Tyler's Shiner

So last Tuesday I was at the gym in the middle of cycling class when the woman from the day care pops her head in the room holding up the sign with my name written on it. I'm not exaggerating when I say that 60-70% of the time I am at the gym, Nathan poops! I was in the back corner, so she didn't see me getting off the bike to come down and change him. As I'm about half way down the stairs I hear them paging my name over the loud speaker. The first thought in my mind is "Hold your freaking horses, I'm COMING!" I had to first go to the locker room and grab the diaper and wipes. When I get in there and wait for them to open the gate, the girl at the front looks at me and says, "Are you Katrina Sandgren?" I'm thinking wow this must be a really bad diaper. I answer "Yes, is Nathan poopy?" The girl right behind her who knows me and the kids says in a sad tone "No, it's Tyler, he's over here and he's hurt!" They are all apologizing to me as I coming to see him. As far as we can understand from Tyler is he went down the slide and someone must not have waited for him to get off and they kicked him in the eye as they came down. It really was quite a sight. It was SO swollen!! They joked how it looked like he had a third eyeball. It was also bleeding just a little bit from the abrasion of the shoe. Tyler was so sweet just sitting there. He looks up at me and says "Mommy, I got an owie." He wasn't even crying. The crying had only lasted a couple seconds when they first got to him. Gracie was on the playground as well and when she heard him crying she quickly ran to his side. When she saw him she realized she needed reinforcement and quickly went to get help. They said he only cried for a second and said "I think I need my mommy." His eye looked so bad that it was hard to look at him for too long with out getting nauseous and having to turn away. He reminded me of Slaw, the deformed creature, from the movie Goonies.

So needless to say, I was not able to finish my workout that day. I tried to get him to rest and take it easy but he wasn't interested. He was so tuff and brave, it didn't slow him down at all. I wanted to take a picture right as we got home but I had loaned out my camera and wasn't able to get it back later, but these pictures still show it pretty well. However, by the time I took the picture, it looked about 100 times better. Now as the days have gone by it has turned to every color in the rainbow. This isn't his first black eye, but it is definatley the worse.

Day 2
About 100 times better than day 1

Day 4

We have now moved on to all the colors of the rainbow but the swelling has gone down a ton, and he just got his summer buzz. The next day it turned blue under his eye as well.

Marathon Marty

He did it!!! He finished and he is still alive, and actually doing very well. Saturday was the Ogden Marathon, Marty's first and he claims his last marathon. In about November last year Marty said that he was going to run a marathon. His family didn't really think he would do it, but after 16 long weeks of training he did. I think he decided he had to do it since he had told too many people and he had to save face.

He had to be in Ogden at the bottom of the canyon to catch the bus at 5 AM. We decided to stay at my mom's house in Bountiful so he won't have to get up quite as early. Unfortunately her basement is very loud and no one got much sleep. Marty tried to go to bed early, so he didn't even get to watch the disappointing final Jazz playoff game. It was about 30 degrees when they arrived in the canyon. They were all huddled around bonfires for an hour and a half before the race began. Then there was a major temperature change. Saturday was very hot, the high for the day was 87 degrees. Fortunately it wasn't quite that hot at 10 AM but the heat made it very difficult for him to finish. Despite the heat, he was still able to finish in 4 hours and 36 minutes. I'm so proud of him that he was even able to run 26.2 miles and to finish under 5 hours is a huge accomplishment.

Marty's parents, and two of his sisters, Erika and Andrea met me and the kids to help cheer Marty on at the finish line. We couldn't believe how hot is was just standing there waiting. There were several runners who couldn't make it to the finish line on their own and many who had to be treated by the paramedics for heat exhaustion. We were all so excited for him when we saw him coming down the stretch.

Marty has hung up him shoes and says he will never run again (we'll see). He is very excited to be finished with the long Saturday runs so he can get back to his yard work.

Everyone waiting at the finish line.

Riley, Erika, Nathan, Tyler, Katrina,

Sharon, Andrea, Gracie, Faith & Mitchell (in the stroller).

The kids waiting patiently in the shade with Grandpa Dee.

The family together at the finish line.

We Have Babies!

Our baby birds have hatched! About 3 weeks ago on a Saturday morning I found a bird nest. I was doing some cleaning in the kitchen when I continually heard very loud chirping. It sounded as though there was a bird in the house. Each time I heard it I went to the front door to see if I could find the bird. As I would open the door I could see a little bird flying away. I thought we might have a nest somewhere up high on the front porch but I couldn't see anything. This happened 3-4 times before I realized the little bird had made a nest in the wreath hanging on the front door. You can imagine how surprised I was to find a little egg laying in the nest. We showed Gracie and Tyler the egg. They thought it was the greatest thing ever. It became quite a challenge keeping them from constantly opening the door to see the bird. I finally told them that they needed to leave the mommy bird alone or she was going to peck their eyes out. Aren't I a scary mom, but it worked! For four days the mom came back each morning and laid another egg. Each night before going to bed the kids would go to the front door and say "Good night little bird, good night little babies." Well, they finally hatched a few days ago. The whole thing is very cute but I have to say that the baby birdies are rather ugly. I'm sure they will look a little better once they get their feathers. I feel like we have been doing our own little science project at home. Gracie loves taking pictures to her class so they can enjoy in the fun too.