Back home!

After two months of being gone, we finally returned to Rolla on Friday afternoon! William and Marissa were so excited to be home and to see Owen. For the last week or two I was saying that I really missed our cat, Owen. Of course I missed my mom and dad also, but I mentioned Owen a few times. So then that was all William and Marissa started saying too. "We miss Owen!" Sorry Mom! They really were much more excited to see my parents, but verbally they missed Owen a lot!

So I have many pictures to post from our trip. Unfortunately I'm in class right now up in St. Louis and I don't have my pictures with me here. My teacher is late, so I thought I would blog for a few minutes.

I'm planning on putting up a few blogs about our adventures-a little at a time so I don't overwhelm any of my great readers! Highlights include the first hike to the Y and the second, swimming in the pool up the street, riding our bikes to BYU and bowling, playing at the park, playing in the canyon at Bridal Veil Falls, and watching movies in Julie and Drew's apartment.

Well, I guess my teacher is here. So keep watching for great pictures to come!

Hiking the Y

Since we have been in Provo, my kids have been wanting to hike up to the Y. I think probably just because it is there. Everywhere we go they can see the Y. So this morning we got up before 7 and got ready to go hike. We had packed our backpacks the day before with water, granola bars, and crackers. We drove up to the trail head and started on our way. It went pretty well at first. Everyone was excited and happy to be hiking. But before we got to the first turn, I heard things like, "Are we there yet?" and "I'm hungry!" So we had to take breaks at every turn.

I was pretty nervous going up because some of the trails have steep walls going off the sides. And if anyone knows Marissa, then you know that she is prone to accidents. She just doesn't fear stuff. She wants to go backwards off the side of the pool, do flips on the trampoline, and rush into anything that looks fun. If she thinks it, she wants to do it. So, I was rather nervous about her being close to the side with sheer face. I held her hand for probably the first half of the way up. Then I started to feel like I was dragging her. So I stopped. I just walked a little bit in front of both William and Marissa and they just followed me, talking the whole way. In fact, two ladies (who we ran into both on the way up and the way down) commented that they were the most talkative children they had ever met. I laughed and agreed with them as Marissa loudly told the whole trail something about Utah Lake and the slides at Seven Peaks and the number of dogs that we had passed. William was very excited about all the turns. They have signs posted at each turn for a total of eleven before you get to the top. He was kept busy by checking to see what number turn we were on and how long to get to the next turn.
I was going to take a picture of them at every turn, but they got kind of bored of me taking pictures of them. So I waited until there was something else to get in the picture. When we got to turn 10, there was a great view of the Y. This is what William thought of it:


Then we took a picture at the turn sign, which was better.



We had one more turn and then we got up to the top. Marissa and William had decided that they were going to have a picnic on the Y, so Marissa got out her Vienna Sausages and got settled in by a large rock.

I told her that I was not going to climb up there to open them, so she put them away and got out her water bottle. You can't really tell from these pictures, but it is really steep!! I didn't like being up there much because I felt like I was going to fall over the whole time. William and Marissa wanted to climb all over the place, of course, and I just wanted to curl up and lay flat on the ground.


We sat up at the top for a little bit until I couldn't stand it anymore. Then we started to go back down. It wasn't but two minutes or so when Marissa told me she had to go the bathroom. So then we started walking faster down the trail. Luckily William was just fine to go by himself while I held Marissa's hand so that she wasn't falling over the whole time. By the last couple of turns, we were running down to get to the bathroom. Now usually when we are in nature and Marissa has to use the bathroom, I don't hesitate to squat her down in the woods and make her go. But, the trail was so busy that there was no privacy the whole time. I couldn't just let her go in front of bunch of random people. So we just ran and we made it! I was so proud! And no one even fell or got a scratch or anything the whole time.

And we have these nice pictures to show for it:


So overall, it was a great time. I have never been up to the Y before so I was happy to be able to do it finally. I will, however, be very sore tomorrow because of the running. Oh well, it was worth it!

My Memorial Day 5K

I really wish I had some pictures to back up this blog, but for now, I don't. Hopefully I can get some later from some friends who were there. So yesterday our ward's scout troop sponsored a 5K run. They did it last year too and raised about $1400. This year had twice the number of runners, so I imagine they made even more money. I decided to go and my mom and my friend Chelsea came also. I also decided to bring my kids and we thought that they could ride their bikes and we could run a little and walk a little and just have a merry old time. As I sat on the bench waiting to start, I realized that it was a really bad idea.
William decided that he wanted to run the thing because his friend from church was running it. Even after explaining to him that it was a very long run and that you had to practice to be able to run that long, he insisted and I let him put the bike away in the trunk of the car.
The race starts and we go down a hill. At the bottom of the hill, William stops running and is pretty much done. I asked him if he was ready for his bike because I knew it was going to be a long walk and he would probably get bored, etc. So, I took off back up the hill running and ran as fast as I could to the car to get the bike. Then I got on the bike and started riding down hill as fast as I could. The race was about 6 minutes in by this point. I got to the bottom of the hill and then get on a straight section, but a bumpy straight section. I'm still mostly riding the bike, but it is very small and I totally crash head over heels over the top of it. So, I ignore my bleeding hands and knee and start riding again trying to catch up. I still can't see anyone, but then I see the first of the runners starting towards the finish line. I had stopped riding the bike at this point because it is a really small bike and I'm rather tall. I really didn't want many people seeing me. So I walked with the bike for a while and I ran with the bike for a bit. I come up to the next turn and I see William walking with my mom. I get back on the bike and glide down to them. So William gets on the bike and takes off on the sidewalk. I walk with my mom for a bit because I'm totally exhausted at this point. The sprinting up the hill, riding the small bike, crashing the bike, hauling the bike over my shoulders- it really all combined to take it out of me very quickly.
I thought after a minute that I needed to catch up to William so I started running after him. He is fast on his bike though and there was really no way I could catch up. Fortunately part of the track double backs very close so I finally managed to find Marissa who was with Chelsea. She was walking her bike and she saw me and wanted me to come with them. I was still looking for William at this point, but then I saw him and I started running the wrong way again to catch up.
So, Chelsea ended up staying with William with the rest of the run. She ran and walked a bit and I lost sight of them pretty quickly.
I stayed with Marissa who was pretty much done riding her bike. She wanted me to walk the bike with her, but we were really kind of in the way of the other walkers. So I told her to get on the bike and I would push her. She kept seeing things she wanted to look at on the sidewalk and everywhere, so that was really slow going. We kept at that for a while and then we even got to the hydration station before I passed out.
Marissa was really done though after this. I finally picked her up and put her on back piggyback style and then picked up the bike and started walking. That didn't last long, did I mention I was exhausted? So I put her back down and was just putting her up on my shoulders when one of the ward members passed by and offered to carry her bike for me. Thank you, thank you! It saved me. So she was up on my shoulders for a while. The last leg of the track, I made her get down. It was in the shade so it was a lot cooler. I even got her to run up the last hill to the finish line and lots of people that were there cheered for her and it was really fun. I'm just really glad we all survived and even more glad we weren't the last ones through the finish line.

Strange dreams

Well, I haven't posted anything for a few days because my kids haven't been funny. I think actually that I haven't been funny or I haven't been in the mood to enjoy their regular hilarious statements. I have been rather sick for the last week or so and haven't enjoyed much of anything except the end of my book and sleeping. I am feeling very much better today though, and I'm looking forward to feeling even better tomorrow. However, the last week of illness has cursed me with strange dreams, which in the absence of anything cute from my kids, will have to be the main point of this short blog. I have been writing my dreams down for over a year now and it is really fun to go back and read about them. Of course, I don't write all my dreams down, just the ones worth remembering.
Okay, the other night I had a dream that I got in trouble for something so I got sent to prison. However, this prison was underwater and only accessible by going deep in the ocean. After trying to hold your breath for as long as possible, you would eventually figure out that you could, though very uncomfortably, breathe underwater. So there I was with a major sinus infection having a dream about not being able to breathe comfortably. My mom thought it was rather funny when I told her the next morning.
On to dream number 2, which is way cooler and less illness-related than the first one. I was in the army special ops kind of group and we raided this lab. We met with little resistance and ended up deep in the building reloading when a huge guy comes straight towards me. Everyone started shooting at him, but he just kept coming. I put two clips in him and he finally fell over just in front of me. We realized that we were in big trouble. We saw on a cool radar screen that dozens of these guys were heading towards us from all over the building. We started running for the loading dock and found some other lab workers dressed up in robes. We still hadn't run into the big robot guys that were chasing us, but the robed guys were doing something strange in the loading dock and we decided to make a run for it. We had some vans parked outside ( I know, why not tanks or something? ) and about 10 of us made it outside to one of them. The rest of our group got outside, but then they just put their stuff down and started relaxing. We were all yelling at them to get into the vans, but it was too late. The robot guys started attacking us and our van took off while we still could. Yes, we left them! Don't judge! The next thing I knew we had stopped downtown and decided to get some lunch and do some shopping.
If you have actually read all this post, you must be bored! But thanks anyway, hope you enjoyed my random dream. I have many of them, especially when I'm sick.

Meet Marissa's Dolls

Marissa has a knack for naming her dolls, bears, babies, horses, etc. And once she has named something, she is very consistent about calling it by its given name. So, I thought I would post a picture with some of her best named toys. She has all of these on her bed right now. The big pink bear, which is actually my bear from when I was two, but she has recently renamed "Mama Baby Day." "Baby Day" is the little yellow bear sitting in the front on the right. The cabbage patch kid sitting in the middle is named "Loves Play-dough." The brown horse on the right is full name "Pony Leg Bubble Pony," but for short "Bubble Pony." The last little puppy was named this morning and his name inspired me to write this little ditty about this cute habit of Marissa's. "Scat-a-scat Mini" is a new favorite of mine. Seriously, I have no idea how she comes up with this stuff.





William just got a new comforter set a couple weeks ago and I thought I would put a picture up of that also. It is just lovely. He takes very good care of it. And just fyi, William isn't big about making up names for his toys. But if he starts, I will definitely send a newsflash about it.

My funny kids

I know I'm terrible about blogging and I feel like I should be better. I feel like my friends and distance family is missing out on the very cute and hilarious things that my kids do and say. I have been posting some funny stuff on Julie's facebook page, but I don't want to commandeer her whole page. So I am really going to try to keep my blog up-to-date with all the funny things that are guaranteed to occur over the course of my day. Like the other night when William asked me why Cheetos are called Cheetos. He didn't give me time to answer, but told me that he knew why. It was because they were made of cheese and looked like long toes. Chee... toes? Well, you get the idea.
Along with being constantly entertained, I'm also started a CPA program next week which will last until December after which I hope to take the CPA exam. I also enjoy watercolor painting right now and I have switched themes from mostly beach scenes to horses. Although, I just started a new painting right now that has both! A horse running on a beach. It could be great! If you want to see any of my paintings, just go to my website... http://marciann.deviantart.com/ I love having visitors.
Right now I'm also very busy homeschooling both William and Marissa. We use the basic Thomas Jefferson education program, which is a classical education and also the Sonlight Curriculum. I find that both of them together have been a great fit for us. We read, a lot! We read everything; science, history, grammar, geography, and classic novels. William is currently reading at a third grade level and Marissa is quickly catching up. She can read level 1 and 2 readers books by herself now and is improving everyday. Yes, sometimes I have to brag. But most importantly, they love it! I don't force them to do much at all. They just love to learn and that is what I am most happy about.
Besides school, William is also learning to play the piano with the Suzuki method. I highly recommend it! He has really flourished with it! Marissa will start in the winter also. Right now she is loving her gymnastics class where she is definitely a natural. She is looking forward to doing ballet classes in the fall.
Well, I hope this general update was useful for someone who might be reading it!

It's Saturday night and it's snowing, hard.

Well, I just got back from bowling. I bowled a 142. I think it's a record!! I was very proud. Two strikes and a spare on the last 3 frames. Yay me! I almost got talked into going to see A Haunting in Connecticut, but fortunately it is snowing hard right now and so I got to go home instead. Ergo I will not be scared out of my mind at that movie. I don't do scary flicks. Anyone who knows me knows something of my fears- irrational they may be. These fears include evil, human-injuring machines and zombies. I did like The Matrix, but the second two had too much of the evil machines in them for my taste. I don't do zombie movies, period. Well, unless Tyler is there to laugh at the zombies with me. Tyler makes any movie fun!! If you haven't watched a movie with Tyler, I highly recommend it. If you ARE Tyler, you are just plain lucky. Well, I guess this is officially my best blog ever!! I know, it should win awards. Thanks for reading! And check out my art. It's awesome!