Gold & Green Ball

On the very same day as the River Rat half marathon, our ward put on a Gold & Green Ball for the adults. It was a fun night with a live band, lots of dancing, food and fun. Dave & Rachael, and Ewan & Kristie were some of the main planners and they did a fabulous job with the organization, decorations, food, etc. It's been a long time since we've been to a dance, and it was so fun to get dressed up and spend the night with friends.

Dave and Rachael

 Kristie and Ewan

 Ken & Shelly

 Ang & Jeff

 Val and John

 Nicole, Heidi, Rachael, Val, Ang, Kristie

River Rat Half Marathon

On Friday, April 27th, we loaded up the kids and took a road trip to Yankton, South Dakota. A few days earlier, I had found a half marathon and decided to run it last minute. Our kids are so great, they love road trips, especially when we get to stay in a hotel that has a pool. I think that's the highlight of the trip for them, but I remember being the same way as a child. When we finally made it to Yankton, we stopped to get a few things and pick up my race packet, then it was time for some fun! Can you tell Emily was excited?

 Emily loved this little slide and spent a ton of time going up and down all by herself. The pool had a great set up with a big pool, a small kiddie pool, and a hot tub. We lucked out and pretty much had the place to ourselves most of the time.

 The boys loved the big slide. Emily decided she wanted to go on it as well. Jacob helped her up and she went down all by herself. I wasn't sure if she like it because it was pretty steep and fast, but that girl loved it and went on it over and over.

 We had so much fun swimming and stayed until about 9:30pm. I don't ever seem to get to bed as early as I should on race nights, it was about 11:30 by the time I finally got in bed, but I love watching the kids have so much fun.

 The next morning I was up early for the race. It was definitely a cold morning, 38 at the start and only 40 by the time I finished. Luckily it wasn't raining, but there was a wind gusting up to 15 mph that  that made it pretty chilly. I kept my long-sleeved shirt and gloves on through most of the race.
The River Rat half marathon was a beautiful race along the Missouri River. We started out on a paved path following the river, then made our way through part of town, and along a path that followed some beautiful farmland and the highway. The turnaround spot was right near the docking area for the Missiouri River, so we were able to see some really cool boats.
It was a smaller race with only about 120 half marathoners, which I generally like. I don't need huge groups and sometimes prefer the small race atmosphere. It was an out-and-back course which I also really like. For some reason, knowing exactly where I am makes the course seem shorter to me. It was fairly flat with some rolling hills, and one big hill- about 200 feet. We were able to run down the hill at mile 2.5, but we also had to run back up around mile 10.
I decided to go out conservatively, keeping my pace at or below an 8:15 and then see where I was at at the halfway point. I was a nice, enjoyable run and I really liked all the local spectators and family members with their cow bells. I was feeling great at the halfway point and picked up my pace.
There is a long stretch of road leading up to the hill on the way back. For about 4 miles, you just stare at it and know that it's coming. When I finally got to the base of the hill I decided to just get it over with as fast as I could, so I picked up my pace even more. I was feeling great and kept my last three miles in the 7's. As I mentioned before, because it was an out-and-back course, I knew exactly where to go and how far I had to the finish. (Does anyone else feel like those last couple miles in a race just drag on when you don't know where you're going?) I actually think this was the best race finish I've had. I felt great and finished the last half mile at a 6:30 pace. I felt pretty tired at the end but so excited with my PR finish time of 1:45:41. (8:04 pace) My goal was to be under a 1:50, so I was thrilled with the 1:45. It put me as the 14th overall finisher and the 7th woman.
(I was technically supposed to run a 20miler that day, for marathon training. But since I found the race last minute, I decided to just add the miles later. So after we got home, I ran another 7 to make it an even 20)

 I don't know who was more excited to see the other, me or Emily. She was so cute cheering me on at the finish and wanted to wear the little medal around.
It was cold enough that I was glad I had brought the kids' full coats. We stayed just long enough for me to grab some post-race food and get some pictures, then we took off.

 Emily's face is a total crack-up. She wanted to be on the slide, not in a picture.

 I'm especially grateful for this awesome guy and his willingness to put up with the craziness. My sister-in-law Nettie made a comment on this photo about how handsome Jeff is, and I have to agree. He's one good-looking, sweet, awesome, wonderful guy and I'm sure lucky he's mine!

Random April

Great-Grandma Tanner sent the kids their very own bird nests. They were beyond thrilled and immediately ran out to put them up in our trees. It'll be fun to see if we get some bird families.

 I came up one day to find that Jeff and the boys turned my bathroom into a greenhouse. Apparently it's the room in the house "that gets the best light" and therefore was the ideal location for the sprouting seeds and plants. When I said I like house plants, this wasn't what I meant. Luckily they should be gone soon. :)

Emily loves her daddy, and he's pretty smitten with her too.

 One day, Caleb came up to show me this poem he had written as a gift for his kindergarten teacher. He's pretty creative and wrote it all by himself. I love seeing how kids sound words out and write them. Here's the translation:

Community Helpers

A happy, happy day, hooray!

Community helpers save the day!

There are police men, fire fighters, and builders too.

A vet for your pet, and a mail man.

A chef to cook your lunch.

Happy Day, hooray!

After getting home from the gym one day, Matthew managed to snag my iphone and fill it up with about 200 awesome new photos, half of them being random pictures of his fingers.

 This is another reason the boys always want to play with my phone. Brent showed them this Jetpack game and it's been a favorite ever since. Too bad they don't get to play too often.

One of Emily's favorite places to wait when we go pick up kids from preschool. She loves these little cubbies.

 One Sunday, Jeff and Ken managed to wear the exact same tie to church, same brand and everything. It was pretty funny.

 Aunt Mandy sent Emily this cute princess accessories gift in the mail. Emily was so excited to put on the crown and kept it on most of the day. I did find it funny though, that the first words out of her mouth when I gave her the wand were, "hi-yah!". I think this girl has a little too much boy influence!

 I found these photos on Jeff's phone. We had stake conference a couple weeks ago, and Jeff was trying to keep the younger two kids happy with an app on his phone that lets you color and decorate photos. The picture of Matthew cracks me up. They did pretty well for a 2-hour stake conference.

Stolen Purse- Part 2

After our temple trip in March, where our car was broken into and my purse stolen, we went through the entire process of canceling out accounts, creating new accounts, etc. About a week after the incident, Jeff got a call from a banker in Georgia that a woman was trying to cash checks using my ID and debit card. Since the banker caught her and confiscated the cards, we figured everything was all fine and taken care of, but I still kept a close watch our our new bank accounts.

On Friday, March 30^th as I was checking our accounts again, I noticed that there was a charge on one of our NEW accounts listed as a charge for paper return for insufficient funds totaling $4700. After confirming with Jeff that he had had no activity on the account, I immediately called the bank to find out what was going on. I spoke to a couple different customer service representatives who informed me that the charges were from checks written to and cashed by an “Angela Stevens.” They told me there were three separate checks, two for $1600 and one for $1500, but they couldn’t access any images or give me any more information. I told the representatives that I had not deposited any checks to this account. I told them about my purse being stolen and asked if this could in any way be related to someone using my account fraudulently. The representative said most likely not, but said that they would go ahead and file a claim. Jeff called again that same afternoon to try and find out more information. The customer service representative he spoke to assured him that it was probably just a bank error and that they would hopefully get it resolved soon.

We let the case go over the weekend, since most of the case activity is done on weekdays, but continued to check our account every day. On Tuesday, April 3^nd, I decided to call the bank in Georgia to find out if they would indeed be mailing me back my driver’s license and debit card. I spoke to the teller who had originally called about the fraudulent activity, and taken my license from the woman at the drive though, and she told me that on the back of the check that the woman was trying to cash was written one of our NEW bank account numbers. Somehow this person who stole my purse had been given access to at least one of our new accounts and was cashing bad checks. (They had someone else's checks and wrote checks to 'Angela Stevens' who went through the drive through & cashed them rather than just deposit them)

After speaking to the teller, I immediately opened up our online bank account again, and saw right away that there was another pending charge for $1600 listed as charge for paper return because of a closed account. I immediately called the bank again and asked them how this was going through when we had just informed them on Friday that it there was fraudulent activity going on. When I gave her our case number, she informed me that someone had filed the case incorrectly- as a ‘research’ case rather than a ‘fraud’ case and immediately changed the status to fraud and put a freeze on our new account.

Meanwhile, this person who had stolen my purse just walked away with $6300 in cash! Jeff and I couldn't believe it. We had done everything correctly. We had gone though a huge process to create new accounts to prevent anything from happening, but because some employees of the bank weren't paying close attention, someone was able to collect an easy $6300.

Once again, we completely closed out our accounts and went through the process of getting new, separate accounts, adding even more security measures. I spent a good chunk of another day updating all our 20+ mortgage/loan/bill/online accounts again. In addition, I spent about 8 hours completing more than10 pages of paperwork that had to be filled out, notarized, and sent off to a fraud team who would review it, and decide whether or not it was a legitimate case. 

After a couple weeks, I'm happy to report that they did indeed rule it as a fraud case and refunded our money and the bank had to suffer the consequences for giving out the money in error.  It has just been a crazy incident and I'm really hoping that this is the end of it! 

Baseball

 Ah, baseball. It seems to be our life right now. We signed all three boys up to play this year. Right now, we have baseball at least 5 days a week, and Matthew's practices haven't even started. Caleb practices Mon/Wed and Jacob is Tue/Thur/Sat. I'm hoping Matthew's will coordinate with one or the other when he gets started.That means we spent a lot of time at the park, and since Jeff has been busy with institute, work, and studying, it's usually just the kids and me.
We usually do an early dinner, then head off the park for an hour. Although it's busy, it is nice sometimes to have an excuse to do nothing but play with the kids for an hour. They sure don't complain, they love baseball practice. The weather is hit and miss around here, even during the same week we might have temperature differences of 30+ degrees. Some days we're all bundled up in coats, other days everyone is running around in shorts and t-shirts.

Matthew and Emily love the swings, especially Matthew. Ever since he was a baby, this kid would be content to do nothing but swing for an hour. Emily loves them too, but she also likes to do other things. The park has two fun chair swings that the kids love. It makes it nice that I can keep track of both of them at the same time.

 These younger two can drive each other crazy, but they can also be the very best of friends. I love it when Matthew is sweet to Emily and takes such great care of her. He can be such a great big brother and Emily adores him.

 The older boys love practice too because either they're having baseball practice, or they're having fun with their friends. We've been fortunate with the team set-up in that they both have lots of friends on their teams and friends hanging out at practice at the same time.
It's been fun to watch both of the boys improve their baseball skills. They're both the very fastest boys on their teams, and they're really improving with hitting, fielding, and throwing. Most important, they're having fun, and that's what matters.

Scout-O-Rama

After our local pack pinewood derby, I put Jacob's car in a box and put it away for safe keeping. After a couple weeks of Jacob asking if he could just pleeaase see his car again, April 21st and the Scout-O-Rama finally rolled around.
I knew it might be tricky to keep all four kids occupied during the day long event, so Jeff and Jacob went by themselves for a boy's outing. What could be better than car racing and pizza?  There were over 140 scouts racing their cars that day- it was a big deal! Jacob's car ended up coming in around 50th or so. When he checked his car in, one wheel was raised slightly. According to the rules, all four wheels have to touch so Jeff had to push the wheel down and that probably didn't help the alignment, but we really weren't planning on anything other than a good time, so it was still a fun afternoon for the boys to spend together. I think their favorite part was going out for pizza afterwards.
We got a fun surprise the next morning when we saw that Jacob, Rowan, and Alish all made the front page of the community section of the newspaper. I love the smile on Jacob's face. I'm glad they all had a fun time.