An Impulse Buy

It's happened. I couldn't help myself. I had some in-store credit at the pet store so I went on Black Friday to see if there were any good deals I was interested in. (With my dog in mind.) Then I noticed the guinea pigs were 50% off. Then I asked to hold it. AND SHE WAS SO SWEET! Emmalynne named her Lily. 

A Little Bit of Thanksgiving

Emmalynne brought her class pets home for Thanksgiving weekend. The only picture I got on Thanksgiving was this one of Emmalynne, Clara, their friends Corrina and Charlotte, and the button quail. 

We had an awesome Thanksgiving. My mom and I prepared most of the food on Wednesday, "so we wouldn't have to cook a lot on Thursday." What did we spend most of the morning doing on Thursday? Cooking. I bet we never would have finished cooking if we hadn't done so much on Wednesday! Other than my parents, we had our friends, Greg and Elaine and their 2 girls over. We also had the Elders over. It was very enjoyable. We had way too much food. It was perfect; I love Thanksgiving left overs!

Trip to the Circus

A very kind neighbor gave us some tickets to the circus. The adventure started off with a fun ride from our parking spot to the building!

 Grandma packed us some popcorn to enjoy!

 Emmalynne was elated with the girls that climbed the ropes and danced in the air.

 I was impressed with the dog tricks.

 This guys was kind of fun.

 Emmalynne enjoyed the juice! The snacks were almost as fun as the circus itself.

 Clara got to ride a pony at  intermission.

 Benjamin also rode a pony.

 Emmalynne chose to ride an elephant with dad. A month later and Benjamin still talks about who rode what.

 Benjamin got tired towards the end and found this fun spot to stand instead of sitting in a chair.

 The clowns were boring so Clara and I found ways to entertain ourselves. :)

 The elephants were really fun. I think it was the girls' favorite part.

31st Birthday Celebration

This year was one of my most favorite birthdays ever. Grandma watched the kids over night. Carman and I drove a bit over an hour away and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. We split fajitas. Dinner for two for $7! Then we stayed the night in the junkiest motel ever. :) And got up early to run a 1/2 marathon on my birthday! We had a great time. Here we are before the run next to a map of the trail. 

 This was how excited Carman was while we waited for it to get closer to race time. It was cold and I made him wait with me in the car :) The weather actually was perfect for running.

 Here we are after the race. I improved my race time and was quite proud of myself. I finished in 2:02:20! That's 128th place out of 266 people. Carman was even more impressive with a time of 1:49:54, 64th place. He made an excel sheet to show what our times were for our age and gender. All I remember is that we were both in middle.

 After the race they had a full brunch buffet! Not just oranges and bananas like your typical race. They had tons of different casserole dishes full of all kinds of delicious home-made breakfast yumminess. It was so impressive. And this was even one of the cheaper 1/2 marathons there are!

Awesome birthday getaway!

Goldilocks and the 4 Bears

At school, Emmalynne has been learning about different fairy tales. She chose to be Goldilocks for Halloween. I suggested the rest of us be bears. It worked out well. Clara was a witch for Emmalynne's school party and said that's what she was going to be for trick or treating too. However, when she saw the face paint come out she changed her mind!