Typical H

J was out of town last weekend. Again. So I braved taking the kids to see Kung Fu Panda 2. It was H's first time going to the movies. At first he was enamored with the popcorn and candy. Then he oohed and aahhed a bit over the panda bear onscreen. But after 45 minutes, he was no longer impressed and started wandering the isles a bit. I let him because there weren't many people in the theater. Thankfully, the movie wasn't long and extra thankfully, he didn't pull the fire alarm until after the movie was over. That's right. The fire alarm. Oh, H. So typical. I have to say that I kind of think it's the movie theater's fault. Who puts fire alarms within easy reach of a 23-month-old with the only trigger being that you have to lift up on it? Please.

I have decided that after being mother to H, I should hire out my now refined disaster-avoidance mentality: before I get in the shower or even leave the room, I do a thorough prevention scan, thinking, "What can I move, tie down, throw away, put up, etc, so that H does not create a disaster." As you might imagine, living in such a heightened state of awareness all the time is pretty exhausting. But if it can come in handy by making me money at movie theaters, it will have all been worth it.

Actually, it usually is all worth it because another thing that is typical H is his kissing, especially since he figured out he could make noises while kissing. Even better. The boy's a lover AND a fighter. If he has to be the latter, at least he is also the former. We can't get enough of his kisses and there are oh so many to go around these days.

Oh what do you do in the summertime

We are a month into our summer vacation now, and we've been going full-force. Here's the list we brainstormed at the beginning of summer:

As you can see, we've been busy. The first few weeks, the kids had swim team every morning and a swim meet once a week.

So, they were busy racking up ribbons, but other than that, we went swimming most afternoons and they did a lot of this and other kickback things (see the DS there--or maybe J's i-touch):

But the last week has been craziness. On top of swim team, Mister started basketball camp (2 weeks); he's at cub scout day camp this week (2:15-11pm); both kids did a cooking class (thanks, Groupon!) and made fruit gummies, flour tortillas, and taco torpedoes; and Sweetie has a sewing class this week.

J was gone 2 weekends in a row, and, as for me, I am tired. Do you think the heat might have something to do with it? YIKES!

(Note: I totally stole this picture from my friend, so it's her car and her seat belt that was not securely fastened.)

Insane abs and eyes

So, I haven't posted for a while. I never finished updating our May happenings. If you haven't seen me in a while, I am SURE you will notice 2 differences. First, J and I have been doing the Insanity diet and workouts (well, let's be honest, I have been doing the Insanity workouts. J has been doing the golf workout with occasional treadmill and Insanity workout). So, when you do see us next, I am sure that you will notice our INSANELY fit bodies. Here's a preview:

And, second, you will notice that I am no longer wearing glasses or contacts because I had Lasik at the end of May. It was actually not a pleasant experience and was much different than I thought it would be. I had PRK instead of Lasik because my corneas are too thin. But my doctor did not do a good job explaining the differences or the expectations. (I only found out that my corneas were too thin for traditional Lasik the day before the surgery.) He told me to expect blurriness for 2 weeks, not to drive for 4-5 days after the surgery, and a longer recovery time as far as "foreign object sensation" and scratchiness goes because we were working on the surface of the eye. That was an understatement. I was in so much pain from Wed-Sat morning. On Sat morning, the pain magically went away. I pretty much stayed in my room with the blinds, curtains, and a blanket over the windows and let J fend for the rest of the family (including feeding, clothing, running around, and taking H to urgent care for strep one night), all while he was trying to work from home. J was so great to me that I didn't say a word when we went golfing 3 times the next week. I emerged out of my room Saturday to a mound of dishes and a house that looked so light I thought we'd been transfigured (at least until I saw the mound of dishes).

My follow-up appointment was the next Tuesday, the doctor took the clear adhesive bandages off my corneas, and said they were healing nicely, but it took another 2 weeks before the blurriness went away. I'm still waiting for my "best" vision, which should occur around the 2-month post-surgery mark, at which time I will probably be seeing so well that I expect to be seeing through things, right?

I couldn't post updates without updating you all on the perfect condition of my eyes and muscles :)

The second week of June, we spent 5 days in St. George with my parents, 6 siblings and their spouses, nieces, and nephews. We had a great time hiking in Zions and in Snow Canyon, swimming in the condo pools, playing at the splash park in St. George, and hanging out together. J also had a great time playing golf with the guys 2 different mornings, and Sweetie and I went toThe Little Mermaid at Tuacahn with the girls on Friday night. I took plenty of pics, as you can see!

We loved our vacation and wish we could have spent more time together. The only drawback was that H was a zoo. I don't know if it's because we started off the trip by arriving at 10:30pm, so his sleeping schedule was off or if it's because his siblings decided cousins were more interesting than their little brother and paid him no attention, or if it was just his ornery side coming through in full-force. Either way, we were glad to have our more somewhat "normal" H back when we got home.

This morning's workout was brought to me by . . .

summertime sledding in the desert.

I'm talking about prayer

over at Segullah today.