I don't know how.... but it happened....

I didn't believe it either until i saw the ultrasound below... Looks like a boy to me! :) -Kris

The Great Mystery

This post is not earth-shattering but I really just wanted to send this out into the void. It is a great mystery to me how I can buy elastic hair thingys every few months and keep running out of them. Where do they go? Is there a hair gnome under my bed? I just can't figure it out. Somewhere there are literally hundreds of my hair bands, but they aren't in my bedroom or bathroom or kitchen or ANYWHERE around here when I need one. I'm perplexed.

Trip of a Lifetime Report

What an awesome trip! We have so so many pics that we couldn't put them all on here but we put about 50 on Facebook if you want to check there. Here is a quick rundown...

A pic on our drive from Vancouver Airport up to Whistler. We were so excited!

To ride down the mountain at Whistler you have to use a downhill bike and wear full armor. I really can't describe how awesome it was. We rode up the lifts and flew down the mountain on the different trails. One of the coolest things I have ever done! And I was one of the few girls up there so I felt especially cool. HAHA! Oh yea, and I didn't fall off. Amazing. Ha! Kris was flying over jumps. It was incredible.

Here is our Bed and Breakfast in Victoria. Loved the fireplace, loved the whirlpool bathtub, love the innkeepers with the British accents and amazing food.

When in Rome. We rode all over Victoria speaking to eachother in British accents and making eachother laugh our heads off. It was hilarious. Kris learned a phrase he now loves and kept saying to everyone. When you want to take a look or peek your head in somewhere they will say, "May I take a snoop?" Kris ran around saying this to people the whole trip.

He just looks so rustic and handsome :) My very own Robert Redford. We drove across Vancouver Island to Telegraph Cove where our Kayaking excursion began.

I'm reviewing the map to see where we want to go and what route would be best.

The water taxi dropped us off at a secluded island in the middle of Johnstone Straight. Not a person in sight.

So we hiked around until we found this AWESOME camping spot! Isn't that incredible?

Kayaking on glass. It was so peaceful. Like we were the only people on earth. We saw tons of bald eagles, dolphins, fish, etc etc

When we wanted a lunch break we would park at a little island, put up the hammock and eat. It was so much fun.

And we both would read our books. I love that Kris loves to read too.

When we made it back to Telegraph Cove there were people waiting to board whale watching boats. It felt like a grand arrival with people lining the docks. Haha. A few even took pics of us!

It was just an amazing trip full of such fun, crazy, romantic memories. Something about going far away and being completely alone with nature - leaving our jobs and "lives" behind just puts things into perspective. We really felt like we learned a lot and even came back a little bit changed, a lot more bonded. I can't really describe it but it was great and I love his guts :)

Trip of a Lifetime #2 is in the works for later this Fall...

The Old Adage Still Stands

We are BACK and safe and sound. Next post I'll give a quick update. We had a BLAST!


Today I will just say love is blind, my friends. We all have our bad days and after two weeks of being on the road, a week of camping, and then getting in at one in the morning last night after four hours of sleep, two planes, and 11 hours of driving I was NOT NOT NOT looking my best or even half of my best on a bad day.

You can imagine my suprise when Kris looked at me this morning, got that soft/cute look on his face and told me I looked beautiful. I think he's finally crossed over to the blind stage. At least for today.

Very cute.

Crash

It seems I have been doing a lot more of this lately (including last night at the Tamarancho trail in No Cal).

There are probably a number of reasons for this...but none of them add up to me being an incredibly awesome mountain biker.

"Trip of a Lifetime"

Kris has been telling all his friends that we're embarking on a "Trip of a Lifetime". He's so cute. And really, it is! Get this...

1 night - Hanging at Allie and Brad's in San Francisco

2 days - Hotel in San Francisco

5 days - Oregon Family Reunion - water skiing, wind surfing, horse-back riding, golfing...

2 days - Mountain Biking in Whistler, Canada (they say it doesn't get better than this)

1 night - B&B in Victoria, Canada and then renting mopeds all over town. Look at how cute this bed and breakfast is! http://www.beaconsfieldinn.com/ Our room has a fireplace, whirlpool bath, etc. etc. :)

1 night - Camping at a waterfall on Vancouver Island

2 nights - Kayaking out of Telegraph Cove to see the Orca Whales migrating! We're seriously just getting our kayaks, packing up our camping stuff with a compass and nautical map and exploring!! We're going to be camping on the tiny BEAUTIFUL islands along the way. I'm so excited!!!

This all just means I might take a slight hiatus from posting for a week or so. Watch, I say that and I'll be posting every day. Haha. Let's see. Wish us luck. If you don't hear from us within two weeks it probably just means we got eaten by the killer whales or the grizzly bears...j/k.

Reality

I've received some really cute posts and emails over the months about how my life seems so fun and my marriage so romantic. Aaaw, thanks guys!! Those emails triggered an interesting talk with my friend Nicki about blogging in general.

I've found that, except for the occasional sarcastic remark or funny story, USUALLY bloggers don't throw their dirty laundry all over the place or post hideous pics of themselves (delete, delete). We all have those pics that look like Chunk on Goonies and those "special" moments that seem a far cry from Heaven. (e.g., chemically triggered progesterone regulators can be BRUTAL, ahem, and were completely disbanded from the Sundberg home after a few months).

Perhaps the real key of happiness doesn't come from our actual reality, but how we PERCEIVE our reality. So even if some moments don't seem so magical, they can be magical to you and at the end of the day, we can all live our fairytales.


P.S. And as my dear "friend" Anne of Green Gables said..."I went looking for my ideals outside myself and discovered it's not what the world holds for you, but what you bring to it. The dreams dearest to my heart are right here."

Funny little Sunbeams

Kris and I teach the Sunbeams (three year olds) at church and every week we are nearly falling out of our seats laughing.

Today's Conversation

Kris: Can anyone tell me how we start off a prayer?
Sunbeam #1: Have you seen the Barbie movie?
Kris: No, I haven't. So, when you are going to pray with your family - we usually start off by saying what? Can anyone tell me? If you can tell me we'll give you a treat (all hands go up to answer).
Sunbeam #2: We saw a black widow spider in the house. Now we can't find it. My Dad said they eat big animals...my mom said they don't. They just eat little things like fliiiieeesss (enunciated).
Kris: (Starts laughing) Yes, they just eat little things. Don't worry.

Sunbeam #3: I don't want anyone to smell me this week. But maybe next week.

Kris: (Laughing) Ok, no one will smell you. So when we pray...

In Sharing Time when they don't know the words, they sing anyway, and they sing really, really loud and we're on the front row. Today we had all the teachers and the music director laughing. Cute kids. Zero inhibitions and painfully honest. I love it.

I didn't leave my heart, but I sure love San Francisco

As Rudyard Kipling put so well...

"San Francisco has only one drawback. Tis hard to leave."

Amazing restaurants, Fisherman's Warf, Golden Gate Bridge, the "crookedest" street in the world, Alcatraz, Muir Woods...the list goes on. Fun times, good friends and good memories.

I love this picture. It's like our autobiography. Ha!

Blue contacts. Cool or alien-esque?

In the Arena

Snapshot of the May 2008 Shasta Expedition

• The mountaineers: Kris Sundberg, Rhett Boyakin, Brad Reeves, and Jared Smith
• The photographers: Kris Sundberg and Jared Smith
• The narrator and videographer: Rhett Boyakin
• The paranoid wife and blogger: Cathy Sundberg

The trek started in pinewood forest- green and beautiful.

But it wasn't long before the snow hit.

And got progressively more difficult and cold.Thankfully they were well-equipped with crampons and ice axes to conquer the snow.
The night before the summit attempt...watch the video below to see how they were feeling.


But despite the declining weather they did their best and tried to summit.
Until it got worse and worse and they got lost. Here is what Rhett had to say about that...

After hours of trying to find base camp the clouds parted for a brief moment and they found their way back down.

And although they didn't make the summit, they gave it their best shot - and more importantly, came out alive. Congrats team.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt

Outside the box...but were we ever inside?

The other day we took "family bike ride" pics. Sounds easy, right? Well, imagine trying to capture it.

One way would be standing in the middle of the road with the camera and having them ride past you again and again until you get a good shot. This would take forever and moving images are tricky to catch - not to mention the potential of getting hit by traffic. So naturally Kris came up with another idea.

Oh yes, what you see IS in fact a rope around my waist. I'm pulling him on his longboard and we're going around and around the block, the same speed as the bikes. Hilarious.


And totally worth it.