Hazards of Renting

Just wanted to share with you the pictures of the "clean" house we moved into. The Realtor said that it passed a cleaning inspection. I hardly think so - you tell me! My camera didn't capture the dog hair that was covering the floor, found inside the refrigerator and all over the bathtubs. Along with the cobwebs and grime on the floors, walls and bathrooms. As Napoleon Dynamite would say, "GROSS!"Oven Drawer

Oven

Drip pans (they all looked like this!)

Underneath of Stovetop

Just one of the drawers (click on it to open in a larger view - it's a better effect)

West Coast Extravaganza!

We moved from San Diego to Quantico, Virginia in July. Instead of making a straight shot trip out here we decided to take the scenic route! We drove through the mountains of California into Oregon and stayed in Grants Pass with Nick's grandparents and then Roseburg with friends, Mike and Jenny. From there we went to Sequim, Washington to stay with my brother Brian, Megan and kiddies. What a blast! Then we went back to Oregon (Milton-Freewater) to visit Nick's grandma, down to Salt Lake to see my parents, and a night in Denver with a long-time friend before trekking the long 2 days to Virginia.

We visited a couple of National Parks on our way.

This was at the Hurricane Ridge Visitor's Center of Olympic National Park in Washington. A group of British folks were so enamored with Alison that they took this picture of us on our camera as well as some with theirs. Someone on the trail called her Heidi - hiking up in the mountains like this with that hat. It was funny.
This park is one of our favorite places on the planet. There were deer happily grazing, bursting wildflowers, billowing clouds, and spectacular vistas. It is so naturally pristine. It makes you wonder what the earth looked like before we took over. The park is enormous and we only touched a few places on it. There are also beaches, Crescent Lake and waterfalls. Here's their link: Olympic National Park

This was July 4 at Crater Lake in Oregon. There was snow all over the place! (Nick, Mike and Alison)

This lake is amazing! The water is carribean clear and blue, but FREEZING. It sole source of water is precipitation and snow melt. It was formed when a volcano caved in and formed this large crater. It's deepest point was measured at 1,932 feet and the diameter is more than five miles. The cliffs surrounding the lake rise up to 2000 feet above the lake's surface. The area's winter brings some of the heaviest snowfall in the country, averaging 533 inches per year (this explains the lingering snow). Here is a link to the Park Services information about Crater Lake: http://www.nps.gov/crla/

These are some of the pictures we thought we lost when our camera went missing. It's amazing how on the road and with a baby you have so many things to keep track of, even the most together person (not claiming to be one) starts to forget! I like to call it mommy brain. I kept calling the Visitor's Center and lucky for us someone finally found it and turned it in the day we were leaving. We were so relieved. We were more worried about losing the pictures with Nick's grandparents than anything.

Strongest Dad in the World

The following story I've seen before on Dateline or something like that. I was inspired again reading about this. As my sister-in-law, Philippa, said, "Normally, I get really annoyed about mushy stuff, but this one was great! now THAT is true love. and also an inspiration to do whatever you want in life and not worry about people telling you you can't do something. what a great message. "

I've done a couple of triathalons (very short ones) and run a marathon. It was hard enough doing these on my own, let alone pushing someone else. It makes me want to never complain about my life again, because it shows if you want it, you can do it - it just takes action.

She also sent, "Warning! Do not watch this video. Unless you want to be bawling your eyes out."

This goes out to everyone that is willing to do amazing things for those they love.


Strongest Dad in the World

[From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to Pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck. Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars -- all in the same day (doing the Ironman Triathlon). Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much -- except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. "He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life," Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old, "Put him in an institution." But the Hoyts weren't buying it.

They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way," Dick says he was told. "there's nothing going on in his brain." "Tell him a joke," Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!"

And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that." Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "then it was me who was handicapped," Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks." that day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!"

And that sentence changed Dick's life.

He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way," Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year. Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?" How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzz kill
to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way," he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling" he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together. This year, at ages 65
and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 -- only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time. "No question about it," Rick types.

"My dad is the Father of the Century." And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been
in such great shape," one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago." So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life. Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day. That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. "The thing I'd most like," Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once."


Here's the video.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjPrL3n63yg

Why?

Having created a site for my daughter and my family and seeing all of the cool things people are doing with their blogs I am inspired to keep a blog of my own. I am a mommy - it's true - I am defined much more by that than I realized. But there is more - I am still a wife, friend, daughter, sister, francophile, wannabe gourmet chef, foodie, reader, writer (journal keeper), amateur photographer, scrapbooker, seamstress, yogi, musician, marathoner, triathelete, doodler and more. All those things I try to do during her naps and after bedtime when the house is quiet and I have uninterrupted time to think. To paraphase Buzz Lightyear - 'To Mommy and BEYOND!'