Rebecca's Visit

My sister, Rebecca, was here for the weekend to receive the Distinguished Alumni Award from USU Mechanical Engineering Department. My sister is one of the smartest and most talented people I have ever met so it really didn't come as a surprise to me that they were honoring her with the reward. She definitely deserves it.

I have to admit that it was a little hard growing up in my sister's shadow. She is only 16 months older than me. We have always had different interests. In high school she was involved in academics and music and I was into athletics and hanging out with my friends. I found myself trying not to let my teachers find out I was her sister for fear they would expect the same from me. She was the 4.0 student, sterling scholar, valedictorian... The list goes on and on. She graduated with her PhD. from MIT and is now a tenured professor at Ohio State. She really is impressive just looking at her academic accomplishments. That's before you consider that she is an amazing mother and has made it look easy to take care of a five-year-old, two-year-old and triplet baby girls! (I know she doesn't feel like it is easy but I know there's no way I could handle everything she is doing!) It would probably be easy to be jealous of a sister that has accomplished so much but I have always been proud of her and admired her for everything she has done. Congratulations, Rebecca, on another outstanding award!

Rebecca was our closest relative when we live in Iowa and North Carolina and I have missed being able to hop in the car occasionally to visit her. I was excited she had an excuse to come visit us. She decided to give downhill skiing a try for the first time while she was here and she picked the perfect day with 15 inches of fresh powder. We had a lot of fun skiing with her and she caught on fast. It was a great weekend and I was sad that it went by so quickly!

Winter is Back

Tuesday it was so warm and the snow had melted and we did our first workout outside on the track for the season. Today winter is back! Jason was supposed to work at Snowbasin today but couldn't even get up there so we shoveled out instead. Thanks to all our wonderful neighbors with their snow blowers that are willing to help!

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I am married to such an amazing person. On top of everything he does to be a great husband and father he is really good at his profession. When I stop to think about it I am in awe of what he has done to get himself to the point he is at today. Very few people understand the hours and effort he has put in for so many years to learn everything he knows. He's a great doctor as well as a wonderful writer and presenter. He has won several awards for presentations he has done and continues to work hard to publish in journals and text books and present at conferences even though he is no longer in academic medicine. Every once in a while I am lucky enough to get a chance to read an article that is written for an audience like me instead of in a medical journal. He has recently started working with some local runners who started utahrunning.com. Click here to view Jason's recent article in their free online magazine, Run Utah.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's started out not so great (that story will come later!) but it turned out to be a fun day. The kids had lots of fun at their class parties and I got to help out in Jared's class. I made cookie dough so the kids could roll out and decorate cookies after school. Kaitlyn ended up being the only one willing to help out. It reminded me of the Little Red Hen but I did share the cookies with everyone. After all it was Valentine's Day. It was also 60 degrees and I couldn't blame the kids for wanting to get outside. How often does that happen in the middle of February? I even took a break to push Kaitlyn in the swing for a few minutes!

Jason came through with flowers again this year. I don't think he's missed a year in 14 years. Last time he bought me flowers Kaitlyn was sad that he didn't bring her any so this year he bought one for her too. She was so excited! I guess the girls at the flower shop thought it was a little strange for him to order just one rose until he explained it was for his four year old daughter!

Gift Ideas?

Do you have someone in your life who you never know what to buy for? Jason's step-dad is one of those people. Every time I need to buy him a gift I am asking my mother-in-law for ideas. I usually resort to buying gift cards but I prefer to give real gifts. This year when I was at a loss for what to get him for his birthday again Jason suggested we take him skiing for a day. We had a great time taking him to Snowbasin Saturday and the kids loved skiing with Grandpa! It was a beautiful sunny spring like day and we were roasting in our coats. The only thing that could have made it better was a few inches of new snow. I hope Darrell had as much fun as we did!

Another highlight of the day was Kaitlyn taking her first trip to the top of the mountain. She also seemed to lose her sense of caution and was going down the mountain as fast as she could! Jason took her on some pretty hard stuff and I was amazed at how well she did. When it got too steep and she fell she would jump up and try again without any crying or complaining! Here she is at the top of the Needles Gondola before her first run down.

We had to fight the crowds there this weekend with all the people coming to watch the Dew Tour finals. It was pretty fun to watch the professionals doing tricks on this huge half pipe. It's much more impressive in person than watching on TV!

Busy with Life

The other day I went for a run with a friend I haven't seen in a few weeks and she asked what I'd been up to. I really couldn't think of anything to tell her which seemed strange since it seems like we have been so busy! I guess we have just been busy with life even if it is nothing big or eventful! Here are some recent pictures to keep you posted.

I'm not a huge fan of bathtub pictures but this was just so cute and G rated with that many bubbles. Someone put a few too many bubbles in the tub but it sure was fun!

Andrew is in the middle of his Jr. Jazz season and loving it. He's got a lot of great friends on his team again this year.

Jared was so excited for the skit his den was preparing for pack meeting this month! He talked about it for days before and he was thrilled Jason could have a break from Young Men's activities to come watch. Here he is looking so serious in his part in a Native American tribe!

Jared also got his Bobcat award that night. He didn't want to give me the pin. He thought it was better than the patch and wanted to keep it for himself but I convinced him to pin it on!

Andrew's first court of honor. Jared thought it was a little dull without all the crazy things they do in cub scouts.

I thought some of you might be interested in an update with the pet situation. We've had Herkey almost three weeks now and at least he is still alive! He's been a little more challenging to tame than Charlie was. Maybe he hasn't been handled as much or maybe it's just personality... He's also a lot noisier than Charlie-not sure yet if that's a good thing! The best news is that he doesn't bite!

I know I already posted a bunch of skiing pictures but this was just such a beautiful picture of Mt. Ogden that I had to include it! It was one of the worst inversion days in the valley so it was great for the boys to get up to some clean air. While the boys went skiing Kaitlyn and I went to a girls' day with my mother-in-law. Of course her couple hours project turned out to be a couple days project for me so I'll post a picture when it is finished. My goal is to have it finished before spring so I can actually use it this year (it's a winter decoration!) Like everything my mother-in-law does it is very cute so keep posted for the finished work of art!

One more note on skiing. Yesterday Kaitlyn informed me that Little Cat (bunny hill) was boring and she wanted to go up Becker(intermediate lift). I was a little worried but she was persistent and when we gave it a try she did awesome! She was so proud of herself making it all the way down without help and told everyone that would listen including all the ski patrol we ran into! After she had seen a few adults fall she turned to me and asked "Why are all these people wiping out and I'm not?" Then she laughed!