The Tol Booth

South Carolina and Chicago!!!

2009-10-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures from our recent trips to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina and Chicago.

Here's Kristy from one of the glass boxes on top of the Willis (Formerly Sears) Tower. Pretty freaky!

Hey I was tired and I forgot my blankey!!!

I've NEVER seen a dinosaur before so I HAD to take a picture. . .(inside joke. . . I grew up in Vernal)

On Navy Pier in the stained glass exhibit

This dude tried to grab Kristy's leg and I cut his hand off with his own sword. He conveniently had a hook he plunged into his stump. . . and plastic heals really quick!

I have a parachute under my coat.

Rexy from night at the museum

Beautiful Chicago skyline at sunset on a walk home. We ditched the kids at home with Grandpa and Joanne. . .

Just getting on the double decker bus for a tour of the city.

Millennium Park in downtown Chicago.

Uncle Nolan trying to act cool. He was digging sand out of his good eye for the next week.

We rode bikes around a lot on the island!

This is a rare popsicle fish Emily caught off the coast. Don't even have to cook them at all! Very tasty!

Laney liked the taste of sand dollars. NOT fun diapers to change after a couple handfuls.

Lily trying to escape from all the noise of my girls screaming.

Aly and Bailey on our dolphin tour.

Girls trying to wake up. If you look close you can see the neon green boogers under Laney's nose. A highlight of our trip. It's good on toast!

Did I say we biked around a lot??? It's the only way we could get Laney to take a nap.

Hang 10 dude!

Did I mention we biked around a lot???

Family Bike Racing

2009-09-06T19:19:00.000-07:00

Ok I know this bloggin thing has been the bottom of my priorities. If you want consistent updates, then join Facebook cuz we update there a LOT more often.

Here's some of the fun things we've been doing this summer.

Here's Laney at my last Crit race this summer. She's walking/running around everywhere and Dad doesn't get anything out of church anymore cuz he's constantly chasing her everywhere. I need to get the treadmill routine out and have her get 5-6 miles in before church. . .then she might not be so happy to run everywhere! We're still working on perfecting pushups. Her "guns" do have some definition now though, so I won't push too hard. . . yet. . . just call me Valentine

for those of you who are scratching your head, go read the "Mortal Instruments" trilogy.

Here's Bailey in the last stretch of the "kiddi-kilo" at the last crit. She's actually on her 10th lap instead of just one. Can't have my girls grow up to be sissies. As you can see those are tears of joy. . . I'm such a great father.

Here's the whole crew. We're mapping out our strategy. Emily is gonna take out the shrimp to her right with a booger to the eyeball and Aly is gonna take the win.

Emily edged me out for 2nd place though. She's fast!

Laney, Laney, Laney

2009-05-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

To keep up with my last post. . . I continue to go to BSA (Blog Slackers Anonymous), but the meetings don't seem to be helping me much anymore. I'm on step number 3 of their 7 step process which is to feel remorse for those I may have wronged by failing to blog, but I haven't yet contacted everyone I've wronged to ask for forgiveness so I can't move onto step 4 yet. . .the last person was Greg Hansen and he's been in the Himalayas for the past 2 weeks so I couldn't ask his forgiveness.

Ok now onto my post. My computer is being Ghostbuster Slimer slooooooowwwwww so this is what you get for now.

Updates on Laney: Here's a lovely pic after having a biter biscuit (I didn't tell her it was a dog biter biscuit, but she didn't seem to mind). . . she seems to enjoy it. She gave Mom a great big kiss after it!

She wasn't quite sure at first since Dad gave her the biter biscuit, but since it is her Dad, she knew she could trust him :):):)

We couldn't take the stench of Kibbles and Bits anymore from the biter biscuit so we threw her in the tub (which she loves. . . belches bubbles for the next 20 min)

We wanted to give a little bit of privacy. . .

NEW POST. . . ATTENTION MARGARET!!!!!!!!!!

2009-03-15T18:26:00.001-07:00

Ok, Ok, we've been total bloggin SLACKERS! I'm surprised Margaret hasn't given me a blog ticket for not posting in a timely manner:)

Quite honestly, I've just been enjoying Facebook more than our blog. . . for any of you out there that have a Facebook account, look me up!

Here's some various pics of our family.

During Dr. Suess week at school Wednesday was crazy hair week. Here's Aly's crazy hair. Yes the picture is crooked in the background. . . so what!

Here's Laney giving Emily a shiatsu massage. She's getting pretty good at it. All those weights she's been lifting are making her hands pretty strong.

"I wear my dark sunglasses at night." I guess Bailey took my "Be Prepared" talk a bit serious the other day. . . in case a tsunami hits Eugene in the middle of her nap at least she'll be able to see where she's swimming.

Bailey taking off with the last cookie. Cookies are one of the 4 major food groups right?

Laney practicing her doggie paddle in the tub. Whoever gets to bathe her never gets away dry. We actually do it this way so we can mop the floor AND bathe the kid at the same time.

Laney is in the drool stage where everything of hers comes with a bit more "surprise" than normal. Sometimes it has chunks. . . hence the "surprise."

Multi-Tasking

2009-01-11T20:54:00.001-08:00

You may have read recently in the blogosphere that a severe attack is currently underway on the abilities for men to multi-task (you may have seen it on CNN too). I have proof that men really can do more than one thing at once:)

Just here we are witness to a man trying to keep his 4 month old daughter entertained by bouncing her on a exercise ball, somehow keeping a hold of her preventing her from falling, while trying to keep her shirt dry by her overactive drool glands AND tackling a couple of very hard levels on Mario Kart Wii (not to mention bouncing on the ball gives his lower back a pretty good workout).

Here again we see another man trying to get a workout in by taking 2 of his daughters in a running stroller while the other rides her bike alongside BUT he doesn't account for the fact that the 5 year old on the bike can't make it the full 6 miles. . . SOOOOOOOO the 2 person stroller becomes a 3 person stroller AND a bike rack. Talk about a workout! We added up the weight and it was about 120-130 lbs of weight, but he was still able to average about 5:40 per mile pace for the last 2 miles!

Take that women nation! (I think I'm in for it here).

Family Christmas

2009-01-01T21:08:00.001-08:00

First of all Merry Christmas from the Tolman Household. To start this post out we got a chance to go up to the temple as a family to one of Jeremy's friend's wedding and what better place to spend some Christmas time then at the temple. It was a pretty cool day!

Laney got to wear her silly (but warm) hat.

We got to take some really good photos at the temple as a family.

Backing up. . .this is Christmas morning and Laney is very happy to have her new outfit on. . .2 seconds later she throws up in mommy's mouth. . .it was quite the present. . .brought a tear to my eye (because I was laughing so hard).

This is Kristy telling everyone that this didn't really happen. If you didn't know by now my husband is a dork who likes to make up stories. I do try to clear everything up when I can.

What Christmas isn't complete in our household without more barbie stuff. . .they got a community barbie house to play with

Dad got a vintage Mt. Dew shirt. . .he has to be careful cuz if he flexes his massive muscles he'll split the shirt (especially around the biceps).

This is a Dora couch that turns into a bed. She hasn't slept in her real bed since.

Matching jammies!!!!!:)))

Our gingerbread house that we somehow got pieced together. We didn't think there would be enough candy with all the kids we had running around here:)

Here's the crew that came over for our traditional gingerbread house extravaganza. I just put this particular pic in because of Brooke's face!

Bailey helped make the houses. Mom was VERY happy she has such willing children. . .

Bailey took honors of putting the angel on the top of the tree because we couldn't quite get Laney to do it.

It's a tradition in our household that the youngest gets to put the angel on top of the tree. I thought about duct tape, but then we'd have to leave Laney on top of the tree. Dad was willing, but Mom somehow saw the light. . .she's no fun!

We went up north to get a tree and found the perfect one (the furthest tree from the van). Dad thought with his huge HULK muscles that he could carry the tree back to the van. He made it about halfway before the lightbulb came on!

This is after Laney's blessing over Thanksgiving weekend. Grandma Tolman always hand makes booties for their kids to wear during their blessing. Pretty cute eh?

Here's her dress and a blanket that her great Aunt Lori made for her.

Things that make me go hmmmm. . . .

2008-12-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

This past week I've had some time to think ("a terrible past time I know". . .name that movie) because Kristy has been in Utah with Laney and I've had a chance to play Mr. Mom. This has prompted me to do some thunking about a few things. So here are my "deep thoughts by Jeremy Handley."

1. First of all, when did men become incapable of taking care of their own children??? As I've been hauling around 3 of our girls to school, swimming, the store to try on boy clothes (I can dream right), the people I've encountered have been shocked that a man would try something like that. I mean I know those Carls Jr. commericals "without us some guys would starve" have labeled us men to be stupid and incapable of turning on a stove (they are really funny commercials that I actually laugh at), there are still some of us out there that love to cook, spend time with our kids, clean the house and yes even take a hot bubble bath and read a Twilight book. . . . . . .sniff sniff I need to change the subject or I just might cry. Now I know how all blondes feel. . .no more blonde jokes for me.

2. I haven't taken a day off in a long-time just to sit at home and bask in the sunshine of normalcy. To be a single parent for the week has done my brain good. It's been a good stress relief, I got to read "The Hunger Games" and of course catch up on everyone's blogs. . .sorry Margaret I still haven't got through half of the Twilight trailers or what not that you send to Kristy. . .where do you find all of those??? Is there a Twilight heaven I don't know about? Heck I got crap for a week or more because Brady and I went on a "date" to go see that movie. Anyway, I digress. . .not to take anything away from Mom's role, I know it has its ups and downs, but man I've enjoyed the role reversal. I'm sure Kristy would love to go to work for me every once in a while just for a change of pace. I'm pretty sure after another week I'd be going crazy and want to get back to work.

3. My kids grow up fast! I just realized that Aly is almost 8 and I can't believe that I'm really that old. I have some runner friends that I see every once in a while that are still single and when I tell them I have 4 kids, their eyes get really big and they open their mouth like they want to say something, but the only things they can get out is a "well good for you," it never ceases to surprise me. I know they're probably thinking "well you're Mormon and that's just what they do."

4. "I'm not as good as I once was. . . I got a few years on me now, but there was a time back in my prime when I could really. . ." You fill in the blank. . .as for me my back hurts when I get out of bed. My arches hurt the day after playing b-ball or football. My stupid scale is broke cuz every week it tells me I'm a couple pounds heavier than I was in college. I need to chuck the thing I know.

5. My wife is a pretty amazing woman! We've been married almost 10 years now and every year she has to learn yet another way to put up with me. I'm not the easiest person to get along with (although I think so), but she has been patient, loving and very forgiving of all my mishaps. . .whether they be big or small. I love her to death and hope that when I'm old and can't get out of bed to do the smallest things that she'll be there to feed me my pureed Honeycomb cereal, help me drink my prune juice, and most importantly take me to the bathroom to help me wipe my. . . . . . . .nose. Love you baby!

6. And last but not least. . .in my own words "Toby or not Toby. . .that is the question." As many of you know, we got a dog a couple months ago (we named him Toby) and it probably wasn't the best timing to get a dog with a newborn in the house, but we've really been struggling on whether to keep him or not. The girls love him and he's actually a pretty good dog, but there are days when he's pooping on the carpet or pulling gingerbread houses off the table and eating them when I think I could probably throw him over our fence from our back door. I know those are the growing pains with dogs, but we've been going back and forth on that. We'll probably keep him just cuz he's so darn cute.

All-in-all, life in the Tolman household is a full one. . .that is full of screaming at the top of their lungs in that ear-splitting girly scream, full of barbie this and barbie that, full of those stinkin little polly pocket things that have shoes the size of a pinhead, full of dress up clothes and feather boas, full of chicken nuggets and ketchup (Emily puts ketchup on her ketchup), full of laundry heaped up to the sky, but most importantly full of LOVE!

Thanks to all of you out there that help us out and keep us sane! You're an inspiration to us all!

Laney

2008-11-28T14:46:00.000-08:00

Our Laney is changing quickly. She's learning how to smile, sleep through the night and in this case give the evil Mr. T look. Here she's winding up to sock me in the nose.

I guess it's what we get for dressing her up like this!

She loves her baths. She's got a bit of a root beer belly going on though. I'll have to bump her mileage up on the treadmill next week to lose some of that baby fat.

She's cute! Need I say more?

Then and Now

2008-11-16T21:09:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd do a somewhat serious post for once. . . really I'm just under sooooo much pressure to keep producing such awesome-achious posts that I've finally succumbed to being just plain awsome-ish.

With that being said, I was looking as some old pictures of my awesomer-than-yours family (no offense) and started seeing how much they've changed in such a short (er vertically-challenged) time.

Here's Bailey Bean at 5-6 months

And here she is, nursing her newborn baby doll (sniff, sniff they just grow up so fast). She wants to do everything that her mom is doing. And because her mom is constantly feeding a newborn baby, Bailey thinks that she needs to do the same.

Here's Emmi Lou at 4-5 months. She's smiling because she's working on a special "Baby Ruth" surprise that Daddy got to clean up. . .again. . .and again. . .and again.

And here's Emily today! At least she's got shoes on, so I won't comment.

Here's Aly when we lived at the Village in Utah. I don't know how many paint chips she ate during her first few months, but she seemed to turn out ok.

And here's Aly today! She's 7 and has turned into a wonderful help. She's juggling 2 part-time jobs to support Dad's Sportscenter habit. She's such a loving person!

I know, I know it's hard for me to be serious with anything, but I truly have been blessed with some wonderful girls. I'm very grateful for their examples and what they bring to our family. I hope that all of them can grow up to be just like their Mom, cuz she's the most wonderful person on the planet!

Punkin Patch. . .Chug a Chugga Choo Choo!

2008-10-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

Dad found it entertaining when Bailey tripped and fell in the pumpkin patch and was obviously distressed, but Kristy had to take a few pictures of her for "scrapbooking" sake. That's messed up yo!

Here's all the girls posing at the patch. Whenever Bailey talks about her pumpkin she calls it her "pumpkin patch". She is very proud of her pumpkin patch and has to check on it daily to see if it is still on the porch.

Quit looking at that hairy ass in the background and focus on the cute little girl in the picture petting the horse!

Here's a wonderful disjointed pic of our lovely family with the punkins we just carved up. We couldn't get Bailey to come over and get in the picture. . .she was too busy planting a pumpkin seed. Those Jack and the beanstalk cartoons can be pretty convincing.

Here's Elton Emily publicly sharing our secret to growing strong and becoming an Olympic athlete. . .you really don't need performance enhancing drugs, just pumpkin guts. . .raw is preferred. . .we don't want to offend all the Eugene organic people and use gas to cook the pumpkins cuz gas is not "natural" unless it is methane piped in from your septic tank. . .that's true Oregon living (gives your home that authentic Oregon smell).

Here's Dad showing that he really did do performance enhancing pumpkin. Marion Jones ain't got nothin on him! He just hopes the Feds don't see this, then he'll probably go to jail for 6+months, but he'll get to be on Oprah so it would be worth it.

Our event bigger news is that we've finally got a dog! He's a "chug" (chihuahua and pug mix) and he's a cutie. Dad finally has another man in the house. We named him Toby.

Dad has already had that "man to man" talk saying that it's ok to wear Barbie clothes and get his fingernails painted. It's inevitable that this dog will wear a tutu and be made to dance like a princess.

Aly gets glasses

2008-10-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

It was inevitable. . .with her blind parents we knew that someday our kids eyes were going to go sour also. I think monkeys have better genes than us sometimes. . .at least they can see!

Anyway, here is Aly in her hot pink Barbie (of course) glasses. Makes her look rather sophisticated eh?

The bathroom bunk beds weren't too comfortable (see post below) so we tried another route. This way Dad can keep an eye on the kids AND watch Sportscenter at the same time!!!! It's a stroke of genius! Dad doesn't know why he didn't think about this before. Now all he needs is one of those cool root beer dispensing hats and a couch with a built in toilet and he'll be living the ultimate American dream! He'll never have to move again (except to find the stinkin remote. You'd think they could implant a chip in his head so that whatever channel he was thinking of then it would change the channel).

Here's a vintage picture of Kristy and I back when we got married and went to the Grand Canyon. It's amazing how much the fashions have changed since then. . .

I left the anti-freeze out again and Emily got into it. She turned into the Hulk shortly thereafter. . .it wasn't the "organic" anti-freeze so my fault. . .

Chunky Monkey

2008-09-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

Here's some updated pics of Laney. We're not a big fan of bows, but Kristy decided to try one out on her. I think she looks cute.

Here's her best Steven Tyler impersonation. . . ."dude looks like a lady. . ."

This pic doesn't even look like the same baby! She's got a double chin and some rolls! She's a chunky monkey!

Daddy gets plenty of kisses. . . luckily this one didn't have the added booger protein.

We couldn't really afford bunk beds, so the shelves in the bathroom will have to do for now. Daddy needs their room for his scrapbooking table. . . er I mean workout room.

Laney's First Bath

2008-09-06T18:15:00.001-07:00

After a few days in this world, we had Laney on the treadmill doing 5 miles a day is all, but she started smelling a bit ripe so we decided to give her a bath.

As you can see, she really loved it.

This is after her 15 sets of push-ups and 5 sets of pull ups. She's a bit tired, but those arms are showing some girth!

Whew, I worked her out hard and she's tired. . .you can't start to early training for the Olympics. I'm counting on Laney breaking the world record at the 2024 Olympics in the women's steeplechase.

She was complaining a bit about the 15 sets of push ups so I told her she had to run another 4 laps around the house. . .as you can see she's not too happy about that.

Ok, so those for laps were actually Dad changing 4 messy diapers while she gave me the funny cross-eyed look that newborns do. She can hold her head up pretty good now though. . .

We had a good time in the bathtub. The girls of course had to play around in the tub afterwards and get the water all over the place.

Emily and Bailey have been playing "crying baby" the rest of the day. . .each taking turns fake crying while laying in the tub (without water thankfully). Doesn't look like a fun game to Daddy, but Daddy doesn't understand girl stuff. That's the story of Daddy's life!

Our New Addition. . . Laney Grace Tolman

2008-09-03T21:36:00.001-07:00

At precisely 2:59 pm on September 3rd, 2008 Laney Grace Tolman was born to our wonderful family. She was 6 lbs 9 oz and 19 inches long. Right in the middle as far as weight and height for all of our girls. Not like we're looking to raise a bunch of shot put throwers!

Dad was still holding out hope that "something" had grown in those last 3 months and the ultrasound just didn't catch it. I think he's firmly given up on the fact that he's doomed to be surrounded by girls his whole life.

A frog surrounded by princesses!

She's a whole 10 minutes old right here and had her first sponge bath! Look at those guns! I should have photo shopped 5 lb weights in each of her hands. . .

Here's the most beautiful princess in all the land even after around 9 hours of labor! Daddy is soooooooo stinkin lucky to have her in his life!

She was trying to do the "Y. . . M. . .C. . .A" song right here, but she couldn't get the M too well. I guess I'll forgive her since she's only been "alive" for 20 min.

I wonder if she's going to have blue eyes??? Stupid question. . .

My wife is just too stinkin gorgeous so I had to put this picture in twice.

Here's a homeless gentleman we saw passing in the hallway that wanted to hold the baby so thought we'd snap a few shots to test out our new camera.

The stairs are sooooo comfortable. . .

2008-08-30T13:05:00.000-07:00

Our lovely Bailey doesn't seem to like her bed these days. She's falling asleep pretty much anywhere.

I think she's destined to be a mountain climber or something. . .

As long as her baby is with her, she's invincible!!!

At least she picked the middle of the stairs, so if she rolls over in her sleep, she'll have some scars to show for it. . .or bumps. . .or bruises.

She's got her priorities straight!

Utah Trip July 2008

2008-08-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

Since we don't live too close to family, every year we get to use our vacation time to go and visit family. Kristy and the girls got to spend 3 weeks there, but Jeremy only could take a week off of work.

Everyone had a lot of fun. Here's a few update pics. We promise to be better at updating our blogs!

Emily saw a falling star one night and wished she could ride a horse. Kristy's cousin happened to have some horses, so Emily and the girls were able to ride one.

What trip to Utah is complete without a trip to Lagoon?

Aly really loved Rattlesnake Rapids. Probably because it was soooooo stinkin hot there. We've forgotten how hot it gets in Utah during July/August. We've been spoiled with Oregon weather.

We were surprised Aly actually got on the horse by herself. Usually she's a big chicken. . .

Here's all 3 girls on one of Daddy's favorite rides when he was a kid.

Here's a cool little video of Bailey riding the horse. She's really getting to be fun when she's not throwing tantrums!

Tolman Family in Action!!!!

2008-04-19T22:55:00.000-07:00

Emily can fall asleep anywhere.

Halfway through our Hawaii hike. It's hot there ya know.

On the beach after a long day.

As you can see we're very happy to be there!

Bailey was happy to have us back!

Emily and mom pickin a perfect pumpkin

Our lovely family back in October 2007

Pumpkins are high in potassium ya know?

The girls carving pumpkins

Bailey and Emily practicing their Mulan fish catching techniques.

Aly

2008-04-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

Aly's first lost tooth. She wouldn't let dad take it out for some reason

Aly turns 7 in July and is a great big sister and a great help to her parents. When the new baby sister/brother gets here, she' be a great blessing to keeping things going!

Emmi Lou

2008-04-19T22:37:00.001-07:00

Here's a few updated pics of Emily who turned 4 in December.

Now that she's 4 she thinks she needs to drive.

Now that she's 4 she does her own hair as well as her sister's

At her 4th B-day party

She loves to play dress up!

Bailey Bean!

2008-04-19T22:26:00.000-07:00

Our Lovely Bailey

She loves to draw on anything and everything. Luckily we only keep washable markers around anymore. Here's some of her recent artwork!

I'm like totally Barbie. . .

"huh, dad? That's a weird looking dog"

"Here's a dog with stripes."

Richard Bailey Simmon's "sweatin in diapers" exercise routine. Hasn't quite caught on in the states but it's big in Guyana.

We love our Bailey. She's really starting to talk a lot now. She's getting quick and strong. . .strong willed that is. She's a hard-headed Tolman that's for sure!

Kristy's first time blogging

2008-01-14T19:43:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I have told many of you that I am going to learn how to do this. Margaret and Cecily are going to be so proud. Although our computer is retarded and won't download pictures. I think Jeremy might throw it out the window some day very soon. We are a little frustrated.
Life is going really good here in Eugene. I really love it here even though it rains everyday.

Yesterday Aly told me that she wanted to be a mother when she grows up. A couple of minutes later she asked me what the word fake meant. I told her and she looked at me very seriously and said "I am going to remember that so that I can teach it to my children." I thought it was pretty sweet and very funny.

Earlier today Emily came up to me and said "when I grow up I want to be a cowgirl, a teacher, and a fighter fighter." I can only assume that she meant fire fighter.

I actually went swimming the other day and put on a swimsuit cover that is brown and pretty much looks like I am wearing a sack. Bailey who is 19 months old now looked up at me a said "oh, pretty." It made me feel good even though it came from my one year old.

Trail pics cont'd

2007-11-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a cool section where tree roots have pretty much taken over the trail!
We didn't get in the water. . .this sign was a bit surprising, but it hit home!
The cliff drops on either side here about 100 feet to the water.
We're almost to the beach here. Another big decent and we're there
Our lovely home for a night. They had these fig trees that dropped little berries on us all night. I don't know if they were figs, but we got beaned with them all night. We would have camped on the beach, but the wind was blowing too hard all night

This is halfway up one of the climbs from one of the beaches.
Kristy's muddy legs after the hike. That's not a tan line, it's dirt and mud!

The trail dried out toward the end and we went to tropical rain forest to almost desert-like conditions. These almost looked like aspen trees from Utah. This is only a half mile to the beach so we were pretty tired and ready to be done!

Kalalau Trial pics continued

2007-11-04T19:03:00.001-08:00

We're about halfway in here and here's a standard view we saw the whole way. We could have climbed around in there for a week just to enjoy the view!
Here's Bailey ordered some room service. She got the lobster and steak and charged it to Grandma's credit card.
Here's a view from the beach. That waterfall is where we filled up our water supply.
Nothing makes you salivate like a cold can of chili for dinner.
Here's us at the end of our journey. Kristy said "I've never been this dirty and sweaty in my whole life. I never sweat like this." Jeremy said "welcome to my world. I'm a sweaty pig and dirt seems to stick to me."

Hawaii Vacation

2007-11-04T18:43:00.000-08:00

This is the Canyon mention below.
Here's the happy couple on the rim of the canyon. Notice no kids around. . .hence the term "happy" used. j/k
Here's Kristy at the beginning of our hike on the Na Pali Coast. It was pretty spectacular! The hike took us 6 hours to go in (we took a lot of picture breaks) and 4 hours 45 minutes to come out. They say the average is 8 hours for common folk. We were pushing it coming out cuz we were craving a "cheeseburger in paradise." We ended up eating supermarket fried chicken and a hoagie cuz there wasn't anything else at the closest town.
We had another couple take our picture. This is at mile 3 halfway up one of the tougher climbs.
Here's one of the more dangerous parts of the trail. The trail is just wide enough to get one person across. There's a 50 foot drop into the ocean if you take a slip. Just to add to the fun, the wind was blowing about 40 mph.

HAWAII VACATION!!!!!!!

2007-11-04T18:18:00.000-08:00

Here's some pics of our recent Kauai vacation. It was good to get out of the Oregon rainy weather and enjoy some nice weather!

Waimea Canyon is supposed to be the Grand Canyon of the Hawaiian Islands. I'll post some other pics of what it looks like. We had to take the typical dorky family picture next to the sign. It would be un-American not to
This is the view from the balcony at the resort we stayed at the first night. We went to a different resort for the remainder of the week. This is a good view, but our other one was right on the beach!
Here's a fish out trying to snorkel.
The Mariott where we stayed had a giant koi pond with hundreds of huge koi. They frankly look like the carp we used to shoot with a bow and arrow down in Jensen. Maybe I should have kept a few of those and spray painted them orange. . .I would have made a fortune!
Here's Kristy and her dad Blaine on a catamaran ride around the north shore of Kauai. They saw lots of dolphins and got to snorkel off the "forbidden island."

Summer Fun!!

2007-10-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

Here's Bailey watering one of our hydrangias in the backyard.
The trampoline is always a favorite of the girls. They love to get Daddy to wrestle with them. We come up with some good games while we're jumping
Here's Bailey and Jeremy at the Eugene Celebration "Alternative" Parade. Needless to say it was very different from the Utah parades. There were gay/lesbian groups, nudist colony groups (yes thankfully they had clothes), homeless people, and of course there was a runner, no jogger that ran around the parade route over and over again waving to the crowd (it was a mile loop).
Here's some good messy summer fun in the backyard. . . when they're done we can just spray them off with the hose.
Bailey wanted to ride the scooter, so Daddy had to help.

Running/Biking Pics

2007-09-30T14:28:00.001-07:00

This was Bloomsday 2006. This was a crazy fast race which I didn't come close to winning. All the Kenyans took care of that. My main goal was to beat Trevor Pettingill (far left red shirt). . .which I did (right at the line). He was pretty pissed since he hasn't been able to beat me since college days when he was at BYU. Go Wildcats!

Update!

2007-09-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

Hello y'all!

Thanks to Corby he filled me in on how to start a blog, so here we are!

We're currently living in beautiful Eugene Oregon (Track Town USA) and we're really enjoying it. Ironically, the 2008 Olympic Trials are here next year and Jeremy is more interested in cycling than making an Olympic team (for a change).

Jeremy is still the Administrator at Creswell Care Center and is enjoying it very much. He just won a bunch of awards from his company for turning the building around and making it the most profitable in the company. His building just won the most improved award and should have received facility of the year, but was robbed by the rankings! He's been biking back and forth to work (40-50 miles round trip) which has kept him fit. He runs about 20-30 miles a week (some weeks) and is enjoying doing it for fun and not for competition. He recently got himself a XBOX 360 and Halo 3 so he's excited to try that out. He's growing his hair out right now (who knows why). He's threatening to do a mullet just for kicks. He's likes Bob's haircut last season from the "Biggest Loser" show. Kristy doesn't approve so he probably won't get to do it (maybe on a weekend).

Kristy is keeping busy with our wonderful girls. She enjoys staying at home and raising the kids. She's been running more consistently than Jeremy has! She has her sights set on racing a bit more in the future. She's picked up scrapbooking a lot. She has a group of friends she gets with over at the church and scrapbooks for hours. Jeremy doesn't understand how she can stand it, but he doesn't have to!

Aly just started 1st grade this year. She also turned 6 in July. She's a great big sister and is a big help to mom. She's a pretty good swimmer and is also playing soccer. She hasn't quite got the hang of soccer (it drives Jeremy crazy to watch the games), but she's having fun and that's all that matters. She's been reading at school and is learning how to write. She's recently found out "knock knock jokes."

Emily turns 4 in December and is starting preschool 3 days a week. She's very excited to get to go to school like her big sister. She's our dare devil child and isn't afraid to jump off things. Because she's such a daredevil, she's also our "pigpen" child. . .constantly dirty. She can't make it through a meal without spilling something all over herself or the table. It's a running joke in our family.

Bailey is almost 16 months and is fun to have in our family. It took her a while to start sleeping through the night, but she's doing ok now. She has been our difficult child. She's teething and is not a happy teether. Makes life miserable for mom and dad. She's a tiny little thing like her sisters. We just took her to the doctor and she only weighs 17 pounds! The doctors think we're starving her, but when you think of all the "butterball" kids that they're comparing her too. . .she's gonna look tiny. The doctor did say "we just need to be better at letting skinny kids be skinny." She took one look at her parents and understood why she's skinny.

Well, that's an update! I'll post some more pics and stuff when I get a chance! We'd love to hear from y'all. Keep in touch!

tolmanator@yahoo.com
kristytolman@yahoo.com

2007 update

2007-09-28T19:23:00.001-07:00

Here's Emily's best impression at what a smoker's teeth looks like after 40 years!

Here's a pic of the start of one of the "crit" races that I've been getting into. Brady Cottle and I are in the back row there with the white helmets. We both did well this circuit and had a lot of fun. I even won the last race of the year!

Here's Bailey's first fish caught out of the Kid's Canal in Vernal while were visiting family back in August. She actually touched it! She thought it was pretty cool.

Here's our cutie Bailey and her curls and blue eyes!

Here's our family at the 4th of July over at the Cottle's. We had a pretty pathetic show, but luckily the neighbors across the street had spent thousands of dollars on all the illegal fireworks. They were as good as the Vernal fireworks. We were pretty impressed!

Here's a little video when Bailey was trying to walk back in June. She's a little wobbly, but she was able to take a few steps. She's running all over tarnation now! Top left is Bailey giving Dad a big kiss at Aly's soccer game. Kristy had to do a scrapbook page with this pic of course!

Newport Beach

2007-09-28T19:20:00.001-07:00

This photo was taken in June 2007 at Newport Beach in Oregon. This is one of the latest photos of our family. I'll post some more of the girls and family!

Welcome

2007-09-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

Ok so we started a blog to show everyone how we're doing and to keep everyone up to date on our family. I hope I can figure out how the thing works (thanks for the tips Corby).