Happy Valentine's Day

 I love Valentine's Day!

I love making and sending out Valentine's day cards!

I love buying chocolates that come in heart shaped boxes from See's 

and including them in the packages that I mail to the kids!

I love picking out a valentine outfit for each of my girls to wear on Valentine's day!

Dad banned me from buying Tyler a Valentine's outfit a long time ago:)!!!

Hence, the boys are on their own to figure out what to wear on Valentine's day!

But, with the kids off to college I was a little worried 

that I was going to miss all the Valentine's day parties and festivities.

 I know that it's been awhile but I miss being the kid's room mom and organizing the class party.

And I knew I would miss helping the girls throw their annual Anti-Valentine's Day party!

Fortunately, our dear friends and former neighbors Doug and Sue Jack 

hosted such a fun Valentine's Party, "Sweets with your Sweetie!"

I love and miss our wonderful Weddington friends, 

so it was great to see all our old neighbors and catch up with everyone in "the hood!"

The desserts were absolutely amazing!  

My favorite dessert chef and good friend, Marisa Shorer made all the cakes, cookies and treats!!

The cheesecake with raspberry sauce was my favorite dessert!

Dad's favorite was, of course, the chocolate ganache cake!  

He may have had more than one piece of the cake

 but hey, when you look that good, who's counting?! 

The Jack's home looked so gorgeous and festive that I had to include these pictures!

Sue did such a great job with the all the darling Valentine decorations!

Of course, it looked better in person, but you can get the general idea 

of just how clever, crafty and cute that Sue is from a glimpse of these photos!

 Look at this fabulous red velvet cupcakes!  Yum!

 Love the chalkboard banner that Sue made!

Dad's favorite chocolate ganache cake!

So pretty!

That's my favorite cheesecake!

And that is me with my favorite Valentine!

And he is the #1 reason why I love Valentine's day!

So happy that he is mine forever!

Husky Classic at the Univ. of Washington

Poor Brooke has been sick with a terrible cold & cough for over 3 weeks.

She is so dedicated and has been running and training, trying to power through,

so that she could race at the Husky Classic in Seattle this past weekend.

About 10 days ago, the team doctor finally put Brooke on Amoxicillin

because she was still so sick, and initially, it seemed like she was getting better.

Last Tuesday, Brooke was so excited because she was finally feeling good, and had a great workout. 
 She seemed like she was ready to race! 
 Then Wednesday, she woke up with a rash, which seemed to get worse by the hour.

She sent me photo texts of her spreading rash to update me throughout the day.

So she went to see the doctor again, 
who determined that she had had a allergic reaction to Amoxicillin
and he put her on Prendizone.

She was itchy and uncomfortable and didn't sleep well for the next couple of night 
but she was determined to run at the meet.

I teased her and told her that I had the perfect title for the blogpost... 

"We went to Seattle to see Brooke's rash race!" or
"Have you ever had the itch to go to Seattle?" or

 "Two days in Seattle and we barely scratched the surface!"

We all tried to stay positive and just laugh about the situation

but by the time she got to Seattle, the rash had exploded all over her body

and her cough had returned.

Needless to say, the race wasn't her best but we gave her an "A" for effort

and an "A+" for letting me take these photos of her crazy rash

and an "A++" for letting me share them on this blog post. 

Yeah, this is what it looks like right after the race.

A view of her back and shoulders.  Ouch!

These are the poor feet that have been running 65 miles a week.

She seriously looked like she had some kind of disease or something.

One of the track girls did ask her which shower she used in the locker room,

so that she could make sure that she didn't use the same one.

Brooke tried to explain that she wasn't contagious but I don't think that she bought it.

Dad and his sick Bear.

Bradford, one of her former teammates from GBHS, who attends UW came to watch her race.

I know that this is kind of against the BYU Honor Code

 but I just had to see the rash on her stomach.

After the race, we headed downtown with Brooke for dinner at the Flying Fish restaurant.

Brooke felt guilty ordering the filet at a seafood restaurant in Seattle

but I have to admit, it was one of the best filets I've ever tasted.

And the chocolate cake was amazing too.

Brooke and Dad love sharing dessert together.

The next day, we took Brooke to Pike's Place...

where we had a lovely time walking around the different vendors and admiring their goods.

Brooke especially loved the dried flower arrangements.  They were beautiful!

We tried to think of how she could pack the flowers
 without ruining them to take them back to Utah with her.  
Any suggestions?!

Lots of fresh fish!

Brooke loved seeing all the fish...

and so we had to take a picture in front of all the clams, oysters, and mussels...

our favorites, of course!!!

We ate lunch at Lowell's, which is located right in the market.

Dad ordered a wild salmon filet sandwich and the dungeness crab cocktail.

Both were yummy!

Brooke ordered the carnitas tacos and they were yummy too!

After lunch, we continued to stroll through the marketplace,

enjoying all the produce stands...

And we weren't the only ones enjoying the sights and scene at the market...

it was packed with tons of people.

We made our way over to Pike's Place Fish Co., which is famous for their fresh fish 
and for throwing their fresh fish back and forth to each other.

Look at all that fresh fish!

And here is one of their guys showing us the fish
 that he is about to throw to someone behind the counter.

And there is goes.

And the fish is quickly thrown back.

I wonder how often they drop the fish and if they do,

what do they do with the fish?

Just wash it off and put it back to be sold again?

We didn't wait around long enough to see that happen.

Dad and I had to catch our flight but before we left...

we had to take a photo in front of the Pike's Place Market,

before we took Brooke back to meet up with her teammates.

Besties!

Here's the scoop!

One thing I know for sure, is that Dad definitely knows how to throw a party!

He loves to entertain.  He loves to be social.  He loves to feed people and

always makes sure that everyone has a good time and, oh yeah... he loves to dress up!

So when he was asked to be in charge of the Stake Ice Cream Social at our church,

he was excited and immediately recruited me to help plan the party. YAY!

We worked together chopping nuts, blowing up balloons, 

carmelizing bananas and scooping up ice cream.

It was a lot of fun and was a big success 

with over 200 people that came that night to listen to the live band,

 to socialize and eat ice cream!

But the best part of the evening was watching Dad, 

who dressed up like the Good Humor guy,

 greeting everyone, MCing the party and scooping up ice cream!

Gotta love that guy!

*Yes!  That is a hat from In 'N' Out that Dad decorated all by himself, using circle die cuts.

Did I mention that he is also very clever and creative?!

ESF Art Auction & Music Exhibition

I never cease to be amazed at the energy and creativity of the Eureka Schools Foundation volunteers 

as they hosted another extremely successful fundraising event.

Not only did they raise a lot of money at the ESF Art Auction & Music Exhibition on Friday night,

 but they provided an evening full of entertainment and fun for the whole community.

The place was packed with parents, frantically bidding on the artwork created by the students and teachers.

Kids were running around from booth to booth, where principals and teachers
 were in charge of a variety of art projects such as making a collage and face painting.

 While parents, teachers and students enjoyed listening to the band and choirs 
from all the different schools who performed throughout evening.

There were plenty of fun, food and festivities for the families of the Eureka school district.
Another great ESF fundraiser!

Some of my favorite art projects that were being auctioned off that evening.

This is one of my favorites, "Live, laugh, love, play!" which was created by Mrs. Hagan's class.

It was so clever and cute that even though I didn't have a kid in the class, I just had to bid on it!

Mrs. Hagan had each student lay down on a white sheet to form the letters in each word.

Then she got up on a ladder and shot the photo looking down on them.

Then she said she created this poster using Shutterfly.  So clever!

Why didn't she do this when Tyler or Allie were in her class?!

Here is Alex, one of the triplets that live next door, who is standing next to the items that her class made.

The triplets, along with their big sister Katie, come and visit me on a regular basis..
 so I don't miss my own kids so much and I love it!

We do homework together.  They come help me clean out my candy jars and my pantry too. 

 And I call them whenever I need to go grocery shopping so I don't have to go alone.

Gosh!  I really love those girls and it was fun to see them that night!

More artwork!

Dad was one of the sponsors for the event so Renee, the triplets mom, who was the MC that night, 

called Dad and Dr. Anello up out of the audience to introduce them... 

and then the next thing you know, she hands the mike to Dad.  

Without any warning or notice, Dad grabbed the mike and greeted the audience,

talked about what a great event it was, introduced Jina (Dr. Anello) and chatted it up with the crowd.

He was a natural!  I knew that he was in his element when he struck this poise!

And this is my favorite photo from the evening!  

This is my next door neighbor, Renee, mother of the triplets and cute Katie,
 past ESF President, past Auction Chairperson, best organizer and volunteer on so many ESF fundraisers, 

probably one of the biggest contributor in time and money to the ESF and to our community.

She is so generous and so wonderful in so many ways 
that she deserves a blogpost all about her so I will stop there and save it for another day.

But I will tell you that she had surgery less than 2 weeks ago then landed back in the hospital last week.

She was told that she supposed to take it easy and even though she was scheduled to be the MC, 
that she should relinquish her duties that night... Right?!!!  We all knew that wasn't going to happen.

She just couldn't sit around and watch all the action take place around her.

Sure enough, she was up on the stage halfway through the evening,
 much to everyone's surprise and joy.  She is definitely loved by all!

Holt Orthodontics had a booth and here are Carrie and Sandy, and Sandy's daughter,
 making balloon animals and flowers for the children.

You can tell that they had a good time making the balloons and entertaining the children.

Kim, Jina and myself with Renee at the end of the night.

And Dad with the BracesbyHolt gals, proud sponsors and best bunch of balloon makers and wire benders in town.

A win for the Kings!

The old saying goes, "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game."

Well, I'm here to tell you that it does matter... winning feels much better than losing!

And how you play the game makes all the difference as to whether you win or lose the game!

Last week, the Kings played so bad that they didn't have a chance to win.

They didn't seem to care whether they won or lost... so they did lose... by 30 points. It was ugly!

But last night they played like a different team. They played to win.

They were aggressive and determined. They hustled as they ran up and down the court!

And about halfway through the 2nd quarter, you could just feel it in the air 

and it became clear that we might just have a chance to win this thing.

Throughout the 2nd half the crowd got excited and started to cheer.

And as we took the lead in the last minutes of the game,

the place became electric... the kids started shaking their signs,

women started dancing, grown men were fist pumping...

and there was a lot of chest bumping going on.

At that point, Marci and I put our Iphones away to watch the last few minutes.

(I have to confess, during a slow part of the game,

 I was trying to help Marci set up her Pinterest app on her phone.  Oops!)

The last 13 seconds were exciting as we held on to a 3 point lead

 to win with a score of 95-92 over the Portland Trailblazers.

The crowd went wild! You would have thought we had just won a championship game or something!

Mark and Jerry were excited about the Kings lead in the 4th quarter.

Marci and Debbie are excited that Jerry and Mark are NOT involved in the chest bumping celebration!

It was a fun night with the Martin's and a King's win!

I joined a gym... what?!!

One of the harsh realities of sending Brooke off to college and becoming an empty nester

 was the fact that Dad no longer had a workout partner. 

 Brooke, his constant and enthusiastic companion at the gym... was gone 

and he immediately went into recruit mode

 with me being the obvious recruitee... obvious being the key word! 

At first I was reluctant, I mean, as many of you know, I really don't enjoy working out.

 The whole changing out of my regular clothes into workout clothes, driving down to the gym, 

hanging out with other sweaty people, fighting for a piece of workout machinery

 and then working up a sweat, just isn't my idea of fun! 

Especially during this whole time that I was working out, 

I could be getting something else done at home, checking something else off my "To Do" list! 

 But I haven't been walking lately since Karen, my walking partner is in Africa

 and now with all the kids gone, I've had a little extra time in my day

 to get all those "Things to Do" done, so I decided to give it a try.

 Of course, Dad had to bribe me a little. He promised that if I went to the gym with him,

 he would  take me to dinner at Costa Vida after we workout. 

 Not a bad deal... so for a couple of weeks I joined him as his "guest" 

still not ready to completely commit until one night...

I ran into our adorable friend, Lindsy Ethington, who I haven't seen in ages, at the gym!

 We talked and chatted and caught up on every thing she has been up to lately.

 It was so fun and wonderful, and I felt so rejuvenated and full of energy! 

 I was beginning to believe that there might be something with this workout thing. 

Then last night, Lindsy's mother, Deborah, who is also a member of the gym,

 meet up with Mark and I for Family Home Evening at the gym. 

(That's right, kids!  That's how we do FHE with just Mom and Dad at home!)

 Deb and I giggled, and talked, and laughed, and oh yeah,... we worked out a little too.

 After enjoying a yummy dinner and I guzzled down my diet coke at Costa Vida,

 I was convinced that "going to the gym with Mark" should be added to my "Things to Do" list! 

 So sign me up for the 2 year membership! A gym rat, I will be!