Emily competing on the DM...

Emily's first comp pass....Allyson in the back ground giving her 2 cents worth.

Emily's second comp pass....I just NOW realized how girly she runs....made me laugh, but don't tell her I did :)

Emily's third comp pass.....I think I'm as upset as Emily is when she finishes her pass....

(p/s TL, not super tramp, but close to it I suppose LOL)

Emily competing on Trampoline....

What a GREAT day at JO Emily Hope!!

We had a GREAT day at the gym today!! I am sooooo proud of Emily and if JY were here he would be just as proud and sending all his buddies texts on how his E-star did, which would annoy each and every one of them :)

Emily started her morning on the Trampoline competing against 4 flights of 11 & 12 yr olds (37 kids total)...Amazing. She scored 80/81 and tied for 2nd place in her flight. This score made her one of the top 10 scorers to move on to compete in the finals and try for the gold!!

We moved on to Double-mini Trampoline, she competed against 5 flights of 11 & 12 yr olds (37 kids total). She scored 95/95, 93/93 and 89/87. On her last pass tho, she biffed it forward falling on to the trampoline, which is huge. You'll see it in the video I put up. She was devastated. But we couldn't dwell on that 4th place flight finish we had to move on to Tumbling.

Emily beat her best personal scores today on floor/tumbling! She pulled herself together after falling on the DM, got pissed and proved to herself she could go out and kick a$$, and she did. She competed against 2 flights of 11 & 12 yr olds (17 kids total). She scored 89/90 and 72/77. She got 5th in her flight. This score made her one of the top 10 scorers to move on to compete in the finals!! YEAH!! This is a huge deal for Emily because she has never been very strong at tumbling so this made falling in her comp pass on DM not seem so bad.

Since Emily has made it to the finals in 2 events, this now means an extra day at the gym this week. I'll take it!! I couldn't be more proud than I am right now. It's the Allyson show tomorrow...stay tuned :)

Thanks for checking in!!

L

Pictures from today HERE

AAU JR Olympics....

The girls have been gearing up all summer for this event that starts today. I'm not sure what to expect since we've never competed in the games, so we'll see.

Emily starts us off today competing in Trampoline, Double-mini Tramp and Tumbling. We'll be at the gym all day long, which seems ok since it looks like rain outside :)

If JY were here, he'd be giving Emily a pep talk that might go a little like this:

E, second place is the first loser......that aside, just go out there and give it your all. Your mom and I are so proud of you that no matter where you stand on the podium, we know that you gave it your all and will compete hard enough to make yourself proud.

While JY would be telling her this, I would jump in and say....don't listen to your dad about second place being the first loser, that's just mean...LOL. Then I would nod my head and agree with everything else.

I'm just so proud watching the girls go out and have passion for what they are doing in the face of all this sadness we've been dealing with going thru all these firsts without JY being here. They have taught me so much about strength in one's self, bucking up and moving on....it's hard everyday but my kids are amazing.

So, good luck girls....Dad's cheering from above, I have to believe that he'll be there pushing them to do their personal best...cause that's what he did everyday that he was with us.

Look for pics and video...how exciting :)

L

A few more quotes that caught my eye....

**Being a mom means worrying about the message it will send if you get your ten-year-old a cell phone - then getting one anyway because you're worried about his safety. Then, once again, worrying about the message it will send. Then deciding your eight-year-old also needs one.
(yes, this hits close to home. It was J's idea to get the girls cell phones, I was totally against it. Now I see how smart he really was....they are a godsend, however, when we're together, I wish they would put them down :)

**Being a mom means teaching that the past is history and the future is a mystery. And that all we have is the present.
(In our house, we know it's true)

**Being a mom means trying to make everything perfect. And being upset when you can't.
(This is a huge problem for me...I'm the perfectionist and I get pissed when it doesn't work out that way)

**Being a mom means never giving up.
(I believe in this one, for sure)

**Being a mom means knowing childhood ends but motherhood never does.

That's it, I read the book cover to cover....that's how I roll.

Thanks for checking in.

L

Interesting find...

The girls and I went school supply shopping today, fun times...while shopping at Office Max, we found a book called "1001 Things it Means to be a Mom". Following are a few of the quotes I've read so far that hit close to home....

Being a mom who has lost her husband redefines "lonely"

Being a widowed mom means the only people you can talk to at home are children

Being a widowed mom means having to explain, through tears, that Daddy is with God

Being a widowed mom means showing your kids how to persevere even though life has dealt you a difficult hand

Being a single mom means knowing that, while two-parent homes are best for children, life doesn't always work out that way

The more I read, the more I find....I'll keep you posted :)

L

Alone....

That's how I've felt 99.9% of the time for the last 7 months. I wake up alone, I go to sleep alone and I've walked thru every day for the last 7 months alone. I feel alone in a crowded room full of strangers, I feel alone in a crowded room with my friends, I feel alone when it's just the kids and I.....I have a wonderful support system, my family is a godsend and my friends are super but they all have something I don't have anymore...someone to go home to. Someone to bitch at, someone to laugh with, someone to fight with, someone to hug, someone to love....

It's interesting because, JY and I didn't have the best marriage until recently and when I say recently I mean like the last 2 years recently. Funny isn't it? What you allow people to see? Only those closest to me knew. Oh, I loved J...with all my heart I loved him, still do. I just didn't like him a lot of the time. It makes me laugh because we used to tell each other that. We'd fight and I'd look at him and say, I love you but I don't like you very much right now and he'd follow that up with you know, I don't like you very much right now either so we're even.....and that was the end of it.

When I asked for time off, 4 weeks ago, I thought I would use this time to pull my shit together, be here for and with the girls, to figure out how the girls and I were gonna keep putting one foot in front of the other and make it work...together. For the last 3 weeks I've been trying REALLY hard to do that. Every day that I'm off it gets harder and harder to focus on anything to do with getting my life back on track or to something that resembles that.

I took a huge step backwards when, on Friday, the girls and I spent the entire day watching old home videos. My thought was that by watching them, it would be a healing of sorts. For 8 hours we sat in the living room glued to the TV for tiny glimpses of him and hearing his voice for the first time brought tears to all our eyes. In a way it was good for all of us. We talked and talked and cried and cried some more, watching the movies reminded me of stories that I could tell them that they would have no idea of. Friday broke my heart some more....I lost alot on that stupid day in December but the girls, oh man, the girls lost a whole lot more than I did and I realized that while watching the videos. Jesus, why is life so unfair? I can maybe find happiness again down the road, but the girls lost the only dad their gonna have, EVER. No one will ever replace that, no one should even try....and that hurts me more than any pain I have and live with everyday.

While looking for pictures that I posted in my previous post, I came across the first Father's Day card I gave J when Emily was born. I wrote some lovely words, but the one line I wrote keeps running thru my head: "I know you will be there (always) to kiss her hurts away and to watch her in the sports she'll be in and to teach her everything you know, especially how to love." The day Emily was born was the day JY learned how to love unconditionally and with his whole heart, it grew the day Allyson was born. The girls knew their dad loved them to distraction.

It's a work in progress, repairing the heart, we'll do it. Either alone or together, we'll do it...J wouldn't expect anything less than us pulling it together.

Thanks for checking in on us....

L

My tiny trip down memory lane...

In my previous post you learned that the girls and I haven't really been doing a whole lot, and, ok we might be a little bored....so last night, because I couldn't sleep, I was searching for a specific picture (that I never found) and ran across a few others. So I thought I would put them up here to share. It's always nice to stroll down memory lane every now and again, it's hard and it hurts but like my wise wingman has told me SEVERAL times...if it doesn't hurt, it didn't matter. We all know how true that is..

I hope you enjoy as much as I did....

L

Emily's 1st Christmas. She's holding a 10 Month Old sign.
Emily and Daddy.
Emily's 1st Easter Egg hunt. See me waddling in the back ground. Doesn't she look so tiny? It's hard to believe she's gonna be taller than me in the next year or so.
I'm pretty sure I'm close to delivering Allyson...Emily being a goof as usual, goodness was she ever some comic relief.
Family.
Aren't they cute?
Meeting baby sissy.
For the love.
I'm not sure what I'm doing here except maybe trying to talk these boys into going to the strip joint? I think I was a SR in HS, which would make JY a JR.
Double Trouble.
Mini train wreck...her PJ's are on backwards...she probably put them on herself, which would be just like Allyson to do even at that age.
Innocent.
Again with the double trouble. Check out what Allyson has in her hand all walking around my house. She has about 10 of those mini pancakes stuffed in her hand snackin'.


Jesus Martha & Kathy, who let that kid drive? She'll be the one driving her truck thru the mud on the Level B just to prove she can do it to the boys.
Ok, these pics are the many different hair do's and glasses of Lesa Austin Young. LOL, this was all in a 2 year period. I'm still laughing :)

Goodness...

My 3rd week of leave is almost up, OMG, where has the time gone? Since we were in Florida last week and the week before that it was packing, dr's appts and random stuff...this week we've just chilled and haven't done a DAMN thing. It was kinda nice!

RAGBRAI came thru St. Charles on Tuesday and that was a sight to see for sure. The last time it was thru was when I was a SR in HS and I don't remember enjoying it then like I did on Tuesday. Whew....HERE are a few pictures.

So tonight, being the kind of girls that need something to do all the time (this used to stress JY out all the time, everyone in the house EXCEPT him needed entertained), the girls and I fired up SingStar (PS2). I'm not one to toot my own horn, but lets just put it this way, I kicked everyone's ass in this house ;) Because we're bored and wanted everyone to feel our boredom, we took video :) One of the video's is of Emily and I going to battle on Pink's 'Who Knew' song. P/S, there are no friends in SingStar, I might have kicked her ass (just by a few 1000 points).

So, enjoy...you just never know what's gonna come out of our house :)~

Thanks for checking in... L
Allyson rockin' the house :)
Emily and I in a battle :)

Busy weekend :)

Welcome home to us.

Friday morning dawned damn early at 430a (Florida time). I'm pretty sure I didn't get more than an hour of sleep the night before because #1 I couldn't sleep (small problem of mine) and #2 I was afraid that I wouldn't hear the alarm for this ungodly hour of getting up and then we'd miss our flight home. On our way to the airport, at 530a, the temp in FL is 80 degrees, we board the airplane and the pilot says, ground temp in CR is 52 degrees. I'm sorry, come again, did he just say 52 degrees? And Allyson pipes up from her seat across the aisle from me and says, "See mom, I shouldn't have packed my sweatshirt, now I'm gonna be cold". OMG, I'm the worst mother ever :) Home safe at 12p to a small welcome home party (thanks BF and Slye), ahhhh, it's good to be home. My BF and I went out Friday night for a mini celebration of my return to Iowa that ended with my BF (man I love that girl) having to 'take care' of me, man I missed being home :)

Saturday was a full day of SCOS, I gave each of the girls some $ and they were off. It was my year to host the OS party so it was a trip to DSM for me and my BF for all the supplies you need to host a kegger :) Home again and finishing touches on the OS float and it's time to win this thing. Travis drives the float up to the starting point while I ride on the float with the kids to make sure no one falls off and the whole way there the kids are all chatting about how we're gonna win because we win EVERY year. It was the cutest thing to listen to that I couldn't bear to remind them that maybe this would be the year we wouldn't win ;) yeah right. We won, of course. First place for the last 10 years...the Austin/Egli/Young's have this sh*t locked up :)

Every year the SCOS committee picks a couple to be honorees of the celebration. This year it was G'ma and G'pa Austin. So, Saturday night my WHOLE family took center stage. My grandparents have been a huge part of the St. Charles community for years and it was a huge honor for them to be remembered...even in death.

Saturday night, the party deck got good and broke in :) I finally called it a night at 3a leaving about 5 peeps still working on the keg. Got a wake up call at 620a that I had 20 mins to get my ass up, showered and out the door for the SCOS golf tourney....for the love. The tourney, which benefited the Net Club (the youth basketball program that JY and I ran), was a HUGE success and I owe my partners in crime something for havin' my back while I was frolicking in the ocean - you know who you are and I love you guys for it!! While 15 teams of 4 golfed their a$$es off, I was driven around by my buddy Nate drinkin' a bloody mary (or 5) and harassing each team the best I could.

After the golf tourney, I had myself a little nappy nap, kids are spending the night somewhere (good mom) and I'm hangin out updating my blog...good stuff. I put some pictures up of the weekend, check them out HERE

Thanks for checking in.

L