31JAN15

My goal for this year is to run 12 races! One each month and 2 more than last year! I absolutely love races and I love spending time with some great girls!! The Jersey 3k was the perfect first run of the year! It was just under 2 miles but with lots of fun "obstacles" mixed in. Plus the best part is representing my new found love of the Cardinals! ;) ESPN put this race on and it was a ton of fun and very well organized! We ran all around the stadium through locker rooms and out on the field! Great morning!

 

Cristine and I representing the home state and my new found Cardinal love!

Cristine, me, (Cardinals obviously) Ashely, (LSU Tigers) and Violet (Atlanta Braves)

Throwing the baseball!

Look at that tball form!

Ladder runs on the field!

Once again fabulous form with my football throw! (We got 3 chances and I didn't make it in once HA!  Cristine however made it on her first try!)

Cristine doing her football layup. HAHA!

We actually finished the race and went back onto the field because we missed the victory dance area!  Cristine is getting it!

Ashely had some sort of moon walk victory dance that went on for hours.

I spiked my mini football and did NOT hit that poor little girl (her mom said I didn't hit her I swear!!!)

24JAN15

I guess we hiked a lot this month... This was Likeke Falls.  There is a long way to get there and a short way.  We were actually going to do a different hike that we had done before but I had been fighting a cold for a few days and not sleeping well so we decided to go for the short hike to the falls.  It was pretty perfect despite the fact that we go poured on! 

 

 

When we first got there another family came up to us and said want to see the chameleon we found?  The kids had a blast checking this guy out! 

It was cool to see it up close and no I had no interest in holding him.

The claws really hurt so Nate had the idea to put it on his hat for everyone to have a turn holding him!

Alexis loved him the most.  In fact when Eric was asking us to get him off of him and Nate had walked away Cristine and I yelled at Lex to get it off of Eric. HAHA!  We weren't touching it!

Fun while we hiked.  This was actually a super short (20 minutes there with David walking) hike.  The girls still enjoyed goofing around!

Right as we were getting to the fall is started to rain and then pour so we said ya sure go for it jump right in!

They all did and they all loved it! (Until the way back David was freezing and ended up in the backpack because he didn't want to walk anymore! :))

We are so odd.

But we can take sort of normal pictures!

Anya trying to keep David dry!  She loves him and he loves her and loves that she spoils him rotten!

We were all SOAKED so we changed and stopped off for some hot chocolate on our way home!!

14JAN15

Oh hey look, another hike. :)  This one was just for the girls!  Cristine had done Olomana a couple times and said it was now one of her favorites and I had to do it ASAP.  I will admit that when I heard there was some rock climbing I got super nervous.  I love to hike I do not like to be scared or climb rocks.  Cristine was the perfect person to go with because I know she had some nerves the first time she did it so I knew she could mentally get me through it and she sure did!!  I was so proud and the view did not hurt at all!  Olomana is the highest and first peak on this hike but there are 2 more that require more intense rock climbing to get to.  I think I'll just stick to the first one! I have to admit this is definitely in my top 5 favorite hikes.

 

You walk up this road to get to the trail and I jokingly said to Cristine at least we're not hiking that mountain.  She said ummm that's it. HAHA! (the one in the back!)

This was the first of the scary rock climbing.  Pretty intense but dang did I feel awesome once I got up there.

Why is going down so much scarier?  Yes I went down the exact opposite of what you should...

 

One of the views.

The peak closest is the 2nd peak and the one in the middle of the picture is the 3rd...  Beautiful!

This climb was even scarier than it looked.  So satisfying!

Feeling on top of the world!

Selfie witht he third peak!

Love this girl!

Fun day with Cristine!

10JAN15

More hiking??  Yep we will never get tired of hiking here.  (I already have 2 more to blog about!)  It's so fun to find new hike to do.  This one was called Judd Trail and the hike was a loop with a stop at JackAss Ginger Pool (I don't get the name of this one... :)) It only took us about 15 minutes to get to the pools and we probably stayed there for a good 30-45 minutes.  The older kids had fun sitting hopping rocks and playing and David sat in one spot watching groups of people jump into the pools.  I have NEVER seen this kid sit so still!  The rest of the loop took us  maybe 45 minutes or so and David hiked almost the whole thing.  It was another fun hike with the Holtgrewe's!!

 

David's rock!

This was his position for most of the time we were at the pool.  So adorable!

Just hanging around.

The 5 cuties at the pool.

Where the big kids spent their time.

I love how Lex and Anya both had to pose like this and ask Cristine to take a picture.

The favorite part of the hike was the end.  We had to cross this on the way in but we tried to not get wet so we didn't have to hike in wet shoes but on the way back it was the perfect way to clean off the shoes and the kids thought it was the best thing ever!!