Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. ~Herbert Asquith

Well this should help my blogging!! My fabulous husband just bought me a computer for my birthday!! A laptop actually so that I can be mobile, visual (with skype) and accessible more often. I just had my first skype experience!! And as Zoey put it--"It was amazing."

We were back to the grind today. No more days off, relaxing, enjoying the sunshine. Today was wet, muddy and snowy. I told the kids to play with Twister before school today. I figure she should run some before we stick her in the kennel. It was just starting to sprinkle and I thought that was fine until I loaded the kids in the car. They were muddy and not just shoes, but their clothes too from Twister jumping on them. Isaac tried to get the mud off his shoes with his hands so I sent him back in to wash his hands. He forgot to take off his shoes and I now have mud on my carpet too. I had a busy morning with errands, a Sharecare meeting and massage clients in the afternoon.

Yesterday I turned 35. We had a pretty relaxed day. The weather was nice and sunny. I only saw one client and not until 11 am and for the most part my kids didn't fight (which is exactly what I asked for my birthday!) When Chris got home from we went to the Great Wall for supper. Unfortunately Chris and I ended the evening by watching The Other Guys. I hadn't been interested in the movie until I saw that the Rock was in it--but even he didn't make losing that amount of time worth it. But it was a good day!

Let the resurrection joy lift us from loneliness and weakness and despair to strength and beauty and happiness. ~Floyd W. Tomkins

I have to be honest. I seriously thought about going to Minnesota for Easter. The kids had five days off of school. But I wienied out--the thought of gas prices, traveling and possibly bringing Twister.

For this reason my massage schedule was a little unusual. Wednesday night I realized that I had been invited to watch a knee surgery, but had blown it off, cuz I wasn't sure if I was going to be here or not. I tried to call the surgery center and the clinic, but it was already after hours by the time I had this brilliant idea. So I decided to get there early cuz the worst that could happen, is that I would piss off the doc and get sent home. Of course the doctor I work for happens to be pretty laid back and easy going. So as it turns out I not only watched my client's surgery, but I watched a total of three surgeries before 9am. Super exciting! Plus on top of that the doc has been happy with my work and was giving complements that day. After my client was out of recovery, he requested that I do his rehab. I haven't worked with any post surgical patients since I moved back to Gillette, so I cleared it with the doctor first. I finished off Thursday giving three massages and was home by 8:30pm. It had been a good day.

Saturday we went for a drive. I was glad the weather cleared up. I don't check the weather anymore cuz I already know that it is either going to be sunny, rainy or snowy and all in the same day for another couple weeks at least. But Saturday was nice. We were mailed a flat Stanly. So we took flat Stanly around Wyoming and Gillette to send pics back to MN so that my nephew's second grade class can learn about Wyoming. When we got back Chris cooked supper, we had Eric over and of course colored some Easter eggs.

Sunday morning came fast and very early. We knew that if Chris wanted to watch the kids find the eggs we would have to be up early. As it turned out Chris had to go to Sheridan for work that day and had to leave by 6:30am. So eggs were all found before then. We made it to son rise service nearly on time and stayed for the pancake breakfast. Just in case you interested (cuz the Pastor really is) my birthday will actually fall on Easter Sunday at some point in time. Not until 2038 and April 25 is the lastest day of the year that Easter can possibly fall on. I guess it will be my 62nd birthday. My kids weren't fighting too much so we stayed for the Easter church service as well. This is the first time EVER I can remember that I have had communion twice in one morning! We came home and the kids played great for the afternoon, but then Ike didn't feel well. Had a headache and tummy ache. He didn't eat supper and was in bed for the night by 7pm!!!

So today I made some Pillsbury Cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Just hanging with my kiddos today. I did go into work for my rehab client. But even the Rec Center's Kids Zone was closed for the day--so no massages or personal training. Just enjoying:)

Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like never washed a dog. ~Franklin P. Jones

Spring is not my favorite season. Mud, dirt, crazy weather. Wondering if Zoey is ever going to have an actual soccer game this spring. Her first on was cancelled because it was snowing and raining at the same time. Today it is snowing with 20-30mph winds. May be it will stop before her game, but I am not holding my breath.

Twister is starting to learn some. I think. She doesn't always let us know when she needs to go out but is starting to sit next to the door every once in a while. At which point she gets kicked right out regardless if she needed to or wanted to. Have to say I am a little sad. When we brought her home she had one brown eye and one gray eye. I was hoping the gray eye would turn more blue as she got older. Not the case, it is tuning brown just like the other.

Parenthood: That state of being better chaperoned than you were before marriage. ~Marcelene Cox

Just for good measure and because I miss blogging--I'm doin' it twice. After soccer practice the kids brought Twister over to the neighbor's house to meet their dog Griz. I went over to supervise the kids and help Kellie paint her living room. It turned out to be a fun afternoon. When I came back Chris had made a batch of chili and we watched the latest Harry Potter movie, which I thought was great. Haven't read any of the books yet. We made it to Palm Sunday for church today, but we were later than normal. On the way home we were having a discussion about where they get the palms from. Isaac randomly tells me that the rain forest gets 10 inches of rain a year. I say "How do you know that?" He says, "I was reading informational non-fiction." He says, "Yeah and koala bears only get out of their tree once a week. That was the same genera." I just love when he uses big words! I did all of the cleaning that I totally put off yesterday. Then we were invited to join Justin, Shawna and Ava at the movie theater to watch RIO. While I really dislike taking kids to the theater, since the price totally doesn't make it worth it--I will say that it was a funny movie and my kids did have a good time. Now I am back at the old computer, blogging and sharecareing and emailing and may be a little facebooking and what not pretty much for the rest of the night. But I am so good at putting off what could be done tomorrow!

April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go. ~Christopher Morley, John Mistletoe

Once again it has been longer than I thought since my last post and I do apologize. Not even sure where to start cuz I can't remember what we did during the month of March. May be that is why I didn't blog. The kids went to the dentist and had no cavities AND no green stuff on their teeth! But of course they still want to put Isaac in braces so who knows, we'll see. St. Patrick's Day just happens to be one of the most anticipated events of the year for Zoey. Don't know why exactly, but in her eyes its like Christmas. Which is a little strange cuz she doesn't really get anything and she hates green milk and cabbage. But when I was in Elementary school the Leprechauns were pulling schanannigans (ya I have no idea how to spell that). So often times they visit here and switch things up and are just plain silly for a day. At the end of March we FINALLY got a new addition to our family. A beautiful baby girl. Puppy. Her name is Twister Rain Soost. She was about 8 1/2 weeks old when we got her and she is about 11 weeks old now and weighs in at about 19 lbs. She is half Siberian Husky and half Australian Shepard so she's going to be bigger than what we were originally looking for, but she is beautiful!! Its exactly like having another kid. She finds all the lost color crayons and toys on the floor and I have been cleaning up poop, pee and puke ever since. The first night we had her I took her out to potty at midnight, Ike got up not feeling great, pottied the pup at three am and then was up with Zoey cuz Twister's crying woke her up. A lot of work, but very fun to have her around. You should have seen the look on Ike's face the first time I told him to clean up after Twister. It was like he didn't realize they did that! The first week of April, I went to Cheyenne for some continuing education. It was GOOD to get out of my little bubble for a while, plus I got to learn from one of the NFL strength and conditioning coaches that also worked at Anoka High School. The day I was there (April 5th) Zoey was at school and lost her very first baby tooth. This was good thing, I think. As she had been talking forever about getting the treasure chest from the nurse's office to put her tooth in and this way she got it. Now, it came out during class not during lunch and I heard a couple different versions of the story so I am pretty sure she planned it this way as best she could. She was so excited to loose her first tooth! We have been waiting since Isaac lost his first tooth! Last week the circus came to town. Shawna had an extra ticket so we decided to tag along. I think it was the first for my kids and I ended up buying another ticket in case Chris got off early enough to come with us. I was just as excited to bring him to his first circus as I was for the kids. However, that was the same day I brought Twister to the vet for her first shots. We waited 40 minutes for our appointment. She took the shot fine, but refused to eat the wormer even though the pills were wrapped in some yummy dog stuff, so the vet just shoved it down her throat. I still had to stop at the bank. The ATM is inside the door and not drive though so I left Twister in my car for a minute and when I came back she had puked all over my car and those little pills were still left over so I put them in her dog dish and as far as I know they eventually got eaten! But when I made it home I announced to Chris he was going to have to drive. My car just wasn't going to cut it. The circus was fun. I let the kids have snow cones and cotton candy. We watched the lion tamers, the elephants, the jugglers, all different kinds of acrobats and they closed with 5 motorcycles riding around in a metal cage. I (and all of Gillette) automatically thought of the Simpson's (cuz we watched Homer do it first). Ya--we don't get out much. But it was fun and we all had a good time. I was so excited for Chris to go to his first circus ever and asked how he liked it--he was disappointed that it wasn't in a tent. They held it at the Camplex. Crazy man anyway! I was super hoping to make it to Minnesota for Easter, but it looks like we are just going to stay here this time. But I have thought about checking the calendar to see when the kids have the next days off which would be for Memorial Day. We get out of school like on the second of June or something like that. Soccer season has started. We have made it to most of the practices but games have been cancelled due to weather. Isaac will be in baseball again and practices will be starting soon as will be Chris's softball. So my evenings are being spoken for and of course Saturday morning soccer practice.