Visiting From Another Planet

So I've always said that swimmers are a little off...well mostly male swimmers. Here is another portion of the Mrs. Coach Chronicles. She is comparing running to swimming.

"With swimming, at least 25 percent of any team is visiting from another planet. And that’s a conservative estimate. I honestly don’t know why this is. I’ve hypothesized it has something to do with gravity. Running is completely beholden to the effects of gravity and it just beats the snot, poop and fun out of you. With swimming, though, you create this illusion that you’re defying gravity because you’re horizontal all the time, so maybe that loosens up the screws. Or maybe it’s just the chemicals in the water killing brain cells. I really don’t know.
As for which type I prefer to be around, well, isn’t that obvious? I mean, you don’t see me married to a runner, do you?"

Anyways I don't know who reads this but I thought there might be a chance that a couple of my old swimming friends do... I can definitely think of some people who were visiting from another planet. Can you?

Interesting Message

November!

November has not started like I would have hoped. This first full week has been full and not really of very fun things. I started the week with my traditional after Thanksgiving sandwich... leftover turkey with cheddar cheese and cranberry sauce. I saw the cranberries out at the grocery store and decided it would taste okay with normal turkey instead of leftovers. It was delicious and I've been eating it all week.

I knew this past week was going to be a long one. We had a snow day last week when we were suppose to have conferences so we had to make up our conferences when school was in session. I think the snow days have been ill-planned lately. :-) Pretty much we lost almost a full day of work in our classrooms without the kids being there. I had a lot of work planned that I'm now trying to fit in other places and it isn't going so well.

Tuesday was one of those days that everything seemed to go wrong. I told Paul that I was going to make BBQ beef that I make in crockpot. I normally freeze the meat first and then leave it in the crockpot all day. So I took out the frozen meat and I was going to try to cut off the layer off fat. I was in a hurry because I was trying to get it in before I left for work in the morning and I never give myself enough time to get to work on time. Well I ended up cutting my finger. It was bleeding and I still needed to dry my hair and get ready. Kind of a mess...Well the rest of the day didn't go great. I was trying to get my kids to look at some information on the Internet on my laptop and the website wouldn't open, and my principal came in just to observe, Paul only eats BBQ beef with rolls and the rolls take 3-5 hours to rise OR have to have boiling water under them in the over (we only have one oven rack), and who knows what else that I forgot. I ended up making the rolls but they weren't ready until 9:30 and Paul STILL hasn't had any beef.

Wednesday didn't go much better. We had a staff meeting to start our marathon of a day. I had planned on getting my favorite, Extra Hot Pumpkin Spice Latte,to start off the day right... Well apparently none of the other Starbucks customers knew my plan and the parking lot was full and the drive thru line was out to the street. Needless to say I had to start my day coffee less. I had carefully planned my Wednesday last week knowing I didn't have any plan time and with conferences starting 10 minutes after the kids left I needed to ready and not completely exhausted. Well I used up all my good ideas and was running all day Wednesday. We also had our first quarter assembly in the afternoon. I'm one of those people who don't really love speaking in front of people. So it added some extra stress to my day. Luckily my conferences went great but I didn't get home until 7:30. Oh and I was given a rose plant by one of my parents. What a great surprise.

Thursday was another long day with conferences until 7:15. A couple of things at work made me on the brink of crying all day long. But again my conferences went great.

Phew... well that pretty much sums up my week. Running, running, running... I'm glad I'm done with all that for a while.

Costumes

Halloween is Maddy's favorite holiday and so we also made it her birthday. She was probably born earlier in October but oh well. She loves that the kids come to see her and arrive at the door all night long. She also loves it when some actually pet her. She's a good dog and is willing to mostly anything for a few treats. Here are her Halloween outfits, just hats this year. You can tell how thrilled she is but she stayed in one spot while I tried to get her to look at me. I thought the second one looked like the wolf who ate Little Red Riding Hood's grandma. Paul thinks I'm torturing her but it makes me laugh so I'm going to keep dressing her up.

Do you know...

what is wrong with this picture?

Writing on Walls

Our friends who have a two year old just left our house a little bit ago. They were out trick-or-treating. Apparently I have been writing on the walls in their basement. One of the grandma's was recently at their house helping with their daughter and found some writing on the wall in the basement. When she asked her who did it she replied, Kortney. The grandma not knowing who I was didn't think much of it. Later she asked the mom who Kortney was and she then learned it was me a twenty-nine year old friend of her parents. I guess the grandma thought I was a friend from daycare. Pretty funny...

Trick-or-Treaters

So I was reading Reader's Digest the other day and came across a list about what Trick-or-Treaters won't tell you and I had one that definitely doesn't happen in our house. I think it is #6 but they aren't numbered. It say, "Handing out candy is like serving wine at a party. People serve the good stuff first and save the not-so-good stuff for later. The longer you stay out on Halloween night, the worse the candy gets."

We at our house organize our candy in a certain fashion. You will notice that this year Paul has bought and HUGE amount of candy. I'm not sure we will give out that much but Paul says he will take the leftovers to school. BUT the leftovers at our house are the GOOD stuff. Do people really give the best stuff away first? Then if you don't give it all away you are left with the gross stuff like Almond Joys and Milky Ways. We put those on top so we are sure to not get stuck with those leftovers.

Just a thought...

Halloween

It is now well into October which means Halloween is on its way. I have been writing and talking to my kids for weeks now about their costumes and what they do for Halloween. The inevitably ask what I am doing for Halloween and I always want to respond, "After going to a haunted house I'm going trick-or-treating with my friends!" Of course you won't catch me in a haunted house unless I'm already kicking and screaming. I've lost my love of being scared many years ago. Well, I take that back, I never really liked to be scared.

I do love an excuse to dress up. I was always one to do every spirit day in high school and still do. As I grew the type of dress up kind of changed. I mean who doesn't love a themed college party? :-) Now the dress up days are limited. I guess I'm lucky I still have spirit days at school and even decade themed school dances. (On a side note: I'm not sure who decided that Dress as Your Favorite Book Character Day should be on the first day of conferences. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be taken seriously dressed as Skippyjohn Jones.) BUT we aren't allowed to dress up for Halloween at my school, it has been that way since way before I got there. We've tried to change the policy the last few years but not everyone is ready for a change. So I really would love to dress up and go trick-or-treating but I will settle for dressing up to answer the door and pass out candy. Sometimes growing up stinks! Maybe I just need my own kids to dress up.

Breathing

So I was perusing (not so sure how to spell that) my list of favorite blogs, the ones that I cyber stalk, when I came across this: http://mrscoachchronicles.blogspot.com/. She is a non-swimmer married to a coach and apparently has swimmer kids. This whole post is about holding your breath and who ever is on Dancing with the Stars who was critiqued for holding her breath while dancing. I have found that I hold my breath when I really am suppose to be breathing. For example...when I use to go to spinning :-) we would sprint and I'd hold my breath, lifting weights always hold my breath and well you get the point. Pretty much I agree with her and the post. You should read it.

Sorry for the poorly written post, I hope it makes sense.

Homecoming

Paul, a couple of friends of his and I ran the CSU Homecoming race yesterday. It had started to snow on Friday night so we were sure to check to make sure the race wasn't cancelled. So in about 17 degree weather with snow still falling we ran. :-) Yes two of the three of them wore shorts to run in.

Comfort

I haven't been doing a very good job of updating my blog in the last month. I finally had some time to think about something other than school on our drive to Nebraska this past weekend. Two co-workers and friends of Paul got married in a town of 268 people. We had a great time at the wedding and at the rehearsal dinner. Since the town is so small there isn't a hotel in town, the nearest is 30 minutes away, but there are a number of houses for rent. We stayed in a cute old house 2 houses up from where the reception was held.
On the ride there and back (8 hours each way) I was able to catch up on some much needed sleep and reading. Luckily Paul's friend rode out with us and he did a great job of keeping Paul company while he drove. I happily sat in the back seat the whole time.

I started reading Eat, Pray, Love and found the section on each city's word to be very interesting. I, like the author, was trying to come up with my word. If you haven't read the book the author is staying in Rome and feels like it isn't her city and that Rome doesn't really belong to her. An Italian says that every city has a word that defines it and that most people who live there identify with that word. He says Rome's word is SEX. He also says that Naples's word is FIGHT.

So I've been trying to figure out what my word is. I have come up with COMFORT. I figure most of what I do is to achieve some sort of COMFORT. When I choose what to wear most of the time comfort is more important than style. I have a tendency to only do activities that I am comfortable with. Which is why I'm not always open to trying new things... unless I have someone with me to make me COMFORTable. I also eat the same foods out because I know that I like them and trying a new food item may not be COMFORTable. I am also not a fan of conflict because it makes me pretty unCOMFORTable.

I think I'm feeling okay with COMFORT as my word. I don't have any other words...well maybe one word that I would rather have as my word. But that is a whole other Oprah, and would need its own blog. So I'm wondering if others who know me would agree with my word. What do YOU think my word should be?

Top Ten

I decided that instead of writing about our entire 10-day trip to the midwest I'd do a top ten of the trip. Although they are my top the they aren't really in any particular order. So here we go...

-Night out in Kalamazoo with Melissa and Justin. We started at the Wine Loft and had good wine and some really good brie. Then had a greek dinner at OUZO'S and a dinner shot of ouzo. Then Melissa and I convinced Paul and Justin to go to the piano bar, Monaco Bay. This is the bar that Justin Giraud, from American Idol, used to sing in.

-Lake Michigan: Love water, of any kind, but the lake's water was surprisingly blue. I didn't remember that from when we saw it in Chicago 4 years ago. We spent some time on the beach in Charlevoix looking for Petoskey stones.

- Coffee with Melissa: While we were in Charlevoix Melissa and I went and had coffee at Sadie and Jake's. I do love my coffee and it is even more enjoyable with a friend. It was so great to see Melissa and catch up. I'm still waiting for her to decide to come back to Colorado. :-) Oh and the view wasn't bad either.

-Jet Skiing: I LOVE TO JET SKI! This is quite possibly my favorite passtime, my second is tubing. Being on the water, jumping over waves, trying to turn so fast that you almost (or do) fly off, and knowing that the landing isn't going to hurt. I have asked for a jet ski for my birthday. :-) We met up with a follow teacher up in Petoskey at her dad's house. Her dad was so very nice and took us out on the pontoon and then let us use the jet skis.

-Boating on Gull Lake: On our first night in Michigan Melissa and Justin took us out on the boat. We took a tour around the lake and then we dropped anchor on a sand bar. It just doesn't get much better than good friends, good local beer (Bell's Oberon), and being on the water. Oh and Melissa's boating cd was pretty great too.

-Boating in Indiana: Unfortunately I wasn't able to try to get back up and wake surf while we were in Indiana. I still liked to watch Paul refine his skills and enjoy being in the water. (I always knew he'd come around sometime.)

-"White Trash" birthday party: Scott and Linda's friends had a themed birthday party and we were able to tag along. It was a lot of fun. They had rented a party bus which was an old school bus. We took the bus to a restaurant called Bonge's Tavern where we tailgated and then ate a delicious meal. Here is my beautiful costume-->

- Slippery Noodle Inn: We went to the Slippery Noodle Inn four years ago when we visiting Linda and Scott. The Inn is the oldest bar in Indianapolis and has a stage with live blues. We had such a great time last time that we had to go back. The music was great again and so was the company.

- Being Aunt Kort: I love to be with my nieces and nephews. It is great to be around these guys. They are all really fun ages (18 months, 3 and 5) and are so funny. I really like it when they want to snuggle.

-Steak 'n Shake: I love this restaurant. I think it is the skinny cheese fries. It is a good and a bad thing that we don't have these in Colorado... I might become 300 lbs. I try to eat as much as we can while we visit so I get tired of it and don't crave it when we leave. I was some what successful this time.

Old School

So I was waiting patiently for my dinner at Panera tonight, a Fuji Apple Chicken Salad, when I overheard the following conversation:

Panera employee #1: Dude, (okay he might not have said dude...), I watched Old School last night.

Panera employee #2: Yeah, I've seen that it is funny.

#1: You know that movie actually makes me want to go to college.

#2: You know college is really like that.

Although I'm glad a movie might inspire a teenager to go to college... college really ISN'T like the movie Old School. It also isn't like the song "I Love College", well not most of the time anyway. I loved college and would choose to relive that part of my life if I had to choose one point in time but it scares me a little that kids think college is just a bunch of huge house parties and random hook-ups. You know you do have to attend class and learn in order to stay there...

Trying to figure out how to show video

Paying it Forward

Paul and I spent the last 4 mornings up in Fort Collins. Unfortunately it was before any stores were open so we had the chance to get breakfast...which we rarely eat out. On Sunday morning we ate at the Silver Grill Cafe. Another advantage of being out early is you beat the crowds for Sunday morning brunch. The food, as usual, was great but Paul had something weird in his eggs benedict. We were pretty excited when we got the bill and Paul's meal was free. Monday morning we went to Panera. I just wanted a bagel and Paul couldn't decide, well he didn't want to pay as much as it costs for a bagel so he didn't get anything. We were getting some water and I asked why he didn't get one, he said because they didn't have Parmesan, I said but they have asiago. Well apparently the lady who was in front of us was over hearing our conversation and offered an asiago bagel to him. How nice! She said she didn't want it and was going on a road trip and would like if he would have it. Two days in a row where Paul eats for free.

So I believe in random acts of kindness and do believe that they can make some one's day, as they did ours on Monday. So I've been trying to figure how I can pay it forward. Today we were walking around downtown Loveland, after paying to register my car, and an older woman with a hospital bracelet still on asked if we had any change for the bus. She only had 30 cents and needed a $1.30. She had to get back to the hospital, something about the medication they put her on. Normally I would probably say no, but it looked like she really did need it for the bus and I actually had a dollar cash. Hopefully it helped make her day a little easier.

I'm also looking to hook someone up with some leftover Chicken Lasagna... we never can eat a whole recipe. So if you live nearby and would like some let me know. :-)

Maddy Girl

It has been a while since I've posted anything about Maddy so here are a few recent pictures:

Our House

I have been talking about getting a compost for two summers now and we finally got one! We also are thinking about redoing our bathroom. It has gross gingham wallpaper, oak chair rain and pea green paint now. I want to change the pedestal sink and add a vanity so that we can actually store stuff there. This is the vanity I want to get but in a darker wood color. We'll see if we can get it done before the summer is over.

Finally... the rest of the Idaho Trip

We took I-95 from CdA to Boise. This is a mostly two lane highway that goes south down the western border of Idaho. There were some really beautiful areas that we drove though, although the rain kind of dampened the view. After 8 hours of driving in rain we finally made it to Boise and picked up Kevin from his Lasik surgery. His doctor was near the mall so we went and had dinner at Old Chicagos. Paul was worried about finding a hotel so he worked on that while we waited for our dinner. We found a hotel, checked in and then tried to decide what to do for the rest of the night. Kevin couldn't do much because of his eyes so that got rid of most of our ideas, but we finally decided to go back to the mall and get some cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. Kevin felt like a celebrity in his dark sunglasses... The next morning Kevin went back to the doctor and then we headed out to Craters of the Moon. We tried to go here last time we were in Idaho and Paul was still dying to go. He was very excited to see this geological site. Kevin and I were willing to go along. We were a little worried we were going to have a repeat of our last visit because we followed storm clouds the whole way there. It was a little rainy and cool but it was a free weekend for national parks so we didn't have to pay. Here are a few pictures of our 4 hour tour. In one of the caves....

Once we left Craters of the Moon we headed to Ketchum. It was Paul and I's 6th anniversary so Kevin took us out to dinner (Thanks Kevin!).

On the 21st we woke up and it was raining...again. We decided we would try a hike anyways. We headed up to a hike where we would see a couple of waterfalls. The hike started with pretty nice weather and then ended up raining. I took a little video that explains how the hike went but I'm not sure how to post a video. Pretty much it went like this: 7 snakes, steep climb up rocks, soaking wet feet and a river crossing. We made it home, dried out and then headed to Grumpy's. Grumpy's is one of Kevin's favorite places and we were hoping for live music BUT the rain stopped the music.

On the 22nd the sun was out!! So we headed up to Stanley. Kevin took us to the Red Fish Lake (is that right Kevin?) The scenery was beautiful. We made it to the hot springs near Stanley, emptied out enough of the hot water and added enough cool water to get in. After a little soak we ate at the bakery in Stanley and then headed home.

We left early on the 23rd for our 11 hour drive home. The ride home through Wyoming wasn't nearly as pretty as the ride up through Montana. We drove by a lot of wind turbines being put up. Good to see progress...

Road Trip

We left on June 15 to head up north to Couer d'Alene, ID. We finally made it out of town at about 2 pm and just missed a huge storm, luckily we were too far east to get any of the weather. It did rain a large part of trip, driving and not driving. This is a picture of a different storm north of Fort Collins on our way to Wyoming. We made it through Wyoming and into Montana then stopped at Custer's Last Stand. It was almost 9, but the sun was still out and the area was still open and FREE since it was after 6:30! Paul and I are both interested in history and like to learn about the areas we are in so we stopped and wandered around for a while. The area is beautiful and with the sun setting it was even better. I had never been to Montana and it was what I expected, gorgeous. We finally made it to Billings to stay the night and headed out the next morning. After driving a total of 14 hours pretty much straight there we made it to Hayden Lake, which is about 15 minutes from Couer d'Alene (CdA). My teaching partner did an Ironman on Father's Day in CdA and he and his family were staying for the week so we crashed with them. This is the "Boathouse" that they stayed in. The house was right on the water and there were a few water toys to play with. It was a little cool but Mike's sons had no problem getting into the water. The two of them and Paul spent a lot of time on the boats exploring the area. There was a near by sandbar that was fun to play in and the lake was practically deserted, very few motor boats. We basically hung out around the house and relaxed on Wednesday and watched the bands of rain move over.

At around 4 Mike's wife, Melinda and I decided to try to go to the Farmer's Market in CdA. So we headed off around the lake. It was a little rainy as we passed a truck off the road. It didn't look too bad and it appeared as though the driver was talking. About 5 minutes later it started to pour rain. So we decided that it wasn't worth the drive into town and the market was probably closed because of the weather. Before we decided to turn around emergency vehicles had passed us going towards the accident. Well, we waited 5 minutes too long to turn around because the road back was closed. Another motorist mentioned another way around the lake so we figured we would try and find it. Well in trying to find a way around the lake we passed a local Hayden cop who gave us directions AFTER he gave me a $75 ticket. I have to say in my 13 years of driving I've NEVER been pulled over but he decided to give me a speeding ticket the very first time! Argh... he didn't even give me a chance to try to get out of it... we were lost, the road was closed, obviously from out of town, and does anyone ever really drive 25 mph? Well we couldn't follow his directions and figured the road HAD to be open by now, but it wasn't. Now they were waiting for a helicopter to come to airlift the driver out and it would be about 30 minutes. (Apparently the accident was worse than we thought.) So we waited thinking we could watch the action and then head home. We saw the helicopter come, the ambulance come, the loaded the driver and the helicopter took off. Here is the view from our vantage point, the helicopter is yellow and the ambulance in red. Melinda and I both thought that maybe the night was going to turn around since there was a rainbow. But after the helicopter left the road still wasn't open so we went and drove north for a while. We finally made it home, after accomplishing nothing, about 3 hours later. We should have stayed home.

Paul and I were planning on going to Ketchum to visit Kevin the next day but I really wanted to go into CdA and I still needed to get into the water, so we decided to stay one more day. We headed into town on Thursday and wandered around and hiked up a little trail, I think called Tubbs Hill, by the lake. This is a picture on our way up the trail. The lake is huge and doesn't seem to end. The town is small and the touristy part is about the same size and the main drag of Old Town in Fort Collins. There are a couple of neat little stores and restaurants, but there wasn't a whole lot going on. Of course I had to get into that lake too. This is the bottom of the trail we hiked.We did find the Couer d'Alene Olive Oil Company which had really good flavored olive oils and vinegars. We headed back to Hayden around 5 and I finally did make it into the water. It was cold out of the water and in but I had to get in.

On Friday we started our 8 hour drive to Boise to pick up Kevin from his eye surgery. I will write about that part of the trip later.