Christmas in March!

I know it's hardly Christmas time now and who would want it to be. (Sorry a little of my sarcasm escaped.) But, I was catching up on reading blog posts during my spring break and realized I hadn't even posted anything from Christmas. How sad :( SO even though I need to play catch up I figured I could at least start by posting my cute boys with Santa from our ward Christmas party.

I hope David didn't kill Santa :)

Cute Costumes!

We let the kids pick out their own Halloween costumes this year. We usually do a theme and Mom suggests ideas for costumes. But this year we went to the store and let them browse until they found something they wanted. They all actually turned out really cute. David was a ninja, Paul was Wolverine and Seth was a magician.

Lauren was adorable as a little fairy. She liked wearing her headpiece as a necklace though. She couldn't have been any cuter though.

The boys with their cute pumpkins. They had a lot of fun carving this year and all had ideas for their pumpkin.

I don't think my pumpkin was feeling very well though...

Halloween Fun!

At the Rees house we love Halloween. Last year we were especially busy though so we didn't decorate or have our usual big fear factorish Halloween party. So this year we had lots of ideas and some fresh blood. This isn't a great picture of the house but it kind of shows the front yard. This year we got a new inflatable spider that turns it's head. It's pretty cool if I do say so myself.

We also had our party again this year. All the couples looked pretty cute. Here are just a few of the pictures from the party.

It's hard to tell from the photo but Angie was a lady who was missing her little doggie. It was pretty funny. All I can say is I hope things worked out in the end. LOL!

Mandi had an awesome witch costume and Scott...well he came as a germ covered organism. :)

My witch hat had a veil with little spiders on it. Unfortuneately in the picture it just looks like my lips are all crazy. Josh is the evil jester with me. His mask was pretty freaky. He loved trying to scare the kids with it.

We told David and Marnie it was a costume party but I guess they didn't have time to dress up before they came. They were feeling pretty groovy though. :) David I told you to put that cup down. LOL!

It's crazy the lengths some people will go to for a Halloween party. I mean really tatoo's are not necessary. :)

What a 'wicked' trio...literally and figuratively!

Of course the Gibbons won the best couple costume for their delightful representation of Wesley and Buttercup. What will they think of next?

Family Pics continued...

Here are the rest of the pictures that I didn't get posted last time. Considering how grumpy Lauren was we actually got quite a few cute photos. Seth was being adorable and luckily the boys are old enough now to do really well...especially when promised a Kid's Meal and a piece of See's candy upon completion. Who says bribery isn't effective? :) Not two teachers, that's for sure.

Family Pictures

It must be that time of year. We haven't taken family pictures for over a year now and it was time to get ready for Christmas cards. I figure it will be the only thing I get done ahead of time for the holiday season this year. This one is an adorable one of Lauren. She needed one by herself too.

10K in Tahoe

5 years ago, 2 children ago, 10 lbs. ago, and one husband who was home night I ran a 10K in Lake Tahoe. I had a wonderful running partner, Edie, who went out with me faithfully 3 or 4 nights a week to run. It was a wonderful experience and I've wanted to do it ever since. But for the last 4 years I've been too busy with life. So in January I started running. Very slowly, painstakingly, moderate amounts of running done mostly inside on a treadmill. But at least I was running. I did a 5K in spring and the beginning of summer. But what I really wanted to do was the 10K in Tahoe. The last time we went was 2 years ago, when my mother, father and husband all ran the 10K. My brother David lives in Reno and we don't see hime very often so when we go we get a 3 bedroom condo and all stay together. It's a lot of fun and so I was excited when we decided to go. My running was not nearly as fast or advanced as I wanted it to be and with work taking over my life, my running schedule got somewhat sidelined. But once we made the nonrefundable deposit on the condo I figured I'd better make it happen. I was only up to running 5 miles so I interspersed .25 walking here and there into my routine to make for the 6.2 mile total needed. I knew I couldn't worry about my time as there just aren't enough hours in the day for the training I needed and I still need to lose more weight. So I set my goal on completion, not on a specific time.


This is Emerald Bay at Lake Tahoe. It is on the top of this mountain that overlooks the bay where the race began. At one point just off the start the roadside drops off on either side and all you see is the Lake flanking both sides of the road. It's beautiful, breath-taking, and a little scary all at the same time. So anyway the day of the race came and I was apprehensive and tired. Of course the week leading prior to the trip I got hardly any sleep. Josh dropped me off at the hotel as everyone was still sleeping. Then I caught the bus up the mountain with the other runners. We got dropped off at the top about an hour before the race starts. Once the race got going I was enjoying running outside and it doesn't hurt that the first mile is all downhill. I was surprised though at how fast the time seemed to fly by as I ran. It wasn't even until about the 4th mile that I started to get tired. But I kept going slowly but slowly. Anyway I was able to run the whole thing without stopping and walking.

This is me speeding up because I'm so glad it's almost over. I thought maybe I hadn't pushed myseld hard enough til the end when I tried to push harder and there wasn't much left. But I did pass these women in my haste to finish and be done.

This is the family. Glad mom is done. We enjoyed the beautiful view off Pope Beach where the finish line was.

My brother David Sam, the Rees'es and my parents, David and Lynda.

Yeah! A goal completed, a chance to sit down, and I met the time goal I secretly made for myself!

Just wait til next year!!!

Yosemite

Yep so I saw a lot of 'this' in vacation. And as you will see towards the end of the pictures the boys all picked it up too. It's a good thing I love my hunka hunka burning love :)

I'm just happy because we got the tent set up without killing each other. Always fun.

The boys always crack me up. I put them all in the same sweatshirt for identification purposes. This was our first camping dinner. Nothing like top ramen baby! Don't ya just love my round camping tablecloth on a rectangle table. Don't ask me how I got a circle one I don't even remember. I've never been camping and found a round picnic table. Weird!

This is the family all smiles before we left for our biggest hike. It probably wasn't a good omen that we had to park almost a mile away from the parking lot to the trailhead.

This was about halfway up the hike. No more big smiles. We were hiking up to Nevada Falls which is about 3 miles round trip. Doesn't sound to bad right? Except did I mention that first mile is pretty much straight up and then you hit 600 steps. Add a baby on your back, toddler in Josh's case and you get quite a workout. We did make it to the top and it was well worth the hike. It was a gorgeous waterfall and a wonderful accomplishment to make it to the top. And I'll tell you what, it hurt going down too. I'll never forget Josh telling Paul, who was 5 years old at the time to "Man up" and stop whining. He still whined quite a bit but he made it. David was a trooper and carried the water supply for the family. Both Lauren and Seth took naps during the ordeal, I mean hike. Must be nice.

It was smart to do the longest, hardest hike the first day because after that everything just seemed easy. Including this 50 step walk from the car to the base of the waterfall to which Paul said, "Was that it?"

This picture is so funny because we were at a beach were across the way you can see the hikers going up El Capitan. I turned around to get a picture of Seth who was running across and down he biffed just as I snapped the picture. So that black dot out there is Seth.

I don't remember which fall this was but it was a fairly short hike. The really funny story to the picture is why Josh had to crop it the way he did. We were hiking along the path when an older gentleman passed us. Josh was ahead of me so I could see his reaction as he did a double take. The gentleman was hiking in hiking boots, a t-shirt and boxers. Then when we got there and went to take pictures he was standing next to us by the log.

This was on top of Sentinel Dome. What a gorgeous view of the valley and Half Dome.

This is about the spot that we saw a bear when we were going up the trail to the top of the rock.