Vaklentine's Visit from G & G Gurr

 It was great to have grandma and grandpa Gurr here to celebrate Valentine's Day weekend.  I found these awesome, super cheap, giant cards at walmart and the boys loved them.  The my cute, "such a dentist" hubby gave me sour patch kids along with some floss :)  He cracks me up.

 We got soem good projects done.  Grandma made Kimball some awesome blue playdough and Grandpa helped Dad and Joey put in a new ceiling fan.  It's so fun to see 3 generations working together.

 After the projects, we hiked around Saguaro National Forest.  It is such an amazingly beautiful place.  It's so fun to discover the beauty of the desert and see those beautiful, old giants. Saguaro facts:

Life Span

With the right growing conditions, it is estimated that saguaros can live to be as much as 150-200 years old.

Size

Saguaro are very slow growing cactus. A 10 year old plant might only be 1.5 inches tall. Saguaro can grow to be between 40-60 feet tall (12-18m). When rain is plentiful and the saguaro is fully hydrated it can weigh between 3200-4800 pounds.

Extra Fun-facts

• The saguaro is the largest cactus in the United States.
  
• Most of the saguaros roots are only 4-6 inches deep and radiate out as far from the plant as it is tall. There is one deep root, or tap root that extends down into the ground more than 2 feet.
  
• After the saguaro dies its woody ribs can be used to build roofs, fences, and parts of furniture. The holes that birds nested in or "saguaro boots" can be found among the dead saguaros. Native Americans used these as water containers long before the canteen was available.
  
  A saguaro must mature to 70 years old before it will grow an arm.
  

 It was such a beautiful day--in the low 70's.  SO much nicer than when we came right after we moved here and hiked with temps over 100.

 Joey and dad got some cactus fruit off the barrel cactus

 Joey was getting shown some cool saguaro shapes while Kimball loved picking up and slamming down rocks.

 We all pretended we were cacti :)

 Kimball needed a little help up

 Here is a saguaro skeleton

 A nice man told us that after the "dam" there were some great, ancient petroglyphs. It was so cool to be right there, climbing all over these ancient carvings and thinking about the people that once lived here.

 I wish I knew what all those symbols meant!

 Above is a tiny cactus growing straight out the side of the rock--this itty, bitty might already be 15 years old.

Below in the middle is a cool cactus that looked like a mouse with a long nose.

 Kimball tried to make him own petrogylphs

 We found an old dead saguaro and got to see better what it really looks like inside and underneath

 Kimballs pic of grandpa.  We love having grandmas and grandpas visit!

Suspension

So, you'd have no idea from looking at this sweet little face, that this boy was suspended from kindergarten for mild aggressive behavior. Oh my goodness...Talk about a mothering moment when you have absolutely NO idea what to do.  Kimball's class was having a rough time.  There were a few boys who got consistently out of control, and Kimball had been coming home every day talking about being hit or kids saying mean things. I spent a lot of time talking with the teacher and the principle about this, but the changes were slow in coming.  I guess Kimball had finally had enough and he went on a rampage for a week. Every day my stomach would drop when I got a phone call from the principle.  The last one saying to come pick him up from school. Oh geez!!

I decided to just keep him home for a few days and reset.  We had been talking day and night with him about controlling his behavior when he felt upset, and we just needed to take a break from the situation.

That Sunday I found this quote from C.S. Lewis

“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.” 

 So I thought we needed to help Kimball love the kids in his class. So that was the start of our weekly tradition. Each Sunday we make a huge batch of cookies so on Monday at snack, Kimball (and now Joey too) can hand out cookies to each of the kids.  It was so cute the first week to see Kimball so happy passing out the cookies and see some of the other kids come up and give him a hug and say thank you.  I also spent the next 2 weeks joining Kimball in kindergaten.  I became his unofficial behavior management coach.  I sat with him and helped him work though the difficult moments and manage his feeling with out exploding.  So, I'm very happy to announce that after MANY prayers, many hours spent day after day in class, that Kimball is doing very well. There are still many tough times, but he is doing a great job of handling him emotions!

Snow in Arizona

 Peter and I's "photo shoot" at our wards Valentines Dance.  We were is Paris :)

 One of my next goals for 2013 was to actually start personal training. I had been certified since march of 2012, but felt too intimidated to start. But since heavenly Father does a great job of throwing people together...He sent me to visit teach a girl who had already lost 100 lbs on her own and wanted to lose another 60-80. She had been wanting a trainer, but didn't know where to go, so we started at the end of January.  She, Michele is awesome!  She is so motivated and will do whatever I tell her :)

 Then, in February, we got some good snow.  We had flurries for a while here int he Valley, btu lots of smow int he mountains.  We took the boys 1/2 hour away up Madera Canyon to play in the snow.  This is exactly how I like it!! Close enough to GO play in the snow, but it doesn't come to bury my house :)

A snowball fight broke out immediatly upon exiting the car

 One of multiple snowmen.  With Kimballs plumber rolling :) below

 The boys had fun following the stream from all the me;ting snow

 The boys were so excited to have snow in our own backyard.

 The boys had fun playing with Katie from next door until Kimball got too cold and I made Joey come in to eat.

 We had a fun dinner by candle light so we could watch the flakes falling outside.

100 Days of school and 1/2 marathon

 For the 100 days of school celebration, Kimball's class had the assignment of making a poster using 100 things.  So with 50 leave, 29 black lentils, 20 pink lentils, and 1 stick--we got a really cool piece if art.

  

On February 2nd, I completed a really big goal of mine by running a 1/2 marathon.  It was so hard to build up my milage because running is something I NEVER enjoyed, and it almost does my knees under. But through lots of hard work (most of it mental--to push myself to do something I don't completely care for), and lots of foam rolling, I was able to do it!

The boys thought it was great to go to Phoenix for the night. They loved staying in the hotel, eating at Olive Garden the nigth before the race, and getting to watch lots of tv :)

Peter was an awesome support to me. Helping me wake up the boys at 5:55 in the morning to trek out to the freezing cold packet pick up and start of the race.

             Freezing boys wishing mom good luck.  

Cute boys waiting for her to finish :)

 Kimball waiting to give me a high five and run with me for a few yards.

Joey wasn't quite as interested in that :)

 I did it!  I couldn't believe I did that!!! I am NOT a runner--it is like torture to me. But there is something so exhilirating and powerful about pushing beyond your limits.  It always reminds me that I am a child of God.  Because I have His divinity in me, I can do amazing things!  

And the best part--I ran the Whole thing!  I usually can't make it more than a mile or two without stopping to walk for a bit and then keep running.  But not this time.  The course was along a beautiful desert road so I could just get in my groove without distractions. It was so beautiful seeing the sun come up over the mountains.  It is a long, steady climb the whole first half--not a steep hill, bit enough to keep me saying, "curse you darn hill" throughout the whole 6++ miles.  I kept telling myself, "just make it up, and then at the turn around you can stop and walk."  But as soon as I hit that turn around, I saw how much I had climbed--the view was amazing. And I thought, "if I can run up that with out stopping, surely I can run down that without stopping." And I did. Despite fatigue and bad stomach cramping at mile 10 and really yucky bowel problems at

 miles 11-13 (not pleasant). But I did it!

It was so wonderful to have my sweet family waiting for me at the finish line!  I love them!  It definietly motivated me to keep moving knowing they were there waiting.  I finished in a time of 2:08--pretty good for a girl who doesn't run.  I was just so proud of myself for pushing through and finishing something very hard for me.  It feels great!

 Playing back at the hotel

It was so sad. My bowels were so hurting after the race that the only thing I could do was drink Sprite.  I was so excited to finish and eat a hug burger or steak or something, but after running to the bathroom every 15 minutes, I decided it was better to just go easy.  We have over a 2 hour drive home and the desert offers no privacy if you have to pull over on the side of the road.