We heart visitors

We always love visitors, but when people come and visit us in Missouri in the middle of June, that really says that they love us.

Missouri is hot in June. More like Missourable. Ha!

So Mumu and Grandpa John, thanks for sacrificing yourselves to come and visit us.

We picked the lowest temp day to go to the zoo, it was in the low 90's that day.

The animals were really social that day, probably the best animal sitings I've ever seen.

Thanks animals, you did well!

We did a lot of fun things, but I'm thinking the most fun was Lego Land.

Avery wants to live there.

 She was so busy doing everything, I don't think she stopped to pose for any pictures. So here is Brooklyn.

We went into the Kansas City room. The room was the whole Kansas City in legos.

Look, its Arrowhead stadium!

My question is, how does one become a professional Legoler? Best job ever!

We lost Mumu for awhile... then we found her. She put herself in a Lego class. 

Maybe she is going to apply for the next Legoler position?

Thanks for the visit Mumu and Grandpa John. 

Good Bye Friends

One of the crappy things about living where we live is that it is very transient. There are always people moving in and moving out because most people are students. We know this and should probably just stop being social, to shield our hearts, but if we did that, then we would have never been so tight with the Taylor's. 

We love them

We have a similar perverted sense of humor

Our kids are in the same stages

We like the same things

Its hard to find that sometimes. Gosh, I sound like we are dating them.

We kind of were, but anyways, they moved to Arizona a couple of weeks ago.

We knew this was coming, so we thought we would have one last special date with them.

No, we didn't go out to a fancy dinner, we strictly stayed in the small town of Riverside, Missouri for one last hurrah.

The only rule of the night was that we couldn't leave the city limits.

So we started with the new little BBQ joint, Hawg Jaw Fritz!

It was good stuff! 

Oh and if you don't know anything about Riverside, this is hard to understand, but we had to wear our Red X T-shirts, it was the only appropriate attire for the night.

On that note, after getting full, we headed over to the infamous Red X. We had a plan. Each couple had 15 minutes to spend no more than 5 dollars on the other couple at the Red X.

The Red X is filled with treasure I tell ya.

From antiques to dollar store items, it puts Walmart to shame.

There is even a humidor inside

 

 This is a one of a kind store, don't pass it up if you are ever in Riverside.

After we bought the stuff, we hid it away for awhile and decided to hit up the local sonic for dessert.

With this, we made a couple more stops. John wanted to venture to the secret crematory to see if they would let him in. They didn't.

We also had to drive through the local trailer park. Its a real treat if you haven't been there.

Then to Houston Lake* to eat our ice cream and exchange Red X gifts.

*technically, Houston Lake is not Riverside, but we really were running out of options.

This is what we got from the Taylor's

Its a gem, and we will never forget.

We really are going to miss our friends!

Avery is gonna miss her prince.

And Brooklyn will have to find a new friend to bite

Bye Taylors, you will be missed!

I guess I can get pregnant now?

You know, down the road a ways... all I am saying is that I am allowed to because I did my "run a marathon in between each kid" goal. 

This marathon was... interesting. It was in Maryville, MO, about an hour and a half north of where I live. I picked it because it was the only marathon in Missouri until October. I guess they don't condone dying of heat exhaustion in this great state, hence no Summer races. I didn't want to train during the Summer because its just plain horrible, so Maryville it was.

I made Amy do it with me again. She is more loyal than Lassie. The day before the race, she fell off of a horse and practically busted her arm. It was a bloody mess, but she still wanted to run it anyway. See, that's as loyal as it gets.

Amy and I ran our long Saturday runs together. I have lots of juicy information about her because of this, but I can't tell anyone because she has some on me too. That is just what you do when you run with someone for 3 hours straight. It is almost like getting drunk, you lose your inhibitions. I better stay on her good side.

Travis had to work the night shift that night, so he couldn't make it. I was sad, it was his first race ever not being there.

Race Day:

Woke up at 4 am

Amy, her fiance, Hyrum and his friend, Scotty arrived at 4:07 am

We drove to Maryville

The sun came up

We picked up our race packet at 6 am

We got ready. Stretched, went potty, took pictures, etc

6:30 am the race starts, but Milli and Amy were still in the bathroom trying to "be as light as possible."

At 6:31 am Milli and Amy started the race, the last 2 people to start.

This race was tiny compared to Kansas City marathon (200 total, but only about 40  marathoners). And no one really cared that we were running. There were no bands, or fans. It was weird. 

Also, it was a 13.1 mile loop, so I had to run it 2 times, and 10 miles of that loop was on highway 71, so if you are good at math, I ran about 20 miles on an up and down highway in the middle of nowhere.

At least I was with Amy, until I suddenly got this burst of energy on mile 9 and ditched her. She told me to, and I almost didn't, but then I did. No Lassie here I guess.

And of course, I didn't pack an ipod or anything. In the past marathons I have ran, it was OK not running with music because there were always a bunch of people around to talk to and make friends with. This marathon was different. I would have killed for some tunes. They had drink stops every mile and a half, but in between, sometimes I never saw a soul. If I fainted,  would anyone even have noticed? 

I wish I had a recorder of all the random things my mind was thinking. And I couldn't get "moves like Jagger" out of my head.

I was pretty bored, until I met John.

I noticed John from about mile 14, I was about 100 yards behind him. I noticed this huge 14 passenger van that kept stopping where John was, and a bunch of kids would get out and run with him, then they would pack up, get back in the van and circle around again. Sometimes his fans would stay in the van and cheer, and sometimes they would get out and give him five.

When I caught up to him, we chatted for a minute. I told him how cool it was that he had such a good support team, and he asked me what my name was. I told him, and then got that burst of energy and took off (I'm a glutton I guess). Anyway, when I saw the van circle around again, I looked over, and there were about 8 kids in there yelling my name! His fans became my fans. I saw them about 9 more times during the race and felt like a million bucks every time. What a cool wife John had, lugging around 8 kids for 3 and a half hours so they could cheer for their dad and a random sweaty girl named Milli.

I remember mile 21 the most. It sucked. It was on the last stretch of the highway before we finally got to run on something different, and it was all uphill. My feet were not too happy with me.

I finally got to the end of the race, and there were about 4 people cheering. It was awesome. I finished the race, grabbed an orange, took my shoes off and just sat for awhile. Then a guy walked up to me and told me I was the first female to finish. I looked at my time, and it was 3 hours and 38 minutes, about 90 seconds off my best time and then I thought, who the crap wins a marathon with that time? 

The Kenyans and professionals must not have heard of the Maryville marathon, because they would have rocked it. But I take what I can get, and what I got was 600 bucks! I had no idea this would happen! I even got interviewed by their local paper. You can look here for that, they pretty much said that the male winner's wife wasn't trying very hard because she had run a marathon a week ago, and she would have killed me if she was trying. Ha!

Amy finished about 20 minutes behind me, winning second place for the women and 300 bucks! 

A couple of things I learned from this marathon:

1) Bring your Ipod no matter what your plans are during a marathon

2) Its a lot more fun when your love is at the end of the race cheering you on.

3) Bring Gu to small town races, I almost picked a used one up on the ground and licked it during mile 21. 

4) During the drink stops, drink the gatorade and pour the water on self, don't vice versa that one.

and 5) don't ever make physical goals for yourself when you are 22, I want to punch that 22-year-old in the face.

Here is some proof

Amy and I before the race

Her poor arm

Hyrum, her fiance'

This was when the race started, and we were on the potty

This was a drink station on highway 71, just look how awesome the ground was we were running on!

Scotty, my date

After the race

 

Accomplishments

Travis had to do a little research for his residency and then present the research... science fair style. You know with the huge poster board

I never saw him working on it

I never really saw him thinking about it

I didn't really think much about it when he told me what he was doing that day, presenting his research

Then he came home

With this bad boy

See it?

Yeah, he took 1st place in the "science fair."

They not only gave him that sweet ribbon, but they gave him this

100 dollar gift card to the downtown plaza

I was extra happy about that

Good job Travis! He is just born with the natural smarts. I think there are two types in the world. The type who are naturally smart and don't have to work too hard and the type that are not very smart and have to work their butts off. Travis is the first type, I am the second type. I know this because we both took psychology in college together, and he hardly looked at his book and got an A. I looked at my book a lot more, and I got a B-. 

Whatev.

Speaking of accomplishments, this was mine this weekend

Oh, I guess that doesn't really tell you

Well if you would look closely, you would see that I have a running medal on. I ran my very first real 1/2 marathon

It was an accident

I'm training for a marathon, and my good friend Sarah had signed up for this 1/2 marathon and realized she wasn't ready to run it. 

She told me to represent her and run the race instead. Since I was supposed to run that distance anyway for my training, I gladly accepted.

It was hard 

I barfed when I got home

It was tougher than a full marathon because I got cocky and thought that 13.1 miles was nothing compared to what I was going to have to run and I ran without pacing myself

And let me tell you, I paid for it!

Stinkin' pride

Another fun accomplishment that happened in the Charles family was that Avery graduated from preschool

She was ecstatic

She won the award for "most expressive"

As we were explaining the award to the crowd, she interrupted me and ran over to one of the Dad's and asked, "why do you have a shaved head?"

It was epic

I'm proud of my little Avery 

Happy Days preschool was a good time

She only has 2 more years of preschool :)

And finally, the last great accomplishment of the week was by Brooklyn

I looked out the window and saw her playing in the sandbox

And when I looked more closely, this is what I saw

It was a great weekend of success for all of us

Back to Business

It felt good getting that last post off of my chest, but back to business as usual.

Business item #1

Temple

Kansas City got a temple! 

I'm from Utah, where there are tons of temples. I've always respected and appreciated temples, but I think I took them for granted. The closest temple to us is about 2 1/2 hours away in Omaha. When we found out about 2 years ago that there was going to be a temple built here in Kansas City, we were pretty excited. I had no idea how exciting it would be though. From the very first shovel of dirt that was dug, there has seemed to be a buzz in the air.

One Sunday, when construction was underway, Trav and I decided to go on a drive to see it. We started on the freeway in the general direction and found ourselves lost. He thought I knew where it was and I thought he knew where it was. We were totally annoyed at each other and decided to just drive to church. When we looked up and saw this

Whoa. My heart skipped a beat. At that moment I was so grateful and almost a little emotional to know that we were going to have a temple just minutes away from us!

Months later, we were able to take our kids and friends through the open house of the temple

 Avery thought it was pretty cool. She especially thought it would be fun to run and jump on the alter in the sealing room. Oops!

Since we are on the topic of the KC temple, we may as well discuss the KC temple 5K run that we did last Saturday (did you just see what I did with there... so smooth.)

This was the second year we did it. Trav and the girls joined me this year. I decided this year, that I was going to stop being a show off and that I was going to just stick around with my family. In my head I imagined running hand in hand with Travis as we were pushing the jogging stroller with our girls, running towards the temple in eternal bliss.

Well, it didn't really go as planned.

We started out on our magical journey. Then Brooklyn got cranky. She was crying for the first mile. I decided to pull her out and walk/run with her. She's pretty heavy, so I mostly walked with her. Travis went on ahead of me.

Brooklyn fell asleep on me.

I had to walk the rest of the 2.3 miles with a 22 lb sack of potatoes. 

My time was 53 minutes. PB right here!

  You can't be too mad at the little stink

After our family race, it was time for the kids 100 meter dash.

Avery did awesome! She didn't want to let go of my hand. As long as we beat Jude, her on again off again boyfriend, we were happy!

And I think we did!

And lastly, Travis, you really need to get in front of the camera once in awhile. People are going to think that I am a single mother. He ran the race, took the pics and watched the baby. What a champ!

Business item #2

Father/son church camp out

One of these things is not like the other

That didn't stop Travis from taking Avery to the Father/Son camp out. 

He figures that he will never have a son, so why not take little Doodle? I don't even think they suspected that she didn't have "boy parts."

But they may notice in a couple of years, so sooner or later this tradition has to end.

Uh oh... Probably sooner

Item of business #3

The gun show

Not really a gun show. We went shooting at a range with our friend Orson.

I'd like to tell you that it was awesome. I'd like to tell you that I was a natural shooter. I'd like to tell you that Travis was super hot shooting that gun.

I really would have liked all of those things. But it didn't happen for me because I FORGOT TO BRING MY PURSE (which had my ID, which was required )so the mean lady behind the counter rejected my "A."

We were clear in Independence, so I told the boys to go ahead and shoot, while I went shopping. 

It was a treat window shopping at the dollar store, because again I FORGOT TO BRING MY PURSE and I had no money.

What an adrenaline rush

Item of business #4

Time outs

They have begun for this gal

She is a biter, a hitter, an attacker and a toy stealer and must be punished.

Don't let this face fool you

She is lethal

Those are the items on the agenda for now. Stay tuned for more serious business.

Just because

I have no reason to blog today. I have a million pictures of my kids I could write about, and I usually do, but this particular post, I think I just feel like talking.

I remember when we first started blogging, pre-kids, I would write a lot about what I was going through and feeling and thinking. Nowadays, the blog is all about my kids, which, really, is what it should be about seeing how we don't live near any family.

Lately I have had this inner dialogue with my brain. I think of my life. I think of what I do every day. I think of what the future will be like for me. To answer those thoughts, right now, I basically live for my children. If they are ornery, my day is usually bad. If they are happy, my day is usually joyous. If they are sick, my day is usually hard. If they learn or pick up on something new, my day is usually awesome. My days consists of the normal mom things. I feed kids, I play with kids, I try to entertain kids, I clean up after the kids. I am constantly finding new fun things we can do. I am always meal planning and going to the grocery store. I am a typical mother. As far as the future goes, I plan on having more kids and plan on basically doing what I do till they are grown. As they get older, the routine will change. They will be going to school, having soccer/dance/piano lessons. We will be settled with a job and a house etc.

This is the life that I have chosen and have sought for, but sometimes I  feel anxiety, selfishly, for my own future. Before I had kids, I made a rule that I was never going to loose myself to motherhood. I wanted to always be laugh at funny things, love to run, love to learn Me. To a point I have kept that motto. I still love to exercise and run. I love to have fun with friends. I read and try crafts and try different recipes. I watch "E" and can tell you all the celebrity gossip. So yes, I am still Me. But sometimes I just don't feel like the old Milli.  At some instances, I do feel lost to motherhood. Sometimes I do have a free minute and I have no idea what to do with myself. I can't start and finish a project. I can't read a book. Sometimes I take better care of my kids than my husband. I know that I'm babbling but the scary and real question that I'm dealing with right now is this. Once my kids are all grown up, what is going to become of me? What will I do?

So many women have talents that are put to work when their kids are grown. Some women will start businesses, some women will make things and sell them, some women will go back to their profession and work, some women will devote themselves to genealogy, some women will get into real estate. Right now, none of those things really sound that great to me.

I have always wanted to be a nurse, but really, at age 50, will I want to go back to nursing school?  I mean, wiping my kids bums for 20 years doesn't make wiping strangers bums seem that appealing.

Will I be the woman that goes to lunch with her friends, reads books, always has a clean house and shops galore when my kids move on? That doesn't sound so bad, but will I be stimulated?

I know this post is from left field, but truly what inspired this is that I was looking back at a bunch of my old blog posts, and they were pretty fun to read back in the day. I remember how stimulated I was. I remember that I had to make myself wait a couple of days before posting about something else that I wanted to write about. I felt inspired to write all of the time. Nowadays when I go to blog, I have no idea what to write. Pictures I have. Adorable pictures of my beautiful family. But sometimes I want to talk about other things, like I used to.

This post isn't a cry for help at all. I'm happy and I am doing exactly what I want to be doing right now. I think that I just need to get things off of my chest and also I like to document how I am feel during this moment in life I am at right now. Who knows, maybe in 30 years I will read this post and think, "man, what a basket case, life is great. My husband is almost retired and makes a great living. My kids all made it and are having their own kids. I have the freedom to do whatever it is that I want to do. And also, I have a hot body." Ha! That last part was a joke to myself... hopefully in 30 years I will still think that I am hilarious.

In conclusion, I'm just in a deep thought. I know things will work out good for me for the future. I shouldn't be scared to "put my eggs all in one basket," that basket being motherhood. I think that if I just totally give it all, my blood, my time, my sweat, my tears, my emotions, my love; with a little bit of "selfish me things" mixed in; I know that it will be worth it. I just need to convince my overly anxious mind of this so that I can enjoy everyday, even if that day consists of overly ornery and cranky babies.

Happy Mother's Day!