Last year Jodi and I did the Triathlon at the Utah Summer Games in St. George. We had the idea to train all winter and do lots of triathlons this summer but so far we haven’t done much training or any triathlons. Jodi and her brother, Josh, signed up for a few swimming events at Summer Games in Cedar City, it was my first time ever going to a swimming competition and I thought it was pretty interesting. The competition was at an indoor olympic size pool at SUU, it was nice being indoors instead of outside in the sun all three days! They seemed well organized and had people from all ages swimming. There were swimmers from 20 to 81. We only went to the adult competition but they had a separate one for people under 18. One of the guys that swam in several events only used his arms when he swam and had to scoot himself along the floor to get to his lane. He walked with a brace on one leg and a cane but he swam very well! I’m sure he could beat me in any swimming event and I have two able legs!

Jodi and Josh did well, especially for not training much at all. They both earned some medals and Josh set a couple of records. They both use to swim competitively in high school but haven’t competed since then, I think summer games rekindled their love for competitive swimming! They were both talking about doing it again next year. The only problem if Josh does it next year is and if I chose to compete he would be in my age group which would pretty much guarantee that I wouldn’t do so well.

We all had a good time and it was good to take a few days off work (yes, it’s true, I didn’t work at all while we were down there!) We made it down to St. George one day and went to In-N-Out for lunch and then Jodi and I went shopping while Josh, Sabrina, Harrison, Kelley and Kathy hung out with Sabrina’s sister in their pool. Harrison had his first swim, Josh was so excited to get him in the pool he almost didn’t wait for Sabrina to put her swimming suit on before getting him out there. We also got to see our cousin, Lins, and her fiance while we were down there for a minute at dinner. It was so hot in St. George, 110 degrees!

People keep asking me how the house projects are going. I haven’t wanted to blog about it because it looks like we aren’t going to be moving soon after all. Our complex HOA is in the middle of a lawsuit with the builder. We have several neighbors that currently have their houses up for sale. Two of them went under contact pretty quick, but the week they were supposed to close it fell through because of the lawsuit.

So it looks like we aren’t going to be able to sale our place anytime soon (at least until the economy gets better or the lawsuit gets resolved). So needless to say I’ve been a little sad. I was really looking forward to moving.

Anyway here is a quick update on the house projects.

Here is the ceiling fan we installed in our bedroom.

Here is our new kitchen sink and faucet. I wasn’t sure how I was going to like the single basin sink but I love it.

Here is our new fridge. Notice the size difference between the new one (stainless steel) and the old one (white). We love our new fridge. If you want a laugh about the fridge visit Bernd’s post and read his Ode to fridge! Oh, and I am so happy to have an ice maker again.

Here are the new knobs and pulls we put on our kitchen cabinets. We got an amazing deal on these.

We finally hung our diplomas and Bernd’s Eagle Scout Award on the wall in the office. These have been sitting in frames on the floor for months.

When we first moved in we took down all of the blinds so we could paint. We finally re-hung all of the covers over the top on the windows. I think they are called valances (not sure). When we took them down a year ago we broke a lot of the clips. So we had to find another solution which I like better because there are not clear plastic clips showing now.

Bernd has also been patching holes left behind by the furniture movers and touching up the paint. I think that’s about all for now. I think we are going to do tile floors next. We need to paint the bathroom walls and we also need to find new door handles for the whole house. So if anyone knows where we can get a deal on door handles and hinges let us know.

It’s hard to stay motivated to get things done knowing that we aren’t going to be listing our house soon. But hopefully we can get through these last couple of projects soon. I’m looking forward to everything being done.

Ok, again I’m a little late but please bear with me.

I just wanted to say Happy Father’s Day to my Dad and let him know how much I love him. I would not be the person I am today without my Dad. Most of you know that I’m a total Daddy’s girl. People always tell me that I know exactly how to get to my Dad (Mom) but it’s not my fault that he loves me so much!

My Dad has always been there for me. I tried all kinds of sports and hobbies growing up and my Dad was there for all of it. Every soccer game, dance recital, t-ball game, piano recital, swim meet, water polo game, and more recently Triathlons (to name a few). What I love about my Dad is that he learns all about whatever sport or hobby I’m interested in so that he can try and give me hints and continually encourage me to do better. I always teased him that part of why I played water polo is because he knew nothing about it so he couldn’t give me a hard time. Oh was I wrong, he is a quick learner.

My Dad was so patient with me growing up. Consistently trying to talk me into doing the things I needed to do like practice the piano and go to soccer practice. He would sit with me at the kitchen table for hours helping me with my homework. I didn’t make it easy on him either, I would put things off to the last minute and even though he didn’t like it he would sit up with me late into the night until I finished.

When I was young I thought my Mom would brush my hair too hard so I always wanted my Dad to brush through it after I got out of the bath. Hardly anyone knows that my Dad was the one that knew how to French braid hair and he would do it for me anytime I asked him to. He was the only one that knew how to tie my soccer cleats so that they didn’t hurt my feet. Only my Dad had the magic touch when my shoulder was so sore from swimming and I didn’t think I could swim my next race.

The night before my wedding my Dad called from the airport and told me that his flight was canceled because of a problem with the plane. I literally broke down. I instantly started crying because if my Dad couldn’t be there then I was going to cancel. I wasn’t going to do it without him. Luckily my Dad has amazing faith and devotion and he promised me that he would not miss my wedding, whatever it took. Thanks to faith and platinum status on Delta Airlines he was able to make it home.

I’m pretty sure when my parents had me they had no idea what was coming their way. I wasn’t the sweet little princess they had hoped for I’m sure. But I know deep down that my Dad always loved that I stood my own with the boys and that I made a couple of them cry in water polo. I think he loved that I was the only girl on my first soccer team.

My Dad is the rock of our family. He set an amazing example for my brothers of what it means to be a patriarch. He set the bar really high for me to find a husband because I wanted someone that was as wonderful as him. As I watch Josh with Harrison I’m so grateful that my Dad taught him so well.

What I love the most about my Dad is his strong testimony. I don’t know where any of us would be without his devotion to the church and his family. He is my strength. When I think about my Dad I get a glimpse of how much my Heavenly Father loves me because he sent me to him.

I Love You Dad!

I also wanted to wish Josh a Happy Father’s Day and let him know that I think he’s an amazing Dad and husband. Like father like son. When I think about when I’ve seen Josh the happiest I think about the day he left on his mission, the day he got married, and the day Harrison was born. But I think the day he became a father was the day that his most anticipated calling in life began. He was meant to be a Dad that’s for sure.

We have been busy working on a few miscellaneous home improvement projects the last couple of weeks. We found a pretty good deal on some knobs and pulls for our kitchen cabinets and drawers. We decided it was time to do some patching on the walls, we had a few dimples from recessed screws and some dings from carrying the bed up the stairs. There were also a few dings and dents that were in the walls before we bought the place that we discovered after we put a fresh coat of paint on the walls that we just filled in and fixed. An end of one of the hand rails for the stairs was rubbing against the wall so I took that off and fixed that up. We also framed and hung our college degrees and my Eagle Scout award above my desk in the office. And we finally put up the valances on our blinds! We pulled them all down before we moved in so that we could paint everything and in the process I broke a lot of the valance clips. We finally decided to go looking for some new clips and got the idea to use Velcro instead which worked out very well and ended up looking nicer too since there isn’t a visible plastic clip holding the valances on! Our list of things left that we want to do while we’re here is getting smaller and smaller!

Jodi and I went to the annual Scottish Festival at Thanksgiving Point again this weekend. We have been three years in a row now I think. We always just go for the Friday night festivities: the strongman competition and Tattoo (not the kind where you get ink permanently inserted in your skin). Our favorite is to see the guys throw heavy stuff like dang big rocks, metal balls and kegs! We haven’t ever seen them toss cabers; I think they do that on Saturday. There are a few different ways to throw each item and they all make it look pretty easy but I know I wouldn’t stand a chance trying to compete. The guy in the picture above is tossing his keg in the double handed, over the head while exposing his belly method. We noticed this wasn’t the best way to get it the highest, the best was to spin around and throw. One of the guys that tossed the big metal ball did a spinning toss for his first time ever so the audience was warned to be ready to duck or run in case he let go too early!

They also sell some awesome kettle corn and have a couple of good bands, we always enjoy the Wicked Tinkers! Our favorite song that we’ve heard them play is Wallop the Cat. It is interesting to see how much Scottish pride there is in the area, we often see the same people year after year. I was surprised that my sister didn’t even know the festival was going on since she basically considers herself part Scottish since she did a study abroad there last year! I guess we do have some Scottish blood in us, we are from the Wallace Clan.

Jodi tagged me a few days back and I decided to actually act on it this time! The directions of the tag are:

1. Get the nearest book to you, or one you’re reading that contains over 123 pages.
2. Go to the 123 page
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the 5th sentence
5. Tag five people

Book: Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

Sentence: “An object that can be used as a prototype, such as an instance of Wall, must support the Clone operation.”

I tag whoever wants to be tagged! I know, lame. I am not much of a reader, and when I read I usually either read religious books or computer related books. I recently started using Goodreads to keep track of what books I have read and what I want to read, if you like to read you should check it out! It also helps share your reading suggestions with friends and family.

Nintendo came out with a new “game” that is a combination of fitness and fun! We got a copy of Wii Fit last week (we pre-ordered it on Amazon.com a couple of months ago, good luck trying to find it now) and have trained with it almost every day so far. The Wii encourages more movement than other gaming consoles but Wii Fit is really the first game that is really focused on helping improve fitness. It comes with a balance board that is able to measure weight and balance and it helps the system to track progress to a personal goal. The board is very sensitive and works well. There are yoga poses, strength training, aerobic activities, and balance games. I have never had any exposure to yoga before but after doing a few of the poses on Wii Fit I think it will help me with strength, flexibility and balance. The strength training exercises are fairly basic but well rounded. The aerobic activities don’t replace going for a run or something like that but they are able to get the heart rate up and get you to sweat. The balance games are the most fun and make me a lot more aware of how I stand and balance my body.

The only thing I wish Wii Fit did differently was guide and suggest the activities that I should be doing. It does a little bit of recommending about what activities go well together but very little to try and suggest what I should work on. It does a pretty good job of knowing how well I am doing with individual exercises and sometimes provides tips on how to improve. It also rates how well I did on an individual exercise and after a few good attempts it allows me to do the exercise faster, longer, or more.

I think Wii Fit is something just about everyone could notice a benefit from. Someone that actively trains and exercises may find some of the exercises on Wii Fit to be too easy and basic. The other nice thing about Wii Fit is that it is just so easy to do, don’t have to go to the hassle of driving to the gym, finding equipment to work out on or any of that. Plus it makes exercise fun!