Life Lately

 Good morning.  It's been a minute so I thought I'd share what we've been up to today.  I always enjoy reading blogs about regular ole life.

Nick and I celebrated our 19th anniversary.  Holy buckets, 19 years ya'll!  I was 21, he was 20.

This picture was our wedding day.  We didn't have family, no white dress or suit, and it was at 8 in the morning.  We've had our ups and downs throughout the years, nobody thought'd we'd make it because we only knew each other for 3 months, but here we are 19 years later, still side by side.

To celebrate, we took advantage of a few hours without kids while we were in Florida the next week.  We like to keep things simple.  We ate dinner at On the Border, ran to Target, grabbed Starbucks, got poured on (because FL), filled up the van with gas and headed back to my parents.  

I love the FL skies.  This picture has no filter and Sterling took it.

This was earlier that same morning.  Trust Jesus.  The sky writers have some pretty amazing talent.

Like @thewoodsysort says...all of this!  Yes, yes, yes!  She reposted this from @happyasamother and it is so perfect in this time of life.    

My family gathered for my grandpa's celebration of life.  We didn't go up to MN, but we sure miss him.

TimeHop, you're killing my ovaries.  I mean, how adorable is this little ballerina!  She's still a dancer, 6 years later.  She's loving Tap and Jazz this year.

While I wait for all the activities to end, I read.  I started this book from the library, but it was so good that I had to buy it so I could highlight all the important things.  So I'm re-reading it and I'm not hating it.

These two love to dress like twins.  They often get asked if they're twins.  They're Irish Twins.

They are loving Taekwondo!  Really really loving it.  Right now they go twice a week, but in 3 weeks, I think I'm going to cut it back to once a week.  It's just a lot to drive 50 minutes one way for a 30 minute activity.  But we love the studio we found.  They take their yellow belt test in November and have been practicing a lot.

In school, the kids gave an oral presentation for a language arts paper they wrote.  It wasn't assigned to give the presentation, but it's fun to change things up.

Writing in Egypitan was a lot of fun

And learning the importance of blubber protection was fun too.  They may have kept their blubber bags and used them the rest of the day testing and experimenting.  Good times.  But now they know why diver's use wet suits and what blubber on marine mammals does for them.

Xander has been drawing images of his wrestlers for three days now and he's gotten really good at it.  Here's one that he made for Sterling.  I'll have to post on Instagram how amazing his other ones turned out.  They are good!

We've been trying to get into a working out habit.  It's hard.  Really hard.  As you can see by my history, it's once a week so far.  The problem is getting up at 4:30 am to get out and do C25K before everyone else in our area starts moving.  4:30 is early!  Today I was wide awake at 5:10.  But, Nick was more tired than if he woke up at 4:30.  We just can't get on the same page.  How do you all get up early, if you do?  I want to be a runner.  I've never been good at it, but at the same time I enjoy the mental clarity it gives me.  I feel that I have to get up super early because I hate it if people are watching me.  

My first run I ran a 17:24 pace, second run 17:01 pace and third pace was 16:28 min/mil pace.  So, I'm getting better, but not so much at getting out of bed at 4:30.  

As Daniel Tiger says, "Keep Trying, You'll Get Better!"

Coffee is the only thing that keeps me going.

We also found out last week that Nick will take command of a squadron on base next summer.  It's pretty awesome.  I'll have to take over the key spouse program, which I'm nervous as a mother about.  But, we'll figure it out.  

He'll will make a great commander and we're all so proud of him.