Family Photo

We don't ever seem to get family photos taken.  This is July 2012 (I think Nathaniel has grown 4 inches since then.)  Below are the boys at Thanksgiving with Patrick the dog. (Nathaniel may have grown an inch since then...)

Davis is 16

Ready or not, here we go!

December 2011

Something happened in December - well, a number of things happened, but something happened to me.  First couple of weeks were busy with college finals, Nathaniel's birthday, a visit from Chris' mom, and a meet for Davis.  During my last final I started to feel shaky - oh no, I thought I was coming down with the flu.  I graded the exams and submitted grades sitting in bed with my laptop.    Well, 5 1/2 weeks later, I don't know what it was, but it wasn't the flu.  The doctor rulled out mono, pneumonia, and a number of other things.  I'd call it a non-mono mono-like viral infection with a respiratory emphasis.  I'm still spending most of my time in bed, and the holiday trip was a total blow-out (the kids both took turns with a fevered stomach flu, and then a whopping head cold.)  So, the many projects that I had planned for my two months between semesters have been forsaken.  I'm starting to feel like I'm getting a little energy, but a trip to the grocery store will wipe me out for the rest of the day.
 
I don't have pictures of me laying around in bed, but I do have some from the other events in December:
Nathaniel's birthday party at the trampoline gym - bouncy fun with dodge ball and a foam pit.

Nathaniel always wants pie - so a boston cream pie was a good birthday cake compromise because pie is too hard to serve at a trampoline gym.

Davis and some of his sophomore running buddies competed in the Footlocker Western Regional Cross Country meet at Mt. SAC with athletes from all over the western states.

Compression socks are the new running fad (and it looks like Davis is wearing Uncle Mark era BYU shorts, if you know what I mean...)

Nathaniel's birthday celebration continued on Sunday with a family party and an actual pie.

Carol came down to help select plants for our front yard and was there for Nathaniel's birthday and Davis' meet too.

Chris discovered that our local spudnut shop makes giant doughnuts.

We made a trip to Utah for Christmas as planned even though I was not feelling well.  I still thought it was the flu and that I'd be getting over it in a few days.  I spent the whole time laying around or sleeping except for a few family gatherings: dinners at Chris' mom's and my parents with all the local family before Christmas, and a trip to temple square with my parents to see the lights after Christmas.  I didn't get any pictures from my parents house because I was feeling pretty bad that night.  But here are some of the others.

Nathaniel and I in the tabernacle.

Angels and shepherds re-enacting the Christmas story.

Angels

Wisemen with gifts.

Angel

Baby cousins sitting on Uncle Jeff's lap.

 Mark and Annie introduced a game where a couple has to stand on a stack of phone books and one of them need to pick up a coin placed on the floor.  I think Chris was disappointed that he didn't get to play because I didn't have the strength to stand very long on my own - let alone balance on phone books.  Every couple had their own strategy; Matt and Karen used the belt loop method.  I think they got up to 12 phone books.

Nathaniel spent most of Christmas eve night throwing up and most of Christmas day sleeping with fevered hallucinations. 

After recovering from the family dinners and Christmas we decided to try a low key trip to see the lights at temple square.

Nathaniel and the life sized nutcracker.

Davis and Nathaniel with Grandma and Grandpa Johansen on Temple Square.

We had dinner in the Joseph Smith Memorial building.  This was the first food Nathaniel had had since his the flu that wasn't plain rice or saltines.  I think he was intimidated by the height of his dinner.

 Well, after this evening Davis came down with the fevered-flu and I was in wiped out for about three days.

We cut our trip short and drove home before New Year's Eve.  So, you wondered why you didn't get a Christmas card this year, its because I had planned to send them right after I was done with finals.  Oh well...

Cross Country Pics

I can't make it to Davis' weekday meets this fall because my teaching schedule makes it impossible to get home before 5:30pm.  So, I was really glad one of Davis' teammates took a lot of pictures and tagged him on facebook.  Then I can just download the ones with Davis.  Here's a bunch of them from the meet this last Wednesday.  Davis won the frosh/soph race - his first win!  I would have loved to have seen it.

I wonder what he's looking at?

See Chris on the right with his arms folded?  The race was close enough that he came out for Davis' race and then went back to work.

This must have been coming onto the straight away before the finish line.

I took this picture Saturday at a bigger meet.  Davis improved his time by about half a minute and placed in the top 20.  He thinks he was 2nd or 3rd sophomore in the race.

Davis has gotten much bigger and stronger (and as a result, faster) since last year when he first started running.  Now he is starting to learn how to race.  It's fun to watch.

5K and a Pancake Breaky in the Car Park



Running his first 5K

 A few weeks ago Davis convinced Nathaniel to start jogging so he could be ready to run the community 5K on July 4th.  Davis took him out on his first jog, then after that Nathaniel and I would jog a little bit on the trails after we dropped Davis off for xcountry workout.  We would jog a little while, then stop to examine something (lizards, quail, rabbits, snakes, elderberries, bees nests...)  The week before the 5K, Davis decided he'd rather cook sausage with the scouts at the pancake breakfast.  Fine.  But, the night before, Nathaniel told me he was still doing the race.  So, we got up at 6:30am so Chris could drop us off early for registration.  Then he drove Davis to the church and came back to watch the race.
Nathaniel did great.  The first half of the race was all uphill.  I couldn't keep up with him.  He picked some guy ahead of him and said he used him as a "pacemaker" all the way up the hill.  I caught up to him at the water station at the top.  It was fun and Nathaniel was very proud of himself that he had said he would do it, so he did it.

After the finish line.

 Davis, on the otherhand, did enjoy cooking all the sausages for three wards.  But, as you can see, he does not enjoy having his picture taken.

Mmmm.  Raw sausage.

15 Years Old

Davis turned 15 this month.  Soon driving, dating, what else?

 The favored gift had to be the 5-finger running shoes.

They are even good for napping in.

No photos of the cake (don't know why?) but it was fun to go to the beach with friends the day after and sword fight with bamboo for a couple hours.  I guess that's what 15 year olds do.

Long Beach with Babies

Mark, Nathaniel, and Chris

Mark and Annie came through LA on a cruise trip so we drove down to Long Beach to see them before they flew home.  We brought a picnic lunch and went down to the beach.

The seagulls would follow the boys up and down the beach because they fed them some of their sandwiches.

It was a mostly sunny day, but windy and a little chilly.

The sandwiches were on very chewy bread.

Mark watches as Ayla tries to step over the bits of bamboo in the surfline on the sand.

The babies weren't quite convinced that a cold windy beach was fun for them.

Jane plays with a placecard while Davis stacks and restacks pillows on her back.

It was fun to see them for a little while.  Jane has changed since we saw them at Christmas.  She is almost crawling so Davis helped her work on her skills by providing "resistance training", using pillows that Jane had to try to crawl out from under.  Jane thought it was fun and Mark and Annie didn't object, so I guess it wasn't baby abuse.

Snow fun

Chris wanted to take the boys up to his old swooshing-grounds while we were in Utah for Christmas.  We went up to Powder Mountain (past Huntsville where my dad grew up) for a day of skiing.

 Everyone but Chris took some lessons.  I've been skiing since I was about 5 but never advanced much past a modified snow plow (did you know they don't call it snow plow anymore?).  I need to improve to be able to ski with the boys as they get older.  At least I can ski the runs while they weave in and out of the trees or go learn how to do moguls.

Davis is totally ready to start shredding the hills.  He loves to head off on trails through the pines.  Too bad we don't live closer to the snow. Nathaniel is doing great turns and chooses his own path down the slopes.  He enjoyed showing me the different runs he went on with his ski instructor.

 We love our friends and family for lending us nice warm snow gear. No one cries on our ski trips over frozen toes or fingers. I thought that was part of skiing when I was a kid. (Can you say "night-skiing at Brighton"?)  Maybe someone will have some hand-me downs for me sometime.  My snow clothes are older than my kids.  (I'm not in the pic but just imagine some purple and royal blue early 90s gear  - really.  It was nice at the time...)



So pretty.  I'm glad we can take our kids to see places like this.