Summer Fun's Done 'Cause School's Begun

We needed a recent family photo for Felix to take to Preschool, so we set the camera up in the backyard after church. Here we are.

Felix on his first day of Preschool...he had a blast!
Rex after dropping Felix off at school...not very happy about being left out

The boys and I went to visit my family in Texas, and here are some pictures from the trip. ( I don't know why this section is underlined and I can't figure out how to undo it!)

I told Felix to give Rex a hug for a picture and here's how that translated.

Rex with his feet buried in the sand at the beach in Galveston

Felix getting his first surfing lesson from his Uncle Steve His first attempt at standing
SUCCESS!!
Hope you've all had a fun summer! I can't believe it will soon be cold again...blah!

HAPPY LABOR DAY!

Top Of Utah Half Marathon

We ran in the Top of Utah Half Marathon this morning in Logan. Valerie's brother, Rich, and his wife Buffy ran with us, too. As you can see from the pictures, getting bloody nipples from running is not a myth. The funny thing is that I have no idea when the bleeding started. I didn't even know that I had what looked like a bullet wound until Valerie finished the race and was the first one to be honest with me. Valerie's brother, Trent, told me I didn't need to worry as a man who finished before me came through with two bloody nipples. Anyway, I'm sure I'm giving fodder to the gallery - Keith - but overall we had a great time. We are feeling the effects of running 13.1 miles, but we both can say we ran the whole time. I finished with a time of 2:04:58, while Valerie finished in 2:12:42. There were a total of 1200 runners in the race - it was a mass of humanity at the starting line.

Going out of my ever-loving mind!!

My class is finally over, but now I'm in the midst of grading heck to get my students' grades turned in by noon on Tuesday. I'm very very very very very glad that the class is over, and I will be even happier when I'm done grading and can wash my hands of this whole thing! Anyway, perhaps as a way to remind myself that this experience had some bright moments, I thought I'd share one of the projects that one of my students did. They had to do a character trading card on a character from Because of Winn-Dixie with a visual on the front and information about the character on the back. This girl created her visual with yarn, buttons, material, etc. It is LOVELY...so lovely that I asked her if I could keep it, and may frame it to hang up somewhere! I know that the picture doesn't really do it justice, but it'll give you some idea. Enjoy:

Triathlon - Jamie's Visit

We wish we had more pictures to post from last week, but we had no idea where our camera was. It turns out it was under the seat of my car. I have no idea why it was there. Anyway, the girls had a great week with Naime - as Macie calls Jaime. Charlotte might feel neglected this week as she and Jamie did some major bonding. Valerie appreciated all the help she gave her as I wasn't home much week due to bishopric responsibilities. I would like to report that other than the 15 second youth speaker (It may have actually been shorter) our first week in our new ward went well.

Riley competed in her first triathlon on Saturday with her cousin Kade. She placed third in her age division for girls. She was a little nervous during the swim, but had stellar runs and biking to make up for lost time. She was most impressed by the entry numbers they wrote on her with PERMANENT marker.

Congrats to Margie!

Three Cheers for Margie

Congratulations to Margie for landing a part in another play; this will be the fourth play she's done in Pittsburgh at two different theatres (of five offers at three theatres--as you may recall, she turned down one part due to objections to her character's language). This will also be her second play at Prime Stage Theatre, which is what I would call a "semi-professional" theatre.

I say "semi-professional" because Prime Stage does have some equity actors in its productions. For this play, a staging of Arthur Conan Doyle's the Hound of the Baskervilles, Prime Stage will be using two equity actors, including the same actor who appeared with Margie in Inherit the Wind and another actor, who apparently has several TV credits on his résumé.

In the intro to this post, I congratulated Margie for landing a part in a play, but it would have been more accurate to say she landed three parts. Apparently, the director is staging the play in a way that he is going to have one actress, Margie, play all the female roles. Should be interesting. Since Margie did get paid for her last play at Prime Stage, we're hoping she'll get 3x the pay for this play!

Congratulations, Margie!

Mayer Time VIII

Amidst the total craziness of my working/teaching life right now, I was able to sneak away to Phoenix last week to see my 8th John Mayer concert! Here are some pictures from the

Mayer-ific adventure!

With my friend/partner in crime Steph before the show...man, I am so dang pale!

That's right...JM concert #8, baby!

John's outfit was...well...unfortunate, to say the least! What's with the man-pris and the wrestler-looking shoes?? I mean, what good does it do to have Jennifer Aniston as your girlfriend if she doesn't do wardrobe control?!

John in action

Post-concert eats! Concert-going can make you very hungry!

The end of the road...time to say good-bye!
It was a fun time...despite the fact that there were only about 28.5 hours between the time I left for Phoenix and the time I returned to Vegas! I guess now that this adventure is behind me, it's time to start planning for concert #9!!

Friday Fun

To view video of some of the activities we were involved in on Friday go to the following blogs. We didn't have our camera with us the entire weekend so we didn't get any of this footage or any pictures of Grandma and Grandpa's visit. We are so thankful they sacrificed their time to come for a short visit.

http://www.trentandkylie.blogspot.com/
http://www.dalemart.blogspot.com/

Pay special attention to the waterskiing videos and the giant water slide.

Backyard Fun and Makeovers

Here are some pictures of the boys playing in the backyard on Saturday. Scott decided to get the clippers out and we both tried cutting the boys' hair while they literally ran around the backyard. Poor Rex wasn't so lucky, as you'll see in the pictures below. He ended up with a buzz cut to fix the damage his mother inflicted.

The boys wanted to make funny faces for the camera...Here's Rex. Here's FelixPre-HaircutThe Point of No ReturnThe Buzz Cut is Born (Thank goodness he's a boy!)

Grandparent Summer Fun

Playing at the park

PNC Park for the Pirates vs. Rockies game...Pirates won! A birthday miracle!

On the river downtown waiting for the Ducky tour bus/boat to leave

Felix driving the Ducky boat

Grandpa, Felix and Grandma racing at the park. Grandpa got the racing bug because he later raced Felix and Scott to the car after the baseball game. You might have to start training for the 1/2 marathon with Todd and Valerie!

Digging for Dinosaurs

We had a great time with Grandma, Grandpa and Lizzy this past week. Felix and Rex really miss you guys! I don't think you heard him as you were walking away from the car at the airport, but Rex kept saying, "Bye Bye Lizzy!" and Felix when we got home said, "I miss Grandma and Grandpa", but he was happy again when he remembered we are going to Colorado for Thanksgiving. Here are a few pictures including Scott's Dinosaur Birthday Party (courtesy of Grandma), playing at the park, touring Pittsburgh on a Ducky boat and Lizzy's birthday gift to Scott...a Pirates vs. Rockies baseball game. Thanks for all the good times!