I beat my update goal!!

I made a goal to update before an entire year went by and well, here it is! (For you Crystal and Britt, my 2 readers)

We moved last month, YAY! We totally are in love with everything about our new area. Our home, our community, our proximity to the beach. We love San Clemente. We invested in some super cool beach cruisers and we ride everywhere. We rode out to dinner for date night. I rode solo to the post office. We go on family rides on the best beach trail ever. We can go right and go to Trestles beach, or go left and ride to the pier. We can go right from our house too, no need to load up in the car. It is just so much fun! I love my bike. I even have tassels on my handlebars. And yes, that is a bell on there as well. The kids get a little embarrassed when Lee and I ring the bells, but you have to let people know to move out of the way.

Other things worth mentioning....Lee and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary Sept. 4th. We took a 8 day vacation to Playa Del Carmen. It was too rough to do any scuba diving this year due to hurricane Gustav, but we managed to still have fun. We went on a cool ATV tour through the jungle. Our hotel had free ice cream cones available all day! I'll have to add photos later as they are all on the laptop and Lee has that in Hawaii right now. (He assures me he is not having any fun without me and is only working.)

Brodie turned 13 in August. It really is bittersweet. It's so fun to watch them grow up, but they only grow one way and it goes so fast. He's about 1/2 inch shorter than me. Bronwen will be 12 in 2 months. It's weird to move into a new neighborhood and everyone comments that we have "older kids". Yeah, I guess we do. 5 years till Brod's an adult and 6 for Bronwen. That really is not very long. Sad huh? OK, well I'm gonna go cry now, and hopefully update before 6 months goes by.

So, I don't post a lot....

Christmas eve, with new headlamps from Tama

This is me Christmas Eve, after all the stockings were hung and presents wrapped
Brodie was our only brave one, it was too cold for me! Bronwen did one run too, but we didn't get pic's.

Lol, Crystal, how did you find me? I didn't realize I had an audience now.

We were busy over the holidays. We spent Thanksgiving in Glamis. Not too sure we'll repeat that again next year, or any year over Thabksgiving. We heard it was crowded, but we didn't quite get what crowded meant. I had never seen people use so much caution tape to section off a personal camping spot before. It was insanely crowded. Now Glamis itself is a great place to ride when it's not so crowded. We got there a few days early and had a great time until the masses arrived. Our kids had made a mini track in the sand a ways off from our camp site. A few days later some people came and tried to tape it off so only their kids could use it! We actually had to argue with the mother of that group. She was telling us that we should have taped it off if we wanted to use it. Hello?! We thought it would be nice to SHARE with other kids so we didn't "claim" it with gobs of cones and yellow tape. Of course our kids want to use it, that's why they made it! If you want a track all your own, go and make one.

Christmas was spent waking up here at home, and then we drove to my parents house for the rest of the day. I had the assignment of any potato dish for dinner. I love potatoes, so that was easy. It was a fun and relaxing Christmas day.

We left to go to Park City the next day and spend a few days at Lee's parents cabin. There was plenty of snow! The kids had fun making racetracks on the hill with their cousins. Fortunatly the house is huge with plenty of room for everyone to sread out. The kids spent most of the time outside sledding or inside playing the Wii downstairs. We adults spent most of the time upstairs away from the noise of all the kids downstairs.

Has it been a month already?

I can't believe I let an entire month go by without working on my blog thing. We went camping this past weekend (Sat-Sun) in Ocotillo Wells with the kids and some friends/neighbors. It was really fun for everyone. The weather was perfect, kids well behaved, nothing got broken, what more can you ask for? Well, water would have been nice. We have a new travel trailer, a small one, and the water just wouldn't work. We will be taking it in this week so it can be fixed. Thank goodness for warranties. We were able to open a drain and let clean water pour into cups for drinking, but no showering. It was only an overnighter, so I was able to rough it for a day without a shower. Our neighbor showed us this cool explosive trick with SOBE bottles in the campfire. Most kids are pretty much fascinated with fire anyway, so this was extra cool for them. The glass does not explode, so it's safe to watch from a distance. (At least that's what all the Dad's claimed.)

My first post, busy but happy

Don't judge too harshly. I'll get a more fun page once I figure this thing out. Anyway, I decided to start a blog in hopes of keeping in touch with my sis and sis in law a bit better, and just cause it's fun to write about my life as though someone else might actually find it interesting. After viewing several other pages I see I need to be a bit more diligent in taking photos. My kids are older now and we just seem to forget about the picture taking. I'm gonna make that a goal. I'm going to take more photos of our events. Lol, like I don't have enough going on right now in my life. Busy is good right? I need to write a 4 page paper for English class today. You may wonder"why start a blog today then?" Well, what would you rather do?

In case anyone other than Britt and Crystal read this. I'll tell ya a little about me and my family.
I'm 34 and married to my husband of 14 years, Lee. We have 2 kids. Brodie is 12 and Bronwen is 10. (I'll add pics once I figure out how) I have recently decided to go for a teaching degree and have begun classes at the local jr. college. I do have 1 year worth of general ed done, so it's not totally starting from scratch. I started back a little too ambitious and signed up for 4 classes. That's not so bad if your 18 and don't have kids and a husband who like food and clean clothes. I'm a bit overwhelmed but slowly getting into the groove. My kids find it fascinating that I'm going to school. They keep asking me if I made any new friends and if I like my teacher, or "how come I don't have to go everyday like they do"? One benefit is that my math course is just a few chapters ahead of Brodie, so I look like a smarty when he needs help. He still hasn't questioned why my algebra in college is the same as his 7th grade class. (He is in honors math, so it's really closer to 9th grade algebra, lol) The kids are currently involved in football and cheerleading. I cannot believe how time consuming these activities are! We had practive for the month of August up until Labor Day 5 nights a week from 6-8. Now we go Tuesday through Thursday from 6-8 and games on Saturday. Of course the coach prefers if the boys get there 30 minutes early and he keeps them late by 15 minutes. I try to comply since all the other boys parents do. I've never seen such politics in a childs sport before. We've been involved in several sports, basketball, hockey, dance, motocross, softball, but nothing compares to the politics and competition of youth football. You'd think college recruiters were coming to Jr. Pee Wee practices. The game is like a 4 hour event if it's local. We have to ge there an hour early and it usually starts a little late and lasts almost 2 hours. Then there is all the after game coach speeches. If it's an away game just add another 1-1 1/2 hours to the day. This is the first year for both kids in football and cheer. Lake Elsinore doesn't have a hockey team of any sort, so I've decided to get Brodie involved in the more mainstream sports now, so in high school he can be pretty decent and decide which sports he'd like to play. Bronwen has found her meaning in life through cheerleading. She liked softball and dance well enough, but she loves cheer. She is really good at it too. The coaches just love her. They cheered at this past Saturday's game (the first game) and they did their dance cheer thing that they will use for competition. Super cute and they were way better than the other team. I have to bring 150 rolls for the cheer fundraiser dinner next Thursday. Then I get to buy them back in order to eat the fundraiser dinner. I really hate fundraisers. I would much rather they just ask me to pay or donate 10 or 15 dollars, and forget the whole selling stuff to people. The good news is I don't have to serve the dinner.
That's my current life, being a wife, a mother, and a student, then a housekeeper. Yeah, that last one is not getting the attention it deserves.