Missing My Blog

Hey guys!

Wowzers. There is A LOT going on in the J family and I want to share it all. The problem is that with so much to tell, I often don't know where to begin.

And SO many pictures to get caught up on! A whole summer of them.

Maybe with fall and a more predictable schedule I'll be able to get into a better blog routine.

For now, I'm hoping this will give me a bit of accountability to get back here.

It also doesn't help that I have been up late at night doing who-knows-what. I prefer to blog in the morning but I've been too exhausted when I wake up.

There are some very exciting prospects up ahead. Can't wait to see what God has in store. My mom thinks I should write a book... and maybe I will.

Day by Day

Life continues over here. As I've written before, Facebook seems more accessible in this season of life - but sometimes I want to say a little bit more. And I miss my blog. I'm hoping to get back into more of a regular day-to-day blogging schedule. It's such a wonderful way to document our life. So here are some odds and ends of what we've been up to, in no particular order of importance or sequence.

• I resigned my position as a Jazzercise instructor. While I feel just a tad bit sad about it, I mostly feel fine about it. My free time can now be my free time and not my plan-my-set-and-practice-until-my-booty-falls-off time. In interesting Jazzercise news, Cheryl Burke of Dancing with the Stars has signed on for a promotional partnership with Jazzercise Inc. Pretty exciting - it's such a fun and effective way to exercise.
  

• I've been taking as much advantage of the harvest season as time and energy will allow. Of course, I wish I would have picked more blueberries, gotten to my corn before my chickens did and had a friend with an overflowing Italian plum tree but such is life. I DID:

Can Tomatoes

Can Applesauce

Make Jam

ok - that's an applesauce picture but I forgot to take jam pictures...

I also dried some apples but honestly, you get very little return for the amount of work you put in. And my kids didn't care for them... how is that even possible?

• Xochi Maia is the sweetest baby ever. It's very affirming to be her mother - she smiles at me every time I look at her. And she's HUGE! Growing nicely. I think she weighs about 17 lbs. As a point of reference, Adia weighs 23 lbs.....

• Justin and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary last week. We went on a wonderful date. Out to a movie (a rare and sacred occurrence lately) and then to dinner at a wonderful new restaurant. More than ever, we are loving being married and enjoying the sweet life God has blessed us with. We're in a good groove and we both agreed that the first few years of marriage kind of went by in a blur... we're happy to be able to more fully savor these times together.

Then...

and now.

Sorry - I got a little carried away with the wedding pictures...

• We went on a family vacation at the end of August. Justin's parents have a little cabin on Hood Canal. We all had fun relaxing, eating, clam digging, fishing off the dock and just being together. While there, we also celebrated Justin's 33rd birthday. His parents, grandparents and one of his sisters came to celebrate. It was great.

• Fall has arrived... for the most part. The weather has been particularly sunny - great for yard work, not so great for my body which is screaming at me to Please, please put the summer clothes away and dress me in some more comfortable sleeves, sweaters and long pants! Please! I am starting Jillian Michaels Master Your Metabolism eating program today though so I may be pulling the summer clothes back out when the snow starts falling. I'm very excited about it - more on that later. Speaking of her though, did you watch the Biggest Loser last week??? Oh. My. Word. BAWLING!
  

• We're seriously considering putting our house on the market and have even called a realtor. We're hoping to move closer toward our goal of more land and less debt. Along those lines, and just because I always want to get organized in the fall, I'm going to clean out our hallway closets today. While I don't particularly enjoy cleaning, I do LOVE organizing. And it's a great day for it!

Loving this crazy life,
Cutzi

New Year's Motivation

Here's a little motivation for all your New Year's resolutions....

Steele and I reviewing our Jazzercise moves for the week.
Note Steele is eating and Jazzercisin' at the same time...
I wonder if that burns more calories?

A Few Thoughts

I know you're all waiting for the next fair installment... Unfortunately, for some reason I couldn't fall asleep until 4 am last night so I'm pretty sure nothing I write tonight is going to be worth much of anything.

On some side notes:

1. I finally found a color for my kitchen and I am so excited about it. Once the process (which is too depressing to start into tonight) is over it is going to look awesome!! I will give you a little preview though.

2. I'm having personnel problems yet again. It never ends I tell ya.

3. I had a revelation this week about blogging. It's this: As long as you present a near perfect image of yourself - an image where you don't express any of your possibly controversial opinions or reveal any flaw in your character, people like you. Otherwise, they bash you. It's true! Why did I just now realize that? And why was I even thinking about it so much?

4. Sometimes Steele is a little rascal. And sometimes he kisses me on my hand (or on my leg, or my shoulder, or my head...) and tells me, "I'm sorry I disobeyed you yesterday, mama." Or... "You did a good job painting that, mama." Or.. "Thank you for giving me chicken nuggets for lunch, mama."

5. I love that Adia calls nectarines neckaneens.

6. I also love that Steele asked Justin if he was going to sleep on the fire engine tonight. And after that he asked one right after the other, without missing a beat:

• What station are you at tonight, Papa?
• Are the meggics (medics) there?
• Is the fire engine there?
• Is the ladder truck there?
• Is the chiefs car there?
• Are you driving the fire engine?
• Are you driving the aid car?
• Are you driving the chief's car?
• When you come home can we work outside? If it's raining we can put on our coats.

7. Our van is in the shop again. That's all too depressing to start into also - which is why I haven't brought it up here before. I can't even remember the last time I drove it for more than 2 days in row. Not even joking.

8. We're going to a fancy wedding this weekend. We're bringing my mom and sister and brother down to watch the kids. Then my mom and I are taking all the kids to the zoo on Sunday. Should be a fun weekend.

9. Do you guys read Pioneer Woman? I know, everyone does - so I hear. But if you don't, you should. She pretty much rocks.

10. I feel like I should think of a 10th thing - just to even it out.... but I can't think of anything. I need to go to bed now.

One More Parade Picture

I love this picture. It shows 4 of the 7 fabulous instructors that teach for me. The three in the front from left to right: Alina, Danita and Elena. Behind Alina on the left is my "greenest" instructor Michelle. Who knows what they're laughing about but they sure are having fun - imagine being in their classes!

Just a side note about Alina and Elena - they're sisters. Alina is the youngest child of 14. Elena is the oldest sister in the same family. Elena (on the right) has 5, yes - you read that right, 5! kids. I'm so fortunate to have such a great team of ladies work for me.

Ha! I just remembered what they were laughing about! See Elena there on the right? She could NOT get that move for the life of her!! Every year she has trouble with one - can you see her pouting about it? Too funny.

I'm Exhausted.

The good news?

I made a heckofalotta money.

('Cause you know it's all about the money)

The bad news?

I ate like 7 pieces of pizza.

Not to Worry

There's one of you too Trina!

(thanks to Melinda... shout out to Melinda!!)

What Did We Do Today?

Well thank you for asking!

Just another day of Jazzercise paradin' bliss.
Thanks to Mike again for the awesome pics.
Well, except for the one of my dreaded genetic double chin...

For the Record, He's Swiss

Two days before the Ski to Sea Parade this year we still didn't have a driver for our van containing the sound equipment (music). I had asked around to some of my instructors and class managers to see if any of their husbands might be interested in doing it - to no avail. I had even begun calling some of our church's college students who are home for the summer to see if they wanted to earn a little extra cash. Still no luck. I was getting desperate.

I'm not going to lie - when I mentioned my plight to our friend Hans that same day I was hoping either he or his brother who was visiting from Switzerland might offer to help us out. Hans did offer one of his 5 sons, the oldest of which is probably no more than 12, with the assurance that they drive tractors around the farm....

Needless to say, I was absolutely relieved when Hans called me the next day and said his brother Adrienne (forgive my mis-spelling) would do it. I mean, really, who wouldn't want to spend their American vacation driving a van through a parade with a bunch of Jazzercise ladies boogyin' it up behind them? A vacation highlight for sure.

So I bought Adrienne a Starbuck's card and a six pack of micro brew - Justin showed him how to start the generator and he was good to go. I adhered to a strict "Don't ask, don't tell" policy when it came to the question of whether or not he was even legal to drive in the U.S. After all, it was only a straight line down the center of a road... with hundreds of mothers and children on the sidelines... but that's beside the point. I even managed to make a fool out of myself while trying to make small talk with him before the parade started. Nothin' new.

Justin and I had an ongoing scenario occurring throughout the course of the weekend. We'd see a friend who'd say, "Hey! We saw you in the parade! You were great!" And Justin would then proceed to tell the story of our "Swedish" driver. It would go something like this:

Justin: Yah, so our Swedish friend...

Cutzi: Swiss.

Justin: Swiss friend... yada yada

And again:

Justin: Yah, so our friend's brother is visiting from Sweden....

Cutzi: Switzerland.

Justin: From Switzerland... yada yada



And in the end...