...endlessly until I drive them to the pool and unleash them on other children or get one of their friend's involved some way(although that can also and often does end up leading to fighting anyway...) ahhhh...summer! Luckily for me the library has this summer book club for adults and I got several books and ordered more even when we were there to get the girls signed up for the kid's club so I could possibly ignore them too...I kid...mostly, but some days it is just pointless to try to out logic my two overly logical daughters so I don't even try.

So now we just kind of coast along for summer and hopefully it will be a great one. We shall see how that works but it has already started with me radically changing my life on two fronts...I know...crazy, right?

Not really....I like change :-) And they are fairly simple really so it is not that BIG of changes and they are good for me too so that's something else!

And drum roll......

I have started getting up early! Ok, that one is actually slightly shocking, and I totally reserve the right to sleep in any given morning(especially if it is raining btw) but I am going to get up at a sane time after 7 and make coffee, have breakfast, and walk the neighborhood! We have a loop that is a mile in the neighborhood and I have resolved to walk it several times a week, sometimes even multiple circuits in the same day! I know, that part is not crazy, just good, it's just the early part that crazy! But I figure if I don't want to severely hurt myself before fall when we have to get up really early for the middle schooler....I shouldn't get to used to sleeping late this summer...sigh....I thought I was supposed to be able to sleep in more as my kids got older!!! Sheesh!

And number two is that I have adopted the "Curly Girl" method for accepting my curls. I have always had straighter than straight hair and these curls are so very different from everything I have ever known...but this new way of caring for them shows real promise and so far it seems to allow more of the curls to show up which is super cool! :) So I have to let go and rethink everything I knew about hair and that is a very interesting learning curve to deal with at 37!

Anyway, that's about it for now...a few projects on the horizon but I still have to decide colors, etc so we'll talk about that later ;-)

Hope you all had a lovely weekend and took time to remember why it was a holiday and to honor those who have served for us and thank them.

Blog ya later,
K