My Husband is crazy!!!

If you have been keeping up with my blog you know that Eric and a couple of his friends just finished a 1/2 Ironman about two weeks ago. I thought they were crazy before but now I have personal knowledge of that fact. Eric has been hinting at me becoming involved with the Triathlons. I thought it might be fun just to go ahead a go swimming a couple times and maybe a bike ride or two. So today I met up with Eric for a swim during his lunch break. Now these guys swam 1.2 miles for their event. Today I swam 200 meters in 10 minutes and I thought I was going to die. My stomach felt so sick. I can not imagine swimming any further than that. They are nuts. Whats worse is I must be nuts because I told Eric I would go again on Monday. This is insane. Someone needs to save me from my foolishness. HELP!!!

Happy First day of Fall!!!

Fall is my favorite time of year. I love all the changes in the trees and in the air itself. I just love everything about it. I love to garden and in the fall everything is finally looking good and your summer of hard work is finally paying off. The colors are amazing and I love to see the changes all around. Today is just a great day. I made butternut squash soup, fresh hot bread and sliced up a couple apples. It is just perfect! I hope you enjoy this great day too!

Perfect 10!

First grade has been a really struggle for Alex. He has been very nervous and a little overwhelmed. And when it came time for the spelling test he decided it was about time be done with this school thing. So as an incentive, well O.K. it was a down right bribe I told him I would help him study and if he got all 10 words right we would go out for ice cream! Looks Like a 10 to me!!!!

30 minutes

Can anyone explain the ups and downs of motherhood. With in 30 minutes my emotions have ranged from total elation, fear, terror, anger, joy and some of them at the same time. My joy came from Tyler running up to me to tell me "Mom, you are the greatest mom EVER" followed by a huge hug and a blow kiss (Because Tyler doesn't want to kiss a girl). Now that was great. But within 10 minutes he was screaming at me because he didn't want to get out of the car to pick up his brothers from school, that would be my anger emotions. Finally wrestling him out of the car we walk on to the school grounds. We park across the street because it easier than fighting the parking lot. We meet up with Jared and Alex inside the school. With a brief wave at me Jared is off after a friend. By the time the rest of us get through the double doors Jared is no where to be seen. No the panic did not begin immediately, just after 10 minutes of looking for him. We walked to the car no Jared, we walked back to the school, No JARED, went inside the school, again NO JARED, we walked back to the car when we see my neighbor walking with Jared from across the street. The cross guards were out so we begin to cross the street when I hear a crying from behind me. Alex had tripped over some kids scooter and was sprawled across the side walk. So I grab Tyler back onto the side walk. Pick Alex up, turn again assuming the cross guard were still in place. They were not. I hear a scream from my neighbor and screeching of breaks as a white Suburban comes within inches of running over Tyler. My heart stopped. Mostly in a daze, I gather my kids and make it back to the car and for once drove the mile and a half in complete silence. Now tell me, why do we have days like this?

70.3!!

Last Saturday two good friends, Russ and Dustin, and I completed the Black Diamond Half Ironman Triathlon Race. After a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride a 13.1 mile run we were all tired, hungry and in various stages of physical melt down. But a good time was had by all. Dustin gave a talk in church the next day and made the analogy of triathlon to life. (The whole life is like a river thing is really passee but life is like a triathlon is totally cool).

The triathlon was one of the most awesome experiences I have every put myself and the rest of my family through. While triathlon is touted as each individual pushing himself to see what he can do I can say without a doubt that it would have been impossible for me to finish, let alone train, for the 1/2 ironman without the strong support of my family, friends, neighbors, coworkers and just about everyone I know. It might take the physical effort of one person to go the distance but it takes the support of the team to make the Ironman.

Next year mabye we'll take on something really challenging like trying to get three little boys in bed without pitching a fit.

I have a window!!

So a couple of weeks ago my son Jared was in a bit upset (actually he was having what we call here an out of body experience) and anounced he was leaving the family and walked out the front door onto the porch. I calmly wished him luck and shut the front door behind him. Seconds after the door closed my front room picture window shattered into pieces. I (not as calmly) open the front door. Jared stood there white as a sheet with total fear on his face. Trying to talk and hold my breathe at the same time, I crossed my arms to resist the erge to lash out at him and told him to get to his room fast, very fast. And now nearly a month later I have a new window!! Tyler was so excited he couldn't eat his lunch. He ended up eating it on a chair while watching as they cut out the old window and replaced it with the new panel. He asked at least a dozen questions and was thrilled with the tools. As they were finishing Tyler turned to me as said' Mom, if Jared breaks the window again he will be Doomed". So there in brief is the saga of my window. The whole thing seems funny now and I guess its good to look back and laugh at these things.

Time really does fly.

I can not believe how quickly life seems to be fleeing past me. Tyler started preschool. He was so happy. He could not wait to start school just like his brothers. How quickly we want to grow up. My afternoons now are so quite. He will go three times a week. What will I ever find to do? Don't worry I am sure I will think of something.

Another season...

Soccer is here again. And this year all three boys are playing. Because Eric couldn't tell any of the boys no, and because I suggested that it would be a good idea, Eric is coaching 2 teams. I am his assistant coach. Mostly I help with paper work. My knowledge of soccer is, well, lets just say it is limited. Jared and Alex are both on a BoysU8 team and this is Tyler first season and he is on BoysU6. We are a week into practices and things look great. We have awesome parents who are helping us. The kids picked out their team names. Tylers team wanted to be the Buttercups, we persuaded them to be the SHARKS. But, Tyler still calls them the Buttercups. Go figure. Jared and Alex are the Blue Bullets. Jareds explantion for that was "Because we are so fast". We had our first game on Saturday both teams did well. Tyler ran around smiling the whole time. I love U6 soccer. They run around in packs after the ball. They don't care which goal they kick the ball into as long as they get to kick the ball. It is just pure joy! Jared and Alex take their game a little more seriously. But just a little. Jared was thrilled to score a goal and win the game. Alex was happy it was a real game. He doesn't care for "practice" games.

Best excuse ever

Contrary to popular belief and rampant rumours Eric is not, I repeat, NOT in the doghouse for missing the ward picnic on Saturday afternoon. Any time the NASWI Search and Rescue unit is called out to recover the victim of an unfortunate climbing accident you get a free pass to miss the ward function.

I went rock climbing with two friends on Saturday afternoon and was planning on returning home in time to get to the picnic. After several hours of great climbing on Mt. Erie we were starting to work our way down the cliffs. The descent involved about 150 vertical feet of rapelling and two anchor stations. Kelby and I had been up there many times and were unfortunately a bit lax in our instructions to Justin who was the first person down. Justin got off route and missed the second anchor and continued rappelling down on the double rope. The double rope was not long enough (hence the need to two anchor stations) to reach the ground and Justin slipped off the end of the rope. Kelby and I were standing at the upper anchor when the rope went sickeningly slack and we heard the un-natural sound of shaking trees. With no immediate response from our calls to Justin, I quickly clipped in and zipped down to the second anchor. Fearing the worst we were greatly relieved to hear Justin calling back to us that he was hurt, bleeding, immobile but alive.

Justin landed on about the only spot where he had any chance of being stopped before hitting the bottom. I scrambled down and gave him a hand line while Kelby fixed a rope. Justin wrapped his arms around Kelby's shoulder and with a couple of shoves we wrangled our way up about 15 feet to a safe ledge.

Justing was bleeding from a 4-inch gash on his knee that went to the bone and had what looked like a broken ankle. Dr. Kelby gave him the once over and with no other apparent major trauma we called 911 on the cell phone requesting assistance to get him down the mountain.

As Kelby stabilized Justin, I ran down to the trail head to guide the EMS folks back to the site. EMS called in NASWI Search and Rescue for a helicopter extraction. At around 9:00 the chopper arrived on site and lowered a medic and stokes basket. By 9:30 Justin had been safely delivered to Island Hospital. X-rays and examination showed no broken bones, no apparent soft tissue injuries and no serious trauma. The nurses took their time and cleaned Justin up, put 13 staples in his knee, put a soft splint on the ankle and covered about half his body with bandages for the raspberries and road(rock)rash on his body. He even got to have the cut on his ear glued shut.

So while Justin is going to have a tough time running for a while his a very fortunate to be alive and in one (albeit slightly grated) piece. We all considered ourselves lucky\ and watched over!!

So if anyone else has got a better excuse for being late I would love to hear it. Anybody up for some climbing?!



(I didn't actually take this picture but this is where we spent most of the afternoon)

And now the rest of the story....

The bus left at 8:55am. At 9:00 the corks were popped and the celebrations began. 9 more months of FREEDOM!!!

After the long dog days of summer the start of school seemed better than Christmas

The post brought to you by Eric

Yahoo!!

School is back in session and the Johnston household is thrilled. We have been waiting for three weeks. Jared and Alex have been begging me to "PLEASE let them go back to school". The boys were up and ready by 8:00 and to the bus stop by 8:30, however, the bus didn't arrive until 8:57. Lets just say we had a couple of impatient kids (and moms). So with moms flashing cameras and arms waving the bus pulled away with no tears from me this year. Tyler and I enjoyed a very quite day. When I asked him what he wanted to do today he turned to me with a heavy sigh "Mom I need to rest today I am soooooo tired". So he rested and made lego spaceships. Then just as we finished lunch a little voice perked up "Mom is it time to go to the bus" which was repeated every 10 minutes. The bus didn't arrive until 4:30, which is an hour after school gets out. Jareds first words were "Mom, please, thats too long can I be a parent pick up?" When asked their favorite parts of the day Jared said "Everything, except we don't play as much in second grade" And Alex liked that he now has two recesses and he earned a third today. So the first day was a great success lets hope that is a sign of great things to come!