Hill Historical - hillhistorical

We spent a weekend away from Boise and headed up to McCall.  The Jennings and Porterfield families joined us up there and we stayed at the lake house of one of my swimmers.  It was a perfect weekend.  We went to Goldfork Hot Springs (loved it!), fished, spent time at the lake (but not in the lake - it was still too cold), ate a lot, played games and spent quality time together.  The kids got along really well.  On the way home we stopped at the hot springs near Warm Lake with the Jennings.  It was an experience!  Pictures are posted under the pictures tab - check them out!

We've had a BUSY winter since Christmas!  After Christmas we spent 8 days in San Diego, CA with my swimming and diving team at Boise State.  The entire team was housed in two homes on Sunset Cliffs Blvd in San Diego overlooking a great surfing spot.  One of my favorite parts of the trip was waking up early with Luke (at about 6:45am) and going outside on the hammock at the front of the house.  We took a blanket out and rested on the hammock while watching the early morning surfers.  It was so relaxing - the perfect way to start our busy days...and keep him from waking up the house full of people.  We had a great time visiting with our friends Robb and Rachel and their two girls, Faith and Mackenzie.  We met Robb and Rachel before any of us had kids when we all lived in Denver, Colorado.  They were good friends from church and were also newly marrieds - that was back in 1997.  13 years later a lot has changed, but we are still great friends and it is fun to see our kids play together.  Robb and Rachel are both nurses so it's sweet for Jason to be able to spend time with them and talk about their profession since he almost always is surrounded by coaches outside of his work days.   

We had a fun Christmas week with Kristin's mom and dad (Grandma and Grandpa Watson) in town.  December 23rd was Luke's 5th birthday, and to celebrate his birthday and Grandpa Watson's 75th birthday (December 21st), we went to the Melting Pot.  It was a lot of fun - 3 1/2 hours of fun!  The highlight was watching Luke and Julia drink out of champagne glasses and Luke commenting on how sweet the drink was that the waiter served!  Christmas Eve we drove around to quite a few restaurants trying to find a place for dinner that was open - remember that for next year.  We had a good, fast dinner at Famous Dave's BBQ before zooming over to church for Christmas Eve service.  Pastor Troy did a great job with the message and the kids had fun singing Away In a Manger on the stage.  Luke and Julia were pretty cute up there and all the women oogled over Julia's dress and her ability to act out the words of the song (they had practiced for the last two months).  Christmas day brought a lot of amazing presents for the kids and some fun stocking stuffers for everyone.  My best gift was probably an hour long professional massage from Jason, and his best gift was wedding band #3...a nice one so hopefully he won't lose this one!  Grandpa Schmidt (Jason's mom's father) came over for dinner which was nice.  He lives in an assisted living residence just down the street from us.  I had the entire week off coaching which was a much needed break.  Jason was supposed to work on Christmas Eve but he ended up being on call and didn't have to go in.  It was a fun, relaxing weekend together.

Luke had a really fun 5th birthday.  Thanks to everyone for coming!  We decided to celebrate it a little early since his birthday is so close to Christmas, so we had a Sunday afternoon party on December 13th.  He had two friends from school (Little Luke's) and the rest were friends from church and playgroup, plus cousins Bryce and Zach.  I think we had 15 guests plus parents!  Jason and I worked hard the night before getting games and decorations ready.  Jason turned the garage into a firefighter training school.  Uncle Darby and Aunt Leah supplied firefighter hats, badges, and even bags of fire safety tips for each guest to take home.  Silly string was the water - everyone got their own bottle which was pretty fun.  There was godzilla who needed to be shot at before he took down the city buildings.  A crazy robot had to be blasted before he exploded.  A grill was on fire that needed to be put out.  And a campfire had to be put out, too.  We didn't realize silly string was toxic but if you spray 16 bottles at the same time in a confined space you might get a little sick from the fumes!  It was a really memorable party for Luke that he's still talking about weeks later. 

Luke and Julia are playing with playdough after dinner (for the 4th time today)...

Luke:  Julia tried to cut me with the playdough scissors!

Julia:  Luke are you done with the cutie cutter yet?

Luke:  Can you say cookie? 

Julia:  Cuccie? 

Luke:  COOKIE (louder) 

Julia:  Cookies 

Luke:  You're saying the wrong word so you can't have it. 

Julia:  Now just turn it around because this one is so so dangerous (I'm not sure what she's talking about here, but I am laughing because she's refering to some plastic playdough utensil) 

Luke:  I don't believe you. 

Julia:  The other side is very very dangerous.  Now I have to turn it around so the other one isn't dangerous. 

Luke:  Tell me the truth, okay. 

Julia:  I tell you the truth. 

We've had a whirlwind month!  I guess it's actually only been 2 1/2 weeks...geez.  August 6-10 we headed to Bellevue, WA (just east of Seattle) for our annual visit to my parents house and I coupled it with recruiting at US Open in Federal Way, WA.  Grandma and Grandpa enjoyed the kids a whole lot and I made quite a few roundtrip drives to and from the pool.  Jamie and John Cook came by the first day for a visit with their little ones - we hadn't met Presley or Brice so it was a lot of fun to see them.  Jamie and I went to college together and have stayed in touch pretty well since then.  Friday afternoon I skipped the swim meet and we headed to Seattle with everyone for the Mariners game.  We arrived just after 4pm for the 7pm game with hopes of being the first 20,000 in the gates for Ken Griffey Jr. bobbleheads they were giving away that night.  When we first arrived we were sure it was too late - there were rows and rows of people around the stadium.  Luke and Julia had no reason to know what bobbleheads were, but they knew they wanted one and they kept chanting "bobbleheads, bobbleheads!" from the back seat.  After dropping off Jason and Grandpa, finding parking (FREE parking along the street just a block from the stadium), and getting in line, we made it in within 30 minutes and each got a bobblehead.  It was a great game - we ended up winning in 11 innings...though our family had to head back over the bridge to the east side after the 9th inning since it was getting so late.

 

We flew back to Boise on Sunday, August 10th and that night our good friends, the Hyden's, arrived after a long drive from San Diego, CA.  We met Robb and Rachel in 1997 at church while we were living in Denver.  We were all in the newly marrieds class together at Centennial Bible Church and have really great memories from that time.  Their two girls, Faith (9) and Mackenzie (7), were stars at our house - Luke and Julia loved them.  We spent Monday touring Boise, including a long bike ride along the greenbelt to go eat downtown.  Tuesday we headed up to McCall and Payette Lake which is about 100 miles north of Boise.  It's a beautiful drive and when we arrived we "checked in" to our lakehouse.  One of the families of the girls I coach offered to let us stay at their home and it was perfect for our two families.  We unloaded everything then headed for the docks and the beach.  It was a great, relaxing afternoon.  The boys grilled steak that night while Rachel and I headed up the road to do a little shopping.  That night Jason and I took a walk along the lake and played Trivial Pursuit for awhile at a Wine Bar.  It was nice to get out and enjoy the town at night.  The next day we got going fairly early and went to the marina to pick up our ski boat for the day.  What a GREAT day.  We had so much fun tubing and skiing from 10am-5pm.  None of us had a ton of boat driving experience, but we managed to get everyone up on skis who wanted to try, and nobody was thrown off the tube.  The kids loved tubing and the biggest challenge was deciding who was going to go next!   

We spent this last weekend in Bend and Sunriver, Oregon.  The main purpose of the trip was work for me - 6 of my college girls were swimming in the meet and it was also a good recruiting opportunity.  But I chose the meet for them because I knew it would offer a great vacation spot for our family, too!  We rented a house in Sunriver that ended up being perfect.  It had two bedrooms plus a loft and a hot tub!  We arrived Thursday afternoon after a 6 hour drive and spent a few hours at the resort pool.  Luke and Julia loved the slides.  We ate some great burgers at the lodge, then went back to the house and Jason and I enjoyed the hot tub.  We also had a fire in the fireplace and cooked smores.  Very good!  Friday morning Luke and Julia gave the hot tub a try and loved it.  It's the perfect sized pool for them.  Then we rented bikes and went on a nice bike ride around the area, including the marina and horse stables.  We decided we'd go canoeing down the Deschutes River on Saturday between my swimming sessions.  Luke and Julia both rode their own pony - photos will be added asap.  Luke rode Dottie and Julia rode Houdini.  And of course we spent more time at the pool on Friday.  Canoeing was...interesting.  It's good that we weren't in the middle of a lake trying to get somewhere because both kids really wanted to help paddle so a lot of the time we were only moving forward because of the river current.  Julia loved leaning over the canoe and putting her hands in the water - thank goodness for life vests.  Sunday before we headed out we stopped at a Lava Cave which was a cool experience.  It was only $5 to explore, plus $4 for a Coleman lantern that was completely necessary as the cave was a mile long and it was pitch black without the lantern.  Lava from the nearby volcano had etched out the cave and it was really spectacular.  Luke liked it a lot - he's really into Lego Powerminers so we had lots of conversation about rock monsters, crystals and miners.  We didn't get back to Boise until almost 10pm on Sunday night and everyone had an early morning of work and school on Monday but it was worth it.  What a great weekend! 

Luke and Julia LOVED that today was Father's Day.  I think they both wished Jason a Happy Father's Day at least 16 times.  Well anytime Luke would say it Julia would also echo it which goes without saying for pretty much anything Luke says.  We had a good morning at church, though they decided to have the kids stay in the service with us which was...challenging.  I was scoping out the mom across the aisle (Sharon) who has four kids and I think I beat her with the amount of snacks, books, crayons, and toys I brought to keep Luke and Julia occupied!  The message was good and we were glad we toughed it out.  Luke kept talking about "Boy's Day" today.  He is sure that since there is a "Mother's Day" and a "Father's Day" that there must be a "Boy's Day."  He told us to be sure to let him know when it was coming.  Luke had said he wanted to get daddy a mug for Father's Day, and Jason had actually mentioned needing a travel coffee mug for his drive to work, so we bought him two.  Luke was pretty pleased that his gift choice was chosen.  And Jason also has a new IPOD shuffle coming which he's excited about.  He's never worked out so much in his life and I'm so proud of him - it was the least I could do to help make his workouts more entertaining.  And I might be a little annoyed that my IPOD keeps disappearing from the kitchen!  We made a great dinner tonight - Jason grilled red snapper and we made a dish from Cooking Light that we had made once before - Penne with Corn, roasted Poblanos, Avocado and Tomato.  It's delicious!!  Write a comment or email me if you want the recipe.  Only 234 calories per serving, 7.5 grams of fat, 5 grams of fiber and almost 8 grams of protein.

So I'm a college swim coach, right?  And I spent 12 years of my life swimming competitively.  And now another 12 coaching at the college level.  Plus another 9 teaching swimming lessons and coaching younger kids.  People assume my kids are great swimmers.  Well Luke hasn't really ever truly enjoyed swimming lessons.  We started when he turned 3 (Dec 2007).  He enjoyed playing with the water toys but that's the only thing he liked about it.  So we stopped for awhile and started up again last fall.  Again, not interested.  He earned a few ribbons from his awesome instructor - "put my face in and blew bubbles" was the title of one ribbon.  Then in the spring we did a full week and he was awesome - loved floating on his back, didn't mind putting his face in, stretched out and "streamlined" like they asked him to, kicked his legs without getting everyone in the place wet (I'm a little picky).  So it came time to sign up for summer lessons and I chose the first two week session and the third two week session thinking he would really progress with four entire weeks.  The first week was pretty rocky.  I don't know if it's a complete phase he's in, if it was the time of day (noon which is really his naptime), or if he will never love the water, but he was a wreck.  I did everything I could, the instructors did everything they could, and it was still a fight to get him to do ANYTHING.  So I tried one more day - yesterday.  And then he quit.  He waited until the end of the lesson.  He waited until we were out in the car.  I told him he didn't have to go anymore if he didn't want to.  He was sobbing, and he said he wanted to be done.  So my four year old son just quit swim lessons.  Too bad Julia is too young - I think she would happily take his place.

So I went to Winco tonight to restock for meals and I bought a few things for fun at home tomorrow with Luke and Julia.  I'll coach from 6-9 (Christine, our student assistant coach is coming over to babysit), then I'll be home the rest of the day.  I bought a potted Azaela for us to plant in the front of the house - that will be a new adventure.  We're also going to make a special lunch together - homemade pizza!  One of the girls in our playgroup, Miranda, inspired me on this one.  She makes her dough from scratch, but I cheated by buying a batch of dough at Winco.  They sell fresh dough that we can roll out and use for the crust.  It will be fun to build the pizza together!  Last night the kids rolled our crescent rolls for dinner (courtesy of Pillsbury!).  It's fun to watch them explore food and they thought the rolls were even better since they made them.  We have swim lessons at noon which will hopefully go better than today (I'm praying Luke will put his face in the water by choice).  We'll race home for naps, then have some fun outside after naptime.  Tonight Luke had fun taking advantage of his size and age while him and Julia played squirt guns out back.  Julia retaliated a few times and held her own, but she was definitely soaked through by the time we sat down for dinner!

It's finally beginning to feel like summer for us.  Not necessarily in the weather itself - we've had a lot of warm days and some rainy days over the last month.  But our schedule is getting to be "summery."  People ask if I (Kristin) have the summer off since I'm a college coach.  I laugh.  Summer is still a lot of work, though the hours are a lot more flexible.  I coach Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings for 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hours.  I work in the office for 2-6 hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  I do take Tuesdays completely "off" meaning no office time or time at the pool coaching, but I do still spend a lot of time online planning, writing workouts, emailing current team members and recruits, planning travel and schedules, communicating with other staff in our department, etc.  We will only travel for two competitions this summer - one weekend in Bend, Oregon at the end of June and another 5 day trip to Gresham, Oregon (just east of Portland) in the middle of July.  The entire family will come to Bend, but I'll go by myself to Gresham.  Then we'll all head out to Seattle for recruiting and vacation the first week of August.  There's a lot of time for family and fun in the summer.  I'm taking Luke to swim lessons at noon for two 2-week sessions this summer.  He's not loving them.  At one point he was just fine putting his face in the water, but today he would have nothing to do with it.  That's an expensive lesson of sitting around and playing!  Hopefully tomorrow will go better.  During the swim lesson time Julia sits on the side of the hot tub pool and kicks her legs, tries on the different goggles Luke's instructor has, and she watches swim lessons enviously.  She would LOVE to be in the pool learning how to swim, but she's still a little young for organized lessons.  I think she'd be fine, but they say she needs to be 3.  We'll try when she's 2 1/2 in December or so.  Jason's schedule varies some this summer, but for these two weeks he works 7am-3pm which is great.  We have long afternoons and evenings together for making dinners and doing something together.  Last night we went swimming at the country club.  The water and air were a little cold so we didn't stay long, but it was fun to get out as a family.