Surprise! Happy 50th Karrie!

It has been 6 years since the Forsgren girls got together, so I guess it was time that we raise some heck together somewhere and terrorize some poor place.  This time it was California!

My big sis Karrie turned the big 50 on April 19.  Wow.  If you ask me, her 50 looks really good!  She has had a rough life with a rough marriage that lasted 17 years.  She was divorced for 9 (I think) and now is so happily married to a wonderful guy and it is soooo good to see her truly happy!  She so deserves it!

Well it was mom's idea to get all of us girls to CA and surprise her and take off for a weekend together somewhere for all of our birthdays.  Evil plans were laid, and Karrie showed up at The Alamo restaurant thinking she was having a nice dinner with Mark and leaving for a romantic weekend together.  Imagine her surprise (and probably a little disappointment) when she found us sitting there at the table, and was informed she would not be needing that cute little nightie she just bought and packed. ;)  (Though we did offer to have her model it for us - she passed on that!)

So, here's the pictoral on everything:

Mom thought it would be fun if we all wore some sort of hat. So we did!

A very surprised Karrie!

She was given a crown to wear for her hat.

All of us together.  Seriously, could we look any different from each other?

Everyone who was at the dinner

They give you a disgusting ice cream and make you wear a sombrero.  Sufficient embarrassment I think!

The California side

We found this fun cutout in the grocery store.  We were still a little hung over from all the Mexican food we had eaten.

On of the many surprises mom had for us - wrap around towels with holes for the arms!  Fashion forward ladies!

Our awesome beach house in Oxnard

Breakfast at the local joint - yum!!

Dinner at Black Angus.  Yum again!

All of us in the beach house.

We talked, laughed, ate, laughed, ate, shopped, went to movies, ate, exercised, wished it was sunny, got pedicures, and ate.  We wished we were sitting on the beach getting tan, but Mother Nature didn't get the memo about sunny skies, and sent clouds, fog and even a little rain. Oh well.

We also went to a taping of the TV show "The Doctors"  We were seated right on the front row of the audience, so hopefully we will see ourselves when they air it!  It will air Friday, May 11.  It was the Mother's Day show.  We also got to tour the Paramount Pictures lot.  We saw Mr. Schuster (sp?) from Glee go walking by - they film there.  It was pretty cool, and a reminder of just how fake TV and Hollywood are!  Man, lots of tricks to make things look like what they aren't!

You know, we are all so different from each other, but it was fun to be together.  I love my mom and sisters and am so thankful for them all.  We all have our "trials" and things we are going through, but we all are surviving and thriving.  Hopefully we can do it again a little sooner than 6 years down the road!

Indian Wells 2012

For Christmas, waaayyyy back in December, Lane gave me 2 tickets to 2 days at the Indian Wells tennis tournament in March in Palm Springs, CA.  I was so excited as I've been wanting to go to this for a long time!  This is a great tourney to go to because all the big names are there.  Sometimes when you are on the lower level tournaments, the bigger players skip them, or only one or two of them come to play.  

For some reason, the top players really love this tournament, so I wanted to go see them in action!  What a great place, and lots of fun.  However, you do need to be a true tennis fan.  Lane came with me, and stuck through the whole first day happily, and ended up suffering through the second day.  He was tennis-ed out, but hung in there.  Thanks honey!

Course, this kinda helped:

Yes, that really is my husband playing Angry Birds on his I-pad after a long day of tennis.  Fine by me! 

You are really able to get up so close on some of the smaller courts!  We enjoyed a front row seat to see American Robbie Ginepri lose to some Russian guy.  We also happened to run into a friend of ours from BYU who lives in Idaho now, but was there watching the tennis because his son got to be one of the ball boys!  How cool is that?  I'm just thrilled that as I walked by me he recognized me still after all these years and stopped me to say hi!

Here's a little collage of all the fun.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to see Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal play a match as they weren't scheduled the two days we were there.  However, I did enjoy watching them on the practice courts!  They are RIGHT THERE!  It is crazy!  How I would have loved to be a professional tennis player.  Maybe in the next life, huh?

A sign of true love is a husband who will sit through all that with you and keep a smile on his face.  (And let you buy a cute tennis outfit in the cram-packed tennis store there too!)  He was a trooper.  Though we both agree I can go next year with the girls from my tennis team instead! :)

Taking a leap back in time to Christmas 2011

So you know how I've been complaining that I can't download pictures from my new camera onto the computer?  I finally bought the card reader that works, so I need to get these pictures up for  history's sake!

So, lets jump back to December when we were having a very Merry Christmas!  Geez, no desire to blog about this in April, that's for sure!

We took the annual trip to the temple Christmas lights.

We had our first live Christmas tree in probably 8 years!  I loved it!!!

I took the girls to see the Nutracker at Phoenix Symphony Hall.  Aaah, the ballet.  We are so refined!

I kept up my tradition of giving the kids a Christmas tree ornament every year that signify's something of that year.   (Addi got a Justin Bieber ornament since SHE is going to marry him!)

Conner and Savannah got to be Mary and Joseph at the Christmas Eve reading of the Christmas Story.

After Christmas, we took a trip to Utah to visit Grandma and Grandpa Forsgren!  Lots of fun, but not lots of snow! :(

We all went downtown to see the lights on temple square in Salt Lake too.  Nothing like being with cousins!  It was so fun!  We rode on the Trax, and did Grandma's I Spy book she made for us!

On of my favorite memories as a kid was my mom playing the piano and singing stories to us of the Mouse and the Lion, and Peter Rabbit in the garden.  I love seeing her do it with my kids now!  They LOVE the piano stories at Grandmas!

Christmas Day was celebrated at Kami and Lars' new house.  Had to get one picture of me and Lane together! :)

Bryce and Sara were the lucky recipients of our gag gift, as well as a good one.  Hope they tried out their new underwear! :) ha!

Rocky Point - Round 1

So there have been warnings and stories about how scary it is to go to Mexico because of all the violence, drug problems, etc.  We decided we were tough and going to go anyway!  Good thing we did, because we had a blast!

Below are the pictures from my phone, and when I get some new adapter that will download pics from my camera, I'll put another collage so we can remember the fun we had.

The Sonoran Sun condo was fantastic.  We had Darren and Ruth and their family as well as ours, and some other friends of ours from Mesa there.  The kids played and swam and swam and played.  I layed in the sun and read and talked.  What more could a girl want?  Besides some chocolate as well, not a whole lot!

The beach - it does a body good!!



Riding in the "rhino" in the dunes.  I wasn't loving that - I much prefer the quads.  I got out early, and hear all 3 little ones were in tears at one time.  Thankful I didn't have to witness that!

Check out Conner's eyelashes.  So jealous.
Kayla and I often will come out of our rooms wearing very similar outfits without even planning it.  We really are too much alike.
Addi and Savannah got some fun braids in their hair.  Makes for easy hair-dos, but sunburned scalps! Oops!

Part 2 coming soon!

We are outta here! :)

Spring Break!!

We actually don't usually go anywhere.  This year, for some reason, we got a wild hair, and are going to Rocky Point along with half of Mesa!  We got a condo right on the beach at the Sonoran Sun.  So excited!!!  Looking forward to relaxing on the beach and playing with friends, and hopefully making new friends too!

Here's the funny part:

Night before we leave on a trip ALWAYS goes like this.  I am home, helping kids pack, and getting myself packed.  Lane is at the office trying to get things done because it ALWAYS gets suddenly busy when we are going out of town.  He starts to freak out thinking he can't leave because there is too much to do, shipments are coming in, quotes need to be delivered, sales need to be made, etc.

He will probably show up around 10 tonight, and pack himself, then question if I have packed A, B, C and D, half of which I will not have done.  Then, he'll be bugged I didn't do that, then he'll start saying, "Well, don't we want to bring this, that, the other, and weren't we going to do this, that and the other?"  Then I say, "What????  We never talked about doing that!"  You can't throw new ideas at me at 10 at night when we are leaving at 8 am.

But, it will happen... I guarantee it!  Wish me luck people, because we will have fun, we just have to get there first!  However, this year I got smart, and the cleaning ladies are coming while we are gone.  So guess what?  I will come home to an immaculate house!  :)  YES!!

And actually, I am very thankful that Lane is extremely thorough, because even with him going through a checklist with me 18 times, we still manage to forget things!

Pictures of my tennis weekend at Indian Wells last weekend and pics of this week will come when we get back and I figure out how to make my *&^$# computer upload pictures from my new camera! :)

Impromptu Half Marathon

What do you do when it is Friday night at 8:30 and your friend texts you and offers you to buy a bib # to a half marathon that is the next day?  You take it! Right?

I did!

The first annual Phoenix Marathon, Half Marathon and 10K was held Saturday in Mesa.  I know, it is called the Phoenix Marathon.  Why it is held in Mesa is a mystery to me, but hey, it was practically in our backyard, so I wanted to run it!  However, it sold out pretty fast, so I was resigned to not run it.  So, I didn't train for it.

But, being the crazy person that I am, when I got an offer to run it, how could I turn it down?  So, I got up at 5, went with my neighbor who was running it, and we headed 2 miles down the road to meet the busses that took us up to Usery Pass, and we froze until 7 am when the gun went off to start our 13.1 miles.

Can I just say this was one awesome run!!! The first 4 miles are downhill, so you can book it, and are warmed up when you are on the flat and "uphill" parts (that really aren't that uphill!).  I have only run 1 other half marathon.  It was 1 1/2 years ago, and I haven't run 13 miles since!  But, I did do 8 a couple of weeks ago, so I figured I'd be OK.   I have to say I loved it, and ran a pretty good pace!  My official time was 1:48:15.  That works out to be an 8:16 min. mile average.  Not bad.  I took 10th in my age group.  I tell you what, there are some FAST people out there!  I felt like I knew about half the people running it, and half the people at each water station.  It was so much fun!!

Now to start the training for the Utah Valley Marathon!  AAA!!  I am pretty dang scared, but I gotta do it!

Funny thing:  I got home from the half marathon and was laying on the bed telling Lane about the race.  I looked at my watch and it was 10:40.  It hit me right there that if I were running a marathon, I would still have been running right then!   In that time, I had finished the race, eaten a few free things at booths, drank a small jamba juice, gotten a small massage/stretch, talked to various friends, and driven home.  All that time I would have STILL been running!

What have I gotten myself into????

Freezing by the bonfires waiting to start

My new neighbor Emily, and her cousin Megan who came down to run the race.

Can't run a race without my girl Lisa!!!  It was fun!

Arizona Children's Musuem with Addi

Every year you have to do it:  Go on the pre-school field trips with your lovely pre-schooler!

Kami and I brought Chloe and Addi for the class trip to a new Children's museum down in Phoenix.  It actually was pretty cool, and the kids had a blast and we ended up staying a little longer than we thought we would! :)

The highlight was the "puppet show" we got corralled into.  This crazy tooth fairy lady came out and rounded up a bunch of kids to come in and watch.  Then, she got a few kids to help.  She was telling a story about a giant that was sleeping and snoring.  Addi was the official "snorer" who had to sit on the floor and make a snoring sound all while the fairy was talking about him.  It was hilarious!!

Crazy to think that this is my last one I have to do this with!  People say I will be sad .... I hope so, because right now, I'm kinda not!