Happy 1st Day of Summer!

"What a beautiful, sunny morning. It makes you happy to be alive, doesn't it? We can't let the sun outshine us! We have to beam, too!"

Takayuki Ikkaku

I like the meaning behind these words!  We must celebrate each day given to us with hope, gratitude and inspiration.  Us Oregonians and other North-westerners have oft been heard bemoaning our rainy and dreary spring.  I must, in light of the terrible natural disasters that are striking across most of the United States as well as other countries, embrace our nice 70 degree weather and be gracious. Mom and Bill just finished their trip traveling our great States (18 in all I believe) and were plagued with 100 degree temperatures, swollen rivers, tornado ravaged areas.   While their trip was a true success and a great story, they had to alternate their route often in order to avoid these areas.  So thank you beautiful sunny day and your promise of 82 degrees!  I welcome the chance to soak up some Vitamin D and bask in your rays!  Hope you all are able to take the opportunity to enjoy the weather today and may it bring good tidings for the season to come!


Just for fun...here is the word summer in some other languages :)


German - sommer
Lithuanian - vasara
Portuguese - verao
Polish - lato
Italian - estate
Indonesian - musim panas
Swedish - sommar

Sol + stice derives from a combination of Latin words meaning "sun" + "to stand still." As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky.

As a major celestial event, the Summer Solstice results in the longest day and the shortest night of the year. The Northern Hemisphere celebrates in June, but the people on the Southern half of the earth have their longest summer day in December.


In the Northern Hemisphere, summer solstice begins on Jun 21 2011 at 1:16 P.M. EDT 

Puppy Progress Pic-3 Days Old!

They're so cute and Josie is being a great lil mommy!  Hope everyone has a fantastic Memorial Day Weekend!

Josie's Puppies Are Born!

As is my MO, evidently, I have lapsed in my blogging efforts yet again.  Life always gets so darn busy when you're raising 5 kids.  While there is much to catch up on, this posting I am sharing the pictures of Josie's newest puppies.  At 4:45 am this morning, Tom heard a profusion of licking from Josie and asked if Josie was having her puppies.  Upon further investigation, I discovered a wee little foot sticking out.  After much help on our part to assist the poor pup being born breach, her first baby was delivered.  Unfortunately, she did not survive.  We tried all we could to make the Josie look-alike breathe, but after only two gasps, the puppy just didn't respond and passed away.  By this time, Josie was on to birthing the next two.  She had a white little girl with a brown ring around her tail and then a black little girl with white-tipped toes and a white blaze.  The two pups are doing great and momma is taking fine care of them.  Here's some pics for you to share!

Drew's Bday-Belated!

My Sweet Baby Boy turned 16 a month ago today.  How fast the time has flown.  Things have been crazy hectic around here and I 'misplaced' my cable to transfer pics from my phone to my computer so I have been remiss in posting because I was waiting to find.  Not a very good excuse, but its the truth.  I did some serious organizing of all of our pics so hopefully I will again be more proactive about posting.  For now I will just share the pics from Drew's big day.  It was pretty low key since he chose to have his birthday budget go towards stuff for baseball so we went shopping at Sport's Authority and got him dialed in.  He as well spent most of his birthday money from grandma, aunt Brandie and great grandma (thanks to all) on a bat he has been coveting for about 6 months now.  All in all it was a good time and while not driving yet, he's a pretty happy kid!

Putting Life Into Perspective

With the terrible events of today in Japan, and the other natural disasters recently that seem to occur with more frequency, I think many people are taking the time to stop and reflect on their own lives.  While other peoples tragedies don't nullify our own trials and tribulations, it does give us an opportunity to be grateful for the things that we do have.  I won't lie, I've struggled this last year.  Raising a family of 7 on an income of less than $30,000 is HARD.  I've struggled personally with my own sense of failure as a mother, provider and friend.  I get so consumed with the daily grind that I lose sight of the things I'm thankful for.  So today I say thank you for healthy children, safe family members, a gloriously loving and supporting 'husband', a home not washed away, a refrigerator full of food and people who love me.  Those are actually the biggies.  There are so many smaller things that I am blessed with.  I will make a better effort not to lose sight of these things and not sweat the small stuff.  Please take a moment to take stock of your own life and be grateful for what you have and send your love and support to the people in Japan, Haiti, New Zealand and all the other people in the world whose world is dominated by disaster not to mention starvation and war.  My heart aches for you today!

Achieving My Exercise Goals

This weekend has been pretty exciting for me achieving some goals I'd set for myself in the running department.  Due to my continued and increasing pain in my elbow, I made the executive decision to stop lifting for the week to give my elbow a break.  Thus, the determination to run 2 miles set in.  My original goal was to run 2 miles by the end of the February.  That didn't happen but we must focus on our successes and not our failures.  Thus, this Friday past, I did 6.5 miles on the treadmill in two separate blocks.  Mostly I would run a quarter mile and walk a quarter mile.  Between the two blocks I did a little circuit I saw on kellyrennie.com.  Kelly Rennie is a figure model from the UK and what I like most about this circuit is it is something you can do anywhere, with little space and no equipment.  You do each exercise for 45 seconds with 15 seconds of rest in between.
1.  Squats
2.  Push-ups
3.  Lunges
4.  High Knees
5.  Plank
6.  Burpees

Now, mind you, you are supposed to do 4 complete sets of the circuit.  I made it through one and then went and jumped back on the treadmill.  I'll work my way up.

Today was my big breakthrough day.  I finished 5 miles on the treadmill in under an hour.  Of that 5, I ran three without stopping and another one on intervals.  I hit the two mile mark and said to myself, "Don't stop just because your goal is two miles, keep going if you can!"  I did it!  Woo-Hoo!  I made it past the one mile and now I'm just truckin' along.  You were right Tom!  Thank you for all the encouragement!

Swimming Into Baseball

Swimming season is over and it's now onto baseball season.  Drew has had baseball tryouts all week and thus far hasn't been cut so we are all very excited for him to participate in his first season of high school baseball.  Wednesday night was his awards ceremony for swimming for a photo op :)

Austin plays his last basketball game on Saturday morning.  He is sad that it's the end is here as he has really enjoyed the sport.  Tomorrow evening he is participating in the school's annual states fair.  Each student makes a display about one of the 50 states of which Austin chose Washington state.  He is working right now on a game to have at his station for the kids to play.  He's decided on a matching game between the faces of five Seattle Seahawks players and their names.  Here's the almost finished product :)

Trevin's big event this week.... Drivers Permit.  Trevin displayed his usual overwhelming excitement (Not really), but I'm sure he's happy about it.  Now we will have two teenagers pestering us to drive. Yeah.

Zane and Ainsley are looking forward to tomorrow for it is Grandparents Day at their school.  Grandma Rita will be spending some time with each of them in their classes and then to lunch with them.  I'm happy she is able to make it down to do this with them; they love it!

Tom has started his own blog about his own exercise and weight loss journey.  If you haven't had the chance yet check it out at optimisticchanges.weebly.com

Brandie comes into town tomorrow to work on wedding plans.  We are meeting with Jason, the caterer, on Saturday to hammer out some menu options.  I am very excited just to see her and spend some time with her.  It's always too short when she is here, but at least I get to see her a bit!

Have a great weekend to all and to all a good night!