What's more important than family?

What's more important than family? Lyndsee asked me this the other day, probably when I was doing something that should have waited but I was making her wait instead. I'm trying to remember her question, but life has so many distractions! It's a goal of mine this summer to get rid of some of the distractions and focus on family more.

By the way, that's Lyndsee and her cousin Dallin. Scott's parents were visiting a few weeks ago and we spent a nice afternoon at Tempe Town Lake just being with family. It is always so nice to have them here, a welcome break from the craziness of life with three busy kids.

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Logan has an awesome ALP teacher, Mr. Mac. He gets to go out every day and do Math with him. A few weeks ago he came home with this awesome kite they made in class. It flew pretty well, but we needed a little more wind. I'm glad my kids have gotten to be in class with him, he gets them excited and makes learning an adventure. I hope he's still around when Lyndsee is in 4th grade. He has been an assett to thier education, and their lives for sure!

Logan is a Human Jump rope in NYC

Logan got picked from the crowd to help with a street performance. They called him "White Chocolate."

New York - Days 1 and 2

We are having the best time! Here is what we have done so far:

Thursday night:
Arrived around 10pm and got to our hotel about an hour and a $75 cab ride later. We are staying at the Residence Inn a few blocks from Times Square. Our room is on the top floor and has a great view of the Empire State Building. It was lit up green the first night.


View from our hotel room.

We ordered a pizza from Ray's (so far our favorite) and went to sleep around 2am.

Friday morning:


Breakfast at the hotel, then walked through Times Square and hopped on the subway. Lyndsee LOVES the subway.

We took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was really interesting. A little cold but the rain held off.


What do you think that cool streak is in this picture Brianna took of Scott and I? UFO? Hmmm..



I really enjoyed Ellis Island. They've done a great job depicting what it might have been like to be a European Immigrant in the early 1900's. The kids were a little bored here, and HUNGRY so we left pretty quickly.

Right after we got off the boat we found two awesome things: a vendor selling sugared almonds (they are now a staple in our diet) and a vendor selling I LOVE NY sweatshirt. I think you will see it in the rest of the pictures this week.


"If you mess with a bull prepare to get the horns" - on Wall Street

We got on the subway again - lucky Lyndsee - and went to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). It is free on Friday nights and the line was around the block. We figured it must be worth it. It took us about 45 minutes but we got in. Unfortunately the tickets to the Tim Burton display were gone - because I think we would have enjoyed that. The MOMA is on a lot of must see lists, but the Baxter family was unimpressed. We did get to see van Gogh's "Starry Night" but beyond that, it was pretty boring. Lots of art that wasn't really art to us, and trying to explain the difference between Art and pornography with all the naked paintings...I guess that makes us a little lame, but that's how it is.

We walked and walked and went through Times Square again. We went in the M & M store and the Hershey store. We also bought Brianna some contact lens solution at the Walgreen's in Times Square. Funny with all that commercialism the only places we went in were the chocolate stores and a drug store.


The Hershey store (the outside was way cooler than the inside.)

Lyndsee boogies with Blue.


It was getting late so we headed back to our hotel and got more pizza on the way - it was just OK this time. We did head to a cafe for some cupcakes for dessert - Logan's Oreo one was the best! (I'm enjoying my water while the kids pig out on cupcakes.)

We went back to the room, and what do you know, the Empire State Building is Orange now! Bed at a more reasonable midnight.

Saturday's Schedule:

We almost slept through breakfast! Obviously we needed to catch up on some sleep. Scott and I went and grabbed some fruit loops and toast for the kids who were still in bed. We took our time getting ready then started walking. I bet we walked 8 miles or more!

We walked through Bryant Park, saw the Chrysler building (boy did it shine:), walked through Grand Central Station (it was busy!), to FAO Schwartz. We got our first peek at Central Park, then through it to get my Race Packet for todays race. We walked past the Metropolitan Museum of Art (we may go in another day...but we have learned we aren't really art lovers:) We did see the Guggenheim - very cool architecture!

Grand Central Station


At FAO Schwartz - cool Lego Batman.

The trees are beautiful right now! We hit Spring in New York at the perfect time. Tulips, daffodils and trees in bloom everywhere.

The playground toys are totally different here.

Brrr....I'm the only person I've seen in the city wearing flip flops!

We finally got to the New York Road Racers and we were all surprised at the grouchy people handing out the race information. They were actually rude, like it was a huge hassle for us to be there, especially the lady who appeared to be in charge. We did end up signing Logan and Lyndsee up for the kids races too. Logan says he "will probably win." We aren't even sure how far they will run, but they got a tee shirt so they were happy!

We walked and walked some more, down Madison Ave. I really enjoyed looking at the shops, I think I finally understand "Window Shopping" - some of the displays were amazing. The kids were getting hungry and tired but we finally made it to Carnegie Deli for dinner. There were signed pictures of hundreds of celebrities on the wall - I don't know why they didn't ask us for a picture? It was good, but I'm not sure that we knew the best stuff to order, because some of the other tables had food that looked way better! Lyndsee was really happy with her Chicken Noodle Soup - it was a pile of yummy fresh noodles with hot broth to pour over it.







We saw this Cheesecake Restaurant and are wondering if their cheesecake is as good as our friend Lindy's. We're planning on going there later to check (and have Lindy make us one of her cheesecakes when we get home to compare), but for today we walked to Magnolia bakery for cupcakes. They were so yummy! We then got to have a little preview of the American Girl store, which is where Lyndsee is dying to go! I think we will go there on Monday or Tuesday, we'll see how long she can wait.

I love these final pics of my family walking through the city. It's been so fun!

Team B.L.I.N.G. "sweeps" the Islands 5k

Karen, Lisa, Cynthia, and Lindy (Sharon wasn't there for the picture)

We had so much fun at the Islands 5k last weekend. It is a small neighborhood run benefitting our elementary school's PTA with a 5k and a 1 mile fun run. Lyndsee and Brianna did the one mile run and did a good job run/walking. Logan was going to run the 5k but had a scouting conflict, so he chose to go to the Boy Scout 11year old day camp instead. The run was flat, fast and actually a little shy of a 5k according to my Garmin. They had a yummy pancake breakfast after and fun bouncies and games for the kids.

Five of us from our Ragnar Team B.L.I.N.G. showed up at the race, and we all left with a medal!

Lindy - first female finisher (20:52)
Karen - first in her age group (20:55)
Cynthia - third in her age group (25.39)
Sharon - first in her age group (25:46)
Lisa - first in race organization (26:39)

We all got P.R.'s! It was fun to run a local race and even funner to win an age group award! I know I'm a slow runner so this just continues to crack me up. Several other friends also won awards that day, including my 10 year old neighbor who wooped me and got first in his division, a boy Brianna's age who got second in his division (past me the last tenth of a mile) and a ward member who got third in his age group. I will wear my medal with pride!

Go Team B.L.I.N.G.!

A Few Fun Pictures of Logan and Lyndsee

Lyndsee stayed home sick from school one day. She enjoyed some York time.


And hot apple cider with peanut butter and jelly on homemade bread. Does she look sick to you? :) Sick of school maybe...


For Logan's birthday my Mom and Brianna made him a litter box cake. Once you got past the gross factor it was pretty good. The tootsie roll turds were gone in seconds!



Logan had his 11th birthday party at Jumpstreet. They have dodgeball and trampolines that you can literally bounce off the walls of! They had a great time (though you wouldn't know it from the look on his face above.)

12 women, 2 vans, 204 miles.

The Ragnar Relay this weekend was tons of fun. I'll post pictures soon. We laughed, we cried, we ran and we ran fast!!! We are still waiting for results to post, but in our minds we totally won! Of course I don't really expect to win but it was sort of fun to scope out the competition. We had a few other groups trash talking us a little, we think they were scared of us of course. It was super fun to see some old friends out there on the course, to make some new friends, and to get to see Michelle (Scott's sister) finish her last leg. She was FLYING!

I ran 18.7 miles, with my first run being 3.7, the next 6.5 and the last 8.5. The first run was a little hilly but I was really proud of my time. The second run was a trail and so that was fun and memorable, mostly I was glad I didn't fall down even once (though I was close several times.) The last one was HARD for many reasons. We had found out that a participant had been hit by a car and the whole race was rerouted meaning zero sleep for us. It was really difficult to start running with the gloomy feeling hanging over us. (I was the first runner after the rerouting). I wanted to do it for the team, we had come to complete this. I was thinking how silly it seemed to be doing this now, running a fun race is certainly not worth the life of the young boy who is barely hanging on to it now. I was being super cautious and staying well off the road and just sloshing through my miles. At about mile three my team caught up to me to give me water and lots of cheering. Other teams also felt the gloom and started cheering everyone on as well, not just their own team. I had an amazing turn around. I cruised through the next 6 miles and felt really good pounding those hills. I realized that even though running this race was not an important thing or big thing in the scheme of life, at the time it was really hard. I saw what a difference it makes to have someone cheering you on, those you know and love and those you don't. I'm going to try and remember that every day. Some of us are doing hard things, going through hard things that we never even know. Maybe all they need from me is a smile, or a "cheer" and I can do that.

Go Team B.L.I.N.G.!