October 25

Last weekend I never got around to writing because we had a big family weekend. Bob, Casey and Dustin did a triathlon in Boulder City on Saturday morning, so my Mom and Dad, Dustin, Kristal, Casey and Kami all came for the weekend. They got here late Friday night. Then I was going to stay home with the kids during the race because it's so early and they kids would be hard to manage there. The guys and my dad went to the race at 5:00 am and then I got a call from Bob at 6:30 that he forgot his bike shoes and I needed to drive them down there for his race that started at 7:30. So Luckily my mom and Kami and Kristal were helpful and watched the kids and I jumped in the car and drove down there. It worked nicely because that way I was able to see the race. Bob did a great job. And he had a great time and is already planning to do another one next month.

Aaron's birthday was on Monday so we celebrated that on Saturday too. He had a monster truck cake that I made, and it actually turned out pretty well. And he had a football pinata. He was pretty proud that all that family came for his birthday party. And at night we all went to a UNLV rebel football game. We had a great weekend.

Aaron and Bob got another cold this week, but other than that our illness has pretty much cleared up. We never got tested for the swine flu, but now they are saying that if you had flu symptoms since the beginning of October, there's a 99% chance it was the swine flu. They're making a big deal of what problems the swine flu can cause, so it's nice to know we're probably done with it.

Friday we went camping again to Valley of Fire. The kids always have such a great time there. The weather was perfect. And we got to try out our new, big tent, that is big enough for all of us to fit in, even with my air mattress. We went on a couple of hikes and the kids climbed a ton of rocks. Rachel and Aaron several times told me "thank you for bringing us on this camping trip".

My back is still doing really well. I don't have pain on a regular basis at all. I've been swimming and doing spin classes and pilates and riding the bike with the bike trailer quite a bit. My back or nerves will hurt maybe 4-5 days a month now, depending on what I do that sets it off. And I'm ok with not running again because I don't have pain and I still have lots of other physical activity options.

Danny and especially Aaron are really into riding bikes lately. Aaron is getting really good. Hopefully he'll feel brave enough soon to try without training wheels. So we've been spending a lot of time out in the front yard lately. And the weather has been great. I love October. And Rachel will sometimes ride bikes or collect rocks and build rock sculptures. Seth likes to play with/eat the rocks.