Shoe Fun

It is delightful that Chaco has finally started making real shoes just in time for my move to colder weather. They have a lot of different ones now. I really like a lot of different sport sandals like Keen and Merrell and Teva, etc but the Chaco sandals have always just been amazing for me. They fit my feet so I was happy to find the Chaco Jane on a closeout at the end of summer for an amazing price (because they really are too expensive). They are more sporty but I am hoping that when my feet swell they will pass for Church so I have something comfortable to wear. What do you think?

Also, I have been reading Born to Run, which is mostly about this tribe in Mexico that run huge races on rocky terrain barefoot. Obviously the book is a little more extensive than that but I haven't finished it yet...anyway, part of my running problem has always been that my feet go numb and when I had metatarsalgia about a year after Seth was born the pain was excruciating so it is interesting to see what other people do. John is obsessed with going barefoot. He says he is preparing for the second coming when we all have to walk to Missouri and since human kind has fallen there will be no shoes. He wants his feet to be ready. I had read about these "shoes" (Vibram Fivefinger) and, of course, thought of John. I saw my cousin got a pair the other day and is suppose to post a review sometime. Has anyone else used them? I wonder if they are like going barefoot and really that amazing. They are definitely amazingly ugly!

School Sum Up

This is more of a "grandparent" sort of entry and I really mean that so you might want to consider skipping it...a quick sum up of our first week of school.
Joshua - in the first 5 days of school Joshua received 3 letters home telling us what respectful, hard worker he was (this, of course, is wonderful but Josh does have a tendency to let it go to his head). His standardized tests scores came this week and he is considered Advanced in every subject. This is not a big surprise although I think he has some personal weaknesses they definitely aren't in school so far ;)
Hyrum - his reading improved over summer but he is still struggling with speech related delays :) Both his teacher and student-teacher said he was the sweetest, most kind student they had in the class and proclaimed him a delight to teach (HA...we'll give this a few more weeks). Joshua's 3rd grade teacher is now working with the 2nd graders and also went on about how polite and generous both boys are.
Math - managed to get lost once but I went into the school and found him. He had gone to the wrong place instead of coming out to be picked up. He was a little nervous and proclaimed that his "teacher had left him," not that he had gone the wrong way :) He is delighted that he got to get a library book and homework. He wants to be just like Josh and Hy.
Seth - has spent the last few mornings playing with all the toys he is usually forbidden by his brothers to play with.

On a side note...Holly, Josh's 3rd grade teacher, has always scared me. She even scares John. She is direct and intimidating and scary but after a year with Josh and now working with Hy, she apparently loves us. Last night she came up and gave me a big hug and told me how excited she was that we were having another boy. My due date is her birthday and she was sad we couldn't name it after her but when I told her our top name right now she got tears in her eyes and said that her great-grandfather, grandfather, father, brother and nephew had all been named that. She said if we use that name then she will feel like a little part of her is with us. Hmmm...no pressure. I just wish I could describe how frightened I used to be of her :) Life is funny...

Yesterday when I was picking up Math from school my neighbor and I met a woman who also had 4 boys!! I was so excited because that meant there was someone else at the school who had almost as many kids as me. I didn't think that was possible here. Anyway, afterwards I was talking to my neighbor and telling her how I thought that lady was crazy for having four kids 7 and under (her oldest was 7). I was like..."her house must be crazy and she must be so busy and why would you ever want to do that." Then my friend looked at me and said, "You had 4 boys who were 6 and under and now you are going to have 5 who are 9 and under." That is when it hit me that I am crazy :) It sounds so insane when you think about other people who have 5 kids. There are so many things in life like that. You look at other people and think how on earth can they do that or how can they handle that challenge and then you find yourself right in the middle of something very similar. It is that feeling when you think to yourself, "How did I get here? Wasn't I just in college like yesterday?" HA...funny...
Related to this topic, sort of...Boulder is crazy. If you saw the descriptions for the prenatal classes and how the hospitals work here you would think to yourself, "I am glad I live in a nice conservative place like Austin, TX." Life is relative...what if the poor Amish had to move to Salt Lake. They would probably think they landed in one of the most liberal towns in America. :)

School Started...

School started yesterday for J and Hy. Josh is in 4th and Hy is in 2nd grade. Even though they both complained about going back to school they were really happy when it finally came time to go. Hyrum was so excited yesterday when he got home to be back in school. Math was also excited to go to Kinder today. It is only half day here in Colorado. He was nervous before we went to the meet your teacher night but after that he's been fine. He didn't even want me to go with him to the bus stop but I told him I was going to go the first day at least.
On Monday they can go alone ;)

Waiting for the bus...Hy has no front teeth ;)

It was a little cold but J didn't want a jacket.

Math's first bus ride...

Racing...

I know this is a little slow but John has been running with some friends lately. They are real runners so John has had a fun/challenging time keeping pace. Awhile back the Univ of Colorado had an open track meet. John ran the 4 x 400 with 3 other guys for fun.

Sometimes you just get old...

Sometimes you just get older and then you mix it with pregnancy and it becomes lethal.

I am so tired I paid all our tithing for the next little while because when I went to pay tithing this time, filling out the slip and envelope seemed too tedious to do again soon. I don't have the energy to fill out a tithing slip every month...

One of my favorite websites is bankrate.com. I think my young women would readily agree that that makes me old (and dorky)...

Skin care/makeup products actually make a huge difference in the appearance of my skin. In your mid-20's you just need sunscreen, cleansing and the occasional moisture. Now I realize why there are SO MANY products on the market. Us old people need them...

Also, I don't have the energy to say the other things I was going to say about getting old because I am getting to old to have energy ;)

Argh...the BCS...

Just a decent article in SI about what BYU and others are going to need to do to bust into the BCS in the next few years. No need to read if do not care for college football (I realize Eldon you have probably already read it :) Notice that 3 of the 5 teams it is directed at are in the MWC. Let's hope Heaps and the others can start making a dent next year....

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/andy_staples/07/31/non-bcs/index.html