Things change, but basically they stay the same

One weekend last month was witness to an amazing thing: my college roomies managed to get together, families and everybody, for a little reunion in Utah. It took about five months of emails to get it all coordinated, but we did it, and thanks to everybody for being flexible enough to make it happen! (Anybody who lives more than 3000 miles away should not feel bad about not making it.) It's always easy to catch up with people who really mean something to you, and so it was with the lovely ladies I spent so much time with at BYU in my collegiate years. Here you can see us in the prime of our co-ed lives.



And here we are now, (below) looking fabulous still (those of us who are not incubating a human child, at least.) It's funny how much peoples' lives can change, while they themselves change very little. In the 7-8 years since we were roommates, we've had jobs and careers and years of experience out in the world, plus some of us have added kids and husbands (not in that order) but we're still pretty much the same in our jokes and personalities and the way we talk to each other and what we talk about. I think it's pretty great, and I look forward to the next time we can all get together.



Part of our weekend was spent trolling campus for guys, you know, for old times' sake, but we did find time to take our kids to some of the more kid-friendly spots on campus at the BYU.

The picture above is at the fountain at the new Joseph Smith building, which is obviously a fun place for kids to make their parents worry they'll fall in.

Here are the spawn of the inhabitants of University Villa apt. 211 (is that the right number?) from left to right: Chloe (Miranda and Mike's) Adam (Keira and Chad's) Laney (Miranda and Mike's) Brinley (Keira and Chad's) and Charlie (Adri and Will's) .... I think we all did a pretty darn good job selecting mates who would contribute advantageous genetic material to our offspring. You can see the mates in the picture below and judge for yourself :)

And now for a couple of more quotidien pictures...

Charlie periodically puts on this stylin' outfit to "be a bak-setball player."

Charlie got a temporary tatoo at a parade, and of course the most manly place to put a tatoo is on your bicep. It's more manly if you can flex to show it off, but it's also very cute to do what he's doing in this picture, and I'll take cute over manly any day.

So, I know this is very, very far in the future, but some of the runners in my family are looking to put together a team for a race next August in Oregon. It's called the Nike Hood to Coast Relay, "the Mother of all Relays," and it's a relay wherein a team of 10-12 runners each runs from Mt. Hood, OR all the way to the ocean, a total of 197 miles. Each runner will average about 15-20 miles over a 24-hour period of time, with each segment being broken up into between 3-5 mile chunks. So you might run a segment at 3pm, hand off to your teammate and hop in a van to your next starting line, run again at midnight, hop in a van again, etc. until every member of your team has run each segment all the way to the finish line. I've never done it, but from what I hear, it's AWESOME. Sooooo, we're looking for team members, and if you think you're even the tiniest bit interested, check out the website. Then, get committed, and join our team! You know you want to...

http://www.hoodtocoast.com/

And finally, I'm looking for potty training tips, because one day in the near future we're going to get serious about that bid-ness around here. So let me know what worked for you, or what definitely did NOT work. Thanks!