Hartford Half Marathon

Look what I just found!

I've been going through my piles and piles of papers and such that have been accumulating for months and months, and just found this awesome picture. Mike ran the Hartford Half Marathon last October just after my knee surgery. That might explain why I never blogged about it. Anyway, this is my favorite running picture of him. It should be on the front of a magazine, don't you think?

p.s. I finished going through all the junk! What a wonderful feeling!

Lake Compounce

There is an amusement park near us called Lake Compounce where all the kids go during the summer. Matthew & Michael have been wanting to go for some time now, so I finally set the date. We took Matthew's friend Sergio with us, so that made four of us.

Michael was the daredevil in the group. That crazy kid will ride anything! He was the only one who wanted to ride the big drop out ride. We were so glad that he wasn't tall enough! He had to settle for the little kid one.


















The boys talked me into going on a crazy wooden roller coaster with them. What a mistake! I'd say it is most like Colossus at Magic Mountain. It shook me so badly that my neck hurt for days. After that one I mostly watched.

Michael was DYING to go on Zoomerang. Insanity! Sergio went with him, thank goodness.

You can see in the picture how the ride starts. It backs you up to the top of the hill and then lets you go. Michael and Sergio are somewhere in the middle.

I was so nervous for Michael to do those loops upside down! And there were two of them!

After it goes through the course once, it takes you up the final hill ... and then you go backwards!

I think it was pretty soon after Zoomerang that we went over to the waterpark side. I wished that I had brought a bathing suit because the slides looked like a lot of fun. I liked the Lazy River one the best. You take a little detour on the lazy river to go on a water slide with your tube, and then it lets you off into the lazy river again. Cool!

The boys all changed after doing the water slides, and we went back to the rides. Michael REALLY wanted to go on Boulder Dash. NONE of us wanted to go with him. Not even Sergio!

Boulder Dash is another wooden roller coaster, so I knew right away I would not go on it. It didn't look scary, but it went really fast and it was long. I thought it would finish me off for sure.

Michael was actually tall enough for this one, so we didn't even have that on our side. We were all certain we would not go, and Michael was super disappointed. He was so sad that I finally gave in and said I would go with him. Then Matthew said, "Well, if you're gonna go . . . I'm gonna go!" And Sergio said he would go too. Oh, joy. We waited about 35 minutes in line. Just long enough to really get nervous. I wanted to back out so badly! I kept asking Sergio if he would go with Michael alone, but he wouldn't do it.

Well, it doesn't take much explaining to see that it was horrible . . .

OH. MY. GOSH. That was the scariest thing ever. We went up the hill and around the bend . . . and saw the first hill. I screamed, "NOOOOO!!!" Thank goodness Matthew was holding on to me. I was screamed at the top of my lungs the entire time, convincing myself that if I kept screaming I would be able to get through it. I've never screamed so much in my entire life. Seriously. I also kept my eyes tightly shut. I just couldn't open them! I knew we were nearing the end and was looking forward to it, when we went down another big hill that shook me pretty badly at the bottom. When the camera flashed I was seriously screaming Out Loud, "JUST END!!!"

When we got off that ride, all the boys were jumping in circles around me shouting. I was speechless, in shock. My whole body was shaking! They just kept shouting and I kept walking trying to put myself back together. Traumatizing!

The boys went on a few more rides before the park closed at 8 pm (early for an amusement park). All in all it was a good day, and we were glad that we went.

Lobsterfest

Mike called me from work the other day and said that his friends told him about a really great deal on lobster in town. Something to do with the time of year. Anyway, it was only $5/lb. so he went for it. I was NOT excited, but decided to be adventurous. I love lobster, but get easily grossed out when it is in its shell with the eyes popping out.

EWWWWW!!!

Everyone (except me) grabbed a lobster and put it on their plate.

I was surprised at how willing everyone was to rip the lobsters apart. Gross! But we all agreed that it wasn't worth the mess. There was water pouring out of the lobsters, and white goo shooting everywhere. Mike got a good squirt on his shirt (why people usually wear a bib) and Collin even had it in his hair!

After everyone was just about through, I kindly asked Mike to give me the legs (or claws or whatever). There was no way the head was going to sit on my plate. I felt nauseous just witnessing it all. I did eat some and found it to be mediocre as far as lobster goes. Not worth the upset!

What an experience! It was so traumatizing that Mike felt that he had to end the evening on a high note. So, we went to Ferris Creamery!

The creamery is a locally owned ice cream place on a farm just down the road from us. The farm was struggling a few years ago, so they decided to try making and selling their own ice cream to make ends meet. It is the best! The prices are outrageous, but people still go. Every evening in the summer there are long lines. We try to go once or twice during the summer.

How hard can it be to pose for a picture??

Just hangin' . . .

Chuck E. Cheese's, Church & Scouts

Our area has slowly gotten more and more restaurants and stores that we were used to having in California. One of the places is Chuck E. Cheese's. We finally got one! It would have been nice to have 8 or 9 years ago, but we'll take what we can get. So, Michael has been asking me to take him there. We finally went a week or so ago. It was just me, Matthew and Michael. I sat and watched while they ran around and played. It cracked me up that they went on the clock ride!

A couple of Saturdays ago we had the opportunity to clean the church with some other families. I took the boys around to clean all the chalk boards. They worked really hard and did a very nice job!


Michael was the only cub scout that came out the last two weeks, so he got a one-on-one lesson! This last week he and his leader, Mike Saunders, made a tripod and some kind of device in the middle where Michael could be lifted. Pretty cool! They were lucky enough to finish right before it started raining.

Then they went inside to play guitar. Michael told his leader the last week that he had been learning how to play the guitar in a summer class, so they both brought their guitars. They played a bit together and then they switched.

I love the videos!

Alone & Catching Up with World Cup

Last Friday evening I dropped off the boys at JFK to fly out to California. They are spending a week with Grandma & Grandpa Tovey doing lots of fun things. Lauren & I didn't go along just yet, because Lauren went to EFY (Especially for Youth). EFY is a youth conference retreat-like thing put on by BYU. They do them at BYU in Utah, but they also have sessions all over the country. We are so lucky to have one in Massachusetts! I drove Lauren two hours up to the University of Massachusetts Amherst Monday morning with a bunch of her friends. They are going to have such a great week. (Lauren isn't in this picture, but you can see some girls going to their dorm to get settled.)

So now I am ALONE. Completely alone. It is weird! I am not a person who needs conversation or other people around, but there is something about no one else being here. It's a little creepy! I have lots to do though, so I should be distracted.


One of the things I need to do is catch up on blog posts! The next few posts will be catch up posts. These pictures are from The World Cup games early in July. The U.S. team played on a Saturday, and all the boys had their shirts on to watch the game. I even watched the game! It wasn't looking good at all . . .

Michael and Matthew's friend Jake were kind of watching the game, but mostly just waiting for it to be over so that Matthew would play with them.

So much disappointment! We could not believe they lost.

Mike got this poster in Switzerland so that they could keep track of the games.
Doesn't it look cute on the wall? Matthew was very diligent about keeping it up to date.

Collin couldn't believe it!

Lauren didn't mind since she was cheering for Brazil. Silly girl!

At the end of the competition, Spain was the ultimate winner. Very cool! The game was tied forever and went into overtime. Spain finally scored just a few minutes away from the end.

On another note . . .

Matthew is the fly catcher in our family.
He catches the flies, and then
feeds them to the venus fly trap.How cool is that??