Happy #3 Luke

We celebrated Luke's 3rd Birthday last week...finally. He turned 3 the weekend that I was out of town for my race so we decided he really didn't need to know that it was his birthday and we celebrated about 10 days later. We figured what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him :)

It has been all about trains lately. His Grandma Olson has a Geo Trax train set that he LOVES. He found a Fisher Price catalog at Grandma's and noticed the new CARS collection complete with remote control Lightening McQueen and Doc. He would frequently point to all the items he wanted. He slept with that catalog until it literally disintegrated! Unfortunately the CARS collection did not come out until mid June which was another reason we waited to celebrate his birthday. As you can see above he made out pretty well. Mom even has a few more pieces to the collection that will probably make their appearance for Christmas. We made the mistake of having him open his presents before cake and it was all we could do to pry him away so we could sing to him.

My masterpiece this year :)

10 things about our little Lukie....

1.) He can memorize simple books in little time and recite them back to you even without the actual book.

2.) He loves his big brother Dylan and refuses to ever give him "alone" time.

3.) He is our only child that has been to an emergency room....twice!

4.) He can sing "I love to see the Temple" on command.

5.) He enjoys riding skateboards and scooters through the hallways of our home and using furniture as his personal launch pads.

6.) His new thing is putting on his Batman jamies and cape, running around in circles through the house singing.."nananananananananana....BATMAN!!"

7.)He loves to sleep with toy catologs or ads. Right now it's the Toys R Us ad from Sunday with the transformers action figures on the cover. We've already taped it twice.

8.) He throws right handed but bats left (apparently appealing to professional scouts according to Mark)

9.) He loves wathcing the Polar Express in 3D with no glasses in the middle of June...over and over again.

10.) He is our Craziest, loudest, demanding, most active and stubborn child....so far.......and has made me seriously question my no-spanking stance :). We LOVE him to pieces!!!!

Happy Birthday Luke!

60 years and counting.....

Once again, I'm behind on getting these pictures posted...but better late than never I guess. The same weekend my Dad and I ran the Dipsea Race Mark and the kids went up to LA to celebrate his grandparents 60th wedding anniversary! Wow...60 years...Mark and I would be 89 and 90 when that happens (Yes, I'm the older one :)) Anyway...here are some pics from that day...

The whole family...(minus me, Craig and Kari, Amanda and Kyle).

The plan was to play a good old fashioned baseball game at a local park to start the festivities. Grandpa Olson (and all the Olson boys for that matter) are big time baseball players.

Each person had a corresponding number on their shirt to represent when they entered the Olson clan...very clever :)

Everyone participated from age 2-85!

It doesn't get much cuter than that!!!

This is what happens when there is no Mother around :)

Makes a great picture though.

The party then got moved to Grandma and Grandpa's house where they had lots of friends and family that wanted to say Congrats.

Had to include this one! Uncle Scotty and Tryg having some bonding time.

Mark was a real trooper playing Mr. Mom for the weekend. They did all come back unscathed and very tired.

Tom, Dawn, Pauline, Don,and Paul.... The original Olson Clan.

Congratulations and

Happy 60th Wedding Anniversary!

The Dipsea Race

Well, it usually takes me a good week to get something posted to our blog so last weekend my Dad and I finished yet another Dipsea race. This was my Dad's third time running the grueling and treacherous race and my second. For those of you that have never heard of the Dipsea it is a very unique 7 1/2 mile trail run that pretty much goes up and over a small mountain. It starts in Mill Valley, California (otherwise known as the home of the Toyota Prius and Obama love bumper stickers) near San Francisco and ends at Stinson Beach. It's unique for a couple reasons. First of all they have a handicap start where depending on your age and gender you have a few or several minute head start on the scratch (male 19-34) runners. My dad has a 13 minute head start on me (but I passed him after about 27 minutes of running :)). It makes it fun because you can usually pass lots of people along the course that started before you. The first person to cross the finish line wins which means a 70 year old male or 11 year old girl could end up winning the race because they had a 20 minute head start. They also run two separate races. First they start all the "Invitational" runners. These are people that qualified in the previous year's race and then they start the rest of the runners (this was where me and my dad were). There's about 1500 runners in all. It's torture just watching all these groups start and having to wait until it's time for you to finally start. My group is one of the last one's to leave the start line.

The course starts off with about 672 steps within the first half mile. Before you even get to mile 1 you are usually pretty wiped out! The first 4 miles are pretty much all up hill and much of it rather steep. The last 3 1/2 miles are down hill with hundreds of more steps and some more crazy steep stuff. Below are a few pics from the course including the beginning of the 672 steps.

Another unique thing about this race is that there are several places along the course where you have to make a decision on which way to go. Either choice will get you to the finish line. One way may be steeper, scarier and faster (indicated by the name suicide below)where the other might be safer but a little slower. You're also allowed to take shortcuts if you know them in certain areas. My dad and I aren't familiar enough with the trails to try that but I'm sure there are some veterans that take advantage. In the end I was happy with how I did...4min. 35 seconds better than last year and I qualified for the invitational race next year. You have to finish in the top 750 spots to qualify and with all the head starts and invitational runners I probably started about 1,400 back so I had to pass a lot of people along the way to earn that spot! That was my goal so I was a happy camper :).

(Just a little inside joke). My dad did great too. He improved his time by 3 1/2 minutes which was awesome. He worked very hard for that improvement training in Utah running up and down the 'Y' too many times to count, wearing his weight vest for added resistance, and practicing going down stairs at record speed. Can you believe he's 70 years old!!! My dad is the coolest! :) A little wiped out and very dirty after the race.

You get pretty dirty in this race so I thought you'd appreciate a few pictures to illustrate. The top 35 finishers get a coveted black shirt to indicate their finishing place. It's the only race I know of where the goal of most is to wear a t-shirt around town with a big # 5 or #22 on it and feel proud.

Our view as we laid on the beach and took a well deserved nap after the race

The Dipsea race is the second oldest running race in the world, 2nd only to the Boston Marathon. I love that I have been able to do both. Dad is already planning his workouts to prepare for next year's race :). As for me, It's on to training for the New York Marathon in November. For those of you that have a peaked interest in this race should check out the movie On The Edge starring Bruce Dern. It's based on the Dipsea race and it's a classic!

A boy and his truck

Just some pics for the great grandparents. Great grandpa Olson worked for Ford as a Mechanic for over 30 years I think. He gave this truck to Luke a while back and I thought he'd get a kick out of seeing him actually play with it.

Gotta love a picture of a boy and his truck

A little male bonding

In an effort to get ready for camping in Yosemite in less than a month we decided to get one of our tents out to see if it was in working condition and had all it's parts. Last year we had let someone borrow our tent and then got to Yosemite and realized they had not included the poles when they returned it! That was fun!! Anyway, the boys were quite excited about having this tent on our deck. As you can see Mark was a good sport and decided to do some father/son bonding with Dylan and they spent the night in it.

Mom loved it! See...I'm not the kind of wife that can't sleep when her husband is not right next to her :). I loved having the whole bed to myself that night....Ahhhh

Scarry Scarry Dinosaurs

So I took Luke and Tryg to the new Dino Mountain at the Wild Animal Park a couple days ago. I had heard that lots of kids were leaving there in tears even though it's pretty much marketed to children. So, I tried to prep Luke by explaining to him that these Dinosaurs we were going to see were just pretend and they wouldn't hurt us. He kept repeating at home before we left..."They're not real, they're just pretend, they can't hurt me!" Well..it was a little scary for a 2 year old as you can see (Tryg wasn't to fond either) and who can blame him but he persevered and made it through the whole thing and as we approached the last dinosaur on the mountain he says...."Yeah...Now we can go home!".

See...not too bad. He looks like he's cautiously having some fun.

Nothing a little carousel ride can't fix...

Don't be alarmed...this face was not caused by the dinosarus but rather that he was only allowed one ride on the carousel.

And, I guess he's forgotten the trauma because he's been begging to go back :)

The perks of not having a "job" anymore

Just a few pics from some of our latest outings. I titled this post "The perks of not having a job anymore" because I can remember when I was working for the AHA and would talk with friends of mine and they would tell me about how they went to the park with their kiddos that day, etc....I was totally jealous. I soooo wanted to have the freedom to do that with my kids and now I can! Although they can drive me to the point of pure exhaustion and frustration sometimes (especially now that the little ones have learned how to fight with each other) I am grateful that I get to spend these types of moments with them any time I want. Thanks Mark!

On a side note...This JOB of motherhood...way harder than that other "job"!!

Luke and his cousin Danny at the Zoo.

Trygve getting his feet all pruney at the new splashpark in 4S Ranch that we LOVE!! Thanks Krista for turning us on to it! Way easier than the beach :)

My cute boys