Friday the 13th

June was a very interesting month full of ups and downs.

Steven took Avery camping with his parents which was a first. There was no cell service so for 3 days I had no idea how my baby was doing, it was pretty miserable actually. To kill time I put in some overtime at work and made shadow boxes for our Spartan race stuff. My loves came home safe and sound on Sunday evening with pictures and stories :)

This month was unlucky enough to have a Friday the 13th and what a day it was. To start things off I was late to work and spilled hot coffee on my hand, later that day there was an odd smell throughout the building so the employees were evacuated (the belt in the A/C unit blew), when we were allowed back into the building we had to keep the A/C off until it could be fixed, I was miserably hot the rest of the work day.

Waiting to be let back into the building

Mom and I had tickets to go to a Hawk's baseball game that evening, I had never been plus there were going to be fireworks so I was really excited. A few minutes into the game I got a phone call from Steven, all I could hear was Avery screaming bloody murder in the background. It turns out that Steven and Avery were making a giant fort in the living room, they needed an extra chair so Steven grabbed one from the patio, unfortunately there was a wasp's nest on the underbelly of the chair that fell off into the kitchen.... Avery picked up the wasp's nest and got stung a few times on the hand :( :( :( I raced home and found Steven and Avery in my bed with an ice pack on her hand and watching cartoons - the nest was still on the kitchen floor trapped by a cup. Steven and my mom were in charge of killing the wasps while Avery and I stayed upstairs (although we found a few still lingering in the house the next day). We managed to get Avery out of bed for ice cream but she complained several times about her hand hurting, it broke my heart.

Recovering from her traumatic injury

Avery Quinn

Mother's Day / The rest of May

We returned home from Montana on Mother's Day, and saying that I was spoiled this Mother's Day is an understatement. I got a new car!! And not just any car, its a Prius :):):) I am LOVING the great gas mileage already. I traded in my Dodge Neon when we got the Prius, the Neon did me well these past years but it was time for an upgrade. I got the Neon in high school, it was already used when I got it, and I put an additional 7 years of wear and tear into that car. I am now spoiled with a vehicle that has everything I need :) Keyless entry, automatic windows, amazing gas mileage, keyless start, and so much more!

My sweet new ride

Family breakfast

On a less exciting note, I had 3 biopsies done this month, it was not fun. I was awake for the biopsies with just a local anesthetic which creeped me out, but Steven was there for moral support. I went to work after they finished sewing me up, the biopsy sites swelled and bruised pretty bad, I was in a lot of pain. Surprisingly the pain lasted an entire week until I went back to have my stitches removed. It turns out my body did not like the type of stitches used and I was rejecting them. My body is so overly sensitive to everything since Avery was born, its crazy haha.

Hanging out with my best friend during her tattoo

We took Avery to the zoo this month with my parents. I love being able to include family in little activities like this while Avery grows up. I know Avery likely won't remember anything from her first year of life but its sad that my parents and in-laws missed out on all of Avery's firsts during that first year. The best part of the trip was feeding the giraffes, Avery fed them last year but this year she was tall enough to feed them herself. I expected her to be apprehensive of a giant creature eating from her hand but instead she marched right up to that giraffe and demanded he eat the lettuce haha.

Avery Quinn

Montana

SPARTAN RACE!!!!

I dropped Avery off at my mom's house on Thursday night since we left at 3:30 am Friday morning. It was a grueling 10 hour drive to Montana but we made it in one piece. We had some lunch in Kalispell and went to pre-registration for the race. I was number 467 and Steven was 466 - we got our bibs, headbands, timer bracelets and our start time bracelets.

We woke up fairly early on Saturday to eat a big pre-race breakfast. The dining area at the hotel was littered with people in workout gear also in town for the race. Steven and I tried to eat a hearty breakfast but I was too nervous/excited to really eat much. The racers were shuttled to the race in school buses. 

A stroke of luck led us to run into one of Steven's co-workers as we stood at starting line. Steven's co-workers all work from home and are scattered about the country, the only other employee he's ever met is my dad (obviously). Steven's co-worker, Scott, recognized Steven from an email that was sent to everyone on Steven's birthday, it had pictures and mentioned that he would be doing the Spartan Race. Scott and his family were kind enough to stick around during the race and take pictures for us, it was so generous because it took 3 hours to finish.

The race is a bit of a blur so forgive me if I forget any details.

1. Wall #1 - to even get to the starting line we had to scale a wall

2. Water #1 - immediately after crossing the starting line we had to trudge through waist-deep (at least for me) freezing cold water.

3. Hike #1 - we hiked up a fairly steep hill, the hundreds of dripping wet racers that had gone up before us made the terrain slick and unsteady.
4. Wall of Sparta - we used ropes to climb up the side of the wall, Army crawled under a net at the top, and then climbed down the back side.

5. More Walls - there were a series of walls that we either had to climb over, crawl under, or squeeze through an opening in the middle.
6. Hike #2 - this hike was awful. It was a mile hike upwards and terrible steep, to make things worse the path was very tiny so racers were very slow moving.
7. Cargo Net - We hit the first water station at the cargo nets, I have never had water that tasted so good. We climbed up and over a cargo net, it was really high up which was intimidating.

8. Log Carry - We were given a heavy log to carry up and down a hill, I fell during the descent. I held onto the log so that it didn't roll down the hill and knock down other racers. I was really embarrassed to have fallen in front of everyone.
9. Hike #3 - This was by-far the worst of the hike of the entire race. We came to a break in the race where we had to go left or right. We chose to go left and it was a horrible mistake. The incline was so intense that it took us probably 45 minutes to reach the top.
10. Monkey Bars - Steven and I had practiced monkey bars at the our neighborhood playground and knew we couldn't do it. Steven put me on his shoulders and helped me across the bars <3
11. Hike #4 - This was the start of the hike down the mountain. There was no path during this part of the hike so we went through bushes, around trees, over rocks, and even had to use rope to rappel down the side of the mountain. I fell jumping off a rock, my legs were jelly and just collapsed underneath me. I scratched up my leg pretty good.

12. Water #2 - More waist-deep water to wade through.
13. Wooden Structures - I think there were 6 wooden structures that we had to climb over.
14. Log Flip - Basically we grabbed a giant log (mine was at least 10 feet tall if not taller) and flip it twice - horizontal vertical horizontal vertical horizontal.
15. Hike #5 - Thankfully this hike wasn't too crazy, just a normal hike, but I fell again and twisted my knee and ankle.
16. Water #3 - This is when we reached our second water station, I chugged as much as possible before advancing to the water puddle/pit. This water pit was the deepest and, although it was ice cold, several racers swam through it to get as cooled off as possible.
17. Barbed Wire Crawl - This barbed wire crawl went on forever! A lot of people were Army crawling under the barbed wire but Steven and I rolled under the wire - I was SO dizzy!! Steven ended up catching his shorts on the barbed wire and ripping them, everyone got a good laugh out of that.

18. Hay Climb - Spaced out between the barbed wire were stacked hay bales, they were mushy and muddy which made it difficult to climb over.

19. Bridge Crawl - This one kind of freaked me out. We had to crawl (or roll) under a very low "bridge" that other racers were running over. The bridge was just logs set on top of other logs, we would have been crushed if anything went wrong. I felt claustrophobic trapped in that tiny space with tons of other people trying to crawl out as well.

20. Spear Throw - We had one chance to throw a spear and have it stick into a bale of hay. Steven managed to spear the hay, I failed miserably. I had to do 30 burpees but Steven did 15 of them for me <3.
21. Rope Climb - A failure for both of us. I got so so close to the top, the bell I needed to ring was only inches away but I just couldn't muster the strength to get it. Steven and I had to do burpees, one of the announcers said that if we kissed a fellow Spartan then we would only have to do 20 burpess instead of 30 so I ran over and planted one on Steven :)

22. Wall #2 - This wall was pretty tall so I got on my hands and knees so Steven could get a little boost, then I tried to push his butt over the wall lol
23. Water #4 - Not terrible deep.

24. Sand Bag Carry - After getting soaked again we grabbed a heavy sand bag and carried it up and down a steep hill. Everyone carried their sand bags on their shoulder but I held it to my chest like I would if I were carrying Avery, I've lugged her around for 2 years so it was natural for me.

25. Hike # 6 - Another random hike just for the hell of it. Pretty sick of hiking at this point.
26. Water # 4 - This water was pretty shallow, mostly a giant mud puddle by the time I got to it.
27. Wall #3 - The biggest wall yet, probably 10 feet tall. So close to the end!

28. Fire Jump - We ran and jumped over fire (mostly just embers because we took so long to finish haha)

FINISH LINE!!!!!

Immediately after crossing the finish line we were given snacks, water, our medals, a T-Shirt, and had our timer wrist bands removed. There was a "shower" area but instead of showers it was just people spraying you off with a pressure washer that was pumping water from a stream. We decided to just stay dirty and shower at the hotel haha.

I showered for close to an hour and STILL had mud and dirt coming off of me. We went to dinner at a pizza place, got ice cream, and went to bed super early that night. 

We woke up early on Sunday to drive home, the drive was awful. Steven and I were so sore and stiff that the last thing we wanted to do was sit in the car for 10 hours. We made it home in time for dinner and I finally got to see my baby girl!! She was excited to see us for about 5 minutes before giving all her love and attention to my mom haha. When it was time to go home Avery said that she was staying with Mimi and that we should go get in the car. My mom wanted to keep Avery that night and Avery wanted to stay with Mimi that night so I went home baby-less. Although I was very unhappy to spend another night away from my daughter (and on Mother's day I might add!) I was very sore and tired and didn't want to chase after a toddler. Steven was going stir-crazy for some reason and wanted to go see a movie, I wanted to stay home and be lazy. We normally settle things by playing rock-paper-scissor but that night we mixed things up and flipped a coin instead, Steven won so we went and saw a movie.

April

Not much happened the first two weeks of April. I have been insanely sick and suffering from migraines... or migraine since it never stopped, it was just one long migraine. I had a migraine for nearly 2 weeks and just when I thought it couldn't get any worse I caught some horrific office bug that literally had me bedridden - I very seriously considered going to the hospital. Thankfully the worst of the illness passed before Steven left for his guys' weekend.

Helping Mimi in the garden

Steven left on Friday with his friends, Chris and Tyler - Tyler is Kristen's boyfriend and also Chris' cousin, Chris and Steven used to work together at Goldy's. The three men went to Oregon for a poker tournament while Kristen and I ditched the kiddos and had a girls' night. Kris and I tried out a new (ish) coffee place in downtown Boise, it really wasn't our scene but it was a nice change of scenery. I came home to find my front door unlocked and the smell of something burning. I wasn't sure if someone had broken in so I did a sweep of the house, times like this make me happy to be a gun owner. I found no intruders and nothing out of place - Steven/his friends just forgot to turn off the coffee pot and lock the door before their trip.

Me <-------------------> Avery

Saturday was pretty boring - Avery was super sick :( Steven got home from his trip around 6:30 that evening, I was so happy to have some help taking care of Avery because I started feeling sick again too. By the next morning Avery and I were both really sick - we had sore throats, no voice, and terribly dry coughs. It was a pretty miserable weekend to be honest haha.

The only way I could get anything done

The second half of the month was much better! I love where I work and this month my employers SPOILED the hell out of all the employees - we had a catered lunch from Dickies BBQ, the big boss sweetly bought us sodas from the vending machine with a big bag of quarters, an hour of overtime on our paycheck, AND a $25 gift card. For the longest time I was scared of going back to work because of how terrible my previous job at the bank was but I seriously love my job - they treat the employees so well, understand that life/family/kids are unpredictable, I don't have to talk to any customers, and the dress code is very casual.
                                       
Speaking of work, I grabbed lunch with a co-worker to a Mongolian place and hilarities ensued. As we drove back to work I thought I had lost my phone, we couldn't call it because I keep it on silent for work, my co-worker called the restaurant to see if I had left it there...the woman didn't speak English (other than a few words). My co-worker asked several times if my phone was there and each time the woman replied with "Small, medium, or large?" It was hilarious! It got even more hilarious when I realized that my phone was in my pocket the entire time....oh boy I felt stupid but we had such a good laugh.

Easter was a big event, although I think everything is a big event when you have a big family to share it with. We did Easter with my parents on Saturday the 19th, my dad's birthday :) My parents hosted a HUGE dinner with several of the neighbors, family friends, and Steven's mom. Dinner was amazing as usual and afterwards we went to the neighbor's house for an egg hunt. The neighbors have 6 kids (I think) so they had a ton of eggs to hide, and I had about 40 eggs to hide that I had filled with toys. The egg hunt was a success, Avery managed not to grab a single egg that I had hidden haha.

Easter with Steven's family was fun, we did it at his parents' house. This time around Avery hunted eggs by herself which was nice and mellow. The eggs were filled with goldfish and teddy grahams, well ants found their way into the eggs so after Avery found them we had to open them all to make sure they were bug free lol.

My husband turned 25 on April 28th!! I really don't feel like we should be in our mid-20s. We are at that awkward age where half of our friends are married with kids and the other half are bar-hopping college kids.

We celebrated Steven's birthday with my family by going to Fiesta Guadalajara :) After stuffing ourselves full of Mexican food we dropped Avery off at Yvette's house and went home to clean for a girls' night I was hosting. Steven was so sweet - he got the snacks and helped me set everything up before taking off to do his own thing. It was my first time hosting a girls' night so I was nervous, I just want people to have a good time. The night actually turned out to be a success! We had fondue (I finally got to use my fondue maker that I got 2 years ago!), snacks, music, and a movie. Its so nice having a home big enough to have friends over.

We met my parents at The Egg Factory for breakfast the next morning, since it was Steven's birthday he ate for free! The portion size at The Egg Factory is insane so we always split a plate, my parents split a plate too so our bill was $12 to feed four adults!! We celebrated Steven's birthday with his family that evening, we met his grandparents, parents, uncles, and cousin at Red Robin for dinner - after dinner we had cake and presents at Steven's grandparents' house.

Avery Quinn - 2 years old