the kid has lots of potential!

Football evaluations are going on right now to see what team Brenden will be drafted to. He had one team ask him yesterday if he'd mind playing quarterback for them and another team ask him how he felt about playing wide receiver for them. So that's awesome! He perfers wide receiver because he played that position before and there is a lot of pressure on quarterbacks and they have to remember all plays, who they are to throw to with what play and he'd rather do wide receiver. I'm just excited for him because those are two great positions. The draft is on Thursday so I'll update then and let you know what position and team he got. Next week starts practices Monday through Thursday for 2 hours a night for Brenden and Spencer will practice 1 hour on 1 night a week (he's playing flag football) and Cassidy is wanting to do gymnastics so I have to wait and see what night Spencer practices and see if it can work out during football season for her to get to do anything at all.

enjoying country life for a day

Yesterday we went to Josh and Jenny's for the day to celebrate Pam's birthday. We took our bonsai falls (blow up water slide), they jumped on the trampoline and played in the basement where they've put the video games, TV and loads and loads of toys. Cassidy loved the basement. Always does. I got to play with Viola who is 8 months old and crawling and is just so beautiful with her blonde hair and big blue eyes. And the best part was the evening when the sun finally gave in a little, a breeze came along and the grown ups could actually stand being outside again. Then Josh showed my kids what they've been missing. He brought out the 4 wheelers. He has a big one and a small one for the kids. So the boys were able to ride around for a couple of hours and Josh took them all around on the back of the big 4 wheeler on a wagon ride. The kids had so much fun. Richard was in heaven just sitting there enjoying the scenery of, well corn fields and woods. He wants to be in the country the next time we move, me....well, I'll put it this way, I get the pick of the house and he picks the land. I've never lived in the country in my entire life so I'm a bit on the iffy side. I don't like the complete darkness at night and I'm so used to the kids being able to just go around the corner to get to one of several friends houses and they always have someone to play with here in town. But I'm sure they'll be able to entertain themselves in the country somehow when the time comes.

Running with Brenden

Brenden went running with me last night for a 3 miler. When we started out he was trying to figure it out was playing around more than anything. I was telling him how to find his pace and be able to breathe and run at the same time and also working on his form because he was more stompy running than rolling off his foot. So when we were about 1/2 mile into the run, he'd been walking then running to catch up to me at this point, I told him to try to run to the stop sign at the end of the street. Now this is a long block which is a little less than 1/4 mile long. I saw him lifting his head up to the sky at one point like he was getting tired and I told him he could walk again if he needed to but he didn't. He made it to the end and from then on it was like it all made sense. No more stompy running and no more walking either. As a matter of fact, I walked some last night (supper was still just a sittin in my stomach making my stomach upset a little) and he kept running. He actually beat me home by 2-3 minutes. He has a longer stride than me too. And he never had a problem with his asthma last night either. He ran with his inhaler in his pocket. There are several small hills in our development and one monster one. Now I can run the small ones but I haven't even attempted the monster one, I still walk it. Not Brenden. He ran that big hill with ease. He was waiting on the other side for me just sitting on the curb. Last year when he ran with me when I first started out he thought running meant always sprinting and he couldn't run for long because he'd tire out. Now he's got it. It just clicked and I'm very proud of him. He'll probably do a race with me next year. Tonight I'll do just one mile and I told Cassidy and Spencer they can go with me for that one. Cassidy has been wanting to run with me so bad and Spencer just can't keep up on the 3 miler. Oh and Brenden was so sweet, I told him good job after I got home and he said hey good job to you too with a sincere look on his face like he was proud of his mom.

Picture Day again

Had a belated Easter and Mother's Day photo shoot this morning since I couldn't get them done earlier in April or May. And here they are.

This last photo was the last one she did and the kids loved piling on mommy. It was so fun!

and here it is

Here's my Trailblazer. I took delivery of it yesterday and turned in my leased minivan. Wow, it's hard to believe that it has been 4 years since I got the minivan. I got it one month after Cassidy was born and thinking of the fact then that I'd have it for 4 years seemed like a long time. Time sure does fly. Anyway, I really love the Trailblazer and the kids do too. They like climbing to the 3rd row seat. Not much different from the van since it has 3 rows of seats too but it's just the difference in how you get there that the kids are intrigued by I guess. I had to wait so long to get it (9 days, but that includes the holiday weekend and last weekend and I did buy on a Friday) because the guy who fixes the dents in their vehicles was out and came back on Monday so he did it then.

So after I purchased this, Richard traded in the camaro the very next week for a 2007 Nissan Titan (it's a truck for us girls who wouldn't know that). It also has a back seat for the kids and they love it. We all couldn't fit in the camaro because it had bucket seats in the back and doesn't seat 5. He's been wanting to trade in the camaro for a bit now but of course with the job loss we had to wait. It was all so smooth and we weren't sure what to expect since the unemployment crisis that was June 2009-May 2010. Just goes to show the power of keeping your credit good. And a shout out to my dad for whom the good credit score wouldn't have been possible without his help :)

making the feet hit the pavement

I took last week off from running because it was just too hot still in the evening to run. Tonight I resume running and I'm taking Brenden with me. He starts football practice on Aug 2 so he's going to run with me to get ready for that again. Spencer starts flag football practice soon too but we don't know when that is it. He has tried to run with me a few times and can't keep up and I don't like to walk when I don't need to so now when he goes he takes his bike. Hopefully Brenden can keep up. I may have to slow down a bit (is that even possible? I run at a turtle's pace already:) just until he can keep up or at least be right behind me. With Spencer I'd still run when he was walking but when I'd get to about 3 houses ahead I could tell he was a bit scared with me being ahead of him (I always turned around and made sure I could see him) and he'd run to me even if he was worn out so I'd stop running and walk with him til he could run a little bit again. He's so great wanting to run with me. Cassidy wants to run with me so badly so I'm going to take her with me for 1 mile run one time just to have fun with her. She just scares me because she wants to go so fast and I'm afraid she's going to wipe out on the sidewalk and get hurt. Brenden hasn't run with me in a while so we'll see how that goes tonight. I imagine it going something like this "Brenden, put your phone away and run. you can talk to your friends later". Seriously though it will be fine as long as he paces himself. He tends to run too fast in the beginning and then can't breathe and run so he has to stop for a few and then start again. I have to teach him to breathe properly and pace himself and he'll do great. So as long as this rain stops, I'll be able to run. Of course I have run in the rain before when I was training for my races. I put on a poncho and out in it I went. It was cold, my pants got waterlogged and heavy but I did it and it made me feel like a hard core runner.

It's Hot, Hot, Hot!

My goodness it's hot outside! We set up bonsai falls (water slide with pool at bottom) on Monday and again today. Brenden had a friend over Monday and today we invited Spencer's best friend Zac and his sisters over. They moved 30 minutes away in May. Zac's mom Megan is who I ran the 5k with in May. We used to run around our neighborhood together before they moved. It was nice to sit and catch up with her for a few hours and for the kids to play. I got in the pool with the kids on Monday but not today. Our dog Dakoda spent way too much time outside with us on Monday and was very sick that night. I'm not sure if she got stung by a bee or if it was heat exhaustion but we had to give her a benadryl and it calmed her after about an hour of throwing up and not breathing properly. I kept her in today while we were outside. I haven't run this week because it's just been way too hot. That's ok though, I can take a little break from running for a week because I busted my butt running in the last 3 weeks. It's so hard to run in the high heat and humidity. Well, that's it for now. Hope everyone is staying cool.

July 4, 2010 Grooms family reunion

This is Daisy's tattoo which I thought I'd share because it's awesome!
The top picture is of course all the families and the bottom is my dad, Julie and us.

We had a great day yesterday at our family reunion. This is my dad's side of the family. All the brothers and sisters were there and all their kids. There were some grandkids missing, Jeff's kids, Susie's son and Kenny's kids. Jay's kids were there whom I hadn't seen in 9 years. Daisy is all grown up and beautiful! She's also married and expecting a baby and Curtis is 18 and just got married as well. Their dad would be so proud of them. We've got 4 expecting babies all within a couple of months of each other and they are Daisy, Becky, Angela and Hollie. Cassidy and Olivia played so well together and it was so cute. Really all the kids got along so well. Brenden ate and ate and ate some more. I don't know where it all goes, look how skinny he is. The boys went to a friends house last night to swim some more and do some fireworks there and when I picked them up at 11 he was eating a bratwurst! I wish I had his metabolism! Spencer loved going down the water slide all day and he went off the diving board a few times too. It was so great having the whole family together just like when I was a kid and everyone would come to my grandparents house for Thanksgiving.

I got it!

Yesterday I got a white 2006 Chevrolet Trailblazer LS EXT. It only has 61,812 miles on it. (Of course my minivan is also a 2006 and I've only put 30,414 on mine, but not everyone can be as awesome on mileage as me..ha ha!) The kids liked the third row seat and it seemed like it was easy enough for them to get in and out of. There was enough leg room in the back row and for growing kids that's good since Brenden will be a tall teen soon. Looked like a little more leg room than in the minivan actually. It's also wider than the minivan is. It's still at the dealership since they had just got it in and hadn't had time to clean it up or anything. I called them the day after they got it in and had them bring it up from the Athens dealership and it still even had personal effects on the inside that the owners forgot. So I should have it here in the next few days. We signed all the paperwork yesterday and they will be shampooing the carpets, detailing the inside, washing and waxing the outside and taking care of 2 problems on the outside. There is a little ding on the driver door and some scratches on the bumper so they are taking care of that before I take it. When I get it I'll post some pictures.

searching for a new vehicle

Our lease is up on my minivan in mid July so we've been looking for an Chevrolet Trailblazer EXT. We're going to go look at a few tomorrow and see if it will work out with the kids before making a final decision on this truck. I'm not opposed to getting another minivan. This trailblazer model has a third row seat so I want to see how accesible it really is to get to and how the kids will actually go about getting to it. I'm not one to have them climbing over seats with dirty shoes. The dealership right in front of us is where we got our Uplander and they have a white one and a charcoal one that we'll be looking at tomorrow. There's a silver one down the road too that I really like but the mileage is a bit high, it's already at 91k miles. But the good thing is that I have had my minivan for 4 years and have only just 1 month ago got to 30k miles on it so if we go for a higher mileage one (because it's cheaper too) it won't be too bad for me since I clearly don't put a lot of miles on it. So if I get it, I'll put some pictures on here. The only reason we don't want to go ahead and keep the Uplander is because it has had some issues. Thank God for its warranty because it was in the shop 7 times! So we aren't interested in keeping something that has manufacturing issues.