The NOW

Fall, I mean WINTER

So an update on the goals. I did ride 80 miles. I rode to Teton Village, through Teton National Park, to Moran. Then I came back on the hwy. Which was not the best, but the ride was beautiful! I went alone because it was kind of impromptu. It worked out great! Not quite 100miles, but close enough.

the 10 pull-ups...who am I kidding?

Student Teaching

I am in my 6th week of student teaching in fourth grade. I am loving this! I love the kids, and I love to teach! This is such a revelation to me! I have NEVER in my life known what I wanted to do. I just usually do whatever it is I am doing. This leads to random and seemingly unconnected life events. Except, luckily God knows this about me and he set me up with a planner husband and he knew I would just follow him around, it works.

WINTER IS HERE

Yesterday it was Fall, tonight it is winter here in the hole. We had this gorgeous, sunny, fall day yesterday and tonight we have two inches of snow accumulating. What can you do? Not ski of any kind yet, not bike anymore, so it looks like I am running this weekend. It could be worse that's for sure.

A Question...

How do you mom's get these amazing blogs written and beautiful with kids yapping in their ear? In the time it has taken me to write this daughter one has repeatedly told me what time she wants to be woken up in the morning to get on the bus for her Cross Country meet, Son has told me EVERY funny line in "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and in third grade all the parts are funny, all this and the other kid is not even here presently. It is enough to make me scream inside my head. OK I feel better now.

What else?

Winter Goals next time! I don't want to give any of the excitement away, but abs of steal might be on there.

The quote of the day...

"Have you noticed all the homeless people in the world lately? That's why they have the dollar menu at McDonalds now."

I should put this into context. This was said by Addy to Madden in a very-know-it-all voice and with great conviction.

a project for school

For my bachelors degree from Prescott College I had to take a class called a Liberal Arts Seminar class. This class was taught by this wonderful professor at Prescott.

For the class we were required to read the book, A well educated mind by Susan Wise Bauer. I highly recommend this book. It was really wonderful to read about how to read!

We were then asked to answere a question a week in our journals. The final requirement was a project to complete. I chose to interviews my daughters who are 11. Here are there answers.

And here is Adeline;

The questions I asked them are shortended from the ones I answered, but I really liked hearing what my 11 year olds have to say about who they are and were they want to go in life. It is very inspiring.

I will try and post the questions later this week if I think of it.

Amy and I went for a 30 mi rode bike ride today to Teton Village. It is a very flat ride, but we made it harder by dragging the BOB behind with her kids in it. That would have been a great picture if I would have thought of it.

Have a great night!

One goal down!!!

So the goal of riding up the pass is GOLD!!! Amy B. and I rode up the pass today with Lee suporting us in the car. Holy Moly I am so tired!

We rode up Teton Pass to the sumit. I thought I was going to die, but I didn't. Not this time. I can't even really say if it was fun or not yet. I will let you know tomorrow! when I have forgotten.

This is what I am doing today...praying and procrastinating.

This is Garrick and I on top of a climb in Yosemite. He is on the Grand today with some just graduated boys. They are climbing to top in a day. This would fall under the catagory of PRAYING

I read this blog and Bella's blog and I thought of courage. What it takes to do life. How sometimes it is survivial and sometimes it is joy. PRAYING

Cleaning...kitchen, living room.

Painting...whole house, girls new rooms upstairs. Both of these are efforts to pracrastinate.

All I really want to do is go mountain biking. Again procrastinating.

I have five classes left in my bachelors degree. This degree has spanned 12 years, three community colleges, one distance learning program called Prescott college, (Which I highly recommend) three babies, and one great marriage. WHEW! I will officially be a college graduate this winter after I student teach. Holy Shit!

I know this is a bit rambily of a post, but I have been gone a long time.

Summer goals. I should talk about that because then it is out there and I might actually accomplish them. I think I will pretend that LOTS of people care about my summer goals and they will ask me about them in the future and then I will want to have accomplished them. So here they are;

• 20 pull-ups (I can do 2 and1/2)


• ride a century on my road bike (so far the farthest I have ridden is 35mi)


• ride up the Teton pass on my road bike. I am VERY scared to do this. I almost peed my pants when I wrote it down just now.


• make it all the way to the top on this trail on my mountain bike. very hard for me as I am a granny rider

OK there they are. now I have to do them.

Pray for Fatcyclist and his family, Pray fo Bella's baby (Yeah!), pray that I will stop procrastinating and get my *^%&$ school work done.

Peace friends, go out and play for me!
Lucia

Only in Wyoming

I saw this on my run this morning in Teton National Park...too funny!

End of the weekend.

Every week we host a "small" group. We get together with a group of people from all walks of life and talk about the bible and what God is doing in our lives. This last week we ended up talking about our families struggle with "church". Should we go, how much, is it even important. All of these questions we go back and forth on. We like our church that we currantly attend, I mean in all honesty it is a little boring and redundant, but that's not the end of the world and you could argue about whether that should even be a factor in the attending church factor.

So the conversation in our group circled around and around with people on both sides, but no one saying a firm "yes" or "no". Which is nice.

One person in our group who is quiet and thoughtful started talking about his church experience growing up in Pensylvania. He talked about the pastor who was an amazing speaker and about how the building was very historic and had lots of secret tunnels and cool things for little boys to explore. He also talked about the memories of sitting with his mom and dad and getting mints from his grandma.

I thought about what he said in the days that followed and the question arose, "What memories and traditions are we creating for our kids?"

This is such a broad topic, but one worth thinking about. Tradition for tradition sake seams futile and without meaning, so I do want church to be more than memories and good feelings. On the other hand giving our kids the gift of memories is also invaluable in fostering the growth towards whole people.

All these ideas were swirling around in my head competing with the very real fealings of, "just not wanting to go" in me. When I remembered that way back in July I committed to teaching an art lesson second hour at church. This seamed like divine planning!

So, Sunday morning I dragged myself out of bed, got the kids ready and we headed out the door with everyone protesting!

Five minutes into the second hour children's time the kids were asking me if we could come back every Sunday. And trully what I saw was not the Sunday school of my childhood church experience, but real learning about Jesus and the bible and real language being used and some good topics being discussed.

It then occured to me that church might not be so much about me anymore and more about what lessons and memories could be written on my children's hearts to carry them through their lives into their adulthood.

Peace on a rainy Sunday evening,

Lucia