Our evening full of adventure. . .

On Saturday morning I went to work to watch some silly videos I had to get done before Wednesday. I couldn't view them from home and they were supposed to take approximately 4 hours to complete, so Saturday was the only real possible time to do this. I got those done, and then, because I was already there anyway, I decided to stick around to get a few more things accomplished. When finished, my friend Nephi and I decided to meet up for lunch and do a few "Saturday" errands together since he lives real close to my work. So we dropped my car off at a nearby Jiffy Lube. Nephi asked the guy if we had time to run a few errands while the car was being done, which I thought was kind of silly of him because I often leave my car while it's getting it's oil changed anyway. The man said it was fine so we hopped in Nephi's car and headed out on our first errand. After finishing that, we got back in his car and I noticed the clock said 5:15 pm. I kind of start panicking because I realized that car places don't typically stay open that late, especially on a Saturday. Nephi assured me that it would be fine because it was already 4:45 pm when we left (that's why he had asked the guy if we had time- I on the other time didn't realize it was so late already!) and the guy had said yes, "if they were anywhere near closing, he would have told us that Shawna, and besides he has my phone number"....Nephi had no worries....
Well I'm sure we can see where this is all leading. . . sure enough we arrived to a closed and locked up Jiffy Lube with the poor little blue bug trapped inside, car keys/house keys and everything. My only roommate and I are not exactly chummy and upon contacting her, she told me that she wouldn't be home until late in the evening. I will admit. . . I was super annoyed and pretty upset by the whole situation at first. . . but after calming down just a bit, I realized the humor in it all and that life was surely not coming to an end, it's not like I was stranded or anything. Nephi told me that we'd rent a few movies, get some dinner, have a "like we were kids, back in the day" slumber party, and could be back for my car first thing in the morning.

But that is not where our exciting night concludes. We got three movies from redbox... watched the first. . . then headed off (running a little late in meeting a friend of his- I might add) for a late dinner. Coming to a desolate little stop sign in his very not so busy neighborhood, Nephi sadly chose to not make a COMPLETE stop before making our right hand turn and was promptly pulled over by a good old LV policeman. Haven't seen one of them for a few months! As the police headed towards our car, my eventful conversation with Nephi began. . .

You might have to drive after this Shawna. My license has been expired....

The policeman comes, asks for the license, registration, and insurance and as he heads back to his car to run the information he asks Nephi if he has any citations on him already. "Haha. . . Not that I know of! I get my fair share of these.... but it's been awhile!"

After the policeman is out of earshot, Nephi immediately begins digging out his wallet. "Here is my debit card. . . pin number XXXX" I of course. . . .am confused....

"There is a possibility I might be going to jail Shawna. I am driving on an expired license, have no proof of insurance on me, and just might happen to have an unpaid ticket already out on me. Jail is a definite possibility for me and you will be needing THAT debit card, to come get me out.

This is where my second panic attack of the evening begins. . . What are you talking about? I don't know how to bail someone out from jail! I don't even know who I would call! Do I go to the jail???

Thinking back to this memorable evening. . . I do find it would be quite humorous to witness the next few chaotic events from an outsiders perspective. Nephi is chucking credit cards at me and I'm typing numbers into my phone of friend's of his I could call to help me out. He is very calmly giving me instructions on what I am to do while I sit in a daze wondering who in the world this friend of mine really is?

Well sadly. . . but not so sadly. . . the story really ends there. Nobody was hauled off to jail and no phone calls had to be made.
Nephi did get a laugh out of the cop when he tried to give him a handwritten "I O U one insurance card" ticket.

I was astonished with how calm he remained through out the whole situation and how different the two of us really truly are when he commented as we drove away. . .

" Well, I'm glad I didn't go to jail. . . I would have been cold in just my shorts and tshirt."

Guess I'm Smart!

I remember telling someone about this. . . but I can't remember who it was? I find it quite interesting. . .

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it

Happy New Year!!

After a rather lengthy summer vacation... it is back to work I go. I was pretty excited actually. . . it's hard having too much free time and sometimes I didn't know what to do with myself!

Now I definitely have things to do. . . a never ending list of things to do. . .

This post is for all those who always asked me what in the world I was doing at work those few days before I had to be there... like I could just show up the same day as the kids and be ready to go! Getting ready for the new school year is tremendously time consuming-- yet definitely worth it this year. I decided to go with a garden/bug/flower classroom theme... and I must say- its pretty adorable :)

Our word wall. . . the awesome fanoodle pencil I made this summer. . . and in the bottom left corner, our birthday garden.

A view of the back of the room. Middle board is not done. . . but the vision is sooo cute. . .can't wait to get it up!

Our reading corner (sorry bout the window)

And my desk where they mark if they are having home or school lunch for the day. :)


Molly was the best helping me make so much of this stuff this summer during her like one week visit home! So much more cuteness. . . these are just all the pictures I have taken so far. Definitely a winner in real life. . . maybe I will embark on making a short little video. ..

The LAST Weekend of Summer

Labor Day is kind of a sad day because it really is the "unofficial" end to the summer. It's our last big swimming and bbq day when everyone is home from work and just kind of hanging out.
Cayden got a new paintball gun for his birthday a few weeks ago. I'm not sure that I like the idea of putting a gun in the hands of a seven year old, especially when that seven year old is Cayden, but his mom and sister and I watched all summer long as he pulled out his piggy bank many mornings and evenings a week and maticulously counting out his coins in hopes of having $200 (cuz that's probably how much they cost). So now that he has his prize possession, the work is not over because now we need to go find a random place in the middle of nowhere where a child such as Cayden can shoot his new little gun without causing too much chaos to the surrounding environment. So that's what we did Monday morning. We drove off to somewhere somewhat in the middle of nowhere, and hiked our way a bit off the road so that no onlookers could view what we were doing (heck, we didn't know if what we were doing was even legal!) Upon finally arriving at a decent location, we discovered that the gun didn't even work! If you want to see scary however, just watch your sister and seven year old nephew stick their fingers in, and smack against a rock, and do all sorts of things to a gun without any kind of knowledge of how the thing even works. I thought we would be ending up in the emergency room that day! But luckily nothing happened and we could only get some pretend shots of Cayden "shooting."



Then it was off to mom and dad's house for some swimming, some eating, and some softball practice! (Notice Bonnie sitting while practicing? It was just days after the run, and yet still very much sore!)







Near the day's end, leave it to dad to fix the broken gun! (Though I don't know how much dad knows about guns either) Apparently more than Bonnie and Cayden though cuz the paintball gun was fixed! Dad found some old piece of wood to paint a big target on and we all climbed on the fort to have our fair share in the fun!






A few poorly aimed paintballs went all the way through the hedges, onto the patio, and into the pool! That thing has some power!

There were a lot of "point it away from me!" and "put on the safety!" yelling as Cayden practiced his shooting skills. There was a lot of cowering in the corners as well, but we all survived and had a great time!

Our trip through the Magical Kingdom!

After months of training in our own parts of the country, all three Kelly sisters met up together this past weekend for the first half marathon we all got the opportunity to do together! And what's better than getting to run 13.1 miles (ha ha)??? Running 13.1 miles through the happiest place on Earth- Disneyland!

We had to check in for the race by Saturday evening to be at the 6 am start the next morning. So we booked our hotel in Anaheim with intentions of driving up sometime Saturday afternoon. Intentions being the keyword of course. Because what kind of silly girls planning on running 13.1 miles would choose to go walking around Disneyland all day just the day before?
But what other opportunity would we have to be up there right in the presence of Disneyland completely kid free and NOT go in? So with complete agree-ance that it was probably a bad idea. . . we hit Disneyland Saturday morning!








Part way through the day we headed over to the Disneyland hotel to officially check in for tomorrow. We got our numbers, our (not) cute shirts, and all the information we needed for the big day!





We went back into the park for a few more hours, but by six o'clock our feet were starting to hurt and our legs were getting a bit tired and Molly and Shawna were starting to feel the effects of three hours of sleep the night before. On normal Disneyland adventures, you of course trudge through that. . . but being the responsible girls that we are, we decided to call it a night. So we left the park and began wandering the streets of Anaheim aimlessly looking for anywhere we could find to serve us our pre-race spaghetti dinner. We came across quite quickly a random little booth serving just what we needed, and boy was it tasty!



Back to the hotel we went to shower, eat our dessert, and goof around a bit before getting in our close to 8 hour zzzzz's. Bonnie also did some calculations beforehand and figured out what time we needed to hit each mile the next day in order to come in under our two hour goal. (Do we all remember what happened last race coming in just a minute over the goal?? That was NOT going to happen again!)


We woke up at 4:30 am to be at the 6am start. No spectators chose to attend this event with us, so with smiles on our faces and a camera strung to our wrist, we were off to document this event on our own!

No pre-race jitters here!


Originally, we didn't have intentions of kodaking much during the actual run. Afterall, we did have a goal time to keep! But rumors were flying that our favorite Disney characters would be there starting us off, and at the finish and we would definitely want pictures of that. But after the first mile, Bonnie checked her watch (and her arm) and announced that we were WAY far behind and she sprinted ahead trying to get us back on schedule. By mile two she said it was impossible to catch up, and it was then that I think she kind of mentally gave up on our goal and when it was ok to whip out the camera and stop for a few random shots.














The run began in Downtown Disney, took us through both California Adventures and Disneyland, then dropped us on the streets of Anaheim. Mile 9 took us down the tunnel and into Angel Stadium where we got to take a lap on the actual baseball field! Then it was back through California Adventures and once again to Downtown Disney.




It was probably the funnest of my runs I have done. There were tons of different local people and groups out on the streets cheering us on. We had Disney characters and the workers of Disney lining the path throughout both parks. We passed the spinning carousel and the twirling tea cups and the flying dumbos going round. The floats were out and people were singing and dancing as we passed by.


In the end, we missed the ultimate under two hour goal, but we did pass the finish line right at about 2 hours and 9 minutes (because of the staggered start the "official" clocks shown in our pics were not our actual times). But I for one was glad about this because if we were pushing right at the 2 hour time we intended to be at, there is no way Bonnie would have allowed us to stop for our now treasured photos. :)



After the race, we of course were starving, so we hit Islands on the drive home. Boy was it yummy! That was when Molly asked Bon how far we really were behind after just mile one. And her answer. . . twenty seconds! Next time Bonnie. . . we don't give up so easily!!