Marathon Man

He’s done it again. Rich ran in yet another race today. This one marks the beginning of what I’m sure will be many Utah runs. Here he is right after his run.

He beat his previous marathon record by 9 minutes coming in at 3hours 38minutes, which is amazing considering what little training he had. He placed 2nd in his age group and out of 152 runners Rich placed 17th!!!!

He is certainly making a name for himself in the Air Force. He ran in a 5k on base a couple weeks ago and got 1st place!

He had his PT test this past week and got 100%. Not only that but he was only 8 seconds short of setting the base record for the run. While his running drives me crazy most of the time, I am quite proud of all of his accomplishments.

Accident Prone

My girls are so accident prone! It sucks! Maya, especially, is always getting hurt. The scary thing about it is that she gets hurt even when she’s not doing anything remotely dangerous! My poor girl just attracts pain:( A couple weeks ago we went to a friends house and while playing with their dog, an adult who will remain anonymous(not Rich), picked her up and put her on the dogs back. The dog obviously did not like that and snapped at her, scratching her cheek. There was no blood but it scared the daylights out of her, and me.

A few days ago, at the same friends home, we were enjoying a bbq with friends. Maya was sitting in the grass just playing and minding her own business when a little girl walked up to her and threw a lemon sized rock at her head! What the heck! My poor girl is just constantly being chased by physical harm. This past week, however, Maya was not the one getting bumps and bruises…it was Arabella.

Last Sunday we were all hanging out in the back yard. Arabella was on the deck rolling around on a little ride on toy and the rest of us were in the grass when we heard a big tumble. Arabella had rolled off of the deck and landed forehead first on the pavement. When I picked her up the bump on her head expanded super fast and she had a nasty cut on her finger. We freaked out, called a friend to take Aidan and Maya and headed to the ER. On our way there Arabella kept nodding off which was so scary. Thankfully, by the time we got into the room the bump had already gone down a lot and she was starting to act a lot more like herself.

Feeling and looking much better.

After a CAT scan we were cleared to go home and she was just fine after that. Nothing but a bad bump and cut.

4 days later, the kids were watching cartoons while I made their lunch and when I called them over Arabella tripped and fell down our stairs. I screamed and ran down to get her and after a couple minutes of crying she was ok. Agh! I had forgotten to close the gate and will never do that again! So, my poor babies have about had it with injuries and I’ve about had it with the constant stress and worry! Here’s hoping next week is a safer one.

My Birthday Girl is 4!!!

Here she is, my big 4 year old!

Maya has grown up so fast into such a big happy, helpful girl. She says the funniest things and is just such a joy in our lives. A few things about my 4 year old Maya:

*Loves animals and has a melt down if there is one near by and I don’t let her interact with it.

*She is in pre-k and loves it! I love picking her up because she is always excited and runs to me with a huge smile on her face. She is most proud of knowing how to say “hi” in Chinese.

*She calls an overpass an OGREpass. Cracks me up every single time! And pancakes are panacakes.

*She’s so friendly and kind. She makes friends easily.

* She has always been my “easy” child but has suddenly found a strong, stubborn little personality within herself. She can be tough but I’m pretty sure I know who she got her stubbornness from;)

*LOVES HER BUNNIES! That is what we got her for her birthday!

We bought a momma and one of her babies, both girls. Maya was beyond excited! She even paid for one of them herself with the money Nana Jackie sent her for her birthday.

She has decided to name them Max and Ruby, after the cartoon. Even though they are both girls, that is what she wanted. The momma is Ruby and the baby is Max (Maxine?).

Maya is soooo obsessed with her bunnies! All she wants to do all day every day is play with her bunnies. It’s so cute!

 

Baby Max

 

How old are you, Maya?

Lighting the candles!!!

Singing happy birthday!

Blowing out the candles:D

Maya didn’t get a crazy fun party this year but she did get the gift that just keeps on giving…

Lookin’ Up

If you are ever wondering if I’m having a hard time just check out my blog. A sure sign of internal struggle is a lack of blog posts. I will admit (as noted in my previous post) Utah has been an adjustment for me, but I think I am finally adjusting:D Things are looking up and I’m starting to get really excited about our life out here. Aidan and Maya have settled into school well. I’m getting a routine down with my little sidekick, Arabella, and Rich LOVES his job! Really, what more could I ask for? Exciting news of the day? I found a gym! All this time I’ve been so down and missing my old gym and I found out today that there is a gym right by Aidan & Maya’s school! I don’t have to drive all the way into town! Hooray!

I’ve already made some really good friends, two of which live right in my neighborhood! I’ve also become great friends with the wives of the other pharmacists that Rich works with. We had our first Girls Night Out last night and it was so much fun! I swear we could have sat and talked all night.

Wanna hear a funny story? Aidan rode the school bus to school for the 1st time yesterday. I’ve been really nervous about letting him do this because you know, you hear horror stories of kids not making it to school. I was also worried about him not knowing where to go after he got off of the bus. So, my neighbor girls came over at 7:55 to pick him up to walk with him to the bus stop. What do you think I did? I stalked the school bus like a psycho stalker mom! That’s right, instead of a soccer mom I’m a stalker mom.

I knew that I wouldn’t have peace of mind if I didn’t know exactly what route Aidan would be taking and I had to see how he did when it came time to get off the bus. So, here I was driving  my mini van with tinted windows, wearing a baseball cap because I hadn’t done my hair, following the school bus. Creepy? The bus driver thought so. After about 15 minutes of picking up kids at each stop, he pulled over and got off of the bus and walked up to my van with a very concerned look on his face. “Why are you following me?” Oh my gosh! So embarrassing! I explained that I’m just a psycho paranoid mom who’s baby boy is riding the school bus for the first time and that I was so sorry for not giving him a heads up:/ He was totally cool with that and continued on his way. The good news is that Aidan made it to his class just fine, of course, and the even better news is that I didn’t follow the school bus today. I was too embarrassed to tell anybody about this so I can’t believe I’m blogging it. Maybe it will be a testament to how much I love Aidan when he gets older?

Arabella has been so much fun to chill with while Aidan and Maya are at school. Usually, what she wants to do is snuggle on the couch and watch Dora. Today we watched Bubble Guppies and there was a part where they said, “Get up and dance with us!” and so she said, “Mom, get up and dance!” I complied:D After I danced she wanted me to rewind it so she could dance too, and she did it over and over. So cute!

(Ignore the bare walls…and disaster)

I love that girl!

So yeah, things are looking up out here in Mountain Green:D

Adjusting

Our Utah transition has been HARD. I’ve had to remind myself that it was my idea to rank Utah #1 on our list. Not that it’s not gorgeous here, because it is. It’s been all about attitude and missing Florida. I love these honest posts because they make me sound like such an ungrateful brat. I’m not, I promise! I see all of my blessings, it just takes me a while to step back and acknowledge them sometimes. I’m gonna lay it all out there:

What I Miss About Florida

*Palm trees & weather

*Davie ward (my church group)

*My friends

*Cultural diversity

*Zumba (freakin’ awesome in Florida!)

*My routine

*Living near everything

What I’ve Struggled With In Utah

*I’m the only brown person in my entire neighborhood, possibly in my entire community. We didn’t realize it when we moved here but we live in a “fancy” community and the only people of color you ever see out here are the landscapers! *Sad, sad face*

*We live in the country, 15 minutes from town, I both love it and don’t love it so much. Maybe I just need to get used to planning ahead but I miss living next to Publix. The past few days I’ve been feeling better about it, just an adjustment. (Booohooo, right!?!?) I guess that also includes my addiction, Target, oh and TJ Maxx…and Joann’s. Ok, I’m an addict! I like to shop!

*I still haven’t found a gym:( I SO miss my Zumba classes!!! Desperately need to find a gym that has awesome classes and isn’t an hour away!

*I started crying after like 2 days of living here and not having any friends. I just couldn’t understand why people weren’t knocking down my door asking to be my best friend? I mean, come on! Haha! I thought that maybe they thought I was the “help” seeing as I am the only Mexican out here. What a weirdo I am! Seriously though, they are all so fancy and perfect looking I just didn’t feel like I was going to fit in. Yeah, I was wrong! They are all so nice! Slowly but surely they are all coming around and bringing us cutely wrapped homemade bread and a warm smile:) I’ve made a couple of really great friends and I’m so excited to get to know the other’s better.

The first week I pretty much cried because I missed my Florida home. I still miss my Florida home like crazy and I will always miss my life there but Utah is slowly…slowly starting to grow on me. Being surrounded by the beautiful mountains is something I’m sure I’ll be missing when our time here is over. A new adventure has begun and I’ve gotta stop looking back so that I won’t miss out on all of the excitement that is to come.

Maya Is In School?!?!

What on earth is going on here? I feel like all of a sudden my babies are, oh I don’t even want to say it…….BIG KIDS! Eeeeek! Still trying to figure out if I like it or not. Usually, I don’t. I’m just grateful they will still kiss me on the lips. It’s gonna be a sad, sad day when they are too cool for mom:(

So, I was saying, Maya is in school! I know, it’s crazy(depressing, devastating, heart-wrenching)! She has been begging to go to school ever since Aidan started VPK in Florida. One day Ms. Michelle even made Maya’s dream come true by letting her sit with the big kids for a little while. She was in heaven! Two days ago her dream really, really came true when I dropped her off for a whole 2 1/2 hours to go to her very own class!

My two big kids clothes set out for the morning:

My Pre-K girl!

I love that sweet little face and those big brown eyes!

Aidan felt like such a big brother taking her to her class (which is right next to his) by her hand.

She was so excited she was bouncing off the walls!

When I went to pick her up, she was one of the only kids that looked like this:

She said she was Chester the raccoon! She wore the mask the whole drive home (10 min.) and was so proud to show everybody how cool she looked. My girl LOVES school! I LOVE my girl.

Aidan’s Birthday Continued…

I felt so bad that we were in such a chaotic and difficult situation on Aidan’s birthday. We were in temporary housing and after 6 weeks of living out of a suitcase I was a massive disorganized mess both physically and mentally. As I mentioned before, I MUST HAVE ROUTINE TO FUNCTION. So, Aidan’s birthday was sadly thrown into the mess but we wanted to make it a special day for him anyways. Rich has the most amazing boss ever that has made it very clear how important family is to him. He basically told him that he needs to ask off of work for important family events so when Rich asked if he could get off an hour early for Aidan’s birthday, his boss gave him half the day off! Awesome huh! We took advantage of that time and took the kids to Chuckie Cheese’s. They love that place and were so excited! Maya still talks about it.

I didn’t take too many pictures cuz I was too busy spending the kids token. Hehe.

Then, thanks to Dairy Queen Aidan got the ice cream cake he requests every single year. Hey, it saves me from having to make any effort as far as a cake goes!

Funny story, I thought it would be so funny to use the candles that relight. Aidan didn’t quite understand why the heck they wouldn’t go out and was basically hyperventilating trying to blow them out and then I realized that we are in a tiny little room with smoke alarms that when set off the base fire department actually responds! How do I know this? I’m too embarrassed to say. Let’s just say they had been summoned to our place a couple of days earlier. Yeah, so anyway, our place was filling up with smoke when I remembered our previous incident and quickly pulled the candles out of the cake, threw them in the sink and screamed for Rich to fan the alarms while I ran around like a crazy woman opening every window. Relighting birthday candles, not such a good idea after all. Also, the oreos on top of the cake tasted burnt because of those darn candles. Good move mom!

All in all Aidan’s birthday was fun for him. I want to throw him a really party on Maya’s birthday since they actually have friends out here now. But as far as presents go, we couldn’t wait until Maya’s birthday to give him is “big” present.

I think he likes it;)

Workin’ It!

Lately, Maya has been a little dancin’ machine! I LOVE IT when she dances! The other day I was organizing their room and I had some music playing when Maya came in and asked me for help putting a piece on Mr. Potato Head. I told her I would totally help her if she danced while I put the piece on. I’m such a mean momma;) She got right to it! It’s always the same move but I love it!

We went out to grab a bite the other day at this place called Zupas, which by the way has THE MOST DELICIOUS veggie sandwich I’ve ever had!

Utahns sure know good eats. There are sooo many delicious restaurants out here! Anyway, I digress…soooo we were eating at Zupas when Maya decides she likes the song that’s playing. She stood up and started workin’ it! You can’t really hear the music but it would speed up and then get slow so she was moving with the music.

This video makes me so happy:)

Kindergarten, Here Comes Aidan!

I can’t believe my boy is a Kindergartner! When did that happen? We are so excited about this year because we just know that it is going to be so good for him. Here he is bright and early on his first day of kindergarten!

 

  

His trademark pose, 2 thumbs up:)

 

I was having a hard time getting him to give me a genuine smile so I called him “belly button underpants” and that was the most hilarious thing to him! Any word paired with belly button is sure to get a smile from him these days.

Kindergarten is only a half day out here in Utah:( We were bummed about that because we feel like Aidan is ready for more. We found out that there is a private preschool that leases a couple of classrooms right next to Aidan’s classroom. So perfect for Maya! We signed her up and as we were talking to the teacher we found out that they offer the second half of kindergarten through their private school! So, after he finishes his first half of the day with the public school, he will eat lunch and then go into the classroom right next door! It could not have worked out any better!

Mountain Green has an amazing elementary school and we couldn’t be any more excited for both Aidan and Maya to get to go to school out here. So blessed and so grateful!