The Life and Times of Us

It's General Conference Sunday and we just finished eating some homemade cinnamon rolls and watching conference.

Since I have been a total utter complete slacker at blogging for the past month, I thought it was high time for a review of what we've been up to.

Please, don't be too bored.

March 8th - Will Runs a Marathon...with Boys in Jogging Stroller

Ok, he didn't run an OFFICIAL marathon, but on one Saturday where I was busy with rehearsals, he decided to go for a run.

You need to understand that when Will says "I'm going for a run", it doesn't mean he'll be back in an hour.  It usually means I'll see him in 5 hours, maybe 10.  On this particular day, he decided to run 25 miles while pushing 80 pounds in a jogging stroller.

How in the world did the boys survive 25 miles of sitting in a stroller?

Bribery.

Lollipops from the Waterfalls Gift Shop that kept their hands and mouths busy up until the last 5 miles, at which time Will called me to come pick them up. Unfortunately I was 45 minutes away and he could probably make it home before I could make it there to come get them. And they did.  Around 8pm that night in the pitch dark.

My brave boys.

Music

While Will was running said 25 miles with boys in stroller, I was busy creating music.

No really, I was.

My friend and fellow musician, Felicia, came up from Oregon to spend the weekend at our house working on three songs for her upcoming album.  This was my first time co-composing music in person with someone, and it was actually pretty mentally exhausting - hence the need for us to take many breaks to eat, watch movies, and go for walks :)  

Artists need creative outlets okay?

Same weekend, I also had an orchestral performance with our stake orchestra...

(with my friend Kelley)

Will brought the boys to the performance, and I let Taylor be in charge of the little tiny miniature violin. It's actually a real little violin that has its own case, strings, bow and everything. Not sure if you can see it in the photo below, but he's got it in between his fingers.

I could see him standing up on the pew trying to see me playing in the orchestra, holding his little violin and trying to copy me. 

Next, I went to a piano concert where a few of my music colleagues were visiting from Nashville to perform. They flew out to Seattle to attend my release concert last August, so I wanted to be sure to return the kindness and attend their concert as well since they were performing in my own area.

They asked me if I wanted to come up and perform a special guest number on the program, but I said nooooooo thank you. I am quite enjoying just sitting in the audience for once thank you very much.

Another thing that happened is I bought an old antique upright piano. 

I was needing a "prop piano" for some upcoming music videos - because I don't know, I just didn't really feel like dragging my nice grand piano out onto the muddy grass to film.

Will actually has an old upright grand at his parents house....in IDAHO.  Kind of far away and not possible to go and pick up to bring here any time soon.  So I started looking on Craigslist and found this one - which actually I really love because of the old gold scrolling and details in the carving.

I bought it and had it delivered for $250.  A real steal for this piano, as I know it is actually worth quite a lot more.  The guy I bought it from told me that it was his wife's employer's grandmother's piano.  If you do the math there, it is a late 1800's piano.  The really astounding thing is that all the original ivory is still on every single key, and every note plays. Usually on old pianos like these, a lot of keys will be broken or notes won't play.  This one was also mostly in tune - amazing.

Oh, and I also taught Preston's pre-school class all about the violin. I let them play mine and explained to them that they make little violins for children, and they all got very excited. I think some of their parents might have gotten requests that day for a violin :)

Ok so time for a little intermission of Preston art.

Preston actually took this photo himself. I think it's pretty impressive for a 4 year old, right?

Here is one of Preston's drawings of a train...

Preston LOVES to draw!  He spends hours everyday drawing and bringing me his pictures.  He finds our tape and puts them up on the wall in his bedroom (also on the wall of our bedroom- haha).  He is also getting good at spelling and writing words. He can now write his name, and also "momma".  So often times he will write both of our names on his drawings. It's very cute.

March 17 - Random Snow

That's right. It's March and we got like 2 feet of snow a couple of weeks ago. No joke.

I walked by my window and stopped, went back and saw this when only an hour before it was clear and overcast.

And then the next morning it looked like this!...

But I did enjoy doing this during the snowstorm....

When it WASN'T snowing...

At the train station, being boys.

And asking me to take pictures of toys...

More of Taylor "practicing" his little violin...

Will playing on top of Will in bed... 

Oh! And I bought a new dress...

And did braids...

Oh my goodness, this blog post gets even longer. Are you STILL there?? If you are, good job.

Okay, so being that it was March there was a BIG HUGE national holiday.  No not St. Patrick's Day....

March 25th - 8th Wedding Anniversary!

Yes, it's been 8 years. Can you believe it?  If you want to count the years we dated and were engaged, then it's been 10.  Will and I met Sept 24th, 2003 when it was weird and stalkerish to date people online.

Thankfully we were both weird enough to fall in love with each other and here we are 8 years later still going strong, in more love, and with two little mini-me's.

So we did celebrate.  

We went to the Columbia Gorge...

But first I dropped the little boys off at Grandma and Grandpa's house on the island, where I had to stop and document my presence on the beach since I had missed it sooooo very much.

Then Will and I fought Friday night Seattle Easter weekend traffic for FOUR awful hours...

Before our trip, Will spent some time cleaning out the garage and he found our big binder of printed emails.  We have an entire binder full of emails/letters that we wrote to each other when we were dating. I brought the binder with us and I have to say we had a LOT of fun reading back through our old letters!  It's weird how we've forgotten about so many little details. I felt like I was reading a book, and kept wondering if the two main characters were going to end up together or not!

But we finally reached Oregon where we first hit the Trailrunning Film Festival at McMinnamon's (sp?), then crashed at our hotel.

The next morning...

Will and his friend Jay (who was not invited on our anniversary getaway by the way LOL), ran the Waterfalls 50K at the Gorge.

Brrrr....

Meanwhile, I hiked the trails and met Will running several times while people thought I was a racer instead of a hiker and cheered me on. "Good job! Wow you're so fast!"  I didn't have the heart to say that I had a car.

There was one part on the trail where I met Will and he was SO excited to see me!  I thought to myself "Good job Jenni you made it to an access point where you could see Will during his race!".  Then Will asked me if I brought his caffeine-free Pepsi.  He previously stuck 3 cans of it in the little backpack that I was wearing. I didn't really want to hike up with 3 cans of pop, so I removed them.  The excited look on his face went from total excitement to utter disappointment.  

I had no idea how emotional an ultra runner could be for not bringing him his Pepsi. Whoops.

So the NEXT time I saw him, which was on a road, I stood there by the road waiting for him with Pepsi IN HAND.  

Finally he finished...

After the race....we left and checked into our romantic hotel, The Columbia Gorge Hotel...

Later that night we went downstairs for dinner...

During dinner, Will told me NOT to google ghost and paranormal stories about the hotel. WHAT?!  So of course that is exactly what I did, and read some spooky stories about hauntings in this old historic hotel.

So of course all night long any sound I heard freaked me out.  I never thought I would say I was thankful to be coming down with a cold that night and passed out with Nyquil. Ha.

The next day was Easter Sunday, and we enjoyed a nice long drive home...

We stopped at the Maryhill Museum of Art

As well as stopped by the Stone Henge Replica...

And then I slept. A LOT. While Will drove, and drove :)

Meanwhile, up on the island, our boys were getting completely spoiled by G&G...

I sent an Easter basket with them to open Easter morning that had two little Easter trains. They loved it, or so I heard :)

Grandma and Grandpa had an Easter Hunt ready for them!

And now that we're all back home...

Picnic at Rattlesnake Lake a few days ago....Spring has finally come? (Hopefully?)

So nice to have a child who is old enough to use the camera! I can now be in the pictures too! :)

Last but not least, the boys starring in a couple of silly videos:

Dizzy boys bored during Grandpa's art show...