So this weekend Seth and I headed to Mount Kato to go skiing and it was a blast!  Not quite the same as skiing in Colorado but for a place only 2 hrs from where we live, it’ll have to do!  Right about the time we were debating calling it quits it started to rain and the slopes started to get pretty slippery so it made it easier for us to decide to leave!  We then headed for the mall where we had to do a couple of returns.  Not gonna lie, Victoria’s Secret is kind of starting to tick me off when it comes to doing returns there.  They make it very difficult to actually return something.  That being said, I now have a piece of lingerie that does not fit me. 

I think I shall boycott VS for a while.  Any suggestions on where to go other than there girls??

Another piece of fun (at least to me) news is that I got a new pair of running shoes! Seth and I both decided to try our luck with Mizunos.  My first run was interesting as my feet started to burn probably due to over-heating or something so I hope to gradually wear them in.  My half-marathon training is going pretty well.  My knees still aren’t bothering me, so that’s great! 

Alright, that’s all I’ve got for now!

So, I figured I’d post a little something as it’s been quite some time since I’ve blogged!

Seth and I had a great weekend!  We went to his mom’s for her birthday and were able to make it outside to do some snowshoeing before the weather got too bad.  We brought the two doggies with and it was fun to see them jumping through all the snow and playing around!  Then we finished off the weekend at home with a nice home cooked meal of Penne Vodka in a Cream Sauce with some wine for our Valentine’s Day dinner.  It was nice.  Since we don’t have great restaurants around here we are trying to experiment with some different recipes to make dinner more fun and healthy.  (so far the more fun has taken precedence!)

It’s insanely snowy  here in Marshall as it is in all of the midwest and I’m not sure if I am speaking for myself only when I say that it was nice at the beginning, but it is now starting to get a bit old.  Here are the reasons why:

1.) We can’t have any more snow days because if we do, they are going to start taking them away from our Easter break or adding them to the end of the school year

2.) We can only shovel the snow to so many places!  Out little doggy path is getting skinnier and skinnier with the tops of the drifts getting higher and higher around it!

3.) I NEED to run outside!  Running 5+ miles on a treadmill just isn’t doing it for me

4.) I like sun and am done with the snow.  Bring on the flowers!

That being said, we are officially training for the half marathon on Mickelson Trail in Deadwood, SD.  It’s over our Anniversary weekend, so that should be fun!  Probably not the way Seth prefers to spend our Anniversary weekend, but we’ll have fun!  Training for me is going ok.  I went to the chiropractor to check out my knees last week and he said I have patellar tendinitis.  It’s something that can be healed by rest.  Since that really isn’t an option as I WANT to run this half marathon, he has encouraged me to do lots of icing and stretching.

It was the first time I went to a chiro so that was interesting.  One of my legs was like half an inch longer than the other so he was able to rotate my pelvis and stretch the tendons and it was miraculously better!  :/  He did some cracking of a few joints (the neck was the coolest) but basically helped me out with my knees.  I don’t see myself going at all on a regular basis, I just wanted help with my knees and to know what was wrong with them and how to help it!

Alrighty, On that note, I must end this blog as it has become much to long!

Well, It’s back to school for me!  Even though it really felt like I didn’t have much of a summer since I was so busy with so many crazy things!

We didn’t take a back to school picture so I’m sorry that i have nothing to post but I can tell you that we had marching band on the morning of the first day of school and I didn’t want to look funny with my tennis shoes and a dress on so I decided I would wear my heals while out with the band.  (We march on a parking lot that has the lines painted on it as it’s easier for many reasons including that there is an electrical outlet and our practice field doesn’t have one) But anyway, I’m walking around helping etc, when at one point the heal of my shoe gets stuck in the tar that they put in the cracks!  Needles to say lots of kids saw this, and the kids that didn’t see it, heard about it…From the Other Directors!  hah

Well the next day, I was definitely sporting some tennies with my skirt.  The kids had a good time with that!  hehe

I’ve also been training for a ‘virtual’ 10k to get ready for a half marathon next spring.  My last 2 runs have been rough as I’ve been having some pain in my kneee.  So yesterday’s run got cut short from 6 miles to a little under 3!  So Sonja and Traci, take advantage of that!  Unfortunately for Seth, unless he continues to run after I’m done or goes out on separte runs, his will be the same as mine! 

Well, that’s all I’ve got, now I need to figure out this mess of a schedule here at work so I can try to figure out when to give kids lessons.  I think these administrators are cleverly making the schedule to make it more and more difficult for us to do our job.  GRRRRR

Well I started my day off with a casual 5K.  :)  Seth and I ran it together and we made pretty good time too!  Our time was around 32 minutes.   I think I got around a 30 the last time I ran one and that’s probably because I didn’t walk!  Just imagine…if I could keep the nice pace and not walk, I’d be way under 30!  (Sonja, I’m sure it’s only because we have like 5 inches of leg on you that our time was better!!)

Next up on my plate for today is the Sounds Of Summer Parade at 3.  We have both the middle school kids and the high school kids marching.  (Band that is).  If the weather is cooperative, it should be a nice day for a parade!  The MS kids are super excited.  Pretty sure the HS kids would rather be out doing something different as this is lame to them compared to competitive field marching!

Following the parade we are headed to Spirit Lake to celebrate Traci’s birthday!  She turns the big 22 and the plans are to go out for a drink or two tonight and then have a nice lunch tomorrow!  Should be a good time!  We’re (well at least I am) pretty excited about our gift to her so I hope she likes it as much as I do!!!

Well I suppose I should go clean the house a bit before I head off to my next activity!

So this past weekend Seth and I brought our friends Laura and Wes to Spirit Lake with us for a mini Vacation.  Well it was more like a vacation to them than it was to us, but that’s ok!  We had a blast.  We ate some Mexican food on Friday night when we got there and then on Saturday we did “Art in the Park” where I saw my old art teacher and his funky little tea pots and then it was off to the Ritz for fishbowls and pizza.  It was pretty cold that day so we didn’t end up out on the boat at all.  After the Ritz and a round of Mini Golf we decided to hit the movie The Ugly Truth.

It has Katherine Heigel and Gerard Butler and was much funnier than we thought it would be.  Seth was pleased that the comedy in the movie was geared towards both men and women!  The plot was basically about the womanizer (Gerard) who says he knows everything there is to know about women and men and challenges (Katherine) in saying that he can get her the guy if she does everything she tells him to do.  BUT after Katherine gets the guy, I bet nobody can guess what happens!  You’ll have to watch it to see!  :)  Anyway, it was a cute movie.

I didn’t have any great pictures of our friends as the one I took turned out pretty poor, but I do have these two!!  One is of Traci and I, and the other is of Seth and I.

Well Ladies and Gentelman, now that I have it somewhat figured out how to insert pictures, I thought I would also include some pictures of my garden!  These are from a couple of weeks ago after about 3 to 4 hours of weeding, replanting and getting tons of bug bites.  Those damn things crawled up my shirt and shorts!  I was not a happy camper, but after Seth went to the store for me and came back with 3 differnet types of anti-itch medicines, I was doing a bit better!

As of now, they have filled out even more and I’ve only knocked 2 plants over and broken the stems with the hose AND we added 2 hangy plant things up on top of the flower beds!  Enjoy the pictures! 

So I got a haircut last week and this is the result!  I had to go back in after the first time because I figured that if i was going to do something somewhat drastic with my hair by chopping a lot of it off, I wanted it to look a little bit funky.  It basically looked like a “bob” after the first time.  So I went back and had her add more layers and wanted to have her make it look more ‘chunky’.

Well, since the wedding I’ve found my self quite busy with giving lessons or attending summer education camps or playing in the summer musical or working with the middle school or high school marching band…

I feel as though it would be a bit odd to write tons about the wedding/honeymoon  since most of you who cared about how it went were either there at the wedding or have since asked about the honeymoon!

AND..if you want to see pictures, Seth has a link on his blog to the picasa website 
(Yes, that’s me being lazy on figuring out how to link it myself)  To be honest, the lack of blog entries is due to the fact that I don’t sit down at the computer very often unless I have to!

Here is a recap of what has happened for the past month in my life…

~About a month and a half ago I became a Larson it was exciting and everything I’d imagined it would be!  I had a blast
~I went to Jamaica and had great food and slept a lot…Seth was there too
~I’ve given 3 weeks of summer lessons and have one week left (next week).  I give them Monday-Thursday from about 9 until 4
~I’m in the Summer Musical Production of Sound of Music.  When I say “In it” I’m actually playing for the orchestra, so I’m having tons of fun.  I’m considering auditioning for a singing part next summer, so we’ll see if I actually get the courage to do so!
~I’ve been working with the MS Marching band students to get them ready for the Sounds of Summer Parade on Aug. 22nd and the HS Marching Band to work on their music for the upcoming Marching Band Season.  My summer officially ends on Aug 3rd in which I will spend almost every day with the HS students and the staff to get ready for their fall competitions.  I’m not quite ready to be done with my summer!
~I GOT NEW RUNNING SHOES TODAY!  I met my mom and sisters in SF prior to the show (Sound of Music) and did a little bit of shopping!  I can’t wait to try them out!

Oh and Seth and I are reviewing all the Harry Potter movies since I’m horrible at remembering movies so when we go see HP6, I’m not asking 50billion questions!  We’ve watched the first 3, so we now have to find time to watch the other 2!

Ok, for those of you who read all of this, sorry!  My life is boring and well quite busy.

Maybe I can be better and keeping it more up to date and learn how to post pictures so you are less bored with all the typing!

k, peace out

Also, for those of you who care,  Sheldon was nominated for an Emmy Award for his acting on Big Bang Theory!

So tonight I had to decide between posting a blog and putting pictures up on Facebook.  I did the latter, and I’m sorry.  I hope to do a nice post about what has happend to my life in thd past month, but am now tired and ready to not be looking at a computer screen anymore.  (Not quite sure how you men do that all day long and then come home and do it all night…) but anyway, I’m off to bed as I have another fun filled day of lessons tomorrow!  But keep tuned as you will all be blessed with a nice juicy blog soon enough!

So today it was super hard to get out of bed!  I’m not sure if it was because I knew I would be at school from 7 until after 5 or because I knew I wouldn’t be able to get in a lunch or what.  I even went to be last night around 10:30.  I haven’t been feeling the best lately and I’m not sure if it’s because of the amount of things i’m trying to cram into a day or if I’m stressed about the wedding.  I usually don’t know when the stress is getting to me until I get sick, so maybe that’s it.  I don’t feel super stressed at all though, so maybe it’s lack of sleep!  Ugh

Today is the first day that I’m meeting with the 4th graders.  It should be fun!  They are all so excited to try out the instruments and every other kid wants to play “the drums” so I have to work the art of persuasion to encourage them to consider other options!

Sonja spoke a little about gardening.  I’ve been working on my plants out in my front and last night my gardening got the best of me when I tried to push the stopper out of the bottom of a planter.  My thumb went through the bottom, but my nail was long enough that it caught so it got bent all the way back.  :(  I pulled off my gardening gloves to see blood coming from under my fingernail!  My first thought was OH NO!  Wedding!  But today it looks a bit better and I’m pretty sure I won’t lose it, but I’m betting it’ll turn purple under the nail bed.  (Hopefully the nail polish will cover it!)  So needless to say, my thumb hurts!  But my flowers are pretty!  Now i just need to find the ones to hang from my deck in the back.  Runnings, the place I went to last night had absolutly no idea what I was talking about when I asked for them from there!

Alright, off to meet some 4th graders!
Peace Out!