VIP

That's me. I am a Very Important Person. For my birthday (which is tomorrow!) Sarah and I are going to a Day in the Zone. It is a local concert put on by one of the radio stations. I got the tickets for our birthdays and Sarah's husband surprised us both with VIP passes. That means we get in early, get to meet Chris Daughtry and the other bands, take a picture with Chris Daughtry, sit through the sound check and get a signed poster and some other cool things.

this is what we get to do http://www.daughtryvipexperience.com/

Did I mention we get to see, meet, hug Chris Daughtry?

Thanks Sarah and hubby!

Google this Baby!

I got this from an friends blog.

Here are the simple rules: Google "your name needs" and describe the first ten results.

1. Helen needs your immediate attention. (Is this refering to my selfish ways? hmm)

2. Helen needs your help. (I am sure this is true)

3. Helen needs to be put out to pasture.

4. Helen needs stem cell therapy. (Am I sick?)

5. Helen needs dependable salaries.

6. Helen needs an attorny who can help file a trademark for her new business.

7. Helen needs a cookie. (Yep, a chocolate chunk with nuts)

8. Helen needs cooling down after opening her hunky-man calendar. (Don't tell DH!)

9. Helen needs to follow order to develope balance, greater awareness, and wholeness.

10. Helen needs a loan of $1,200 to buy more wrappers and jewelry to sell.

Friday night a group of us had fun looking up friends and coworkers names. I am not sure if I am easily amused or if it was because it was rather late at night, but I was laughing so hard I had tears. Mine were not nearly as funny as some others. Try your name and see what you come up with.

Misconceptions

Isn't funny the perceptions we have of other people and places. For instance all southerners talk with an accent, Californians are surfers, New Yorkers talk slow, etc.

I picked up the foreign exchange student from the airport yesterday. Today as we are driving to go look at her school I asked her if she needed to purchase some clothing for school. She only brought one medium sized bag with her so I figured she was planning on buying some things here so she could fit in. She told me her mom had told her not to bring much because Americans wear baggy clothes. She commented that she hadn't yet seen anyone dressed in baggy clothing. I guess hip-hop and R&B are very popular there.

I laughed that they thought the entire American nation dressed alike in baggy shirts and sagging pants!

I have a feeling we will have several more of these moments over the next few weeks.

Oh, she also wanted to know if even girls wore back packs at school. I told her of course, everyone has to carry their books. She said in her country the girls only have small books and the boys carry their books for them. She won't be seeing much of that here! LOL

Paint, garbage and Good Will

No it's not spring cleaning.

We are having a guest. Guests mean clean the house.

This guest is a little unusual. Through some rather strange circumstances we agreed to host a foreign exchange student for the school year. We found out last Thursday and she arrives on Wednesday. She is a 17 year old senior from Kyrgyzstan.

We have been frantically moving girls rooms around (all of them chose to go to a different room). After cleaning out over 8 large bags of garbage from under beds, behind dressers and bottom of closets and getting rid of unread books, unplayed with toys and old clothes I then had to deep clean. I wiped down walls, vacuumed floors and finally painted the spare bedroom.

We had fun shopping and getting the girls room ready. We painted the walls tan and bought a matching bed set that is blue with stripes. The room is finally complete with new garbage can, 50 matching hangers, towel set and laundry hamper.

I love any excuse to spruce up the house and do a deep clean. This has been great to go through the kids things I am limiting them to 5 toys, 1 shelf of books, 1 box under the bed of misc 'treasures', and 10 days worth of clothes.

We are almost ready. Now I am planning a few outings. What must she see to appreciate the USA?

Climbing Mt. Lassen

We stayed at Lake Almanor for a week with my DH's family. Aside from the smoke it was a nice vacation.

The hardest and most spectacular thing I did was climb the Brokeoff mountain trail on Mt. Lassen. It was a 7 mile- round trip hike to the top of the summit. None of my marathon training has prepared me for a vertical climb.

Along the way we saw a deer, butterflies, chipmunks, huge bees and many other icky bugs.

We also saw waterfalls, trees, flowers, rock formations, snow and a gorgeous view.

My 11 year old daughter and my brother in law and I started around 9 am. 1/2 mile into the hike I was ready to quit. The smoke from the fires was making it hard to breath and my lungs were burning. My calves were already sore. I sat on a long and told my BIL to go on with out me. He declared it break time. After a few minutes we got up went another 30 feet and took a 30 second break. We continued in this fashion for the next mile. By the time we were half way there I was sure I would not make it. My calves burned with each step, my thighs were trying to keep up with my calves and my lungs were already on fire.

I sat down again and stated that if we were only half way there I would surely die if we continued. My BIL again declared it break time. I took a couple of Ibuprofen, we ate a snack, looked at the view and sat for about 15 minutes. He made sure I knew that getting to the top was his top priority, getting to the top with the entire group was his mission.

I didn't want to be the groups quitter so up I got and up we hiked. We conitued our slow pace of hiking till I couldn't breath and stopping in the shade. Then we would do it again.

I slowly began to feel better. We were getting higher than the smoke so breathing became easier and the medicine was starting to block the pain in my legs.

As we got with in sight of the summit the path became more steep and one misstep could lead to us falling down the side of the mountain. This combined with exhaustion got to my DD. She sat down and became unnerved. We were able to convince her that we would not leave her this close to the end. We would make sure that she made it safe and sound. I offered a prayer asking for peace and courage. My BIL took out a rope, tied one end around his waist and the other around my DD. With slow steps and constant encouragement we made it to the top of Brokeoff Mountain an elevation of 9235 feet.

The view was incredible. If the smoke had not filled the valley we would have been able to see Mt. Shasta and the Sacramento Valley.

We sat, viewed and relaxed before heading back down. The trip down was so much easier. We didn't have to stop every few hundred feet. By the end my DD was even running to get to the car. This was an experience to remember.

No matter how wonderful it was to get to the top it was even better getting there together. The words of encouragement and making it as a group made the experience magical.

Florida

I am back from a week long trip to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Sarah wanted to go to a scrapbook convention for a long time. When she saw this one earlier this year she knew it would be perfect. Her oldest son, Mason, has grandparents there. Due to some strange flight availability we got in 3 days before our convention and stayed 2 days after. It allowed us to be tourists.

We took the red eye Monday night getting in Tuesday morning around 11am. We headed to sawgrass mall. It was HUGE. After walking the entire thing from one end to the other and back we were done. Then we headed to Hollywood beach. It was incredible. The water was warm and clear.

Wednesday was my favorite day. We went on an Everglade Air Boat tour to see the alligators. It was awesome.

On the right are the boats we went in. It started as a beautiful morning.

We saw an owl, vultures, butterflies, lily pads, spanish moss and cattails.

Then it started raining. Not just a little sprinkle but full on - someone turned on the faucet- type of rain. I was on the edge of the boat and the rain was coming in. I tried scooting to the middle but then rain was coming in through the seams in the boat. I was WET. I didn't care though. It was warm and I was busy taking pictures of the alligator!

See how close it got to the boat? I could have reached over and touched it.

After we were thouroughly soaked and had gotten all the pictures our cameras could hold. (I took over 50 just of the gator) We went and tried gator. It was good!
We had fun being tourists. We each got a shirt with a gator that says Bite Me. The boys each got hats. Fun day!

For dinner we went to the Rustic Inn, a local place known for its crab. We had a sampler plate with more gator. This was better than the first. It was moist and tender. I also tried a frogs leg. It was ok. Like they say it tasted like chicken.

Thursday our classes started at CKC (Creating Keepsakes Convention).

We completed a 6x6 album in one evening.

Over the next two days we took 13 classes and 2 evening crops. We made an altered clipboard, 2 acrylic albums, a calendar, mini album, paper bag book, lots of layouts and a few more albums! It was great. We had such a good time getting rejuvinated and back into the scrapbook mode.

Our favorite teachers were Megan Hoeppner of Simple Scrapbooks

and Emily of Creating Keepsakes.

These are just some silly pictures of us. We kept passing a building that said Mental Ward (turns out is a bar that is closed down). We had to stop and pose like escape lunatics!

I'm an Athlete

I signed up with a local running group this week. I told them I don't run, I walk. They said no problem. They tricked me. My first workout on Saturday the coach has me walking 1 minute, jogging 30 seconds. I kept that up for 1 mile. I walked/jogged over 3 miles.

Today I took the family out. We walked to a local park and I did laps while the kids played. I was able to get in 2 1/2 more miles. Yeah!

The best part is the GPS wrist unit Aaron got me. He says it is an early birthday present. It is great. It calculates my mileage, pace, laps, calories burned and when I get home I download the information it has stored and it makes a chart. This is so helpful.

My goals are to complete my next half marathon in under 4 hours. I plan to do the Cow Town Marathon in October, Big Sur half Marathon in November and take part in my first Marathon Relay the CIM in December.