Our Segment!

Bean & I were interviewed today for a piece about foster care in AZ!

I believe that it airs tonight @ 6:00 on channel 12–and I will post a link if/when there is ever one available!

 

Getting geared up for the holidays around here. Even busier than usual (didn’t think that could happen!).

Tried to get a cute photo of 4 kids on my own, what do you think? Mission accomplished or keep trying?

 

I rarely ever swear. I just don’t see the need. But, something about running long distances makes me want to cuss up a storm. I %@#@(! ran 13.1 miles! (Well… so, I didn’t run the whole thing, but I did finish the whole thing!)

I did my first half marathon last Sunday. I think I posted before about having that as a goal. Well, mission accomplished! I finished it! It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t fast and neither was I. But, in 3 hours and 11 minutes I made it from Scottsdale to Tempe.

And I have an amazing support system.. Daddy was there to watch the kids for me during my long runs and he brought the clan down to watch me finish the race. One of my besties brought me flowers… It was a painful, but wonderful day!

 

At least, *I* think my kids are adorable ; P

A good time was had by all the other night!

 

Just for kicks.. here’s a photo from 4 years ago… Aren’t they cute?!?

 

So, this is how slow I am at updating… I’ve already taken another vacation. Yes, for those of you counting, that makes 3!

And I am ready to be at home for a long, long time. I am ready for normalcy (whatever that is) to return.

I have a couple more really heavy duty posts brewing. One will be a hugely massive update on our open adoption.

But, for now, I just wanted to check in.

Yes, I’m here. Things are going o.k. My depression has really taken it’s toll this week, but I’m hoping that seeing one of my besties next week will help on that end. And I know that my crafting night with another of my besties was very helpful. Speaking of crafting… We have a couple of shows in the works! It’s holiday time again so we’re going to go out and try to help the people get that shopping done while, at the same time, earn some money for our own shopping. The other night we made a few lovies and some adorable earrings and started work on some fleece caps. If you’re local, we’ll be at the boys’ school for their Fall Festival next Friday night–come by and see me!

Also, next weekend is going to be h-u-g-e! In addition to Fall Fest, next weekend is the MS Walk. Have you made a donation to my team, yet? If not, what are you waiting for?!? It doesn’t have to be much.. a quarter, a dollar, whatever, we’ll take it! We also still have our orange items for sale on our facebook page as well as in our etsy shop–all of the proceeds are going to the same cause.

*And* on top of all of that fun with the walk, I will be jogging in my first half marathon! Last week I did my final long training run.. 10 miles. And I nearly killed me. I’m hoping that adrenaline alone will carry me the extra 3.1 miles. So, on Nov. 6, while you’re watching football and having a beer, think of me out there sweating and trying to push through 13.1 miles of fun 🙂

 

So, one of the thngs that I love about our school district is the modified year-round callendar. In Phoenix, summers are pretty miserable so it only makes sense to have more time off during the beautiful times of the year.

Our kids get a couple of weeks off three times a year and then a little less than 2 months off for the summer.

With all of that extra time, we were planning on taking a weekend to go see my little brother in SanDiego. I told my parents they should meet up with us out there and then, all of a sudden, my parents were olanning a trio to Indio.

Indio, CA, is kind of in the middle of nowhere.. It’s 20-30 minutes outside of Palm Springs. And it turns out that the middle of nowhere was perfect for us.

Daddy couldn’t afford to take a whole week off of work– after all, we did just get back from our last vacation :). So, the kids and I loaded up for our road trip right after school on Friday.

Since Indio is a couple hours from San Diego, I decided to hit San Diego… Or really just Legoland on the way. We got to Carlsbad late at night just to crash and made it to Legoland before opening and were able to fit nearly everything into our full day there. It’s so nice traveling with the kids now that they are a little older! No need for a stroller or diaper bag or naps!

At the end of the day we headed to Indio. My little brother, his girlfriend and their puppy joined us shortly and spent some time with us. It was so nice. Bean fell in love with the puppy (of course) and loved playing with Rachel’s hair. All of the kids attempted to tackle Uncle Andrew… But all together they still weigh less than he does and they didn’t succeed.

Nana and Papa were supposed to come to town on Monday, but the Airline Gods had something else in mind and they were stalled until Tuesday. The kids and I managed to keep ourselves busy with the pools and ducks and the arcade.

With Nana and Papa we played more in the pool and continued fattening those ducks up. We also went to the Living Desert –the small, but very cool zoo in Palm Springs. We also got to see Andrew and Rachel one more time for dinner.

Daddy ended up making it out for our last couple of days–and we hit Seaworld as a family.

It was a great trip, but it’s always good to be home. And, as of today, it’s *amazing* to have the boys back in school 😉

 

And, as promised, here are a few photos of the journey!

We’re still here.. Fall break is 2.5 weeks long here so I haven’t had a lot of free time lately…

I will be posting more soon and have a ton of adorable photos!

Most of you who know me in real life, also know one of my best friends, Renee.

What you might not know is that Renee has MS, multiple scelrosis. She has had the diagnosis for 6 years now.

And as you can guess, her fight is our fight, too. We’ve done the MS Walk as a family several years. And we have worked on fund raising through yard sales in the past. This year, I wanted to reach out to you all, too. If you’re interested in donating–every little $1 helps! You can go straight here–my personal goal is to raise $100 in donations alone.

Also, Renee & I have been crafting for the cause. This year we’ve created what we’ve dubbed “Code Orange” in our Etsy shop. I’ve been concocting some special orange colored items that I am donating all of the profits from to the walk as well.

I’m sure you already a fan of RAD Crafts on facebook, but if you’re not, look me (us) up and you can see photos of all of our orange items. You can also see them at our Etsy shop—here. Because we’re doing this to donate the profits, I’d love it if you’d order through me v. on Etsy–it just saves me some fees.

And, since they’re so adorable, here is a sneak peek at what you’ll see if you click on those links…

 

I took a photo class right before I went on vacation with B. But, then we didn’t take the good camera with us. I will share about out trip and a few photos soon! Today, however, I took out the DSLR and was playing around with Bean. This isn’t the best photo, but I still love it.