Seven Mile Itch

We took a quick trip to Portland this weekend (more pics soon), but one of the highlights for me was the amazing run I had on the waterfront Sunday morning. It's been a while since I've had a run that made me feel like a runner. Lately it feels like I've just been trying to squeeze my running in between other activities and obligations, and so running has begun to feel like just another thing I have to do.

Sunday morning reminded me why I run. It was the most peaceful, inspiring, exhilarating seven miles my body has travelled in months. I'm still feeling the endorphins from it, and I'm itching for my next fix.

What Girls Learn

This first week of Summer has been decadent. We've spent most of it at the beach or the pool, eating lots of popsicles, and riding scooters and bikes around the neighborhood. My kids are in their swimsuits from the time they take off their pajamas until it's time to put pajamas back on.

And I keep wanting to curl up in the fetal position and have a good cry.

I am realizing how little time I have left of this bliss. I think I was 11 or 12 when I started to feel self-conscious running around in my swimsuit like that. I think I was 12 or 13 when I started wanting to go to the pool with my friends instead of with my mom.

Yesterday I was sitting at the pool watching the girls dive and play, then devour huge ice cream sandwiches while warming up on the cement, completely unfettered by worries about whether their thighs are thin enough, bellies flat enough, boobs big or small enough. I just ached for time to stand still. Ten or eleven years. That's about all we get as females before we start worrying about whether the body that has been so fantastically functional for us up until then, is "good enough" ....good enough for what? Good enough for other people? Ugh.

For the last ten years I've watched my girls live so confidently in their skin, completely unaware of the abs they've acquired from lowering their bodies safely from tree limbs and monkey bars, the ripped forearms and trapezius muscles from scaling rock walls, the toned leg muscles from hours riding scooters and bicycles. That amazing confidence comes from the knowledge that their bodies will do whatever they want them to do. It kills me that in a couple of years my girls may question their bodies for the first time, not because their bodies can't achieve something, but because their bodies might not look the way they think they should.

The other day Amelia was talking about America's Got Talent, and she said, "I just don't know what I would do if I was on that show. I'm so good at so many things. It would be really hard to decide on just one of my talents to show everyone."

Why can't we have the body image of a nine year old and the self-confidence of a seven year old forever? If I could give them any gift it would be that they will always play that hard, eat that joyfully, and love themselves every bit as much as they do now.

My goal this Summer is to achieve the same. I'm learning from the best.

Look who found her camera cord!

And it only took three months! I can finally upload photos from my camera. So here's quick recap of the last month.

Our babies turned one! We are still head over heels in love with our kittens. Mango is a snuggle bug--as long as it's on her own terms.

And Willow, who always looks like a Playgirl centerfold lounging on the furniture like that, is the sweetest kitty EVER. He'll do anything we ask of him, as long as there's some petting and kisses included.

(He does look a little peeved about the doll skirt and dish towel he's sportin' here.)

In other news, Amelia played coach-pitch softball this Spring and loved it, of course. It had rules, and anything with rules and structure is A-okay with Amelia. "I hit the ball and then run to that base? And then someone else hits the ball and I run to the next base following that white chalk line? Perfect. I'm there." (As opposed to Madeline's first foray into team sports at the same age which went quite differently..."Why do I have to hit it like that? How about if I try hitting it like this instead? And can I run along the grass line instead of the chalk line? No? Then no thank you.")

New post soon with pics/video of swimming and diving and relaxing!

Creamy Chicken Taquitos. Make them.

Image via Ourbestbites.com

My sister Jodi deserves credit for discovering this recipe, and I thank her with my mouth full of goodness every time I make them.

These have become a staple in our house over the last month--I keep leftover filling in the fridge to make a before or after swim practice snack for the kids. I save leftover chicken to mix up a quick batch for lunch. And I'm finally able to work through that ginormous stack of corn tortillas. (Why do they only sell corn tortillas in stacks of 220?)

Click here for the original recipe. I've tweaked it a few times and found that we actually prefer red salsa instead of green (my favorite is Emerald Valley salsa). And I love green chilies, so I usually add 1/2 a can of those to the mix as well. Do not forget the olive oil and kosher salt on top!!!

Tip: microwave the corn tortillas 3 or 4 at a time between damp dish towels for about 45 seconds so they are easier to roll. Jodi likes using flour tortillas. I haven't tried it yet because I still have about two dozen corn tortillas left from the original pack I bought.

Fifteen Down

So fifteen! Fifteen years ago (yesterday) I married the greatest snocone maker in the world, without even knowing then about his mad sno-kone making skilz. (He didn't know about my amazing sprinkler system designing talents either--we were both holding back).

We planned to go back to Tahiti for our 10th anniversary, but we bought a house. Then we planned to go back to Tahiti for our 15th anniversary. And instead we bought a house. And paid tuition. And fed our children who think that food is necessary.

So we stayed home, and had a pretty great anniversary which really encapsulated our life together.

I started writing a long narrative of this day, but guess what? It's interesting only to us. I will tell you that it involved 200 water balloons, 500 sno-kones, a hell of a lot of rain, a swim practice, a dive practice, forts in the living room, shrimp scampi, amazing sea scallops, and a little Wii and "So You Think You Can Dance." And it was good.

Kolby surprised me with a new wedding band he designed. I've been wanting a plain band because my diamond always puts holes in the rubber gloves at the hospital. I love the ring he designed--I'm finding it tough to get a good photo, but here's a glimpse:

It's hard to tell in the photo, but there's an inset design of yellow gold in the white gold and the design has a little symbol for us and for each of the girls. Kolby was sweating bullets about it, but I love it. I screwed up on my part--told him the wrong size--so we'll need to get it adjusted. But he did good (even if I did ruin the surprise by reporting the Discover Card as stolen.)

I do have to tell you this one story. So as we sat down to the amazing dinner Kolby made last night, Kolby made a toast to us--something along the lines of "Here's to a great 15 years---and here's hoping for another three more." It took exactly 1 second for Madeline to belly laugh.

The End and the Beginning

Okay, so it's not officially the end, but I took my final this morning, which marked the end of my first year of nursing school. WOOOHOO! I can't believe only one year to go until I'm an RN!

This also marks the beginning of Summer, and I am a girl who loooooooves Summer. (I know this does not make me unique.) I have so many fond memories of playing night games with the neighborhood kids (kick-the-can, sardines, mother may I, etc.), spinning the Big Wheels upside down on the front lawn while all the neighbors chatted, swimming at Crestwood Pool, riding bikes, camping, boating, Bear Lake,the cabin, trips up the canyons to escape the heat, stacks of books from the library, catching pollywogs in the pond in the child molester field, later playing on the dirt piles or making mud baths in the yard while mom and dad were building the house. Even picking raspberries and pulling weeds in the garden. Aaaah. I love it all. If I close my eyes I can smell each and every one of those memories.

Kolby and I were just discussing that we are now creating those memories for our own kids. Last weekend they played night games with the neighbor kids until it was too dark to see. With the sun finally emerging in the last few days, we spent hours at the pool with all of their friends. Dive team begins tonight for Madeline. Amelia's first swim meet is tomorrow. The girls ride their bikes and scooters for hours with the neighbor kids. They catch snails under the Japanese Maple and have a secret club. A couple more days left of school for the girls and then we'll get in some beach time and hiking and gardening and berry picking and kayaking and camping. And cousins!!! Lots and lots of cousins this summer! My list of things I'm excited to do is so long I don't know where to start.

So I think I'll start with a pineapple popsicle and a trashy magazine.

The mighty hunter

A few weeks ago our male kitty, Willow, caught a bird and brought it in the house to show all of us. He strutted around, purring like a motor boat, with the feathers and feet hanging out of his mouth, making sure that we all got a good look before he devoured it.

For some reason we were all incredibly proud of him. But only the first time.

Since then he's brought in two more birds, but he's decided he's not a big fan of eating them...he just likes killing for sport. Luckily, he leaves a trail of feathers so I am at least alerted to the fact that there is a dead thing in my house needing attention.

But last night Willow stepped up his game. Baby birds are easy. They don't put up much of a fight. But mice? Now that is something worth catching.

That was just the beginning. It was like watching a torture scene in an episode of "24."

Recap

Since neither of our moms are on Facebook, where all of my photos end up now thanks to my fancy new Kin phone Mr. Blackham scored for me, and since I have nothing interesting to say, I thought I'd post a few photos of recent happenings that my mom and Pammy may have missed.

The girls are wrapping up the school year right now, which means evenings of music concerts, foreign language festivals, field trips, etc. This photo was taken the evening of their music concert. They are both looking so grown up to me.

Amelia started swim team about two weeks ago. This is where she and Maddie are complete opposites. The biggest reason Madeline had for not wanting to do swim team this year was that it is every day, and she just cannot handle having to do something every day. Amelia just eats it up. She had Friday off this week--no swim team, no rockclimbing, no softball, and she was so disappointed. "Oh no! What am I supposed to do then?"

This is what swim practices have looked like for most of the last few weeks. WET! Hopefully our weather will improve before swim meets begin. (For all you Utahns who are used to bailing out of the pool at the first sign of rain, we don't get many thunder storms here, so the pools stay open when it rains. Otherwise they'd never be open. Ha.).

The kids are unphased by the rain though. They begged Kolby to take them swimming today, despite the rain, since our neighborhood pool opened last week and we haven't been yet (other than for swim practice). They swam until their teeth hurt from chattering, and even then they wanted "Ju-u-u-s-t a f-e-e-w m-o-r-e m-i-i-n-u-t-t-e-s."

And I have just one more week to go to finish my first year of nursing school. This quarter has been pretty mild, but I'm still ready for Summer. I have a million house and yard projects nagging my brain, and I'm ready to devote some energy to them.

Last week we practiced starting IVs in the lab. This is Mr. Smith. He and I are intimately acquainted after nine months of me performing painful procedures on him. I've stopped being offended by that look on his face. Whoever designed the mannequins for nursing schools must have thought they were pretty funny for making the mannequins look like they are perpetually screaming in agony.

Counting down the days until SUMMER!