An ode to my 20s

Since tomorrow is the beginning of a new decade for me I thought it would be fun to look back at a my twenties. Wow, its really a time to be busy, so many milestones. I am looking forward to my thirties where I can sit back and enjoy all my hard work to get to this point so far in my life. I think the best way to sit back and relax is to start with two, 2 year olds. Umm, maybe the hard work is not over yet. :) Here are few milestones of my twenties:

20 - Spent a spring term in England doing a Theater study abroad. Amazing!

21 - Graduated after four years with my bachelors degrees from Brigham Young University

22- Graduated from cosmetology school and started my career as a hair stylist

23- Met the love of my life

24- Married and made him mine for Eternity

27 - Became a mother, learning that joy can be beyond limits

29 - Ran my first race, a 5k, hope to do many more in the future

These are some of the great accomplishments so far in my life. I can't wait for more. Happy Birthday to me. :)

Peek-a-boo. Where are you?

Sometimes at night Ethan is a very busy boy. Sometimes he will find random things on the floor and pile them into his bed with him. Lately he has figure out how to flip his mattress, and sometimes its completely out of the crib in the morning. The other day we had a new one though. I come into their room on the morning and find this:

Um, what? Where is he. Sometime he get out so I looked around the room and he is no where to be found. Then, I found him:

Peek-a-boo:

Sleeping soundly, underneath the mattress. So clever :)

My first 5k

A few weeks ago I completed my first 5k! a few months ago when the kids started preschool, I decided that I wanted to go to the gym for my free time. In order to get motivated not to miss a day, I downloaded a couch to 5k training program on my Ipod. It was designed for non runners to be able to complete a 5k. Since it seemed prefect for me, I took the challenge to try it. 8 weeks later, I finished the Santa Clarita 5k. I was not prepared for how fun it would be. There were so many people and the energy was amazing. I ran most of the time and had a personal best time. When I came to the finish line, I had a great cheering crowd waiting for me. I can't wait to do the next one. That's weird for me to say that, but its true!

Halloween 2009

This year we had a fun and busy Halloween. We attended my local twins club Halloween party, my parents wards Trunk-or-Treat and our own wards party. This gave Bridget and Ethan many chanced to dress up and wear their costumes. Ethan was a fireman and Bridget was a lady bug. I was really surprised how much they loved dressing up and wearing their costumes. Bridget even wore her lady bug hat the whole time! They also really got a hang of trick or treating really fast. It was so exciting to see them walk up to a house, knock and hold out their bags with such excitement. I already can't wait for next year.

Its Pumpkin Time!

Its Pumpkin time!!! At the pumpkin patch we picked up a great pumpkin. The nest thing to do was to carve it. Ethan and Bridget jumped at the chance to play in a pile of slim and goo. They got their spoon and were excited to clean out the pumpkin. This was our first time and it was really a lot of fun. After getting all the seeds out, daddy carved a cool spider on our pumpkin. Unfortunately it didn't last too long, but looked great in the house for a few days.

Lombardi Ranch 2009

I love Halloween time! Its so much fun. We were able to start of the Halloween season with a fun trip to Lombardi Ranch. It is amazing to see how much the kids have grown and changed since last year. We had a great time, ridding the train, dancing to the music, eating corn and running around. We got a big pumpkin and the kids got to pick out there own little tiny pumpkin. It was such a wonderful day.

Happy 2nd Birthday!

On Sept 26th Ethan and Bridget turned two!!!!! Crazy! What a ride it has been. The weekend of their birthday we decided to go camping up at Carpenteria(our favorite place) so we held their birthday party the Sunday before. It was a lot of fun. They were so excited about the cars and faeries decorations and cake. They were very excited about the cupcakes!! And the presents were to die for. Our friends Tommy and Cole sent us present all the way from Boston. They got tons of toys. It was all topped off by two new bikes, from Grandma and Grandpa. Ethan was so excited we was shaking. Bridget loved that she had a place for her new baby. It was a fun birthday and I can not believe I was two, two year olds.

Two years ago

Two years ago at 29 1/2 weeks pregnant, Bridget and Ethan were born. It was a scary and happy day all in the same. It had been a very hard journey. I was ready for it to come to an end but very nervous about the journey that was about to begin. Bridget and Ethan just turned two and I started to look at the first pictures of them and took a trip down memory lane. I was surprised at what I saw. When we printed out pictures, we tried to find the ones that didn't make then look so small or scary so those are all the ones i have. I rarely shared the ones that made them look, well, they way they looked. It had been a while since I had seen the ones of the day they were born. I am so emotional thinking of how tiny and how fragile they were. And I am so blessed when I see them now and how much they have overcome. Just recently people have stopped asking me if they were preemies,and I take that as a sign that they have truly overcome that part in there life. The blessing in my life are great. Look at these tiny babies and remember that miracles do exist and two of them live at my house.

Alaska

Everyone that knows me has had to listen to me talk about the cruise we were going on to Alaska for over a year. I have been so excited to go on the vacation, and it did not disappoint. The first of August we set off for a fun filled week aboard the Golden Princess to Alaska. Practically everyone I know went with us. It was a little overwhelming at first, with the kids. After getting through my first night of nightmares, picturing Ethan, jumping out of his crib, on locking the sliding glass door, going out the the balcony, climbing the table and jumping out over the balcony into the ocean, I was OK.
We left from Seattle and I was able to take this amazing picture, from our balcony! How cool is that!

JUNO : Our first port was Juno, Alaska. This was a very interesting port for us. We had a few bumps along the way but had a pretty good attitude the whole time. We first had some trouble getting off the ship, once that was done we were ready for an adventure. the rest of my family went kayaking, but since we had the kids we were on our own for the day. We started out riding a supper high gondola up into the forest. It was really cool to see thing from that high. This is where our first slip up began. Looking over one of the look outs, Ethan managed to loose a shoe over the side of the mountain. Hmm. What now, that was his only pair of shoes we brought. So we went down into the town in search of shoes. Juno is the capital, but well there is not much there. We were pointed in the direction of the new Walmart 15 miles away. sigh. Since we did not bring car seats we could not take a cab and had to take the city bus to Walmart. It took forever! We did however get to see all of Juno that none of the tourists get to see, and visit with some of the locals. We got some new shoes and were ready to go. We decide to continue on the bus and head out to the Mendenhal Glacier further away. We were told we could take the bus mostly there but had to walk maybe a mile or so to get there. Well a mile or so turned into about two and a half. We were very happy to arrive at there finally, but were supper tired. We walk around for a bit and caught a tourist bus directly back to port. We dis get a few pics at the glacier after all our travels:

This picture can only be had by those who walk the path so I am sure we are one of the few: :)

SKAGWAY: The next stop on our trip was Skagway. I new this would be a better day since we had it planned before hand. A big group of us rented a van tor and headed out to the white pass/Yukon area, and into Canada. It was wonderful to see all the beautiful scenery. It was so green lush. We made several stops and saw the sights. We even got to see some mountain goats! After the tour we went into the town and walked around. It had a very old west feel to it. Such a cute place. In the streams the Salmon were everywhere swimming upstream.

Tracy Arm Fjord: the next destination was not a port, it was a day on the ship. Early in the morning we sailed into Tracy Arm Fjord and tried to get as close as we could to the glacier. It was so beautiful. It was great to be able to get up and go right out onto the balcony, eat breakfast and see everything.

Ketchikan: Ketchican was a fun, short day. We were only in port until noon, so by the time we got out we had a few hours to roam around and see the sites. We went to creek street, that was I think my favorite part. It was a old part of town built on stilts on the creek. Ketchkan to me looked just like I pictured an Alaska town being. We even saw a bald eagle get a fish right out of the creek and fly away with it. Amazing! Joseph had a different day, he got up early and went fishing with a few other guys from our group. They caught tons of Salmon. We got some shipped back to parents house and have been eating it right up, so good.

Victoria, Canada: Victoria was our last day. We were sad to see it coming to an end. Most of the day was spent on the ship hanging out. We didn't get into port till after dinner at 7pm. While getting off the ship I was watching Ethan who was a being held by my dad, he was being so cute and waving to me. I got excited and waved back and must have lost my balance because I came a tumbling down and twisted my ankle really bad. I thought it would be OK, so I continued on. We decided to go see the Butchart Gardens. While we were on our way there my ankle swelled up pretty big. When we got there I could barely walk. So we rented a wheelchair. By that time we only had about a hour to see everything, so we all ran (well I rolled) around as fast as we could to see as much as we could. Kimi and Wes, took Bridget, my mom took Ethan and Joseph pushed me. the garden were beautiful and I was so happy I was able to see them. They are defiantly somewhere I would like to go back to.

It was a really fun trip and we were sad to go.