Some workout thoughts...

First, we are 2 days away from leaving to grab Goober before we head out on our AMAZING RACE...I can't wait to start because everyone around us is talking about it and my kids don't know...so I am making lots of weird sounds and shhhinnng people...its rude I know but I sooo want them to be surprised!!!

I got the oil changed today, the kiddos are packed, camping gear is packed, van is outfitted with books, dvds, games, and a spare tire!!

My Amazing Race binder is completely put together with each days itinerary, all 60 clues, each days reservations printed out and then I have all kinds of paperwork that goes with some of the clues. I also have clipboards put together for each kiddo with trivia about the states we are going to, road trip games, art work and Summer worksheets so that they WILL NEVER GET BORED...hehe.

Goober seems to be having the time of his life. He loved having his Uncle, Aunt and baby cousin to himself for a few days...and then having some time with CC and Papa before he left for Student Camp. Aunt Micah sent me soo many sweet videos of Goober playing with Levi and they both looked like they truly treasure one another. Goober loved playing x-box with Chris, going to the mall and eating pizza and coke with Chris and then being allowed to stay up late and watch TV....dang, he is never going to want to come home to us mean old strict parents :). I just got a video from Chris of Goober being in the front row of a worship time and he was doing all the dance moves and really into it...it made my heart sooo happy for him. We have prayed over him daily....for just 1 friend who loves Jesus hard, for his ears to truly hear from God, for him to be a leader, for him to long and thirst for God's word.

A lot of my running girl friends are gone right now... 1 is in Mexico with her family, 1 is in Switzerland for her job, the other just got a new puppy and is sleeping in due to being up late with him...and then 1 moved. So I have been doing a lot of solo workout this past week. Therefore, I have been listening to a ton of podcast and doing some good praying and soul searching. A few things that I have really been digesting lately are....

1-Having a workout plan before I leave the house is crucial....If I tell myself to climb stairs for 40 minutes then when I want to give up at 25 minutes I push harder to reach my goal. However, if I climb on the stair machine and get winded 25 minutes in I jump off..I didn't have a goal to reach towards. Same with running. When I run with the girls we plan out our mileage the night before....so I have been planning out my workouts so that I have a specific goal to meet....its like that with life too right? Plus, theres nothing like being proud of yourself after a good hard workout.

2-Reward yourself. Guys, I am telling ya, this sauna thing has changed my life. I CRAVE my prayer time in the sauna. I sit, stretch, soak and be still. I have nothing to prove in the sauna, I have nothing to be ashamed of, I have nothing to explain..I just sit in the presence of God ....close my eyes, sometimes turn my palms up as in offering my time and self to God and pray and listen. I do have to remind myself to stay in that mode if my mind wanders but there is nothing better than pushing myself through a hard workout and then releasing my body and spirit in prayer after.

3-If you find you are constantly stressed or don't have enough time in the day...THEN EXERCISE. Its the biggest stress reliever...you can't worry about the 10,000 things you have to do when you are so focused on lifting weights with the right form or running fast to keep up with friends or not falling off the treadmill. Plus, the minute I get home I am SOO STINKIN PRODUCTIVE. Its hard to sit down, I have tons of energy and find that days I don't workout are the most frustrating...at least productivity wise.

Thats my opinion at least.....

My glorious dinner...everyone was gone and I went out to the garden to pick dinner and add 2 fried eggs....it was DELICIOUS!

Everything is ready...clues, atlas for each kid, shirts.....CAN"T WAIT!

Ready for church!

Daddy wanted Sno Cones on Fathers Day and the kiddos were stoked...they got Bahama Mama Ramas-ice cream and sno cone mixed. My sugar free strawberry cheesecake sno cone was QUITE TASTY too!

See the cute kid second from the right...looks like he made friends fast at camp!

He put this together for Levi all by himself!

Ribbit was so proud of herself for the decoration on the outside of Adam's card...if you look close you can see where she calls him her "awfully cute, funny, awesome" daddy!

We got a good one for sure!

Every night...:)

Papa Dan came and picked them up for our school's Lion King Jr. play. They were sooo excited. They got candy, they got to play on his phone and STAY UP LATE!!

Check out Goober's bubble plate-straight out of the kiln...its all kinds of beautiful!!!

Another camper's plate....I am in love with this method!

                                           Papa with his oldest and youngest grandchildren!

Funny story and great memory. I decided to play water taxi with the kiddos. I crabwalked around the shallow end of the pool with one of them sitting on my stomach. I would try to twist and turn to throw them off. If they made it all the way around they had to pay the taxi with a kiss. Then it was the next persons turn. This lasted a good half hour.....Well at one point I dumped off Ribbit and said "time to pay the taxi" and they both jumped on me and were trying so hard to kiss me on the lips....but they were both slippery and wet (as was I) that they were sliding off and would come up out of the water and try again. I was laughing so hard but had to stay in the crab position to hold them both up...I was literally being drowned by my own children who were trying to kiss me but I was sucking water from laughing and going under. A very concerned lifeguard came over and asked if I was ok. I couldn't answer...I finally caught my breath, stopped laughing and then Ribbit cocked her head to the side, looked at me with all seriousness and said "Well that was interesting" and off I was laughing again!!!

Art camp about killed me....

Its true...art camp about did me in. Every summer I tell myself not to sign up to teach a week long art camp. But every summer I do it....for one, it pays for our summer vacation...2, my kids get to attend....3, I have parents begging me to teach their kids pottery.

However, its a huge reminder for me that I would rathe teach older students any day of the week. Don't get me wrong, those little kids are stinkin cute and funny and some are very talented...but I don't live in "teach you how to cut with scissors" world. I live in "lets throw an 18 inch vase and then underglaze it and carve through with sgrafitto technique" world. I have a really hard time knowing how long things will take younger kids and therefore the whole week is trial and error. I sound like I am complaning but overall the kids did great, made A LOT of beautiful pieces and we all survived so theres that.

I think another factor is just life. We had 3 games (football, 2 basketballs), 4 different practices or beast camps for Goober. We had 5 days of camp for Ribbit with her friend that required specfic details daily. We had two doctors visits that are required for the start of kindergarten and 7th grade.....(side note, our doctor pointed out that we have not been in almost a year....I think the oils are working ;).The biggest contributor to my exhaustion was that I had Little Man all day every day to not only entertain but let him take all of the camps...he thinks he run the art room and so there was a lot of "FULL NAME-stop being the teacher", "FULL NAME-stop smack talking", and "FULL NAME-stop eating all of the food I packed for both of us". It was just exhausting.

Goober actually left this afternoon to spend a week at Dry Gulch with my brother and sister-in-law who are taking their youth group. Its his first time to EVER be away from us and its sooooooo long. Little Man had a hard time saying good bye...he loves his brother so stinking much and has asked several times tonight when he will be back and to count how many days on my fingers until he sees him again. Ribbit said " I have so many memories of Goober" tonight at dinner, as if she would never see him again :). I admit I had a lump in my throat as he drove away but it was all made well when I got a good night phone call from my brothers cell phone tonight. I think he will truly enjoy his time and we have been praying for very specific things to come out of this trip. My one desire is that God would show him a goal for his life and allow him to have a vision, a purpose. Goober needs goals and he needs to develop self motivation so I hope those two things will be spurred on by this week of bible study, fellowship and fun!

The hair braiding continues...

Day 1-Little Kids Art Camp (marbleizing paper with shaving cream to make Very Hungry Caterpillars)

Little Man owned this project

Some very cute campers and caterpillars!

Teaching the next class (1st-4th graders) how to make clay slab animals)

Ribbit and her bestie from AHG working hard on their slab animals.

Little Man's bestie, COLLINS, got to come to camp. She is cancer free, her oxygen levels are good and she was so excited to be at camp this week....Oh I could hug on her all day long!

Draping bowls.

Older kids pottery camp-One of Goober's best friends since first. 

They loved blowing glazes mixed with soap to create bubble prints on their plates.

The bigger the better!

Oil pastels and watercolor!

Then top it with sand....they loved it!

Lillie adding texture to her slab animal!

A finished underwater painting with sand!

I asked several of my students to be helpers...they got to thrown in between classes. Gretel threw yet another vase over  12 inches...she later formed it and its BEAUTIFUL!!!!

Collins working on her rainbow fish!

OH I could eat this boy up...he loves large mouth bass and talked about them all week...he took both my art camp in the morning and my pottery camp in the afternoon!

Little Man easily threw the most pots this whole week...he loves it!

Oh I couldn't be prouder of my Goober for throwing this tall beautiful vase!

Sewing her butterfly pillow shut!

Our neighhor came to my morning art camps and made this awesome shark pillow!

Turned out great!!!

The finished project...we also realized that this would count towards some of the steps for her sewing badge!

Collins LOVED her Rainbow Fish project...I have to say it was pretty darn cute. If you haven' t read Rainbow Fishy you should. We read it on Day 1 of art camp and its about giving away what you have and sharing with others!

LIttle Man's rainbow fish!

On Day 5 of Little Kids pottery camp they got to blow bubble glazes too...we were all covered from head to toe with glaze!!!

Art camp starts tomorrow

We made it through a very fun weekend...exhausting but fun!

We had to get to bed early Friday night because we all had early mornings on Saturday.

The boys had a Father/Son Amazing race to take part in. They loved it...they had 15 different countries to go to ...each represented by a station inside a local large park. They had to do detours and road blocks which included jumping on trampolines, wearing lederhosens (no clue how to spell that), eat sardines, braid hair and complete various exercises. They were nice and sweaty after but Goober managed to get first place in his age category and Adam won a doorprize. Little Man kept up with them and did his best to run the whole time!!! I kept asking them "if you think 2 hours is exhausting do you think you could do 2 whole weeks of an Amazing Race?"......trying to feel them out for this upcoming trip you know...to which they said "yes if we stay in hotels"....hehe, tent, wigwam, teepee, hotel same thing right?

I met my girls (Tammy and Carrie) for an 8 mile run as we train for our next 1/2 marathon. We met halfway between our homes and Carries new home an hour away and ran a beautiful new trail with wide trails and BIG HILLS!!!! We talked the whole time and completely caught up on life!!!

After that I was off to teach a pottery class before lunch and a Painting birthday party that afternoon. I had been outside in the heat for over 10 hours at that point and was completely dehydrated so coming home and watching TV after a big dinner SOUNDED FANTASTIC.

Today we started off our day with my parents, every Sunday at 7:15 on the dot we began eating breakfast while facetiming with them. My friends jokingly refer to it as the Gilmore Girl breakfast but its nothing like that. Its just the best time for both families to sit down for an hour and chat. Then we headed off to church-which was weird to not be going dressed in our purple VBS shirts and singing "Galatic Starveyors".

After Sunday School and Big Church (I don't care if we call them Connect Groups and Corporate Worship...they will always be Sunday school and big church to me!), we headed over to have lunch provided by the church and shoot some footage for a special sermon on Fathers Day that our pastor is leading on "Adoption, Father to the Fatherless". They have already interviewed Adam for another part of the video so I am sure I'll need kleenex when we get to see it next week.

That little photo shoot for adoption after church sparked a conversation later on about how before adoption they were all considered half siblings...same mom, all different dads. BUT, BECAUSE OF THE GIFT OF ADOPTOIN, they are all FULL SIBLINGS. They have the same mom, ME, and the same dad, Adam...they are fully restored. We are a full family, no steps or half relationships to explain. Because God adopts us into his family we are fully restored to Him, there is nothing that can separate us from HIM!!!

Then the girls headed over to a friends baby shower. Ribbit loves coming with me to showers and loves to entertain herself by making movies on my phone, playing with the other kids and eating all the good shower food.

The boys stayed home and got Goober packed for Dry Gulch Student Camp and our trip as he won't be home between the two trips. They also got some stuff ready for our Grand Canyon trip and got some lunches together for the week as we will be going in all different directions to Art Camp, football and basketball practice, CCA Camp and work this week.

Tonight after dinner we had such a great family time. We did our bible reading for the day and then got into a great long discussion about the sermon this morning. We have loved our pastors sermons on the Psalms and how David points out all the ways you can see and hear God. We can't wait to read through some of the Psalms while we are looking at the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Monument Valley, Gooseneck Bend, Mexican Hat, Horeseshoe Bend, etc. 

VBS Day 2 with Lillie and Kate

Snack time may have been Little Man's favorite rotation!

Galaxy Nails for VBS!!!

Galaxy face paint for Day 5!

On the way to the pool that afternoon the kids said " you look like Aunt Robin".....which is HUGE COMPLIMENT!!!

My friend sent me this sweet pictures from VBS. This is her daughter, Grace as we made comets out of their handprints.

8 sweaty miles with my girls!

The team with the most handsome guys for sure!

Daddy wore this child out, shorts on backwards, new water shoes still on from the store and all up in the couch cushions!