Backing Up

I've suddenly realized why I love going to the library with my kiddos. I totally dig how, after Kalli and Tucker pick out a book and want to sit down and look at it with me, they back up into my lap while I'm sitting on a chair. Kid+book+laptime=euphoria.

Sean is a machine. Can I just say kudos to this guy and his unquenchable love of running, as well as his apparent knack for organization that hasn't exhibitied itself in his closet or car yet, but we're hopeful. He has somehow single-handedly organized a 5k/10k that will be held this weekend during Snoqualmie Railroad Days, including a 1k kids' run. I didn't realize how much effort goes into one of these gigs. There are already over 350 runners registered. Granted, my house has turned into a disheveled hovel due to all the preparation, but it's been some great family bonding time. We pay the kids for their time in food, love and shelter. :)

Tanner in football camp attire. Isn't he so stinkin' cute? I mean brusque and burly? :) The "one shoelace untied" look is quintessential Tanner; he doesn't let minor inconveniences slow him down! (Yes, Laura, they wore their cups. I just knew you'd ask!)

For fun, I fed the kids traditional Korean-style ramen (super spicy). Kalli, mouth afire, would not be thwarted; she ate every bite and then drank a gallon of water. Notice the wet paper towel binding the burning lips. Very resourceful child.

Race headquarters = child labor laws snubbed. These kids worked hard!

More labor. And mess.

Remember the Knights That Said Nee? This is Kalli and Tucker's version...notice they're mysteriously absent in the "working" pictures. A child's work is his play, right???

The Long Way Home

We took the long way home, but it wasn't intentional, at least at first. Kate, Kalli and I were leaving Sean's work party at Marymoor Park and I was admittedly zoned out a bit and took an apparent wrong turn on Lake Sammamish Parkway, which diverted me around the west side of the lake. Traffic being what it is in this state, it took officially FOREVER to get as far as Issaquah. Is it strange to be grateful for traffic? Retrospectively, I really was. I actually enjoyed the delay. The lake was crystal clear in the sunlight and the rearview mirror framed my two girls day-dreamy faces as they listened to a book on tape. They are changing so much and I double-taked a few times just to make sure they were mine!

As I'm big on road trips anyway, I took advantage of the time and reminisced a bit. Okay, a lot bit. I even went the speed limit in order to stretch out the time. I looked back with a subjective eye on my life since my mission; how much I've learned, how much I've changed. It's truly incredible to me the way the Lord has gently steered me through the good and bad in my life. I think He kinda likes me. :)

Someone recently pointed out to me that most of the blogs she has read seem to be brag-fests about people's kids and a travelogue of everyone's comings and goings. I wonder if my blog seems this way. I write what I want to remember about my life and the lives of those whom I love. There is plenty to frown about in life; I want to remember the humor found amidst the monotony. I truly believe God wants us to find the good, even when the good is pretty hard to find.

This morning I came across the huge three-ringed binder that I used to compile all of my weekly emails that I'd written since early in our marriage but fizzled out on a few years back. It's a journal, of sorts. Call it an archaic method of blogging. I found a few quiet moments this afternoon and sat down to flip through it. Solely for my own amusement, I'm going to include a few entries here. Looking back, I cannot believe how fast the time has passed and how much I miss my children's littleness but how much I love their emerging personalities and interests. They are my buddies.

June 4, 2002 -- "Kids and I took a walk this afternoon, then I drew a face on my swollen, pregnant belly and chased the kids around the house trying to give them baby smooches. That was fun. Afterward, while I camped out and napped on the oversized chair in the loft, Kate took off with the idea and graffitied my entire midriff with permanent marker for a good 1/2 hour. Today at my 9-month appointment, the doctor found my explanation to be a bit disturbing."

January 12, 2003 -- "Finally wrapped up a bit of a rough week. (WARNING: pity party ahead!) Sinusitis and mastitis had me reeling most of the week, but we're on the up-and-up. If asked to describe mastitis to someone whose never experienced it, I would say it is something akin to strapping a burning barn to your chest and then shoving flaming arrows through your scalp to the soles of your feet. Something like that. It's amazing how children can sense a breech in the customary flow of things (like illness) and will stage a coup at a moment's notice. Most of my week was spent pressing back the revolt. Such small, sweet warriors!!"

March 20, 2003 -- "It's a rare moment indeed when I can sit and write an entire email without an interruption involving one or more of the following: a diaper blowout, a request for nourishment, a word pronunciation, a referee job, a bandaid, or a random request for something my children know I'll only say yes to when I'm preoccupied. Hey, I just typed that entire sentence without an interruption. Kids exist primarily to prove us wrong."

Okay, I'm done reminiscing. But I am going to throw in a few pictures from the past, just to round out the nostalgia!

Hope all is well on your branch of the big tree...

Kalli Jane at 8 months

2-year-old Tucker
4-year-old Tanner
5-year-old Katelyn

Berry Pickin'

Friday night the girls each had a friend spend the night: Kalli's best friend, Nicole, and her sister, Lauren. Before bed, as Kalli snuggles up with her blanket and sticks her thumb in her pie hole, I overhear the following conversation:

Nicole: So you still suck your thumb, eh?

Kalli: Yeah, but mostly at night.

Nicole: Why?

Kalli: Cuz its fun and it tastes good.

(At this point Nicole pops her thumb in her mouth and sucks).

Kalli: Tastes good, huh?

Nicole: Tastes like plain old thumb.

Kalli: Yeah, but its cool to suck your thumb.

Nicole: Okay. Let's start a thumb-sucking club. You can only join if you suck your thumb and think it's cool.

Wow. Thumb-sucking club membership is going to boom once word gets out on this one!! :)

Saturday we corraled the kids for "Family Day." I put that in quotations because we have to officially name the day in order to get the kids to realize it's just us and no one else. We headed out for Remlinger Farms, which is a prime raspberry picking venue. The weather was perfect and the kids were itchin' to pick.

Sean and the two older kids took on one row and Tuck, Kalli and I took on another one. (Inner-family conversation was still made possible through the raspberry bushes but we were able to make more efficient progress this way, according to Sean. :)

As we were picking, I decided it was a prime opportunity to teach my young brood about the natural/real-life allegory of picking the best things in life. We discussed which raspberries were the best ones to pick, which ones weren't apparently ripe and which ones were diseased and rotten.

I then asked them how raspberry picking was like picking friends. Tucker thought for a moment and then said, "You want to pick friends that are ready to be your friends." And Kalli threw in, "You pick friends that are sweet."

Sigh. Parental bliss. Check the big "Teach Your Kid Something Valuable Today" box.

Then things started to head south. Tucker perked up and added, "You don't want to pick friends with diseases. And you don't want to eat your friends." And Kalli chimed in with, "You don't want to step on your friends or they'll squish out blood" (This is where she stepped on a raspberry and smeared it into the dirt).

Well, I tried. That has to count for something.

After raspberry picking, we raided a blueberry patch on the way home. In all, we made it home with 40 lbs of raspberries and 5 lbs of blueberries. Plus the ones the kids ate when we weren't looking.

Tonight Sommer and Ben came over for games and homemade raspberry pie, which would have been quite a feat for us non-baking Sundwalls, except that halfway through dessert I casually asked Sean if he had washed the raspberries before making the filling and he casually replied he had not. Shortly thereafter I fished out a leaf and Katelyn squealed at the discovery of a live bug. The rest went in the trash. Sean redeemed himself, however, by making boat loads of raspberry freezer jam that will see us happily through the winter months.

Onward to another week. There is truly nothing like a Northwest summer! Out- Us

Bears In Trees! Sean and Tanner found a herd of onlookers on the Parkway on Saturday and stopped for a few shots. I think everyone who lives here has seen a bear, except for me.

Tanner, with Herculean strength, lifting a wooden box full of raspberries. Obviously the box was no match for his powers and succumbed to box-death. The raspberries survived, however.







Kalli. Being Kalli.




Girls with their friends Twister-ing like madwomen. Ah, to be young and limber. And to wear the pajamas we really love, with monkeys and ice cream cones all over them.


The boys and their friends eating pizza. Look closely. One of these things (one who just had surgery on his privates and thus dons a plastic satellite dish) is not like the other ones...

Sphygmomanometer

So I'm at the doctor yesterday for a routine check on my thyroid (its been fine for six years and yet they still insist on drawing blood on a regular basis "just to be sure." Sadists...). I'm in the exam room and I'm waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more, so I start poking around the room for something entertaining. Eventually I notice that the label on the blood pressure meter is this: SPHYGMOMANOMETER. Who knew this is what it was called? Have you ever in your life heard this word? It is so fun to say! Try saying that ten times fast. A little mid-summer amusement for ya. :)

We had a great time in Minnesota followed by more fun upon our return last week. Lots of park and beach trips with friends and a jaunt up north to our old stomping grounds on Saturday, where Sean ran another 5k. Friday night was girls' night at a friends house after some tasty Chinese food, and I can honestly say I have not laughed that hard in a mighty long time. I think Marlo, Laurie and I freaked a few people out with our giddy antics, but that's the danger in hanging out with 30-somethings!

I've been asked for pics from our Minnesota trip. These are in a completely random order, in keeping with my arbitrary thought processes.

The newsroom setup at the Minnesota Science Museum. Look at Kalli checking herself out on the monitor. Such vanity...:)

The kids inventing their own robot at the museum. I think the giggles here were due to the fact that they gave the robot a very rotund backside.

Kalli enjoying swabbing an over-sized nasal cavity.

Yoda. Don't you just want to hug him? I've always had a soft spot for the little guy. This was at the "Star Wars" exhibit at the museum.

Visual proof that Tanner is a wild man on the kiddie rides.

Dale, Kate and Susan. Armed and dangerous.

Katelyn fleeing the embrace of an overly huggy Backyardigan at the Mall of America amusement park.
Kalli and Dale in a Cessna. Sean, the boys and Kalli took a day trip with a local ward member pilot up to the Cessna factory in Duluth.

Tucker was excited to be standing on Australia.

Susan, Susan, Susan. Really. I would expect much more from a woman as dignified as you. :)

Kids at the zoo.

Kalli suckling a giant plastic pig. Proof, perhaps, that 10 months of nursing was just shy of what she really needed.

Why is Tanner so happy? Because he found the meerkats. He loves meerkats almost as much as he loves cheese. But not quite.


Dale and Kate at the races. More on this to come. It was so entertaining, it deserves its own blog post.

I've decided that if the Bhuddists win and it turns out that we're all reincarnated in the afterlife, I want to come back as a lemur for obvious reasons (see above).

Patient little Tucker. It's 4:30 am in the MN airport, and Tucker quietly awaits the luggage.

Thriller, Part Deuce

Wednesday night at the Sundwalls. Tanner's friend Andrew received a "Michael Jackson's Greatest Videos" DVD for his birthday and brought it to share at our slumber party. His mom, Jen, and I got an immense kick out of watching the vids with our kids; a jaunty spree down memory lane. I mean, who DIDN'T rollerskate to "Beat It", "Thriller" and "Billy Jean" in the '80's, leg warmers and all? I must also add that outside of Mikey's perpetual pelvic thrust, his vids sure were clean!

After Jen left we loaded up on sugar and did another round of the DVD with Sean. He opted for the "Thriller" video, which we hadn't previously seen due to the fact that it scared the sleep out of my kids a few months back (see related blog post in...May, perhaps?). Tucker and Kalli ran crying from the room before "Thriller" started but eventually returned due to innate curiosity and ended up laughing their way through it. We had a massive jam session (I'm sure the neighbors loved it) and then consumed more sugar and a few hot dogs.

Good times, good times...

As an aside, if your looking for some good "guess that has-been" fun, check out the "We Are The World" video on U-Tube. Wow. :)

Slurpee Heroics

Greetings from the surprisingly beautiful and welcoming state of Minnesota! No, we did not pull a spontaneous relocation; we're just visiting. Sean's parents currently (but not for long) reside in the quaint town of New Prague and we descended on them like flies on a cowpie for ten whole days. Not to say that we can fly without artificial aid or that Sean's parents are in any way comparable to bovine excrement...that analogy really didn't work too well, did it?

I have so much to share because our trip has been packed full of fun, but due to the fact that I'm dog paddling in post-midnight mental sludge, I'll touch on yesterday's events and fill in the rest later.

So Sean and I have this really fun thing we do with our kids. Its not altogether productive and somewhat manipulative, but we seem to enjoy it because we keep doing it.

Here's how it goes. We take the clan to an amusement park, which we have now done twice on this trip alone. Friday we spent the entire day at Valley Fair and today we visited the Mall of America amusement park. We spend a boat-load getting everyone unlimited passes, and then we spend the rest of the day bribing them with Slurpees to go on rides that scare the pants off of them.

Katelyn in the past has been an easy target; she would go on anything. She's apparently tightened the reigns on her bravery (or lost interest in Slurpees) because she could not be bribed at any time on this trip to go on coasters that normally could have been bought with a 32-ounce Slurpee. I had to up the antee. I actually bribed her with a discount-rack purchase at Justice Just for Girls to go on this "Fairly-Odd Coaster" at the Mall of Americas today. It was a last-ditch effort, but it paid off. The coaster was awesome; the cars spin like the Tilt-a-Whirl while running on a coaster track. Incidentally, I bribed Kalli onto the same coaster with the promise of Chinese food for lunch tomorrow. Apparently the Slurpee has really lost its appeal.

Tucker is pretty open to any ride and did the big doozer coaster and a few smaller ones at Valley Fair. However today we couldn't bribe him onto anything remotely coaster-ish. He did brave some freefall rides, but they were bribe-free and therefore he gets no Slurpee.

Tanner? Sigh. The guy is admittedly squeamish the second we step foot inside a park. He knows the prodding and bribing that follow (although I usually leave him alone as I was a lot like him as a young lass in this regard). He is stalwart; a true brick wall. Oh, he'll do rides. They just happen to be rides he shares with preschoolers. He doesn't care. I will give him this, however. He braved two "down" escalators today. An all-time first for this kid!

Kalli wins the Tough Chick of the Day award. She didn't balk at any ride she was tall enough to go on. Kudos to Dale and Susan for coming along for the ride (pun very much intended). They're always up for an adventure.

I'm too lazy (tired?) to upload pictures, so until next time...