Back-2-School

Every year on the first day of school, I take out my camera and snap a few pictures of each of the kids. I love documenting these momentous days but as they have grown older, they've also grown more and more annoyed with this little tradition. Since last year's pictures were full of rolling eyes and impatient frowns I actually considered giving them a break this year. Boy was I surprised when the evening before the first day of school they all said, "You're taking pictures in the morning, right?". It's a nice feeling when someone asks you to take their picture instead of groaning when the camera comes out! Here is Lauren on her first day as President of a large Corporation. Oops, I mean the first day of 3rd grade. When I look at this picture I get a little flash of her future. Anyway, her day went great. She loved her teacher, she was excited about the three thick text books she gets to use this year and she was relieved to find that the little boys who made last year miserable were NOT in her class.

For the first time ever, Amanda loves her teacher! I can't even tell you how happy this makes me. She always seems to get the one teacher that should have retired already. She has made friends with a couple of girls who like to avoid the girl drama that Amanda seems to get sucked into, against her will,every year. Thank goodness for that. I think the 6th grade is going to be a great year for her.

These next few words come out with a sniff and damp eyes...Austin started HIGH SCHOOL this year! Can that really be right? Wasn't I just IN high school? I'm not sure what is more upsetting, that he's growing up or I'm growing old! So far Austin loves the 9th grade. I hear the most about French (I guess Spanish was full) and Geography class. I love that he comes home excited about the things he's learning and tells me all about it. It makes me want to do High School all over again, minus the teen angst.

Papa Pulls Through!

Tonight my gratitude is overflowing. When I heard that my Dad would be released from the hospital this afternoon, I was finally able to exhale the breath I'd been holding for two weeks. Two weeks ago he went in for some tests and before he knew it they were performing major emergency surgery that he was not really expected to live through. The Dr. warned that if he did live through it, he may not have use of his legs. It was agony for me to be so far away and to not know if I would ever see him again or have one more of our "solve the world's problems" conversations. All I knew was that this could not be it because I still really need him in my life. My dad spent most of the past two weeks in ICU getting some major kinks worked out, then got transferred to a regular room a few days ago. He had VERY limited use of his legs until yesterday when he pulled himself out of bed and took himself for a walk down the hallway. With a walker, of course. I sure wish I had been there to see that, and I'm sure you could have heard the faint sound of angels sing Alleluia in the background. I'm so glad that he is able to come back home to recuperate. I love you Dad and wish so much that I could come be with you! When I told Janet what had happened to you she said, "I swear Kase, your dad has like 9,000 lives!" That cracked me up and I hope she is right!

Ouch!

Tuesday morning I went running with a friend and by Tuesday afternoon I was in horrible pain every time I took a step. The Dr. suspects a stress fracture. There wasn't anything obvious on the x-ray but the Dr. says it often takes 1-2 weeks to actually show up. In one week I get it re-evaluated. In the mean time I get to wear some ultra fashionable footwear!

Father's Day Campout

One thing Aaron really loves to do is go camping so we thought this would be a great way to celebrate Father's Day. We packed everything up Sunday morning and headed up to SouthFork campground in the San Gorgonio Mountains. We'd been told this was a nice campground along the Santa Ana River and we were really excited that we'd get to play in the water. Well, the river turned out to be a stream two feet wide. That was a bit disappointing but the campground was still beautiful. We hung out and relaxed, then went on a short hike. Then we drove over to Jenks Lake just a couple miles away. The lake was so incredibly clean, you could actually see the fish swimming around in it! After hanging out there for a while we headed back to camp for dinner and smores. We left early the next morning, so it was just a quick little camping trip. We are hoping to do many more this summer.

Family Photo

For years we've been saying that we need to have a family photo taken. Here I am, hoping to someday be a professional photographer and I haven't even had my own family's picture taken in 5 years! A couple nights ago, the kids surprised me and Aaron with this near life-sized chalk rendering of our family. "Take a picture," they said. "It can be our new family photo!"

Miss Manda

Me: Okay Manda, pretend you're a Supermodel!
Amanda: .........................................

New York Fashion Week, here she comes.

Run!

Several weeks ago, Austin and I decided that we really wanted to get in shape. We began getting up early to work out before school and we've also been running in the evenings when the temperatures cool down. I am enjoying the results I am seeing in my body but more than that I have enjoyed spending this time with my son. Our evening runs have become one of my favorite parts of the day. We encourage each other to keep going when we want to quit and we have pushed ourselves to go farther and farther each time. We started with about a half of a mile and tonight we ran 3.5 miles. We feel so accomplished! Austin makes me feel old when I watch him run. He bounces along like he has springs in his legs and just when I am about to keel over, he will break into a sprint. I spend a lot of time laughing at him because he will do things like race dogs along a fence line while barking back at them. I beg him not to do these things because laughing while running cuts my power in half but the kid is merciless and keeps it up.

Unfortunately, tonight our run ended with a terrifying event. We were worn out and struggling up our last hill when all of a sudden a beat up brown van flew up to the curb right behind us. We heard it coming and as I turned to see what was going on I saw that the passenger door had flung open and a man was jumping out before the van had even fully stopped. My heart jumped into my throat as I heard Austin yell back to me, "Run Mom! Run!" and deep in my soul, I knew he was right. I was literally sick as we ran for our lives, believing we would be thrown in that van and whisked away. Luckily, we happened to be not too far from the back side of our house. From the sidewalk we had to climb up a weedy, stickery hill and then climb over the back fence. I was so exhausted and frantic I could barely make it over. I was so, so relieved when we were finally safe! When we told Aaron what had happened, he tried to calm our fears by suggesting other possible reasons the van had pulled over. Austin and I are both very familiar with "promptings" and I have no doubt that we were prompted to run for our lives with every ounce of strength we could muster.

Now that my fear has subsided I am so angry that Austin and I will not be able to run, be silly and enjoy our time the way we have been. Now if we run, we will looking for threatening brown vans and wondering what could happen next time if we don't happen to be close to home. Aaron offered to follow us in the car for now on and I'm sure we will be taking him up on that. I know that our runs won't be the same, being shadowed by our own personal security guard, but I am determined to not give up something I love because of the evil lurking in the world. I will not let evil win.