Spring

There's a line in the movie "IQ" where Meg Ryan's character says, "It's spring. Everything goes through an upheaval in the spring." Well, I guess spring has come early at my house, because despite the snow we had last week:

• My dishwasher is to the point now where the dishes have to be absolutely pristine when I put them in if I want them to be clean when I take them out. I'm not sure why I still run the thing.
• Our fireball truck is crazy. Sparky couldn't get the key to turn in the ignition the other day. Apparently we do weird things when we turn keys, because last year with our minivan we not only couldn't get the key to turn, but we got the key stuck and had to get the whole ignition replaced. Our fingers are crossed that it won't happen with the truck.
• Most importantly, the bottom fell out of my iPod mini. Seriously. It just fell out. Now, I've had it for almost four years, which I hear is like 102 in human years. They don't even make minis anymore. I'm guessing it's time to let it go, but I'm having a hard time. I always have that thing with me, and I've grown quite attached to it. We've had a beautiful relationship. Sure, there was that rocky patch when it had trouble syncing up to iTunes, but we worked through it.

So anyway, this is going to be an expensive spring. We've picked out the new dishwasher and are ordering it today. We're praying that the truck gets over its dislike of our keys, so we don't have to pour money into a 16 year old truck. And the iPod. Well, of course I have to get a new one. Can you picture me without earbuds in my ears? I'm thinking of getting either a Nano or an iTouch. Obvously, the Touches are cool. But they're more expensive and quite a bit bigger, which could be a pain when I take it running. Anyone have any thoughts?

Fun With Weather

I have discovered the best way to get your weather forcast in Kitsap county. My neighbor, Matt, has a blog called Forecasting Kitsap. He is a high school senior who I suspect will someday be the weather guy for one of the local channels. The kid has been saying he want to be a weatherman when he grows up for as long as I've known him (8 years now!) He has already had some amazing opportunities, including writing this blog for our local newspaper, The Kitsap Sun. Check it out. Even if you don't live here, he has some video clips that are fun, especially the football one.

Bumble Bee 5k

My Brother-in-law had a bunch of us run the Holiday Bowl Bumble Bee 5k together when we were in San Diego. It was a beautiful race along the harbor. What wasn't so beautiful was the mile markers. They were invisible, so we had no idea how far we were along the course. At one point I saw my sister-in-law with a video camera. As I was waving to her, I thought, "Hmmm, I wonder how much I have left?" 5 seconds later, I turned a corner, and BAM! Finish line. I had a kick of about 3 seconds. I definitely had too much left in me at the end. Usually in the afternoon after a race I'm like a toddler in the car at 5 pm - I can't stay awake for anything. But we went to the beach after the race and well, I wouldn't say I was a bundle of energy, but I wasn't dead to the world either. Here's a picture of the crew and some quick footage. Look for Thing 1, and watch as I almost mow over the guy ahead of me at the end. Who stops just after the finish line?

Thing 1 ran the race - his first 5k! He finished 22nd out of the 54 in his 12 and under age group, with a time of 27:16. I was so proud of him. I finished 10th in my age group out of 51, with a time of 24:17, which I was not so proud of. I was hoping to be under 24:00 at the very least. But it was fun. Thanks for suggesting it, Tim!

Fail!

Sparky recently pointed me to one of my new favorite blogs: Failblog. They post a couple times a day, and they make me giggle. Check it out for a quick laugh.

Shenanigans

Last weekend Sparky and I finally watched the movie Juno, and I loved it. It's been a long time since I saw a movie for the first time and liked it this much. It was both side-splitting funny and moving.

I have had the song that they sing at the end of the movie in my head ever since, and apparently I've even been singing it out loud, because yesterday I walked by Thing 2 and heard him singing to himself, "We sure are cute for two ugly people."

Here is a clip of the song. I swear, I want to give Michael Cera a big hug and bake him some cookies or something.

Surfer Boys

One of my favorite things to do in the entire world is to watch Sparky surf. I love laying out on the beach, attempting to get a tan, flipping through a magazine in between sets. He is a good surfer and, as a bonus, he looks great in his wet suit. Don't laugh, I have proof. When we were in San Diego, a young 20 something tourist asked if she could have her picture taken with him and his brother-in-law in their wet suits with their surf boards. We had a good laugh about it later, since she thought she was getting a picture with the locals and really they are from Silverdale and Cincinnati.

Here is Sparky at the end of a wave. The waves were pretty wimpy on the day we brought the camera.




Thing 3 begged to get in on the action. We stuck the smallest wet suit on hand on him (the water was 58 degrees!) and hoped for the best. For a while, Sparky ran along the side of him and held him up:




And then he got more adventurous and tried having Thing 3 ride on his back. Thing 3 had a vision of him and his dad surfing side by side on separate boards holding hands, and he cried when we told him that it wasn't going to happen. He also cried when we left the beach, even though his lips were blue and he was shivering.



Thing 2 decided he wanted to get in on the action:


But he didn't last too long - it was just too cold!

Playing Basketball With Boys

We're back from our vacation in paradise, also known as San Diego. We had a blast and ate way too much good food. We thumbed our noses at the weather: our flight to SD beat out the huge snowstorm that hit Seattle by a mere hour, and on the way back, we changed flights and ended up being on one of the last flights out of SD for a day due to fog.

Sparky and I have spent the last couple of days recovering from exhaustion. We always play hard when we go down there, but this time we outdid ourselves and got up to play basketball at 5:30 in the morning four times. Not just one time. Four times. That was how we chose to spend our vacation. I guess you could say we aren't very smart people.

It was a lot of fun, though. We played with Sparky's dad, brother-in-law, brother, sister-in-law, and cousin, along with close friends. Thanks to Lady Chinchilla X for going easy on me out there. That girl can run circles around me. No thanks to the three guys that totally mauled me one of the few times I attempted to drive to the basket. You know who you are! I ended up with a lightly sprained ankle and some very colorful bruises. I meant to take a picture since they were were way more blog worthy than my last one, but I waited too long and now they're fading and not as impressive. Thank my procrastination skills; you've been spared.

Anyway, I guess that's what I get for playing basketball with boys. It's a lot different than what I was taught in my youth. When I was about 15, my friend and I were in the gym at the church shooting baskets with a bunch of guys from our ward. I'm pretty sure we were ditching making some craft with our young women's group, because we always tried to ditch the crafts. Our leader came in and found us and scolded us. "Don't you know what happens when you play basketball with boys?" Me being the smart alec 15 year old that I was, said, "No, what happens?" She paused for a few seconds and then blurted out, "You get pregnant!" There it is folks. Forget everything they taught you in 8th grade sex ed. My friends and I got a lot of laughs out of that one, let me tell you.