End of February Beginning of March

2/26/16 - Jake covered in mud after an evening struggling to dig holes for the addition to our shop.  We are adding on so we have a place to park the tractor and mustang.  There is more of a story behing this picture -- but I need Jake to tell it.  Jason Bustad and his boys were there helping and the piece of equipment that Jake had rented got bent.  It was a bog mess and took way longer than expected.


2/28/16 - Learning the art of taking selfies at a young age


2/29/16 - Leap Day half marathon.  This was a free race in Portland that I ran along with Suzanne Moulton, Kelsey Kissinger, Erin Edwards, Holly Smith and Brandi Petersen.  It was a windy marathon with a lot of hills.  I ran it really slow.  Ever since the marathon I ran last year my goal has been to just run without worrying about the speed.  It felt nice to not have any pressure to run a PR.

Jake took Dantley to work with him during the race.  Afterwards I went to pick him up and we went to Burgerville for lunch.

2/29/16 - Dantley had his very first ever baseball practice that I took him to, while Jake took Thurston to their end of season basketball party.




3/1/16 - Thurston needed a haircut badly, so since we were in the area for Tasha's soccer practice we stopped into sports clips in Vancouver.


First few days of being a mom


3/3/16 - Dantley went outside to play and not to long after came back in the house bawling his head off.  He had went over to the holes that Jake had dug for the poles to go in for the addition to the shop.  I guess he was trying to rescue frogs out of them and fell into one.  Well, it had been raining the past few days so there was mud and water in the bottom and he got stuck and had a really hard time getting out.  I had no idea he was going up there or I would have warned him to stay away from the holes.  It could have been a lot worse.  He ended up losing one of his shoes down in the mud and came in the house completely coated in mud wearing one shoe.  It took us days to find the other shoe that was practically cemented in to the bottom of the hole.



We decided it was time for a new dishwasher.  This was a bit of a saga too.  We were going to have the delivery men install it but when they came they said they couldn't install it because we didn't have an air gap.  My friend Brandi's husband came about a week after it was deliviered and installed it for us.

Crazy Face Swap

3/5/16 - Thurston was invited to his friend Gavin's birthday party at a climbing wall in Vancouver.  While he was in the party Natasha did speed work at a nearby park.  Then Dantley had some races with her after she was finished.



In the meantime, Jake and Tamsyn were picking up our new riding lawn mower.  Our other one hasn't worked for months and noone we have talked to can fix it because the engine is different than the typical riding lawn mower..


Be prepared for 8 weeks worth of kitten pictures!

3 Capes Relay

2/26-2/27/16
Natasha and I joined a large group of people to run the 3 capes marathon relay.  We did it as a fundraiser for Sharesa Larsen who is in one of the Battleground wards.  She was recently diagnosed with cancer after having her 5th child.  She ran this relay the year before with Meagan and Ellyn and a few other ladies I don't know.

We drove in several groups and ate in Tillamook.  We were giving Beau a hard time because he had a mountain dew at dinner and his mom isn't a big fan of him drinking caffeine, but since he was the only one in his family there so he felt a bit of freedom.

Natasha and I rode with Meagan.  Her kids Bennett and Willohm were in her car, along with Tanya and Maddy.  We stayed in yurts at Cape Lookout state park.  The young boys stayed in one, and the young girls and then the moms all split up among a few other yurts.  The kids all wanted to go down to the beach in the night and swim, but after much deliberation the idea was nixed.





Natasha, Emily Graham, Sierra Harris, Meagan Allen and Nathan Harris all ran the first leg.  They had a leg that was a little over 7 miles and through some varying terrain.  They had some on a trail and some on the highway and a stretch on the beach at the end.

Later on one of the legs Natasha and Meagan jumped in and ran an extra bit.


I was in the giant hill leg with Erin, Holly, Brandi and Tanya.  It ended with 3 straight miles up a huge hill.


The race finished at the beach.







The race wasn't enough by itself to wear the kids out.  They ended up hiking up this giant sand dune too.






On the way home we stopped for lunch and ice cream at the Tillamook Creamery.
It was a great experience for a great cause.