a little ride

Bill has been trying to get me to go mountain bike riding with him for years.  I was never really interested, but a couple weeks ago I happened to hop on a bike at my parents house and he talked me into riding up a little path and back, we were only out for a short time but it was enough to peak my interest.  Today, Bill, Jadon and my dad took me for a real ride. Jadon ROCKED it by the way!!! So proud of that kid!! Anyway, I had the shoes that you have to clip into the pedal, I had the real bike shorts that have padding to protect your booty, I of course had the helmet and I had an old pair of gloves to protect my hands should I go down, but the best part of all, I had an AMAZING bike built by my dad.

Oh my gosh, it was SO FUN!!!   So there’s a lot of thinking and technical work that goes into mountain bike riding which I’m sure will become more second nature as I ride more…at least I hope, because my brain got as much of a workout as my legs did. So glad I had my dad behind me guiding me as to what to do next… “trigger the right,” thumb the left,” “peddle, peddle, peddle through it!!” I found throughout most of the ride that every move was pretty much counter intuitive to what I instinctively wanted to do.  I also thought every stick I saw was a lizard and every branch was a snake. I did scream a lot, I’m not gonna lie…

I even crashed…I feel inaugurated into the mountain biking club now… Yay!!! I had fun with the boys and I can’t wait to go out again!!!

smile

I’ve really never had a fear of the dentist.  But I seemed to have developed a bit of anxiety since going this last time.  Probably because what I experienced could only be explained as simulated drowning…otherwise known as waterboarding.  Just kidding, I really don’t know exactly what the process of waterboarding is but what I went through had to be close.  I was happily sitting in the dentist chair excited that my front tooth was finally going to be fixed, when the Doc comes in and begins to adjust my chair.  He of course moves it to a somewhat decline position and that bothers me a little.  Panic begins to set in as I start to feel like I can’t breath.   He then shoves the cotton swabs on my top gums which makes my nose squished and I can’t breath even more.  Then the drill starts going and the water starts spraying and water is going everywhere. The spray is shooting up into my nose, water is filling up in my throat…I frantically start waving my hands and he asks me…”Does that hurt?”  “No, I’m just dying because I’m not breathing but I can’t really answer you because my mouth is numb and squished up with cotton swabs”

We figured out a good system after that…I raise my hand and he stops with the spraying and I lift my head for a few good breaths then we continue on with the torture.  It was well worth it though…after many years with a chipped and off color tooth (lovely, I know) I now have a beautiful tooth to match the others.  (I have beautiful teeth…they told me) The before tooth….

And after…woohoo!!!

blessings are found in the simplest of things…

I live in Arizona….it gets hot here. And while some parts of the United States are still experiencing snow storms in April, we had our first 100 degree day.  100 degrees in the middle of August would be a nice cool day but when it comes in April, it’s a bit jolting.  But I love this time of year.  I think it’s beautiful. Everything is in bloom.  I walked on the pathway next to my house the other day, like I do almost everyday as it leads to the park where some of the Bush kids spend the majority of their days, and I stopped because I forgot how much I love that path, especially this time of year.  The trees are so full and green and the path is so cool.  It brings me so much joy.  And it made me happy, that a pathway lined with trees could make me feel so blessed.  Immediatly cheesy life lessons flooded my brain…”I have so much to be thankful for,”  “I love my simple, sweet home,” “blessings are found in the simplest of things,”  “with the heat comes the shade,”  there were more but mostly it brought me back to God, who is the true source of all my joy.  “My lips will glorify You because Your faithful love is better than life.  So I will praise You as long as I live; at Your name, I will lift up my hands.  You satisfy me as with rich food; my mouth will praise You with joyful lips.”  Psalms 63:3-5here’s the pathway by my houseand here’s my backyard that I love and the park that the kids play at almost everyday…

science and stuff

Micah was in her 7th grade science class studying the planets yesterday.  They were learning that the outer planets are larger then the others and made mostly of gas.  With this new found knowledge she immediately turned to her friend and said “Ashley, uranus is large and full of gas.”

Welcome to the Bush family….

fb

Am I the only one?  Has anyone else had this happen?  And it’s really not a big deal, but I Facebook…apparently that’s a verb now, and  I’ll have people from my past request me as a friend.  I’m so excited!  So I write them.  Just a quick note on their wall.  Something like:  “Hey, how are you?  Wow it’s so great to see you on here…etc”  And I get nothing.  No response.  Ever.  Hmmm, I don’t get it, they requested me…

Is it me?  I think it’s me…

It was another busy week for the Bush family.  Along with multiple soccer practices and games, we added one more monthly appt to our schedule.  Jadon got braces.  In just a couple months Micah will be done with the metal mouth scene, but Jadon’s is going to be a much longer process.  They figure he’ll have his for at least 3 years.  And he’ll go through several different phases.  Instead of surgery they will pull his lower jaw forward with a set of springs that are anchored to his permanent molars.  But since those teeth aren’t in yet, he started with just the braces on his top front teeth. Once his molars come in they’ll set him up with the “springs” and after his jaw is correctly set, they’ll brace the rest of his mouth. He looks so darn cute and he’s had such a good attitude about the whole thing…so far he’s not in a lot of pain, yay!!

Oh, and he picked yellow and green bands in honor of his favorite football team…the Packers!!

i’m back

I know I’ve been gone for awhile so here’s a quick synopsis of my last 3 months…

We left Christmas day for Califiornia and spent a week with the family.   We hiked,  played in the snow, spent the day at the beach, shopped and ate.  We all concluded that it was the best week ever!  We came home on New Years Eve and headed over to our small group NYE party. I brought a bunch of decks of cards and taught them all how to play Nertz.  Now we all carry a deck of cards with us cause you never know when a mean game of Nertz will break out.

I turned 37 on January 15th and spent the morning shopping and getting a pedi.  The fun continued on when a bunch of girlfriends got together for a dinner at Kona Grill…

Soccer started back up and so did the crazy.  My days are back to dropping off and picking up kids at the field and cheering the kids on from the sidelines.  Micah also plays for her school now, so many days she runs from one soccer practice or game to the next.  I’m pretty sure I remember saying I would never have a kid in more than one thing at a time…clearly my word stands strong in this house.

Amy started a fitness boot camp on Wed nights in the park by our house.  It’s been so fun to excercise with friends and be outside during the beautiful time here in Az. But she’s mean.  And she always has a smile on her face when she’s pushing us to go harder and faster.  I think there’s something wrong with that.

Sarai’s 6th birthday was during Spring break again, but we made sure to get all the invitations to her class before the break started.  Because she wanted to invite everyone, I told her we would just be going to the park behind our house to play.  She was fine with that so we planned a High School Musical party with some games and balloons.  She had 20 kids show up and they had a blast.  They all asked me if they had to play the games because they all just wanted to play on the equipment…seriously???  This was the easiest party I’ve ever done!  And Sarai loved it…

Got my new touchscreen phone with a qwerty keyboard…oh yea, I know what that means…now.  So now I’m a texting queen.

And I twitter now.  What the???  Really???  Who would follow me????

oh, the irony part 2

So,  we all slept great Saturday night.  No snoring, no middle of the night quarrels, no early morning phone calls, no beeping from the smoke detectors.  It was a good night,  everyone slept in, no one wanted out of their comfy beds.  It was a PERFECT “sleep in” morning….except…..we had to be at church….for the early service…..

yep, she’s a diva part 2

With her hands folded under her chin and her head tilted ever so slightly, Sarai informed us that she would now like to be addressed as “Sweet Darling.”

oh, the irony

It’s no secret over here that I am NOT a morning person.  My brain and body just don’t communicate well much before 9:00a.  It seems that the 6:00a wake-up call comes quicker with each passing morning.  It’s even harder to peel myself out of my comfy bed during the winter months when it so dark and cold out there.  This past week was especially difficult for the whole Bush clan to get out of bed, as was demonstrated by Sarai who I heard convincing herself to just get up, “I can sleep all I want when I get home,” she was telling herself.  This was the last week of school before a glorious 2 week break,  and because of the busyness of the week, we were all anticipating a relaxing Saturday morning with no rush to get up and get ready for anything. The fact that I forgot to set my alarm for Friday morning and woke up to Micah  gently informing me that I had 20 minutes to get ready and walk the kids to school, only made the idea of a Saturday morning sleep-in even sweeter.  Friday night came, Bill was out and the kids thought it would be fun to have a sleepover in my room.  They pulled all the blankets out and made themselves a comfy nest on the floor by my side of the bed.   I put clean sheets on my bed, because there’s nothing better then sleeping in on nice clean sheets, and crawled into bed.  Aaah, this is what I had been looking forward to for a long time.  I don’t know what time it was, but it was still very dark and at first I couldn’t quite place what I was hearing.  After a few minutes of ignoring it, hoping it would go away, I finally gave in, “Sarai, why are you talking to yourself?  Go back to sleep!”  “Nope”  she said ” I’m awake.”   “No you’re not, it’s still the middle of the night.” ” GO BACK TO SLEEP!!!”  “Nope” she said again. ” It’s not the middle of the night it’s morning and I want applejuice, cereal andI want to watch tv. “   “Sarai, it’s still in the 6’s and anything before 7:00a is the middle of the night, and why am I so grumpy and feel like I haven’t slept at all?”  That’s when Jadon piped in, “Oh, you know you and dad got in a mini fight during the middle of the night”   “WHAT????”  “Yea, it went like this:   Dad: ‘Don’t hit me.’  Mom: ‘Then quit snoring.’  Dad: ‘I can’t help it.’  Mom: ‘Then I’m sleeping on the couch.’  But you didn’t go sleep on the couch, you just kept hitting dad because he kept snoring”  That explains alot!!!  As I realized my dream of sleeping in was slowly giving way to reality, I got up, got Sarai her goods, threw her a blanket and ran back into bed, thinking that maybe I could grab a few minutes of peaceful rest before I had to get up and get the day started.  Just as I was drifting off into sweet neverland, the phone rang, caller id said it was Jadon’s buddy.  “You’ve got to be kidding me, it’s the middle of the night people.”  “I’m not answering it, maybe if I ignore it it will go away,”  as if that plan has ever worked for me before.  Back to quiet, just a few minutes of uninteruppted sleep and I will be happy and…wait for it…the phone rang again, Jadon’s buddy, apparently he thought we must not have heard the first call.   I kind of wanted to cry.  Bill is such a sweet man, he volunteered to get up and get Jadon together to go hang out with his friend. He told me to sleep in for awhile and that he’d make coffee and when I was ready, I could wake up to a freshly brewed cup of joe.  Oh, I love that man!!!  “Thank you, thank you God for such a good man.”  Happy thoughts were flowing through my mind as I drifted off  for a few minutes of  peaceful sle………………”beep”  “beep”  “beep”…………………..

apparently the batteries need to be changed in the smoke detectors.