Random fun stuff.

I love the way Sam's fat little belly looks in this skin tight swimsuit.

Barefoot in the rain.

In May, I started watching Kai'a's little sister Kaleilani (now 7 months). So adorable. Adam thinks that she's his little sister and Sam just yells "baby" over and over and tries to sit on her.

What a fun dinner! I got this idea from Megan, i.Amy's sister who is oh so creative!
The boys love it and it's fun to make and eat.

Emma.

On our way back home from the San Diego Zoo, we stopped in to see Darren, April, and Emma. We're trying to set up our kids together so we have to get as much face time as possible! This time, we stopped off for dinner and the park but we always wish we could stay longer.
We love you guys!

Three.

Adam turned 3 on April 30 and was king for the day. Breakfast at Mimi's, off to watch daddy "tackle" at jui-jitsu practice, the park with Sam, ice cream with blue sprinkles, and then Grandpa and Grandma bought him a blue motorcycle! We are so proud of our little boy-Happy Birthday!

...and we're back!

We didn't really go anywhere but apparently, I haven't posted anything since May. How does this happen!?! I don't have big plans for tonight and maybe since I'm putting it in writing now, it will happen- more posts to come...

The World Famous San Diego Zoo

...or at least that's what they call it in the movie, Madagascar. For the better part of the past year, Adam has been praying daily to go to the San Diego Zoo for his birthday. He loves the movie Madagascar and can even quote some parts for you so I'm pretty sure that's where he got the idea. His dream has evolved into wearing a blue shirt with a "3" on it, seeing elephants, a cake and candles, and balloons. Every time he'd pray at a meal or before bed: "Dear God, thank you for this day and thank you for this food. I want to go to the San Diego Zoo for my birthday, and the circus, and the fair, and the zoo, and the circus, and the fair. Amen." Well, we got most of it.

Nick was already going to be down in Irvine for the Catalyst Conference so we just made a vacation out of it. We went to the park with Lollie, Bella, and Madalyn. We also rode in the big orange hot air balloon -for free- at the Great Park in Irvine. Amber helped me make...I mean I helped her make...actually Amber made this totally cool shirt for Adam to wear. It was blue, of course, and she cut out a 3 for the front and the name Neves for the back. It looks great in the pictures but now is even better since it frayed in the wash. Thanks, Aunt Amber!

Saturday morning came, and we all headed to the Zoo. Nick, Adam, Sam, and I, Trevor and Amber, and Jeremy, Lollie, and the girls. I brought along animal crackers and stuffed zoo animals for the kids. Adam chose the elephant even though he already has three at home! I don't know if Adam was expecting cartoon animals and lemurs singing "Move it, move it" but he sure enjoyed himself. He even got to let a giraffe eat out of his hand. We took a break at lunch to head out to the cars for the birthday cupcakes. Looking at the pictures out of context, you'd think we gave our son a birthday party in a parking lot- which we did, but then we went back in to the "World Famous San Diego Zoo"! Lions, and tigers, and bears. Then dinner, and off to home!

April 11th

For Nick's birthday this year, we went with a group of friends to a MMA fight. We all had a really good time, even the girls!, and I'm finally learning after over 10 years of being with Nick, how to give a "boy" gift.

He is risen!

He is risen indeed!

The boys were excited about hunting eggs even before they found out that Aunt Bubby puts chocolate inside!

Home-Owners!

We are now home-owners, or at least we will be in 30 years! We got the keys on a Wednesday night, had a first meal of Taco Bell on our dining room carpet, put the boys down to sleep, and then we decided it would be fun to stay up until 4 in the morning for a few consecutive days to scrape the popcorn off the ceilings and start painting! Crazy! We had so much help, though. Thank you to all of you who were such a blessing to us.

The first event we had in the house was the second night, Thursday, when the Deep End college group meets at our house. So we met in the empty family room amidst paint rollers and bags of debris and worshiped our Lord. We somehow convinced several people to stay after to help, too.

Here are some pictures I took just a few weeks in, so pardon the random shop vac or moving box. The boys' rooms look super bland. We haven't quite finished those. The plan is to decorate Sam's beige room with a road and vintage vehicles. Adam decided that he wanted rocketships and dump trucks. We're going with the rocketship plan with painted stars on the ceiling. :)

The Arkansas Branch

Nick's brother, Justin, and his family moved out to Arkansas several years ago and they came back for a visit. It was great to hang out with them before they headed off to the "happiest place on earth". We've gone out there to visit a couple times with the boys but mostly, they know them as magnetic heads on our fridge so it was so nice for all the boys to hang out and get to know their cousins.

Has it really been three months!?

I could make excuses but they might only satisfy myself...
I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people about our blog and said, "I'll update it during naptime, or after the boys go to bed." Well, it's taken me three months but they have finally gone to sleep!

Our lives have been filled with blessings and I will add more detail in other posts but in short: Nick and I bought our first house!, I've run probably a total of 4 times since my marathon, Nick turned 31, Adam turned 3 and we celebrated at the San Diego Zoo, I'm still in my twenties- but not for long!, I'm directing this year's VBS, and our church is moving into a new building.

So thank you for being so very patient with me and here it comes...

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

House update: We have a verbal acceptance from the bank and are just waiting on signatures to make it official. Then, and only then, can we start the lovely process of escrow. If all goes well, we should have keys by Easter. We're praying!

House Hunting Chapter 2

The first house countered our offer way over the asking price so we are onto bigger (2,054 square feet) and better (forclosed houses as opposed to short sales) things. So, this is what we are trying to get now. I love it. Our offer went in this morning and now the house shows as "pending". But we only want it if this is what the Lord wants for us. Tons of pictures!

26.2

It's over. Eleven months of training. Non-runner to marathoner. It's crazy how it just stops. Heather said it reminder her of the night before a wedding when she and Amy saw me the night before the run. It totally does feel like that. You do all this planning and prep, it consumes your thoughts and your schedule for months, and after a few hours of the event, it suddenly comes to a halt. Only, when I got married, I went to Hawaii for a week with Nick. This time, I hobbled around for 2 1/2 days and got to ride in a car for 7 hours.

We drove down Friday morning to Irvine to stay with my brother, Trevor, and his wife, Amber. But we detoured a little to have lunch at Wings To Go in Bakersfield. This is the only one in California and it's the best wings place ever. This was my payment to Nick for supporting me through all of this- he ran the 1/2 marathon that weekend with me too. We also had lunch there on the way back home! Tori brought down her black nail polish for me to wear. I read in Runner's World about a girl who painted her nails black before running marathons because it made her feel hard core. I'm totally hard core- but the more you have to say you're hard core, the less hard core you become. Friday was the night I needed to get a good night's sleep so we all (my parents and little sisters came down too) retired early for the night.

Saturday started out great. Nick got up with the boys and let me sleep in. We went down to Huntington Beach to the Expo so we could pick up our shirts and numbers. Jeremy, Lollie, and their girls met us down at the beach so we could play a little. Adam loved it but Sam tried to pick up his feet whenever they touched the sand! Trevor was in charge of the carb load and made such great baked ziti that I had 3 helpings. I laid out everything I could possibly need for the morning out on the table and checked it through four times, set the alarm, and went to bed.

Sunday, February 1, 2009. Marathon day! I wake up before my alarm. I feel good. Refreshed. I'm ready. It's dark outside but it's probably 5am- time to wake up. I check the clock...12:32am. Oh.

I wake up before the alarm goes off. Check the clock before I think too hard. 4:56am. I love it when that happens- right before the alarm. I feel good. Ready to go. I put Glide on every part of my body that might ever even slightly touch another part. Oatmeal. Aleve. Socks, shoes, etc. We're good to go.

Then we hit the traffic. I guess I didn't really think about the impact 18,000 runners and their friends would have at six in the morning. I start to get a little nervous as the traffic cops direct us away from where we want to go. I tell Nick that I'm getting out of the car. I have utterly no concern for anyone else- all I know is that I start my race in 17 minutes. I'm not the only one who's running today. Nick and Amber are doing the half marathon, Jeremy, Tori, and Alicia are running a 5k, and Adam and Bella are running in the one mile kids run. Nick, Tori, Alicia, and I hop out and Amber, bless her, ventures off to find a parking spot.

It's beautiful weather. A little cold but it's 6:49...in the morning...at the beach. The guy on the mic up at the start line asks for a shout out for all those doing their first marathon. Woo-hoo! I cheer with the rest. Then he asks who's doing their last marathon. My lone voice yells out from the crowd. Everyone else just doesn't want to admit it. This is hard. And time-consuming. And really not very good for you body. And it hurts afterwards.

6:50am. The Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA" song blasts through the speakers as they let the sub 4 hour runners go. And three minutes later, it's our turn. I've been training on a run/walk program where I walk for a minute out of every mile. Eleven minutes in, I start to walk for my minute, and a spectator looks at me and asks, "What happened?" I smile and let him know it's all part of my plan. The first 8 miles were great. I was keeping up with the 4:45 pacer and somehow lost him in the park. Dozens of kids were lining the park paths, cheering us on. It was so great. They were full of energy that we were running out of. Just past mile marker 7, a lady was cheering on the side "You're doing great! Almost there!" Are you kidding?? We have 19 miles to go!!

Somewhere around mile 9, the half marathoners merged with us. It totally killed my morale because the batch that came through then were running at 8 minutes per mile. I've been running comfortably for over an hour and a half and all the sudden, hundreds of people are passing me! It might have actually been good, though, because it made me run a little faster to try to keep up. I see Nick running up the hill as I'm running down and yell at the top of my lungs to him. I'm pretty loud but that was a pretty big hill and he was focused.

We turn back onto the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and head north. There were so many switchbacks on this course. I see people running south and know that's where I will be in about an hour. I feel like I'm going the wrong way! I finally make it to the turn-around and on my way back down, I search for Nick in the oncoming runners. He was so excited for me. So encouraging. He ran over and said, "There's my girl!" and then he tried to catch up. I passed my 13 mile marker and said, "Praise the Lord! I'm halfway through." I'm slow so he did catch up and we were able to run together for about 3 miles. That was great. I'm so blessed with him.

Nick left to finish the half and I still had 9 miles to go. This part of the course was beautiful. A paved path right on the beach. I played games with myself to catch a certain person up ahead or run at least to the flag and then I could take a walk break. Up to this point, I thought I was going to break 5 hours. I've been very consistent in my training. 12 minute miles. I expected to finish sometime between 5:20 and 5:30. My hope started to dwindle. This is hard. "Eye of the Tiger" came onto my ipod for the third time as I rounded the turn-around. I ran the last four or five miles near a 80 year old man. I mostly ran a little behind him because his shirt had Isaiah 40:31 on it.

"Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

Thanks, I needed that. I saw my dad, camera in hand, at mile 25. So close! I ran down to their pier, and back up onto the PCH. I rounded the corner and saw thousands of people lining the street. My bib had my name on it so people cheered for me by name. I saw my husband, my kids, my family, my friends, and complete strangers cheering me on to the end. I crossed the finish line at 5:07. What a beautiful day! I felt great. Heather and Amy, who drove all the way down to support me for the weekend, hugged me even when I was sweaty and smelly. They were so genuinely happy and proud. I love my people. Thank you, Lord, for blessing me with these people.

Back to the house for the Superbowl party where I indulged in every snack that I wanted. Hey, my ipod told me that I burned over 3,600 calories that day! Thank you to everyone who has put up with my running stories. In a very small corner, in the back of my mind, I think that I would like to try again to break 5 hours but I'm trying to ignore that corner. Maybe a triathalon, though!

House Hunting

I am sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Our lives have been filled with holidays, church, running, and now- house hunting! Today, I found the one. I hope. There are no pictures online so I'm posting the ones I took. We've looked at about 20 houses with weird smells, trashed carpet, bad neighborhoods, old roofs, etc. We walked into this one- REAL hardwood floors, crown molding, fantastic neighborhood, great layout... I love it and Nick really likes it too. The only real downfalls are that it doesn't have a big sideyard and that it is a short sale- so it's a longer process and we might not get it. We've been praying that the Lord would make it totally clear where (and if) He wants us to go. So we'll see... We are going to put in an offer tomorrow afternoon- the day before we leave to go down to Huntington Beach for the marathon! So, lots going on and we'll let you know how it goes! And if we don't get this one, we know the Lord has better plans for us.