Wee Racer Clinic

At the end of October Sophie brought home a flyer for Wee Racer in her backpack. We get lots of info about kid activities in the area from her preschool, and I normally just throw them out, but this one seemed right up her alley - running games, obstacle courses, and moving with music. I signed her up for a couple one hour sessions and she absolutely loved it!

There were about 8 kids in the group, and even though the age range was 3-5 years old, Soph was easily the tallest one there, which is becoming common for almost anything we do. She did a great job listening and following directions, and not becoming frustrated when something was too hard the first time around. It was also nice to see her look somewhat coordinated compared to other kids. This girl often walks into walls and falls over in the middle of the room and sometimes I wonder if that's just her, or a factor of age, and it looks like it's just age :)

Video: Some clips of Sophie trying the different activities. You can see the big smile on her face as she runs and can tell how much fun she was having!

The real challenge was Davey. He was not content to sit on the sides and observe for an hour and I spent a lot of time following him around, reassembling obstacles that he dismantled. He desperately wanted to be out there with the other kids and, now that I've seen some ideas, we might try to set up a few challenges at home for Sophie and Davey to enjoy together.

Playing 9 Holes

Our new apartment complex is located across the street from a golf course. We brought our clubs with us from Washington and always say "sometime we should go golfing", and on Saturday evening we finally did! We had so much fun and hope to go again before it starts to get too cold.

We are definitely amateurs, but getting better. Dave is working on learning how to use a driver and hit straight (he only had to yell "fore" once when we went). I am trying to be more consistent with my swing - about half my shots are great, and the other half go 10 feet. I think we are both slowly improving, and hopefully with practice, we won't embarrass ourselves if we ever go golfing with people that actually know what they're doing.

I looked back, and I am wearing BYU gear in three of the last four posts. I guess you can tell which team I support!

Dave did great and even made par a few times!

Get off the couch & get your head in the game!

Lately Dave and I have had some trouble keeping busy at night. We've just been sitting around looking for somthing fun to do. 

Problem solved. This fall we are each going to play on four intramural teams. I'm playing women's soccer, women's volleyball, women's flag football and co-ed kickball. Dave is playing kickball, men's ultimate frisbee, men's flag football, and men's volleyball. Yesterday I got out the calendar

Behold our schedule for September - 25 games in 23 days

There are also 8 more games in October, and then the extra games for playoffs. Are you tired just looking at this? I am. We're not exactly in tip-top shape right now so this should help out. The next month will bring the end of sitting around, several loads of laundry, more showers, hopefully no injuries, and lots of fun!

Timpanogos Caves

To hike to Stewart Falls we had to buy a recreation pass to American Fork Canyon. The pass is good for 3 days, so we figured we'd take advantage of this and get back for another hike before the pass expired. It was a gorgeous day and we left early before the day got too hot.

Up to Timpanogos Caves! And the trail is literally straight up the whole way, no flat spots anywhere, but we made great time and got to the top 45 minutes before our scheduled tour time.

Some of the cave's beautiful features - it was a great tour!

Dave squeezing through a tight spot - you had to wear backpacks on your front so you wouldn't accidently brush up against the cave.

My stylish arm warmers (that are actually leg warmers). The caves stay around 45 degrees year round so you need to bring a coat. I wanted to keep my pack light, however, so I just took a thin jacket and used these beauties for supplemental warmth.

Good hike, good tour, good times!

 

Hike to Stewart Falls

For the past 6 weeks my sister Amy and her family have been in Des Moines for a law externship. We really missed having them around for dinners, games, and other fun stuff. But now they're back, and we celebrated their return with a hike to Stewart Falls.

It was supposed to be an easy trail... but I guess the guys with chainsaws haven't made it up here yet to clear away the winter debris. There were a few tough log crossings and still snow on some parts of the trail that made things difficult.

We made it in the end - at least to a place where you could see the falls. To get to the bottom you had to cross a big snow field that was on a slope and no one felt comfortable doing that with a baby. So we took a picture...

... and then left to find a good place to eat lunch! I had a little friend at lunch that was more interested in putting food in my mouth than in her own. Luckily her hands had only a light dirt coating at this point.

After lunch, Anne decided that she wasn't ready to get back in the backpack and tackled a good portion of the trail on her own. I was actually impressed by how far she got, and that she never tripped and fell. Way to go baby!

 

Looking back on a fun, but short season

This year we bought a kickball roster and gathered together some friends (Scott & Christina George), family (Nat), and friends of family (Nat's crew) to play with us. Go Germaine's Seeds!

Dave "pitching" to me. This photo is from my friend Christina - she takes WAY better pictures than I do, so I'm using hers and not even putting mine up :) Thanks Christina!

 

I asked Dave what he would say about our kickball team, and his reply was a laugh... which I guess is a pretty accurate description of how our season went.

In the first inning of every game we could never get anyone out - it was like a curse. We'd give up 8 runs, and then come up to bat and score 0. Later we'd do awesome and run down fly balls, kick a grand slams, but it was always too little, too late.

Our team was plagued by injuries. We had two sprained ankles, a dislocated shoulder, and a pulled groin so some people could run, but not throw, and others could throw, but not run.

We got in trouble with the refs when our players started "planking" on home plate during the game.

One of our teammates came to a game wearing a dress and sandals, but was told she needed closed toe shoes to play. Rather than sideline herself,  she wore another teammate's topsiders that were 4 sizes too big over her sandals - it was awesome to watch her run the bases!

In summary: We lost every game, but we had fun, and that is all that matters.

Hooray for Saturday!!

Hooray for Saturday and hooray for sun! After 7 straight days of rain we took advantage of this break in the weather to get outside and take a nice long walk.

First stop was the library to check out a bunch of DVDs to watch over the next few days (our version of netflix). Next we wandered over to McDonald's to try their new frozen strawberry lemonade, which actually turned out to be very yummy. Then we crossed to street to Carl's Jr. for the rest of our lunch because we like their food better than McDonald's.

 

Then back to home where Rosalina killed Birdo in Mario Kart. I was Birdo (poor me).

First Shot at Frisbee Golf

On Friday we went to a local park to play frisbee golf. Dave had played before, but it was my first time.

Dave making an easy putt

Things got a little more interesting after the third hole. We rounded the corner to the tee box for hole four and found.... nothing! Apparently that part of the park has been demolished and no longer exists, taking with it holes 4-12.

I suppose it's all right our day was cut short because I was spending most of my time in the trees anyway. I just can't seem to make the frisbee fly straight and go in the direction I want - I can do one or the other, but not both. Better luck next time!

10 Serving 8

Typically our evenings are spent at home on the couch either watching TV or playing games with each other - fun, but not necessarily the best use of our time or the best thing for our physiques. Now that the weather is warming up, our goal is to live a more active lifestyle and yesterday's activity was racquetball.

Dave and I used to play on BYU's courts all the time while we were dating. It was fun, and more importantly it's free :) Then for some reason we stopped... until yesterday when we thought, "We love racquetball! Let's go play!"

My game somehow improved during our racquetball hiatus because I was able to beat Dave 2 out of 3 games! I suppose it is possible that he got worse instead of me getting better, but I like the first theory better.