Turkey Trot

The Turkey Trot is a 10 mile race that I've wanted to do since moving to Wichita, but it falls so close to Willow's birthday, usually on her birthday weekend, that I've never actually done it.   This year though, we are doing her birthday party on her actual birthday during the week, so I decided to run the race!  I was especially excited since I missed the Prairie Fire Half last month.  I had plans to do that one, but when we got back from Washington, it was still so hot and humid here, it literally took me about 5 weeks before I could run 5 miles without feeling like I was dying.  I don't remember it taking me that long to acclimate before...I must be getting old.... So, I didn't have enough time to get my mileage bumped up before the actual race.  And 13.1 miles is a long enough race when you actually have trained and feel ready for it!

I gave myself about a month to train for the Turkey Trot.  I'd been running up to 5 miles pretty consistently and felt good about that distance again, and I ran with my running group once when they met early and ran 6.5 miles.  But the rest of the time I trained by myself, and did a couple long runs of 7 and 9 miles.  And so mentally going into this race, I was ready to run it by myself, and I really didn't feel the need to push myself or beat any time.  I was just planning on taking it as a nice 10 mile jog. (does a nice 10 mile jog exist????)  Thankfully Royal bought me a new iPod Nano for our anniversary after I accidentally sent my old one through the washing machine, and I got some new music recommendations from Jordan so I felt like I was ready to go bust it out.

I knew a couple people, mostly from Mommy Movement Fitness, who were going to run today too, and met up with them at the beginning of the race.

 The person on the far left, is Jayne, and she is actually Willow's swim teacher!  Then on the other side of me is Kristen, and Stacy, and Tonya. 

The race actually felt pretty good.  I'd heard warnings that the beginning was super crowded and to be prepared to be frustrated for a good couple miles until it spaced out.  But it wasn't so bad.  There was some jostling around, but they had shut down the roads so we weren't all crammed up on the sidewalks and running paths.  Jayne took off like a rocket at the beginning of the race, so we lost her real early.  Then we lost Kristen and Stacy when we ran past Tonya's car and she jetted off to throw her phone in it.  I also ran into a couple of my neighbors in the middle of the race.  I almost felt like my dad, waving and saying hi to all these people, he would of been so proud.  :)  Tonya and I ended up running the whole thing together, and if you've ever run with Tonya, or worked out with her for that matter (worked out with her, not when she's teaching!), all she does is talk!  It was really nice to have someone to talk to and pull you along when your legs start trying to slow down.  Well, we ran together until like mile 9, when she started trying to keep up with a bunch of teenagers and well I just couldn't maintain an 8 minute mile after logging 9, so I put my earbuds in to try and help me pick up the pace for the last mile.  And this always seems to happen, a certain song comes on at just the right part of the race and I'm like, "Yes! That is how I am feeling right now!"  And even though I am so sick of listening to the song, I never take it out of my running playlist for the very purpose.  The song that started blaring in my ears right as I put my earbuds in around mile 9.25.....Misery by Maroon 5.  "I'm in misery, and there ain't nobody who can comfort me"  Oh yeah.  In case you were wondering, that is pretty much what mile 9 feels like.

But I finished with a time of 1:35, which is about a 9:20 minute mile, which is about average for me for this distance.  I didn't try and push myself too hard and when I got done I still felt really good.  Other than my legs were a wee bit more tired than when I started.   So, it pretty much was a nice easy 10 mile jog!

Cold Snap

Well, I *think* the cold weather is here to stay.  We were still having upper 70 days, then we had the bridge day, a day of extreme wind (which I went running in...stupid) and a good thunderstorm as the hot wind from the south collided with the cold wind from the north only to have the north wind win  and bring on winter!  So now we are waking up to cold 20 degree days and warming up to maybe 50.  The kids were kind of excited about it.  They both put on warm coats and headed outside.  Jayden drug a stool and a book outside so he could read outside.  Willow brought a book outside to drive around in her car.

Yay for winter!  Just so you know I will probably be complaining about how cold it is in a little bit.  I'm just never satisfied!  :)

Saturday School

We got a little behind on Jayden's school work for the week, so we used Saturday as a catch up!  Jayden insisted that Royal be his teacher for the day.

At one point Jayden said he needed a snack, so he went upstairs and fixed one for just him and Royal.  A small glass of milk, a tortilla with shredded cheese and pickles, and 2 chocolate covered pretzels.  :)

Willow kept on eye on Royal with a pair of binoculars to make sure he wasn't getting off task. :)

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from Merida and Pikachu!

Life Right Now

I'm not sure what the deal is right now, but I seem to be in a bit of a blogging rut.  Our life is busy and full of things, but they are the same 'ole things week after week after week, and if I'm not intentional about taking pictures and finding funny things in the middle of normal boring things, well, it seems it's easy to stop writing about anything.  And I don't really want to do that.  I love looking back over old posts and seeing what our kids were doing, the funny outfits Willow put on, the songs Jayden sung (he still sings all the time, but he's much more shy about me recording them).

We still have swimming twice a week and both kids are still loving it.  Jayden actually moved up from Level 3 to 4a two sessions ago, and while that is totally blog worthy material, he wouldn't let me take a picture or post about it, so I'm sneaking it in here.  But let me tell you, it's awesome to watch him cruise down the pool doing freestyle and backstroke, and now he's learning to master breast stroke and butterfly.  (Uncle Jordan, you'd be proud, his swim teachers coaches tell him he has an awesome dolphin kick, now all he has to do is figure out how to breathe with the right timing of his arms.  He said he wants to race you.)

I am tutoring 7 kids in math. (like I didn't have enough to do, but gosh darn it, if I find an idle hour somewhere I'm libel to sign up for something!)  I'm part of a volunteer program called Andover Schools Community Volunteers, that basically plugs people into the schools to help in pretty much any area of school you could imagine.  Royal helps out a high school chemistry class once a week over his lunch hour, and since I can't do a lot during the school day because I'm taking care of Jayden and Willow, I do after school / evening tutoring.  Turns out high school math stumps as many parents as it does students.  I usually do one-on-one tutoring, but there seemed to be a high need and as I was the only tutor at the time, once a week I am tutoring 5 geometry students together.  I actually have to prepare for that one, with 5 kids to teach, I don't have time to look through the book and figure out where they are, I have to come to the session knowing what they have been going over.  That means I have my own Geometry book and I print out and do their homework, and truthfully I kind of think it's fun.  I heart math! :)  Then, I'm not sure how, but word spread and about a week after starting the geometry tutoring, I got a phone call from someone outside the volunteer program else asking if I could tutor their daughter in Algebra 2.  Then again, word got around, and I got a call a couple nights ago asking if I could tutor someone else's son in Algebra 2.  And that's how I ended up with 7 students and packed our family schedule just a little bit tighter.

But in an effort to remember what is happening in the normal hours around the house, I am trying to remember to take pictures of the kids. 
Willow LOVES helping in the kitchen.  She is constantly standing on her stool waiting for instructions.  And while sometimes it is annoying and slows me down, I try and remind myself that I want her to love cooking and I want her to know where her food comes from and hopefully all her help now will one day turn into her cooking for me!  :)
Here she is buttering a muffin tin.  We were cooking up eggs for breakfast sandwiches that Jayden loves.  Willow only loves the breakfast sandwich if I take it apart and she can eat her egg separate from the muffin.  I'll do whatever I have to do to only have to make one breakfast that both kids like.  (Please try to look only at little Willow and forget the rest of the mess that is our house!  holy smokes I need a maid, or maybe to stop signing up for things so I have the time and energy to pick up and clean once in awhile, but I'd much rather do math than pick up blocks and puzzles)

Jayden spent a couple hours this afternoon making pom-poms.  Who knew that pom-pom makers could be so entertaining?  But they have officially been moved out of my crafting area and into their own bin in the kid's crafting area.

Willow sat around wearing a helicopter hat and causing as much grief for her pom-pom making brother as she could.

She may look all sweet and innocent, but that girl knows how to rile Jayden up like it's nobody's business - I suppose it comes ingrained her in little sister DNA.

Central Kansas Yarn Hop

This weekend was the Central Kansas Yarn Hop!  I've been wanting to do it for the past couple years, but I've always not gone at the last minute because the people I was going to do it with didn't work out.  So this year, I couldn't find anyone with my level of obsession of yarn to commit to going with me, so I decided I was just going to do it by myself.  Slightly loserish?  I suppose, but I'm okay with that, I've been slightly loserish pretty much my whole life.  :)  I tried not to be self conscious when my dad and Royal kept giving me pity looks and saying things like, "You're going by yourself?  Are you sure there isn't anyone else who might go with you?"  There is one person who I know loves yarn as much as me, and I know we would of loved to have spent days together, but she just went and had a baby 10 days ago, so she was out for this year.  So, I went and bought my passport and I planned my route out.  I really wanted to get to all 11 stores, because I just know that I will totally win the grand prize, which has over $600 worth of yarn and goodies!  And let's face it, I totally need more yarn, needles, bags, and goodies! :)

(sorry for the lack of pictures, especially of the kids, I had my camera with me most of the time, just never got it out, and lets face it, a post just isn't any good without Jayden and Willow to cute it up)

On Thursday, after lunch, I set the DVD player up in the car, let the kids pick a movie and we headed out on our first stops.

• Twist in Wichita
• Heritage Hut in Wichita
• Sugar Bunny Blvd in El Dorado
• iYarn in Winfield.

Each day, I totally found new favorite yarn store!

I've been to Twist tons of times, it is my normal stop for yarn here in town.  However, they've recently reduced the size of their shop from 2 store fronts down to 1, so their selection and quantity of yarn has gone way down.  :(

The Heritage Hut is only a few miles away from Twist, but I've never been a huge fan of their store.  The store owner always seems annoyed that I have my kids with me, and more annoyed that they want to pet her ginormous Irish Wolf Hound, so I pretty much just went into the shop to get my passport stamped and left when I saw she wasn't running any great Shop Hop deals.  :)

The kids were excited to actually get moving and watch their movie for more than 15 minutes at a time.  So, we headed down to Sugar Bunny Blvd in El Dorado.  The shop was cute in the front room of an old house, but was pretty small and I didn't find anything I was super excited about, so we didn't look around too much.

iYarn on the other hand was awesome!  While their website is lacking, the storefront is really cute, and they had lots of great yarn.  It totally made the driving around worth it and I found some sparkly ruffle yarn to add to my stash.  Sparkly ruffle yarn makes for some really great quick knit last minute gifts!

On Friday, the kid's weren't as excited to go yarn hopping with me, but at each yarn store I get a free ball of yarn with my passport to all be used together in an infinity scarf and the kids were taking turns choosing the yarn for me.  Let me tell you, it will be a very interesting scarf - Willow was choosing the most sparkly, or furry, or pink, and Jayden was choosing UW colors and Halloween colors. 

I only had 2 stores on my list for Friday, but after finishing up the Creation Station in Newton, they decided they weren't quite done with finding yarn stores, so we drove up to one more in McPherson.

• yarn. in Hutchinson
• Creation Station in Newton
• Oh, Yarn It! in McPherson

The Friday stores were pretty cute.  Yarn. had lots of really cute projects knit up, like an entire chair covered in knitting!  And stuffed alligator eating a human.  And a pink pig knit around a big bouncy ball.

Stop #2 - The Creation Station was pretty pathetic when it came to yarn, but it shared the store space with a book store and a tea shop.  It also directly connected to a Natural Food Store, and a Kitchen Store.  Yarn, tea, books, natural food, and kitchen stuff?  I could of spent all day there!  The kids and I spent time in the book store looking at books and playing with some of their toys.  Then we wandered around the natural food store in search of a snack, which we couldn't find because Jayden was looking for something specific but wouldn't tell me what.  Then before we left, I couldn't not go into the kitchen store.  The kids thought it was fantastic because they were handing out free bags of popcorn and they each got samples of the homemade fudge.  Yay, snacks!  And it's even better that the kids thought those snacks were put out just for them!  Kids crack me up.  So, since the kids were now having so much fun thanks to bags of popcorn and tastes of fudge, when we got in the car to head home they both said, "Home?!? We can't go home yet!  We need to find another yarn store!"  So, we drove north to McPherson.

Oh, Yarn It! was a really cute store.  And they were giving out little tootsie rolls and cookies.  More free snacks and the kids thought they were in Heaven.  This store finally had some great yarn hop deals for me to cash in on, and Jayden found a book that had a pattern for a Ninja in it, and begged me to make it for him.  After 7 stores of the kids acting awesome in, how could I say no???  :)

Friday afternoon/evening Jayden started showing signs of the cold that Willow has had for the past couple of days.  Colds always seem to hit Jayden a little harder and he was not feeling too hot by the time we put him to bed, so I starting thinking that Jayden wouldn't be up to hopping on Saturday.  The original plan was for me to just do the rest of the stores on Saturday by myself, but in the end Royal and I decided it could be fun to do together, if the kids were ok with going.  Part of why I wanted to do the shop hop was to have a reason to visit different parts of Kansas that we hadn't been to before.  I was totally up for letting the kids off the hook on Saturday.  Since they had spent parts of Thursday and Friday in the car, if they were totally burnt out on driving around, I wanted them to be able to stay home and play. 

I went running Saturday morning and Royal got up with the kids.  He gave them both some medicine and they both perked up quite a bit, but by the time I was back, showered, and ready to go, Jayden had changed his mind and said he thought he just wanted to stay home and stay in bed all day.  Then when I was walking out the door he changed his mind again when he found out we would be going out to lunch and maybe dinner and that there would be special treats.  So, all 4 of us piled into the Pilot and headed out.  The best part, and I can't believe I don't have a picture of it, is that Royal rode in the backseat in between the kids the whole time.  Not because he had to, but because the kids begged him too.  So, he sat back there and watched movies, and I sat in the front seats listening to my ipod and singing to myself while chauffeuring everyone around Kansas.  We got some pretty funny looks driving down the road.  :)  We started the special treats early by stopping by Starbucks to get the kids and Royal and hot chocolate and me some tea for my sore throat.  Sick or not, we had a shop hop to finish!

• Wicked Stitch in Wamego
• Wildflower in Manhattan
• The Shivering Sheep in Abilene
• Yarns Sold & Told in Salina

We started by going to the shop that was the farthest away and figured we would work our way back home.  I knew I was going to love The Wicked Stitch when it said in the passport that they specialized in carrying products from "small independant companies, and those dedicated to preserving the earth's resources".  And once there, I did totally love it!  Besides yarn, they had lots of great roving and acid dyes for coloring your own yarn and lots of different drop spindles and spinning wheels.  If it wasn't so far away, I would be hanging out there all the time!

It was around lunchtime, so we had lunch at The Friendship House and stuffed ourselves on bierocks and soup and salad and then headed across the street to this big park and let the kids run around.  Sadly, the cold air and running around totally wiped Jayden out and he started feeling pretty crappy again, so we loaded back up in the car, dished out the tylenol, and headed towards Manhattan.

Holy smokes, Wildflower yarns was awesome!  It had tons and tons of yarn.  I managed to find all the rest of the yarn I needed to finish up the things on my Christmas lists!  This was the first store the kids decided to stay in the car for and wouldn't you know it, but without them, I forgot to get my free ball of yarn.  Dang it!

We then moved onto the Shivering Sheep in Abilene, the hometown of President Eisenhower!  This store, although small and crowded, had a basement FULL of clearance yarn.  Awesome!  Well awesome for me, not so awesome for Royal's credit card...

Then we finally finished the 11 store shop hop at Yarns Sold & Told in Salina.  I've been wanting to stop by this store for awhile because it has billboards on the side of the road that claims they are the "2nd friendliest store in the Universe!"  Too bad I didn't really get a chance to find out.  We were all a little tired of shop hopping, so I just went in, got my final stamp on my passport and turned in my card, and we piled back in the car and drove the rest of the way home.  Royal in the back watching Looney Tunes with the kids, and me in the front listening to my ipod and singing to myself.  :)

Here's all the free yarn the kids mostly picked out that's to be knit together into an infinity scarf.

And here's all my loot!  Time to get cracking and finish my Christmas knitting!

Food Storage 2012

I'm pretty sure this was our biggest food canning/freezing year ever.  The kids are eating more and more of our reserves and we ran out of food long before the winter was over!  So we knew that this year we were going to have to go big!

It all started way back in May with strawberry picking.  Other than a couple strawberry pies, we have pretty much just frozen the berries to use in fruit smoothies (a breakfast staple for my kids) or to warm up and top ice cream with.

Then, in June, we picked peaches at Beck's Farm.  I was hoping to get all my peaches canned before heading to Washington for the summer with the kids, but it was too early for the peaches we normally can and the ones we ended up picking had super cling stones in them, so there was no way to get the flesh off the peach without destroying it.  So, not to be wasteful, we turned them all into peach cobbler fillings!

At the end of June, right before we got in the trailer to head west, we totally lucked out and Gaeddart's Corn was harvested early and Royal didn't have to freeze the corn all on his own!  My dad was even in town (to drive west with me), so he got in on shucking, cutting the kernals off the cob, blanching, and freezing 144 ears of corn with us!

Once in Washington, there was some major food processing done.  400 pounds of tuna, half of which we took home with us (112 pints), 60 pounds of green beans, half of which we kept (30 quarts), and 100 pounds of peaches (45 quarts).  Needless to say, all the food AND the tredmill my dad gave me while we were there, totally weighed down the truck and we were slow going over the passes!  :)

When we got back to Kansas in August, my garden was in sad shape.  We had once again had a scorcher of a summer and with only Royal at home the garden got water with the sprinklers in the morning, but then had to survive the horrible midday heat until Royal got home after work to water them again.  I wasn't so sure how well things would bounce back even with me watering 3 times a day, so I took out a little insurance.  Willow LOVES pesto.  Loves it so much, she will dip anything in it.  Sandwiches and apples and french fries just to name a few.   Pesto is so expensive in the stores and so easy to make, so I planted a LOT of basil in my garden this year.  But since the plants were struggling I bought a couple big bags of basil at the Farmer's Market just to make sure Willow had pesto in the freezer.  Turns out basil is pretty hardy.  After ripping off the flowers to keep it from bolting and watering like mad, my garden basil did really well.  So well that I was begging for a food dehydrator (one more piece of food saving equipment I need!) so I could dry the leaves because there was just going to be too much pesto.  All in all, with the Farmer's Market basil and the basil from my garden, I put up 20 half pints and 2 pints.  So, if you need pesto, please come see me!

In September we did apple crisp filling and applesauce.  A record amount of applesauce.  Jayden eats applesauce even more than Willow eats pesto.  Other than just eating it right out of the jar, he will dip anything in it - sandwiches, crackers, cheese, french fries, etc... Even with our 55 quarts put up, I am having to limit him to just one quart a week or we aren't going to make it to next fall!

And finally, there is the pumpkin puree.  My grand finale!  I always know that once I get the pumpkin done, I am pretty much done for the season!  A few years ago at the farmer's market I was looking for pie pumpkins, so I could freeze the puree, (way cheaper and way better tasting and way fresher than the canned pumpkin at the store) and one of the farmers there talked me into buying a rumba squash, saying that it tasted just as good but was less stringy and watery than the pie pumpkins.  So, I tried it out and I've never gone back!  The only downside is, most people don't know what the heck you are talking about when you ask if they are growing them, and they can be tricky to find.  I've lucked out the past couple years and stumbled across them, but this year I figured I was out of luck.  I was at the Farmer's Market every Saturday searching solely for the rumba and it wasn't there and we were now in October and I'd never found one that late and everybody had been talking all year about how the harvests were 3-4 weeks ahead of schedule, so I was totally preparing myself for surviving on the 3 measly bags of puree that I had left from last year.  Then it happened.  I spotted a man pulling a wagon through the market with 4 of my pumpkins on it.  I totally stalked him.  We followed at a distance until he stopped and then we pounced and begged him to sell us his pumpkins.  He said sorry, but he had brought them for another vendor.  So I asked the lady he brought them for if she would be willing to sell me just one.  Selfish lady said, "No way!" as she stuffed them in the back of her mini van.  Dejected, we finished up our trip to the market and headed towards the car.  On our way out, we saw the guy with the now empty wagon talking to another vendor and I couldn't help myself, so Royal and I asked if he was going to be bringing anymore to the market.  He said he was done selling for the year, but he had a whole bunch of rumba's sitting on his front porch and I was welcome to come and get them if I wanted.  So, that's what I did!  I had to drive an hour west to Kingman to pick them up, but we will have some fresh pumpkin puree for the rest of the year!  I now have the farmer's phone number and his address, and I'm pretty sure I'll never be throwing them away!  If he doesn't show up at the Farmer's Market again next year, I will totally be calling!  :)

I only put up 2 of these pumpkins, which gave me 10 2-cup bags.  I've managed to rope a friend of mine into some of this crazy canning/storing with me and 2 of the pumpkins are for her!

Since I've had a couple people ask, this is what my storage area looks like.  We have a pretty small, unfinished room in our basement that is perfect, even though Royal has to keep buying more shelves.  :)  It's right at the bottom of our stairs, so it's convenient to send the kids down to get something and since it's underground it keeps a real even temperature all year, and hopefully it would survive if a tornado took out our house.

And our freezer out in the garage.

We were really short on berries this year.  We got lots of strawberries, but hardly any blueberries or raspberries or blackberries.  We are going to be hurting in that department until next summer, but I guess that is what they made grocery stores for, right????  :)