Bunches o' Butterflies

About a week ago I got a call from my BFF, Tracee, telling us to take a short drive and hike up a nearby canyon to check out all the butterflies hanging out around a small stream.  So we did, and I'm so glad!

The butterflies were everywhere around the water,

they were so beautiful and so fun to watch!

 Aurora kept trying to grab them if they sat still long enough,

and I was surprised that she actually did grab one!

 While I was recording Aurora trying to grab the butterflies, a small one landed on my finger :)

 Dar and Aurora ventured across the water to the other side of the stream

 Mesmerized by the water :)

 I think every kid has a favorite past-time of throwing rocks into water

 My loves :)

Thanks for telling us about the butterflies, Trace!  I'm glad we took the time to enjoy the beauty of God's creations!

Annular Solar Eclipse - 5.20.12

We recently were able to see a pretty cool eclipse in our area of the world.  It wasn't a total solar eclipse (where the moon completely blocks out the sun), but an annular eclipse where the moon's shadow is just slightly smaller than the sun so when the moon is directly in front of the sun you get a "ring of fire".  It was really neat, and I'm glad we took the opportunity and adventure to go see it!

We only found out about the eclipse the day before (thanks, Mom!) but we made arrangements with Dar's parents and decided to take a short road trip after church so we could see the complete "ring of fire," even though we could have seen a pretty good eclipse from where we live too.  The closest place we could get to to see the whole ring was a place called Cove Fort, about a two hour drive south of where we live.  It was fun to see so many other people there to watch the eclipse as well.

We weren't able to plan ahead to get ourselves some nifty eclipse glasses because of the short notice we got, but we had a welding helmet we could look through and Dar's dad brought his binoculars to reflect the image of the eclipse onto paper, and that's actually the best way we were able to see it.  It really was pretty cool!

The eclipse well underway

 Reflected onto paper.  Way to be a good easel, Dar!

 Getting closer!

 Even closer!!

 THE RING OF FIRE!

 If we had traveled even further south we could have seen the ring of fire centered, but at least we got to see a full ring!

 The moon already leaving the sun

 It was really cool too that the sunlight really did get dimmer from being blocked by the moon.  It made it feel like it was later in the day than it really was.

 Silly Dar

 The bottom edge of the sunlight on his tooth makes it look gold :)

 An image of the eclipse just beginning that Dar took through the welding helmet

 Getting closer to the full eclipse

 Full eclipse!

 The adventurers :)

 Silly Grandpa.

 Cove Fort

 See?  There really were other people there to watch the eclipse too! :)

 I was getting ready to change Aurora into her jammies for the ride home and her feet were DIRTY from walking around in the grass in her sandals.  She thought it was pretty funny :)

 Our sleepy baby on the drive home

Thanks again, Mom and Dad Deming for taking us on a fun adventure on a Sunday afternoon.  Let's do it again sometime ;)

To read about other eclipses we've posted about that we're looking forward to click here and here.

Enjoying the weather!

On Saturday after we ran our 5k we took advantage of the nice, warm weather and went to feed some ducks.  My younger sister was in our neck of the woods so she joined us with her daughter, as well as the McSweeney's.  It was nice to spend time out in the sun making the ducks fish fat :)

Miss Koda was getting up close and personal with the fish :)

 Our beautiful baby

Amazingly when I took this picture, instead of saying "cheese" the duck said "Aflac!"

 Feeding the fish because they we hogging all the bread

 Cute picture of our Aussies

 Miss R

 Jared was letting Aurora drive around the parking lot.  She thought she was pretty cool and freaked out when it was time to be done and get in her car seat.

 Jared showing Aurora where to steer

 Jared - No hands!

Running with Angels 5k

On Saturday we were privileged to participate in the Running with Angels 5k at Thanksgiving Point Gardens (the same place we did the Walk of Remembrance last Saturday).  This is by far my favorite 5k we've done together.

• Mostly because it has personal meaning to our family
• We got to run the race for our angel baby, Nastassia Grace
• It's the first 5k we've done as a family of 3, and we ran the whole thing together 
• Thanksgiving Point Gardens is beautiful, and the scenery beat any other 5k we've done
• Everyone else running the race either had a personal story like ours, or they were there to support other family members and friends who have lost a child or more

It really was a special experience and I'm so glad we decided to do it and donate to a good cause, helping other families like ours when they go through the difficulty of losing a child.  We're excited to make this an annual event for our family and make it a special time to remember and honor Nastassia.


Before the race began, we had a moment of silence and a dove releasing ceremony to honor all the little ones we were running for.  It was a pretty emotional experience for a lot of people, including me, but in a good way!

There are 44 doves in this picture!

 Right before the race began

One thing I loved about the race was the great analogy it is to life in general.  Some parts of the course were really easy, a nice down-hill jog where things went smoothly and you could run faster with less effort.  Other parts of the course were much harder - the slight inclines that make you work a little bit, and the HUGE hill at the end reminded me of the difficult times in life where you have to try your best to reach the top of your trials and the relief you feel when you come out on top feeling like you've given your best effort.

Our family at the finish line

Darwin pushed Aurora in our awesome jogging stroller

 Our memory bibs for Nastassia - I think we'll make our own T-shirts for next year though

We were both proud of our success with this race.  I honestly felt I was able to do better than any other race I've done because I was doing it for Nastassia, with Darwin and Aurora right beside me.  Can't beat that!  Love you, babes :)

Race Results:

Chip Time: 30:44

Pace: 9:55/M

Overall Place (out of 810) - Darwin: 175, Kiara: 176

Gender Place - Darwin: 89, Kiara: 87

Division Place - Darwin: 11, Kiara: 19