Mom's Surprise Tea Party...

My wonderful mother has never (in my lifetime) had a birthday party so I decided that for her 60th Birthday, she deserved something BIG! So my siblings and I got together and pitched in to throw the most awesome birthday/tea party EVER!

We held it at the Beehive Tea Room in downtown Salt Lake City and were lucky enough to reserve the entire tea room for our party. Mom and my aunts walked in the Race for the Cure that morning (something my mom and I have been doing together since 1998 and she was so disappointed to hear I couldn't join them this year), and they brought her to the tea room for the surprise.
I set up a table with her photo and a photo book I made of her life for people to write personal messages to Mom as they entered. Then each table was set with a photo of Mom and there was a TV set up playing a DVD I put together of her life so far. The place looked great and she was so elated when she arrived and saw that all this was in celebration of her! There was hardly a dry eye in the place!

Family members (Aimee & my niece Emily even flew in from Oklahoma) and friends (some she hadn't seen in 30 years) came to celebrate the inspiring life of my Mom. We ate scones, brownies and fresh strawberries and everyone had tea or Italian sodas. Then Aimee treated us all to a toast to Mom and if folks weren't crying before it, they were definitely crying after! Her toast was amazing and full of thanks to Mom for being such a wonderful mother and friend. It was such a special moment!

Then Melissa brought a beautiful cake and we pretended to have Mom blow out the candles as we all sang "Happy Birthday!" to her. She was so happy and surprised and she told me that she felt like "queen for the day". Which in my mind is truly what she deserves! I am so blessed to have such a wonderful mother.

She has been my rock, my sounding board, my support, my deep-thinking companion for my entire life. There isn't a special moment she hasn't been there for, and for every sad moment, she's been there to dust me off and get me back on my feet again. And as a Grand-Mother, she is continuing her legacy by loving and encouraging and caring for her grand-kids. (My boys go through withdrawls when they don't see her for a week!). I feel like I'm a strong woman and I know it's because of the strong woman who raised me to think, feel and love! I love you Mom! Happy Birthday!

And thank you to everyone who helped me put this together by offering advice, ideas, photos, money or just plain encouragement! It was worth every bit of time and money that we put in to it!

My "I can do it" moment...

Just a quick story about our bike ride on Monday:

Jeff (with Will on back) and I were about 3 miles into what we'd hoped would turn out to be a 30 mile training ride when suddenly his back tire completely blew out! It was scary! The first thing I thought was that Will's foot was hurt or something... Anyway, we had to think quick so I decided to ride my bike back home really quick so I could bring back Jeff's truck and we could decide what to do from there. Well, the quickest way home was up a STEEP hill, but I was determined and I just kept pedaling my way up that dang hill, using the techniques I've been learning in my cycling class. I couldn't believe how quickly I made it to the top of the hill and home to get the bike to rescue my men... As I was riding I had this overwhelming feeling of awesomeness about my abilities as a human being. It was so cool! I just kep thinking "I can totally do this!" and I did! What a great feeling to be healthy and alive and full of brains in my head!

Jeff's Golf Birthday!

Yesterday was Jeff's 36th birthday... I can't believe I'm married to such an old man! What's crazy is I've been planning birthday's for him for 14 years now! Believe it or not, I'm beginning to run out of ideas! But the boys just couldn't fathom not having some sort of themed birthday party for him, so we all decided that a golf birthday would be fun, since daddy loves to golf!

Jeff picked out his own present... a brand new driver (holy smokes those things are pricey!) to replace the one he finagled from his years working at Hidden Valley Golf Course when he was a teenager.

We took the boys to Mulligans to go mini-golfing and thankfully the weather cooperated with us. After golfing, we bought a bucket of balls and went to the driving range so Jeff could try out his new driver. Look at that form! He's so mmm mmm mmm:~)

I should mention that in honor of his golf birthday, we all wore golf-shirts the entire day... (I had to borrow one from Jeff and it was so big on me that I had a complex about it the whole day... I just don't feel comfortable wearing baggy clothes! I work too dang hard to be able to NOT wear them!)

This is such a cute pic of Jeff teaching Will how to hit the ball. The boys both had such a great time and they decided that this bucket of balls thing needs to be our new Sunday activity!

Later that night we had a little BBQ with Rachel & Brian and then had cake and ice cream for dessert. I attempted to make a golf ball cake, but it did not turn out anything like I had planned... I am no Betty Crocker, that's for sure! Anyway, the boys were more excited about the trick candles we loaded on to the cake to worry about how ugly the cake was. They were laughing and cheering and Jeff kept asking "are these things supposed to be sparking?" "Is that what they're supposed to do?" Eventually he got them all blow out and we all enjoyed the ugly cake.

Will is still asking Jeff if he had "the best birthday EVER!" It's very important to him that birthday's be the best and most wonderful day of the year. So Jeff keeps telling him that it was "the best 36th birthday EVER!" and that seems to please Will very much.

I just want to end with a big I LOVE YOU to Jeff and say that I am so blessed that he was born and that he is in my life. I am the luckiest girl in the world to have found my best friend and soul mate and the man I adore and who treats me and our children with such devotion and respect! You're the best Jeffy! Happy Birthday to you!

Celebrating Beltane!

Our latest Goddess celebration was May 1st... Beltane! The day we celebrate all the living world, creation of all kinds, the joy of being alive and having a body and all the wonderful things we can do that we couldn't do before!

We made head wreaths out of flowers and Jeff constructed a Maypole in the backyard for us to dance around. Each of us chose a different colored ribbon and we danced around the pole and sang "We're dancing 'round the Maypole!" (a little jingle that Will made up). It was lots of fun, eventhough it was sprinkling on us the whole time.
Before the dance, the boys gathered all the musical instruments they could find for us to use in our procession. The boys chose flutes, Jeff and I chose maraccas. I couldn't get over how cute everyone looked in their floral headpieces!

After the dance, we went inside for dinner and talked about all the things we love about being a part of this living world. It was cool listening to the things the boys came up with. They were so excited to share all their many talents they have improved over the past year. They were somersaulting, singing, drawing and having a great time.

We had Strawberry Shortcake for dessert and the fairies brought us our very own snowcone making machine! It was great fun!

What Will & Drew have been up to...

This past Thursday, Will and I rode our bike (the one with the attached wheel) up to meet his preschool class at the fire station for a field trip. It was so much fun! The highlight of the tour was getting to spray the fire-hose! He was so excited to do it that he got in line twice. We've toured this fire house 3 times and they never let us spray the hoses before, so it was a really special treat!

Last week, a few days after our long bike ride out to the marina at the Great Salt Lake, Will broke out in this mysterious rash all over his body. It was so strange and no one could figure out what had caused it... all we knew is the itching was driving Will crazy! I took him to the doctor and even he couldn't figure it out. So he prescribed a steroid to help stop the itching and I gave him an oatmeal bath twice a day until finally it went away. Weird! But I'm just happy it's gone! When Will sees the photos he says "that rash made you cry, huh?" Because I (and everyone who saw it) was always asking him if he was okay. And he'd say "yes I'm okay, why does everyone keep asking me if I'm okay?" And I told him it was because the rash made us sad so we were just sure he was miserable. But he reassured me again and again saying "I'm FINE!" He was such a trooper about it!

In Drew's world, it was teacher appreciation week so, being room mom and all, I went in and decorated his teachers door according to the idea that Drew helped me come up with. Of course, it's Star Wars themed... it says "Mrs. Rouse, Thanks for teaching us the power of education! May the force be with you!" and the stars all around have each of the kids' names on them. It was a big hit!

In other news, Drew completed his science fair project and was the only kid in his class to participate. (Evidently it's not required for 2nd grade, and since his class was off-track, they weren't really pushing it. But, being the over achieving mom I am, I decided it was important for him to do it anyway.) He decided to do it on rockets and it turned out really well. I'd say it was 60% Drew/40% Jeff and I encouraging and helping. My goal is for him to get in the habit of looking forward to this every year so that he starts getting excited about it and learns the process of it so that eventually it will be 95% his work, and just a little bit of help from us. We'll see.... At any rate, the project was great, he had a fun time testing the rockets, he got to share his project in front of his class and he did a great job!

It's training time again! MS150, here we come!

Since Will was 4 months old, we have been spending our Springs training for the MS150 bike ride...

2007 - One of our favorite training rides is from Utah Lake to Vivian Park along the Provo Canyon Parkway.

And now, our training season has officially begun again! We took the boys out for a ride on Sunday from the airport to the marina at the Great Salt Lake. It was a perfect day for a ride and a great first ride of the season! Thirty-two miles round-trip through the airport runways (which the boys thought was totally cool because they got to watch planes take off and land as we rode), a golf course and parallel to I-80 on out past Saltaire to the marina. It was awesome!

This will be my 5th year riding and Jeff's 6th year riding in this 150 mile bike tour through the beautiful Cache Valley. In honor of this, I decided to post some pics from rides in the past. As you can see, we've come a long way!

We started with both boys in the trailer (see above)... it sucked for Jeff, but was fine for me:~) Then we moved on to both boys in bike seats hooked to our bikes... I got Will, he was lighter. Then we invested in a trail-o-bike that hooked on to Jeff's bike, while Will was still in a bike seat with me.

Finally, we bought a tandem bike so that Jeff and I could keep each other company on the ride. We share an iPod and stick together as we ride. It took some getting used to on my part because I have to put all control in Jeff's hands (speed, braking, gear changes, etc.) but overall I like it and we get along just great on it!

Last year Jeff manipulated the tandem so that Drew could ride it with him, while Will has graduated to the trail-o-bike hooked to my bike. It makes for quite a wide turn, but it's fun training with them along... then the ride is so much easier without the extra wiggly weight on back!

Our goal for this year is to complete the entire 150 miles... 75 miles per day. I'll keep you posted!

Spring Flings & Easter Things...

These are the finished products of the paper mache eggs we started at the Spring Festival at Kelly & Danny's a few weeks back. They turned out really cute and the boys loved filling them with fun springtime scenes. We used them to decorate our mantel and they look oh so cute!

Easter Sunday the boys woke up bright and early, excited as can be about the hunt they had in store for them. The Easter Bunny always sends the boys on a treasure hunt following clues leading them all over the house in search of their baskets. It was so cute to see Will's face light up after listening to Drew reading him the clues. His eye's would open wide and you could literally see the light going on in his head! Then he'd turn around and run to the spot the clue was hinting at. It was adorable! Later, Will told me his favorite part of Easter was the hunt!

Here they are with their goodies in their matching spring jammies! They each got a Lego set (of course), some Peep's & other candy, and the movie Bolt to share. Then we headed out for brunch at G & G Peterson's followed by dinner at G & G Bergstrom's... with an egg hunt at each place. The weather was perfect for egg hunts (and a trip to the park with Grandma Peterson)!

Hooray for another fun holiday! And here's to a wonderful spring!