Thankful

Our family traveled to the Twin Cities this Thanksgiving to stay with my sister, Traci, and her family.  They welcomed our whole brood and we had such a fantastic visit.  We were so sad to leave.  Here are some of the highlights of the week in Minnesota!

Thankful for a beautiful day for my little monkeys to visit the Como Zoo and enjoy other little monkeys.

Thankful for a nephew with unbelievable, truly remarkable, skills on a guitar.

Thankful for cousins rocking out together!

So thankful for my big sis, the talks, the hugs, the food, the fun.  Love, beyond words.

Thankful for science museums to explore and enrich brains and giggles.

Thankful for our roaring dinosaurs.

Thankful for the quiet cuddles.

Thankful for amusement parks in malls!  

Thankful for a husband who willingly goes on spinning rides (until his own body revolts).  

Thankful for my older cautious girl and my wild youngest girl.  

Thankful to hear these squeals of delight.

Thankful to an awesome Uncle Kent who took Addison on loads of rides when Daddy's tummy could handle no more.  

Thankful for these healthy husbands who ran a 10K on Thanksgiving morning.

So very thankful for beautiful moments like this one.  (And wow, our family sure likes stripes).

Thankful for sweet cousin time with smiles all around.

So thankful, I'm in tears.

Thankful for awesome big sisters to share and laugh with.

So thankful for these two...they started it all.  

Thankful the kids (and my big kid) got to play in the snow!

Thankful for this memory from Addison, "THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!" 

Thank you family, love you all so very much.  I am glad I got to give you all kisses and hugs on Thanksgiving.  

I AM SPARTAN!!!

Our friends the Gordons convinced us to run an adventure race, The Spartan Race.  Steve and I thought, sure, why not?  It will be fun.  We did little training for an adventure race, just our normal running, biking, tennis workouts.   Yesterday we arrived at the race and holy cow.  HARD CORE athletes.  And then us.  When we signed up for the race, the information said it was about three miles and about 10 obstacles.  When we arrived we were told, "Oh no,  this is a founder race so it is 5 miles and 30 obstacles."  Oh @#$%!!

This is Jenny and I showing our numbers.  I am pointing to the highlighted area that says-"there is a real possibility that you may die or be catastrophically injured."  Um, say what?  

Pre-race.  See the numbers on our forehead?  They write that and your age, all over your body.  I thought it was to identify us for the pictures they take while running the course.  Stephen said it is to identify us if we die on the course.  I hope he was kidding.  

And we were off.  One of the many walls we had to climb.  These were in the beginning when we were still chipper, clean and full of energy.  The walls got higher at the end so we had to scale lots of 8 foot walls.  

Up, up and over.  

I think about 2 miles of the race was like this, but this was in the sand, the back half was crawling under barb wire through the mud.  And that is real barb wire, we have the cuts to prove it.  

Lots of climbing up cliffs of slippery mud.  This was right after we crossed a river up to our chests with a raging current.  We also had to climb 12 foot nets, scale tons of walls, jump over hurdles, climb giant hay bales and then through mud ponds.  We had to swim through five feet of mud while under barb wire, we had to jump over and through fire, throw javelins, it was crazy really.  

Nearing the end, just the last 10 hay bales.  And when I say hay bales, I mean those giant rolled up ones which they then placed on mountains of slippery mud.  I will say the camaraderie was great during the race. Everyone had to help each other up and over obstacles or we would have never made it through.  There was a lot of hoisting booties up and over walls.  

We made it!  We don't have our official times yet but we think it was about and hour and 40 minutes.

Love you guys!

Muddy kisses.

I think we are still washing mud out of us, and flinching and moaning with every move we make because we are so sore.  Ouch, ouch, ouch.  WE ARE SPARTAN!!

Costume Crazy

Halloween has become a whole season, it's not just trick or treating anymore.  The kids (and Stephen and I) ended up in costumes so many times this year I just did one big costume post.  

Addison dressed as the crazy Christmas Target lady from the commercials.  

Ninja Luke.  Boy costumes are all the same to me, some sort of color, fake muscles and a mask.  He was super pumped though so SCORE!

Dorothy with her Toto.  

Stephen and I feeling our inner Peace and Love.

Family Halloween party at our friend's the Gordon's house.  

Happy Halloween!

At Carter's Birthday party pre-Trick or Treating.  I have a picture of these three every year at his party and I can't believe they are all turning four years old!  (Look at Carter putting the moves on Addison).

Buddies on the hayride, Carter and Addison holding hands.  Oh boy.

Ninja power by Luke and Dominic.

Gabriella, Caroline, Olivia and Amelia all ready for trick or treating.

Buzzing buddies Addison and Mary.

TRICK OR TREAT finally...I need a year break before I re-costume these children.