I know that I already posted 2 of these earlier this week, but I had to post them again because I loved them so much. The photo of Emma and Ian is one of the best shots I have ever taken of them together. Sorry for cheating

Please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom to view all the Weekly Winners participants.

P.S. Thanks to OMSH for my new watermark. I have been wanting to create a watermark for my photos for so long, but I just couldn’t get the creative juices flowing. I think she did a great job!

I have been wanting to do a century (100 miles) bike ride ever since I got my road bike this spring. There were a few I wanted to do, but none of them worked with my schedule. Tiffany told me about the Summit Challenge, a half century (50 miles) hosted by the National Ability Center in Park City. I figured a half century was a good place to start.

Linsdey is a road bike queen. She has ridden 4 centuries this summer, so I decided to ask her to do it with me. I knew that I would be slower than her, but I knew she would be nice about it and wait for me. She is so much fun to be with, so I knew that we would have a good time.

I planned to do more training on my road bike before the ride, but that just didn’t happen. I wanted to go on one long ride with Scott but we could never get it planned with school starting and everything. So, aside from a ride I did in Maui about 10 years ago, this was the longest ride I have ever done on my road bike.

I was happy with how I did. It started out with a long climb up from highway 224 up to Kamas. I felt great on that part. I expected it to be harder than it was. I just got in an easy gear and made my way up. I was slow, but I didn’t want to start out to strong. After that it was just a nice touring ride. The views and farm land were so pretty. I felt good on all of the middle of the ride. The last part of the ride was about 7 miles climbing up Brown’s Canyon. That part of the ride was really hard for me. I was starting to get tired and the climb was hard. To make it worse there was a serious headwind. I just got in my granny gear and kept on pedaling. I was sooo happy to make it to the top! Lindsey did awesome the whole time. She kicked butt on the last climb.

I was happy with how I did. I didn’t really struggle too much. If the wind hadn’t been blowing so hard I think I would have been fine on that last climb. After this ride, I think I am ready to try to tackle a century!

I played team golf today at Riverside. It was team play and we played against Park Meadows–my old club. Jeremy and Park Meadows always have kind of a rivalry. We really wanted to beat Park Meadows.

I played with Terry Jensen, who I really like. We played team together one other time and we were a great team. She is also really nice to be with! The first thing I noticed was how many strokes we had to give to the other team. We had to give 8 strokes to one lady and 9 to the other. I knew we were going to have our work cut out for us.

We started on hole #16, one of the holes where we didn’t have to give any strokes. Terry and I both made par and we started out by taking 2 points on the first hole. I figured as long as we capitalized on the holes with no strokes we would have a chance to win. I birdied the next hole and we took 2 more points. The next hole I messed up and ended up making a bogey. We managed a half a point on that hole.

After that I really took off. I made 4 birdies in a row. I was hitting my driver great, but my approach shots were what was really amazing. I just kept hitting everything in tight to the pin, and sinking the puts. The third hole Terry got a hole-in-one. It was awesome. A few holes before that we were all talking about hole-in-ones. The three ladies I played with had all had more than one already! I was jealous. When I got up to the third tee I joked that I was going to get a hole in one. I hit a great shot, but it didn’t go in. Terry got up to hit and wouldn’t you know it, hers went right in. To top off her performance I sunk my put and made a birdie too.

It was the round of my life. Unfortunately I flubbed it up a bit at the end. I went into the last hole 4 under par. The ladies par at Riverside is 74, so if I had parred the last hole I would have shot a 70. I ended up double bogeying the last hole to shoot a 2 under 72. I was bummed because I have shot a 72 before. 72 was my previous best round, but at a par 72 golf course. Today I shot a 72 at a par 74, for a 2 under par round. I would have rather said I shot a 70, but I am still thrilled to have shot under par for the first time. I guess that means my handicap is going to plummet.

As far as the match goes, we won by 2 points. I played my best round ever and my partner shot a 79 and we only won by 2 points! That just doesn’t seem right, but that is how it goes when you have to give so many strokes. At least we managed the win.

The kids started school on Monday. I really can’t believe that our summer is over already. It went so fast!

This year the kids are in two different schools for the first time. I have to juggle two different schedules and different start and end times. Luckily, both schools are close together and it all seems to be working out. Emma starts at 8:10am and Ian starts at 9:00am. Emma is starting her first grade year in a new school. She is going to the elementary school down the street from our house. It feels so strange to have her in such a big school. I can’t believe that she is already in first grade!

For the first day we all got ready together and the whole family went to take Emma to school. She did great! We drove up to the school to the drop off area. I decided to walk her over to her classroom. Her class was just lining up outside the door, ready to go into the classroom. She got right in line and literally ran into the class. She hardly looked back to wave. I was just glad that she was so comfortable in her new school. She came home in the afternoon just raving about it.

After we dropped off Emma we had some time to kill so Scott and I went over to the bagel shop and had a little first day of school bagel with Ian and Nora. Then we were off to drop off Ian.

He was excited about his new school too. I walked him in to his locker. He knew just what to do. This is a new school for him, but he is not new to the Montessori method. He just marched right into the classroom and immediately got out a work to do.

He hardly said goodbye either. But, I wasn’t sad about it. I am just happy that my kids are well adjusted and happy to try out new things.

The first few days have gone really well. Both kids have come home from school saying that they loved school. When I picked up Ian yesterday the head of the school, Duna, had some nice things to say about Ian. She was his substitute yesterday. She said she really enjoyed Ian and that he had a big personality. It was so nice to hear some positive things about him. I am glad they are able to appreciate his personality because he really is a funny and sweet kid.

I guess the summer is officially over. The kids started school this week and tonight was the last group mountain bike ride with Team Sugar. I didn’t go last week and I was really looking forward to going tonight to the last ride. Unfortunately, I got a note from Emma’s school yesterday that they were having back to school night tonight. I was so sad to miss the last sugar ride.

I decided to call Lindsey and see if she could come up and ride with me after back to school night. We ended up making a group of it. I talked Yori into coming with us, and Laurel decided to meet us too. We did 24-7, and we all had a great time. I was really proud of Yori for coming with us and making it! I know what a hard trail it is. I just knew that she could walk whatever parts were too hard, and that it would be a good ego boost for her. Good job Yori

After the ride Lindsey, Yori, and I went to went to Ah Sushi for a bite to eat. Lindsey took a photo–I’ll have to get it from her and post it! We had a lot of laughs and it was a nice night. I am sad to see the weekly rides coming to an end, but I know that there is always next year!

Please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom to view all the Weekly Winners participants.

Ian started soccer this week. He was so excited to start. He has been sitting on the sidelines watching Emma play for the past 2 years and he has been DYING to play. This year he finally gets his chance to be on his own team with all preschool boys.

It was hilarious watching them play. Watching them was so different from watching Emma and her teams. The boys are so much more aggressive. The constantly run into each other. They kick the ball so hard they fall over. They had a little scrimmage and the whole team would chase after the ball. I swear the whole team fell down on the field at the same time.

Ian was great! I knew that he would be aggressive and love getting in there. He tried so hard! He ran after the ball and just kept trying to kick it into the net. I was watching him run and bang into people. He fell down a few times and I wondered to myself what he would do if he really got hurt or bumped his head out there. I found out a few minutes later. he and another boy collided and they bumped heads. I looked out there and I could see the breath holding spell coming on. His coach picked him up, but he had no idea what was happening. I took him from the coach and laid him on the ground. He did his normal thing–turned blue, twitched, and peed his pants. We were calm and mostly everyone just kind of ignored us, which was good. He woke up crying and said his head hurt. We have become old pros at this I just got him a drink and he went back out for the team meeting.

It was so much fun to watch him play. I am excited for him that he is finally able to be on his own team!

Please take the time to share your birth experiences. The more people that fill it out, the better the database will be.

Emma has always loved to sing. This summer I found a group voice for kids class. There were 4 kids in her class and they met once a week. They sang all Broadway songs that were sung by children. She loved the class!

At the end of the class there was a singing recital. She decided to sing Tomorrow from Annie. She worked so hard on the song. She practiced in the car and we uploaded it to my iPod so she could practice in the house too. She did a great job for her first experience with singing. I was proud of her!

Here is a little video of her performance. She starts laughing in the middle because Nora ran up to the stage. I thought she did great that she didn’t get distracted, and she just kept on singing!

Emma’s First Singing Recital on Vimeo.

Scarlett Bernice Sundahl Terry finally decided to make her entrance on Wednesday. I was going to say “little” Scarlett, but she was not little! She weighed in at 9 lbs!

I had been thinking about Sue constantly for the last couple of weeks. I know only too well how hard it is to see your due date come and go. I talked to her a few times, and she sounded great. She seemed positive, and had a really great attitude about the whole thing.

She ended up going almost 2 weeks over before they scheduled her induction on Wednesday morning. I thought about her all day Wednesday. I was so sad for her that she had to be induced. We had talked about what kind of birth she wanted so many times, and I knew that induction would make it hard to have the kind of birth that she wanted. As it turns out, she had contractions all night Tuesday night, and she ended up not needing the induction. She went in to the hospital in the morning, and delivered around 8:00pm at night. And she did it all natural. Way to go Sue, I knew you could do it!

Since Scarlett was born I have been thinking about them so much. I keep reliving the memories of my first few days with Emma. I remember how overwhelming it was for me, and how out of control my hormones were. I wish I could be there with her. Sue is like the closest thing I have to a sister. I feel like my sister just had a new baby, and I’m feeling kind of emotional about the whole thing. I want to be there with her too, but I know she has plenty of company. I’ve tried to call her a few times. I’m just so excited for her, and I can’t wait to hear all about the birth and how things are going…and of course I can’t wait to meet baby Scarlett. For now, I’ll just have to settle for cell phone photos.

Tonight I took the kids to see The Singing Children of Africa. I loved just sitting there listening to their sweet voices. They were so fun to watch. The kids were mesmerized by their their bright colored costumes and their dancing. I was so sad that I forgot to bring my camera. I couldn’t help looking at their little faces and imagining the portraits I could take. The pictures that you see here are all from their website.

I also couldn’t stop thinking about the lives they lead. These children were all from Kenya. Many of them come from single parent homes, some of them are orphans. All of them live in extreme poverty. They know what it is like to go hungry. Most of them live in adobe houses. I just watched them and thought about how happy they all looked to be there singing to us, despite all the hardships in their lives.

There were a few children that I just couldn’t help but feeling a connection with. This little girl Diana was one of them. She was 13 years old and just had a sparkle in her eye that I can’t describe.

It really make me want to do something to help. But I just feel kind of powerless. What can I really do to help? I can donate money, but they need so much more than I am able to give. Never the less, I still want to donate something to them. I looked at their donation page, and I found it difficult to figure out. The organization is in the UK, so all of the donation amounts are in pounds. I am going to email them and just see what I can do. I would love to donate money or sponsor a child or something. Maybe we could be a host family some time. I know I can’t do a lot, I just feel like I want to do something.