Tour de Cure

After many previous emails and posts asking for support, I'm sure you all know about the bike ride that we were doing for Diabetes.  As it usually does, the months of preparation went by so fast, and the big day finally came last Saturday.  Miraculously, it was an absolutely perfectly gorgeous Saturday, which for May in Seattle is definitely not a guarantee.

We ended up with six people on our team, each with different reasons for riding, and each ended up with different adventures.  I was so proud of my sister Kathryn, who has had Type 1 Diabetes since she was 11, ride 15 miles on a hilly course on an old bike with only a week of riding a bike other than her indoor recumbant.  Plus she got lost out there!

Our good friend Rachel was great moral support.  Did I mention it was a gorgeous day?!  I had to stop to take a pic of the great scenery along the way.  

I was also really proud of my mom, who decided at the very (and I mean VERY) last minute to ride the 45-miler with me instead of the 25-miler she had intended.  She rocked it, especially those hills--1500 feet of elevation gain, including a level 4 and a level 5 climb.  Here we are crossing the finish line.

A couple hours, a salmon burger, some good sun tanning, and a conversation with Detlef Schrempf later, Aaron and Steve, our 100-milers finally crossed the finish line too!  They were almost the last ones to make it back...not due to their slowness but Aaron actually wrecked while they were out there!!  You will have to read his whole story on his blog.  It sounds like his grandma (who passed away from diabetic complications when he was 13) was definitely watching over him.

I was sad I couldn't do the 100 miles with him (I sprained my back and started having some circulation problems in my legs that made biking long distance very painful), but despite all of our setbacks, we had a great experience and are ready to do it again next year.  So if you are so inclined we would love for you to join us.  

A huge thank you to all of you who donated to the cause of diabetes, and to all of my family who took care of our kids during our long training rides and the main event.  It wouldn't have been possible or meant as much without you.

Off the Road Again

If you live around here, you know that we have been gone awhile. Typically, this is something that I love....taking off of regular life for awhile while someone else takes on my responsibilities at home (thanks YW leaders!!!) and getting out and exploring.

But I will say two weeks is too long to do that with two young kids and too much sickness.  I wouldn't have missed either of the events that we took off for though, and as Kelly has so eloquently been teaching us these days, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger!

I am being dramatic.  We had a great time, really.  The first occasion was Aaron's brother's wedding in Sacramento, CA.  Because Aaron's territory includes Oregon, he decided to book some meetings along the I-5 corridor and kill two birds with one stone.  

One such meeting was in Medford, so we stayed there the first night and thought we'd check out the temple.

Not too much later and we were at another temple for the main event.  Even though the time we were actually able to spend with Aaron's family (basically a day and a half because their work schedules aren't so flexible as Aaron's) was short compared to travel time, we had a great time visiting all hours of the night like usual. A big thanks to Craig and Janie for opening their home to us for that.

Not pictured was the chance we had to meet up with some of my old college roommates who live in Sacramento now, one of whom I hadn't seen since my own wedding! AND, meeting up briefly with Aaron's coworker down there, who we love and can't wait to go back down there for HER wedding next February.

We also fit in a lot of bike rides along the way and fell in love with a lot of the scenery.  Here is Mt. Shasta, only 250 ft shorter than Mt. Rainier.

One thing we thought funniest about the drive was the BOTH going down and coming back, the clouds seemed to literally loom at the border between California and Oregon.  We tried to capture it on camera...can you tell?  After spending only 4 days down there, we quickly saw why people love California so much....and we weren't even at the beach!!

We got home from our road trip last Tuesday evening, spend the night unpacking, doing laundry, and repacking, then headed out for the airport the next morning at 11.  Yes, we may be crazy, but like I said, we wouldn't have missed it.  This time we were headed to Utah for my cousin's wedding.

Both sealings we attended were really good, with advice that was really helpful that Aaron and I are working on now ourselves!  I wished I could have had a camera in the celestial room because I have never seen a bride beam as brightly as Lauren did.  Seriously.  

It was a beautiful day outside as well.  I don't post many pics of my mom I realized, so here she is with her (I'm sure you can guess...sister).  I love my aunts and wished I had taken one with all of them together.  Here's my grandparents who let us crash at their house whenever we are in the motherland.

The whole Taylor clan for their last wedding!  Guess the Barias have to step up our game.

The next day we decided to have our own Sunday School out communing with God through nature.  Hey, we have to soak up our Vitamin D while we can!

Barett had not been feeling too great, as I alluded to earlier.  After a 104 temperature we decided to take him in and discovered ear infection #3.  We brought him home and finally got him to sleep just shy of one in the morning when literally one minute later Adelyn started screaming, rolled over and barfed.  

They took turns waking up in the middle of the night, him trying to break his fever, and her trying to empty her stomach.  So the last day of our vacation was spent laying around my grandparents tending to the sickies...and somehow the next day he managed to look like this.  Can anyone resist this cuteness???

Anyway, we were glad to go, but glad to come home to our own beds, and glad we have a month before heading out for the next wedding!

Crawling!!

Yep, Barett's on the move!  We of course were pretty excited at first, but now it is just reminding me how much of a slacker I am at vacuuming and sweeping.  That kid is fast and grabby.  And strong.  He pulled Adelyn's kitchen down on himself a few times yesterday and the day before and he is working on ripping the curtain rod down in the family room (yeah, I put that one up by myself once while Aaron was out of town, which wasn't the best idea in the first place).

This is a video from a couple of weeks ago when he first figured things out.  Maybe he'll be burning off those rolls in no time.

Elephants and Cousins

Those who know me best would put it mildly to say I am not super into animals.  I can't really tell you why, but I want to blame it on my super-heightened sense of smell that is very closely tied to my gag-reflux I imagine.  I think many of them are beautiful and amazing creations...mostly to be admired at a distance where I can't smell them.

So when Aaron throws out his random what-if scenarios that if he had told me when we were dating that he wanted to go back to being a farmer would I still marry him, I say definitely not.  That's how I feel about the animal smell.  

Yet I have to say that I am willing to put that aside in temporary moments because my daughter (as most kids I think) LOVES animals.  So when we had some randomly and unbelievably sunny days a couple weeks ago, we decided to call up my sister-in-law and head to the zoo with the cousin and cousin-in-embryo.

The girls had a fabulous time, as did Barett whenever I took him out of his stroller to check things out.  He did not like me keeping him in there while walking between exhibits, but he's over 23 pounds and I just don't think I'd make it around the whole zoo!

A big thanks to Emileigh (and Krista before her and Krista's friend before her) who told us about this great deal that gets you into the Point Defiance and Woodland Park Zoos for free!!

And just as a bonus, because I couldn't resist, here is a little video of Adelyn's famous methods for showing her approval of the food she's eating.  Hope all you who live far away and haven't had the pleasure of hearing it first hand get a kick out of it.  I don't blame her though, those Panda Puffs ARE pretty awesome!

Six Months!!

I suppose the title of this update should read six months and two weeks since that's the accurate reality due to my slackerness, but oh well.  Just a few days before his six month birthday he started sitting up long enough on his own without falling for us to declare it official.  This is us trying to get a good picture of it but he was flapping his arms too much in excitement to get a good, non-blurry shot.

This one was the closest we got, but despite it's blurriness, you can still see plenty of his precious roundness.    At his checkup he weighed in at just over 22 pounds, 95th percentile.  To be honest, sometimes I am surprised that 5% of babies are still bigger than he is!!  Really it's no wonder I sprained my back.

At six months he has already had two ear infections and cut two teeth, something Adelyn didn't do for another five months after that.  Yet, he still hasn't slept through an entire night without waking up, something Adelyn did at 3 months.  The doctor said he was old enough and corpulent enough (exact word!) to let him cry it out, but the doctor hasn't been there to hear who desperate and piercing those nighttime shrieks are...this is what he sees:

Yes he is all in all a beautiful, happy, healthy baby who is already forming strong opinions about his world: loves carrots, applesauce, and peaches.  Hates rice cereal and green beans (can you blame him?).  He loves kisses from his big sister, playing the piano, dancing, meeting new people, watching cars drive by, splashing in water, and just exploring new things.  Love him!!

A Princess Ball

Our city parks hosted a Daddy Daughter Princess Ball last weekend and knowing how Adelyn loves princess (and her dad of course), we got tickets.  Adelyn was VERY excited the days leading up to it and the night before asked Aaron what he was going to wear because she didn't think he had any "prince clothes."

So they headed off the morning of the dance to find Aaron a tie that would match her dress and got some flowers for the both of them to make it official. 

They had girls dressed up as the princesses, interact with the girls, and sing a song from their movie.  You can see that they were quite the hit...Aaron said the little girls tried to copy everything they did and be as close to them as possible while they were out.  Yes I'm thinking a trip to Disneyland lies in our future.

 

Aaron said Adelyn was pretty shy at first and didn't want to get out and dance until Moves Like Jagger came on and she couldn't hold it in...so much that someone from the local paper took their picture and put it in last Sunday's edition!!

 I can't tell you how many times Aaron has looked at the picture from the paper and the ones that he took himself from the dance...pretty sure Adelyn wasn't the only one that had a great time!

In case you're wondering what's up with Barett...here he is showing off his own musical abilities.  We were making lame rap/songs up at dinner to encourage Adelyn to eat her food (our nightly torture), and Barett started "singing" along.

Fighting Diabetes

 In honor of my dad, my sister Kathryn, and the millions of other Americans with Diabetes, we formed a team to ride in this year's Tour de Cure. We'd love to have you join us! Check out Live to Last for more details....or call, text, chat, whatever, just come ride.