bucket list item #8

The Marine Mud run: Salem, VA 9-18-2010: I met my dad in Salem along with a few friends for the annual marine mud run that raises money for toys for tots... Great charity, great fun! Today was also my dads 60th birthday so I made him a special shirt to celebrate! We got there EARLY (745) and picked up our packets then waited, and waited, and waited... the race is a 5k with part of the race taking place in a river, (maybe 200m??) that is waist deep and 2 huge mud pits, one you kinda swim through. If you werent dirty, the marines chased after you to encourage you to fall into the mud amd swim through it.... After the race... dad took 2nd in his age group and placed overall around 230. I finshed at 252 out of 810... not to bad!

Beautiful group pic in front of port a potties... We girls got CLASS

I ran in my chucks because my racing shoes are like embarrasingly ortopedic and I didnt want to throw them away because they took 3 hours to find (the running store guy made me try on almost every pair of shoes and kept making me run up and down an alley while he watched... while i realize that sounds sketchy, it was much more boring then anything.) and i didnt want to go through that again... I am a little sad to have thrown them away but they were sooooo gross... (and I do have 4 other pairs of chucks, and now have an exucse to replace them, right??)

the kids were A-May-Zing!!! i was so proud of their patience, they were hoping we would let them roll through the mud as well afterwards so we threw them in the river instead:

oh look, all cleaned up now! Anna and I went back to the river we ran through and laid down in it to get clean. Such a refreshing numbing clean...

The Blacksburg Bucket List

When we realized our days here in the burg were becoming seriously numbered, the kids and i sat down and created a bucket list of things we really wanted to do before we moved away. The list grew as we approached the start of our 1 year. John will graduate June 4th and we anticipate moving early that next week. The list we made covered everything from June 4th 2010 until July 1, 2011... Several of these items have been done already and I have been so far behind journaling that I will have to catch it up later but I wanted to post the list and then go back and catch it up... since we will prob. not live in va, the list has also grown to cover some random va activities as well... we prob wont get to everything on the list but we thought it would be fun to see how many we can knock out!

The LIST (in no particular order)
1.bike the whole huckelberry
2. hike the cascades when there is ice on it
3. 4th july parade*
4. one more stepping out*
5. run the whole huckelberry
6.hike the cascades and swim
7. hokie football game
8. marine mud run *
9.va 10 miler
10.night at english fields
11.international fair
12.summer musical one last time*
13.tech hockey game
14.huge going away party for the kids at nellies cave
15.pay off all credit card debt
16.get picture taken at the vt on airport and vcom
17.retake as many of the hokie bird statues now that they've moved into the permanent location (like 4 years ago...)
18.buy a house
19.tay- get his weebolos
20.baptize m
21.jo- get his bear
22.camp at white rock
23.camp at claytor
24.one more amazement square
25.skate park day
26.blueberry pciking in the valley
27.Christmas parade
28.joes tree farm
29.service Christmas project
30.volunteer at Christmas store
31.india garden--1-more-time
32.Christmas eve at kabuki and then henderson hill
33. tubing on new river
34. chemistry magic show
35. go see the cow w. hole in stomach
36. 2 more semesters of bcs
37. Christmas concert
38. Burruss hall photo
39. April 16th fun run and visit memorial
40. Spring game and tailgating
41. Turkey leg
42. movie at lyric
43. celebrate match day with kids

-and then we have the things that will be done more then 1 time, playing at our favorite parks, seeing friends, and my orchestra group, etc. I know this year will be hard for us and the kids since this is all we've known... John has been here since he was on 5th grade and i came 12 years ago... I am so excited to have a list of things that my kis felt were important (and some of them me and John) to set a guideline for what we will be doing this year!

dear john-

today i am tired. after i got off the phone with you last night i had every intention of going to bed, but i stayed up late finishing drying the laundry (i did 8 loads yesterday and had to dry all of them..) and folding them and sorting them.) and watched americas got talent which was kidly entertaining while doing chores. i tossed and turned again all night. i don't know if its because im hot (your side of the bed stays cooler though bc of the fan so i made myself totally comftorable) or if I'm stressed with the move this weekend...) then the care bear woke up at 430 this am. her night times have been getting progressively later and her wakings earlier so today enough was enough and i took her in. She weighs 21 pounds, which is great bc at her 18 month check they wanted her to be 22 by age 2 so we have 4 months to pack the last pound on her. I was pleased. there was also nothing wropng with her. that made me very displeased. i was really hoping for a quick fix but i guess we will keep waiting out this cold an the teething. she is cutting all 4 canines... we also experienced a huge break through- sun. she drank 1/2 of a warm horizons milk box. (she also threw up in her mouth later that day, and i'm pretty sure it's related..) she hasn't touched milk since however except on her shredded wheats...
this am when i took the older 2 to be dropped off at camp we waited and the ride never showed up. totally frustrating as this is the same family that made the kids late for camp yesterday. anyways, one of the dads ended up taking them out but it means that our group is without an adult today and that i have to go pick them up. totally lame, and it means that i have 1 to many kids so i have to find someone to watch one of our kids so i can run out there and it means the kids miss xfit unless we book it back ( totally my plan...) things with micro champion are going really well with 1 exception... he has NO AIM. whatsoever. fire hose bad. i make him clorox wipe the bathroom everytime he pees. i do not have any idea how his mom shares a bathroom with him (she lets him use her master.. i would never!) totally gross... he needs a man to teach him to pee. i think i am going to pay tay an hours wage to potty train him;-)
yesterday i had my most ghetto moment of my entire life. i often feel ghetto when i take lal the kids out and they are dirty and whiny or whatever but i actually had a serious moment. i left tay home w. m and van while i took jo and baby to wash our clothes (for the last time ever!!!!) i stopped at wendys and got them frostys to help with the 45 wash cycle wait. knowing that she would make an absolute mess with a melting frosty on a 100 degree day, i took of her cute outfit (her owl tank and multi colored brown and pink layer skirt) and left her in her gap tennies and her diaper, but rather then putting a less favorite outfit on her i choose to leave her naked bc i didnt want to dirty another outift and risk staining it until we get a place with a washer. she made such a sticky mess, all in her neck and her hair was getting stuck in it, down her tummy and it was caught in the front of her diaper. then she leaked it all over her legs onto the hot black vinyl dirty bench where it pooled around her diaper. when all was said and done, her diaper was competely brown. ill let you guess what it looked like... it was nasty. i went out to the car nad dug around and found 1 diaper, gave her a baby wipe bath and changed her diaper. she immediatly pooped in her new clean diaper. she was stinky the whole rest of the time bc i had used the clean diaper to replace a barely wet diaper that just looked bad (really bad...) oh well, memeroable way to end that laundramat visits i suppose.
micro champion brought over a wii game called just dance. it's hilarious! it's a 4 player game that the younger boys were all playing earlier. care bear is totally scared of it, like wiggles scared... i put her down for a nap (yes, at 10 am..) and need to finish packing our house. I am hoping to finish the whole upstairs today so tomorrow I can finish in the basement. SOOOO ready to be done!

dear john-

well... is it monday already? I hope your pt test went well this am so you can escape the full wrath of am pt in the texas heat... we had a very bizarre weekend here... sat at 8 we were at our garden eating blueberries off the bush since there wasn't enough to pick and take home but we picked peas and squash and sour apples to make applesauce (kids idea, and I confess i threw them away... i wasn't able to handle the mess of applesauce this week) and onions (which went in yesterdays chili!).. after leaving the garden, i told the kids we would run to the luandramat, start our laundry then go get donuts. When we were leaving the laundrmat, we met this super nice old woman with a wican bumper sticker carrying a cockato (sp?) on her arm. She let each of the boys try to hold it but van was scared of it and the bird was scared of m. He esp liked jo though. the bird went to jo several different times. We went and got donuts and i got complimented on our kids behavior! yay! later sat we ran to target to get a bday gift for one of vans friends then headed to the family party. our neighbor that we love (with the months name) was wearing a seashell bra. literally. it was interesting. the party had a hawaii theme and they had a luau in the backyard. she is such an interesting woman. she must have ordered 20 pizzas for maybe 30 people and spent hundreds on her sons 5th party. After the party (630) we headed to the pool for a little while before the storm kicked us out.
i hope you enjoed your fathers day. sorry we were way lame and didnt send you anything, poor forthought on my part. thanks for entertaining the kids for so ,ong on the phone last night though!
i have micro champion today and so far so well. the oldest 2 are at scout camp this week, i drove them out this morning and was glad i did bc they were missing jos registration. not sure what happened there, but we got it all taken care of. this should be the only time i have to drive them out there, i worked it out so i can pay gas money to not have to go that far. i have the boys settled down watching toy story 1 in anticipation to see number 3 next week. champion is going today so i am sure the bioys will be pressuring but w. older kids gone all this week, and me gone all next week it will be into the first week of july before we make it. i was sad at how fast this apst weekend went. i didnt get nearly as much accomplished as i hoped. we are moving fri into sat (for sure this time) and i cannot wait to get things out of boxes.. sun night lynz and kev came over for her bday dinner. she requested indian tacos so i made a ton of chili (more in freezor for later!) and made the whole feast. tay and i made a choc cake, cooled it, cut it in half, melted mint choc. chip icecream and made her a wonderful cake. we did a layer of ice cream, cake, hersheys bars layed all the way across the cake, which then the warm cake melted a bit, more ice cream, cake then frosting. it was beyond good (i just ate another peice after lunch today!) we had a good time and it was nice bc they left pretty early. i watched about a boy last night. anna loaned it to me. it was good, in a weird way. our house was so hot last night we all had a hard time sleeping. i felt like i tossed all morning just to get woken up by the phone at 630. we were out of the door by 740, so i neeed to be up, it was just a little painful.
anyway.. rest of the day: sprinkler time for little kids, then gym for van and m while i get boys from church parking lot. they reusted breakfast for dinner so thats on the menu, and i am hoping they will all be so tired they will pass out early! i have got to get more packing done!!

talk to you soon!

Dear john-

I made steak fajitas for dinner. you would have loved them! i found this salsa from food lion that was on closeout price for 1.09 and it was greenish and some steak that expired today so dinner was supercheap! i simmered the steak in the green salsa (which ended up being super spicy which the kids loved) and then as soon as i got it on the table realized we had no lettuce, sour cream, tomatoes or cheese so diva and i ran out quickly to grab those things (and found ice cream 4/10.00 and shredded wheat buy one get one free!) dinner was good! I just threw van in the tub and am waiting for diva to finish her dinner so i can scrub them both down really well. I was going to let them stay up and have movie night and talk to you but several things happened to change that.. first off, i have lost my debit card again so i didn't rent from blue box. second, anna is coming over to discuss plans for me watching micro champion and to have a girls night (which will probally consist of some mario or arrested development followed by large quantities of ice cream)
Last night i opened the hamsters cage to feed her and I dont know if its because i was tired and moving slow, or if desperaux has a new taste for freedom but that stupid hamster escaped. luckily she didnt get to far becasue she ran under the table where we keep her cage and i blocked her in with blankets she didn't try to climb over and after a few failed attempts to catch her, i stuc the top part of her cage in there with her and she promptly ran into it and i dumped her back in. she may never get fed again.
van woke me up at 4 am this morning climbing into bed and tossing for 2 hours until his brothers woke up to watch tv. i (and baby) slept until 745 this morning. i was shocked. i got out of bed, took a quick shower then went to check on her. she was sitting up in bed playing with her crib toys. when i came home for my lunch break, she was heading down for a nap and slept from 1-4:30... i dont know if she is growing (other then her hair at least) or if the past couple days of feeling off adn teething had knocked her out, but i am seriously hoping for a repeat performance tomorrow.
tomorrow the kids and i are heading out early to go pick from our garden and do some weeding. afterwards we will head to laundramat then get donuts (from the local best with some spare change i have) while it washes. we will be heading home to dry it and get some housework done but i think we will spend most of the day at the pool. i want to give the kids some down play time... anyways. i am sure i will hear your voice in a little while, but i wont talk long tonight. love ya!

dear john-

tomorrow is my last day of work! (for a few days anyway) I am super excited to have a break! your daughter woke up at 5:05 today, but didn't seem sick at all. I guess the puke at the grocery store was just a fluke. she was crying and grouchy and i was worried we were in for another long morning but she curled up on me and fell back asleep in our bed and let me sleep til 720! It was much needed! the job has been really fun but it makes for long days. today with the younger class we worked on our fathers day cards. the kids had a great time making them and sully was really excited to make this for you but we need an address of where to send it. i took pictures of each of the kids in the class to put in the cards and developed them after the swim meet tonight (which was a disater btw. taking 5 kids to the drug store after a swim meet while they are all dripping wet and without dinner at 8 pm is a baaaaaad idea) jo had a playdate this morning w. the twins and the kid you dont like;-) so he came to work with me and the twins mom picked him up and took him to the park. i was really glad she was willing to do that and he didn't miss out. I am worried about how much he will miss his friends next year when school starts and he isn't going. Jo came back to art camp this afternoon and had a really great time. We are doing a unit on Egypt so we have been working on several related projects and there is a kid in the class from Egypt (actually several) and they speak the language and know the culture, so that was a pretty cool coincedence for us. we've made cartouches, made scrolls by making paper, today we made a heiroglyphic mosaic. They've made salt maps of Egypt and the Nile and today we started a mixed media painting on muslin using metallic paints. Aside from Egypt projects, the older kids made a painting out of black posterboard, neon paints and aluminum foil and had to research phospecent bays. they really enjoyed that one as well. It has been such a fun perk to be ableto have van go to class with me in the am and jo in the pm. M will be in my next session and we will be doing very similar projects with a slight twist due to a couple kids repeating the course (spyix out of clay instead of a cartouche, etc.) both of our kids have had a great time in the class, but jo is taking things away and is dissapointed it ends tomorrow. He has made a few good friends that he hangs out with, 2 of them are kids from tkd that he really likes which is nice for him. he has also made friends with a little boy who was the only kid in the class of 22 that didnt have another kid from the same school there. Everyone else knew at least 1 other kid but this boy and he and Jo are very similar in build and interests. It has been a good week for both of them! (van has 3 kids from his preschool in camp with him and is having a blast.) After work today i rushed home, took the sitter home and rushed to kids to a 5 pm swim team warm up. (i got home from work at 430...) i didnt feed them ahead of time but did pack some snacks. We only swam against 1 other team tonight so the meet went super fast, and they only had free and back and our kids weren't even on a relay so we were able to leave early and get to the drug store to develop pictures. when we finally mad it home i made them spaghetti and opened 3 cans of oranges (which is the only thing diva ate) and threw all 5 of them in the shower and staight to bed. they all fell asleep pretty quickly but i also threatened to take away weekend wii time and tv privelages so maybe they were just quieter about it tonight then in the past few days. I am def. not travelling this weekend. I am just to tired and the kids are bummed but they haven't had any free time at the pool since the sitter isn't comftorable taking them so i think we can have a great time here relaxing and swimming. i also have to cut the grass since frank has cut his twice now. i suppose i will borrow the across the streets mower 3 more times before our lease ends... speaking of lease endings.... when we made paper with the pm class, i took the screen door off of our back porch to give the kids a screen with a frame to work their paper out onto. it worked perfectly and the kids were very carfeul with it but the all thought it was really funny that i had taken it off our door (not that it stays on...) ok, diva is awake and crying, i am going to start an episode of arrested development and hold ehr til she goes bakc to sleep (she is getting all 4 canines and is about to finally lose that toenail... she just keeps picking at it...) ok. goodnight!

dear John-

I finally got the computer up and running tonight! It was great talking to you earlier this evening, but I forgot to tell you a few kep oints of our day: first off, sweet girl had not thrown up again, but we snuggled and she watched so you think you can dance with me and applauded their efforts. She really seemed to enjoy watching them. Ok: our house is running a very comftorable 80 degrees, but not squeaking. Should i call maintenance or let it go? I cannot wait to finally move and get out ofboxes for the first time in 3 weeks. Having our moved delayed has actually been really good for us, financially and stress wise. since our amazing babysitter lives super close it has made my driving much easier. Her mom has been bringing her in the am and then I drop her off at home when I am done for the day. It has worked out great! when we move next week the class after that week is held across town at our fav. school so it will mean a ton of driving. I think ym van is getting sicker. I may just be paranoid bc I know i pay way close attention to how it feels, but I think it is chugging worse today then last week. We may have to bite the bullet and sink some money into a downpayment for something else. I will be really irritated to have 2 car payments but i am wondering if we have any other choice now. i will def. start looking bc i really want to be able to travel some this week and there is a certain car trip to a place up north that I will be missing at this point.
diva is almost out of diapers. i am really not wanting to buy another pack but would feel super ghetto washing diapers in the laundramat. guess tomorrow i will go pick up a pack to get us through next week.
k i supose that is all that i didnt tell you on the phone... have a great night!
go to mexico and find george for me while you are down that way!