Inked

Wednesday it finally happened! After deciding three years ago that I wanted a semicolon tattoo, I actually did it! How did I finally make it happen? Well, it started with our annual bowling ladies night out on Wednesday March 28th. Three ladies who had had a few drinks made a pact to get tattoos together in the summer. Two of us (Regan and myself) did not have a single tattoo but our friend Jordan had some experience getting inked. We decided that we were going to go together and get a tattoo. We kept talking about it throughout the rest of the bowling season and finally, through a little group text this summer, figured out a date that worked for all of us.
Fast forward to Wednesday when we had some plans to eat lunch, shop a little, and get tattoos. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit nervous. I think I was more nervous-excited than anything else. I wasn't really worried about the pain, but I was incredibly curious about how it would feel. I sent the artist my design and Jordan sent her design and Regan's. He got our images ready to go and I, the newbie, got to go first. I was incredibly excited...it was FINALLY going to happen! I was getting my semicolon tattoo. From the moment he transferred the image onto my wrist, I knew that it was exactly what I wanted.

Tattoo all fresh and new

The whole process start to finish was much quicker than I expected. I am totally in love with the finished product! Here is a little explanation of the whole tattoo. First, the semicolon-it's yellow because yellow is my favorite color and has been since I was old enough to have a favorite color. It has never changed! The punctuation, for those of you who may not have read my original blog post on the topic, is not because I am an English teacher, but rather because I suffered from depression and suicidal thoughts for years, silently, and I survived. I could have ended my life, but I chose not to. Because of that choice, that semicolon, I am living the wonderful and beautiful life that I have today. Just typing and rereading that line brought tears to my eyes. I wish more people could see this happiness that's waiting on the other side. Moving on before I get too emotional and can't finish this post...The daisy is my favorite flower, I love it for its simplistic beauty. It's a flower of possibilities. Each color in the petals represents the people that I love-blue for Matt, green for Cohan, red for Camden, and orange for Cyver. Together, the five of us, make a pretty damn beautiful rainbow. There is nothing more magical than that.
I also made myself a matching car decal

Pretty Pink holographic car decal

Riding, Crafting, Girl's Day

It's time for another Amerithon update! Camden and I have been working on this challenge for just over one month and we have hit two more milestones since my last post. Our total mileage so far is just over 450. Individually, I have traveled 250 since July 4th. Camden does a good job of helping me push myself (like making me go up to the top of the bridge instead of just sticking to the bottom). It is exciting to see all our miles add up. I have been averaging hitting one individual milestone every other week which is pretty good progress. I am going to miss my bike rides in the morning with Camden but I hope I can keep getting miles in until it gets too cold.

I do think I could easily be putting in more miles if I spent a little less time in my craft room, but I have been having fun prepping signs for my classroom walls. I have been enjoying my new Cricut-making shirts, signs, car decals...I can do a lot!

I am VERY excited to announce that I will finally be getting my semicolon tattoo! Three years ago I wrote a blog post about mental fitness. In it I mentioned that I found something that I actually wanted to get a tattoo of. TOMORROW is the day! A couple of friends from my bowling team and I are having a girl's day in Sioux Falls with lunch and TATTOOS! Two of us will be getting our very first tattoo and I think it is safe to say we are both excited and nervous. I have my design planned out although it did take me most of these past three years to nail down exactly what I wanted. I am excited to share the final product with you all.

Kicking Butt and Feeling Sore!

Camden and I have officially been on our Amerithon journey for three weeks now and we are going strong!

Our team stats-the blue markers on the map show our team progress as well as out individual progress.

We have traveled just over 300 miles so far and we are only 12 miles from our next landmark. I will say that it isn't always easy. I am not a huge fan of hill that I have to conquer every morning right at the start of my ride, but I am sticking with it! Camden helps push me to try to keep up with him but I also know that without me he'd cover twice the distance on his new bike. The kid is seriously fast even going up hills!
On Monday his baseball coaches arranged a mixed game of kids and parents because their last game was rained out. Cohan and I both joined in on the fun and I was a little overly competitive. I was able to score 2 runs and beat them both at second base-Cohan blamed Camden and Camden blamed Cohan for not getting me out. Overall, it was a blast followed by pizza and time to play at the park. Then I sat down when we got home which was apparently my worst idea ever. My legs, hips, shoulders, and knees ACHED! I didn't want to get up to go to bed. Waking up the next morning was no picnic either, but I did hobble over to my bike and force myself to go up the hill and put in over 5 miles. I also pushed myself to walk a mile and a half while Cyver had swimming lessons. Pushing through the pain wasn't easy but it is worth it! I'm feeling a bit less stiff today but still struggled with the hill a bit. Seeing my miles add up in the tracker sure makes me feel like I can do anything. 

Almost Two Weeks Done!

On Wednesday, Camden and I will have been working on our Amerithon Challenge for two full weeks. So far we have hit two milestones and are about halfway to our third. We are having a lot of fun and staying motivated! We have made it 162 miles so far.

Camden and I like watching the fly over videos that show us the virtual journey that we are taking. He also likes reading about the landmarks that we hit along the way. He is really looking forward to earning the first piece of our medal but that is still quite a few miles away. Last week's heat slowed us down a bit so we are hoping the cooler weather this week will motivate us to pack in some more miles!

If you are interested in giving the challenge a try, I'd highly recommend it. The facebook group is really inspirational, and it is fun to read about people finishing their Amerithons that they started in 2016 and 2017.

I can't wait to see how far we go by the end of the summer!

My Shirt

Camden's Shirt

Shirt Backs

AMERITHON!

July 4th my middle son Camden and I embarked on a super cool journey together-we started the 2018 Amerithon Challenge. I came across the facebook page for Run the Edge and started reading about their challenges. Camden is a super active kid and I am someone who needs a little extra motivation! I thought that this would be a fun thing for the two of us to do together. I registered us for the challenge and got our individual accounts up and running last night. We are using walking, running (Camden not me!), swimming, and biking miles to complete the challenge. In all we will need to get 3,521 miles together which equals the total distance from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Washington Monument. Our team name is Pizza Party! If I have any friends that want to follow along on the journey, I will be blogging about it here and you can follow us if you are also doing the Amerithon Challenge. We ordered one basic kit and one kit that comes with the cool swag to help us track our journey. Out next milestone is 25 miles which we hope to hit today! We didn't order an Amerithon shirt as they don't have kid sizes and I figured I could just make us some on our own. I anticipate that this will be fun and challenging...and motivating! Wish us luck!

Farewell 2017

I have enjoyed watching and reading many people's reflections of the past year. I figured I would do some writing and reflecting of my own. I realized that 2017 was a pretty awesome year for me which made writing this post that much harder!
Without further ado, here's...

Cassi's 2017 Top 10 List:

Number 10
I got to go see Book of Mormon is Sioux Falls.
I laughed a lot, and I am glad I went. It was the first time that I saw a professional musical in a very long time and it did not disappoint. I am including is this taking my boys to see the high school production of The Little Mermaid because it was also a musical and it was equally spectacular! Cyver just loved everything about it! Camden got to see it for a second time which he didn't seem to mind at all.
Number 9
Delight Donut opened in Yankton.
I got to eat my very first maple bacon donut and it was heavenly. I see many of these lovely treats in my future. We have enjoyed many stops at Delight for a morning treat before school or before church. Cohan loves the cheese bagel. Camden loves chocolate glazed. Cyver is all about the yummy bite-sized donut holes. 
Number 8
Cyver discoved his love for LuLaRoe.
His spunky personality fits with his funky leggings styling. My favorite part was trying to get him to call them pants so Matt wouldn't be so against them and Cyver sternly correcting me (or anyone else for that matter) by telling me that they were NOT pants; they were leggings! The kid never ceases to make us laugh.
Number 7
Matt and I took a little trip to Omaha to just get away.
We went to two different movies in this very cool theater that served supper. The food was amazing and the experience was completely new. We ended up going twice just because the first time was so cool. When we weren't hanging out in a dark theater, we shopped a bit. We bought some new games and just hung out playing games and reconnecting without kiddos. This trip was also shortly after Matt changed jobs which was kind of a scary move when he had been at Avera for so long. It was a very positive move as he has been much less stressed, and he has been home more.
Number 6
Seeing the Lumineers in concert in Sioux City.
It was one of the best concerts that I have ever been to. The instrumentals in their songs are the parts that draw me in and getting to hear them live was AMAZING! It was a great way to spend an evening with Matt. My favorite part was when they unplugged and went mic free for a few songs at the edge of the stage. It was very cool.
Number 5
Traveling to St. Louis in November for the NCTE/ALAN convention. It was a reader's dream come true! I got many amazing ideas for my classroom, and I got to meet SO many amazing authors! I stood in a lot of lines, shipped three full boxes of books home, and met some coold teachers from all across the US. I also got to go and see the St. Louis Arch which was a fun thing to experience with a teacher that I met from Montana. The food was pretty amazing and I discovered a yummy root beer that I won't soon forget (If you visit St. Louis, be sure to check out Fitz's root beer)!
Number 4
Buying a new van and traveling to Minneapolis with Camden for his first Midwest Regional Swim Meet.
He worked hard to get his qualifying times! We enjoyed staying in a hotel that we originally couldn't find because Google Maps took us to the back side of the hotel. Camden fell in love with traveling by air rail-something tells me this kid is going to grow up to be a city kid! We spent hours walking around them Mall of America and even took some time to stop and get a foot massage together. It was fun to just have some one-on-one time with him.
Number 3
Cohan joining Oral Interp.
This definitely breaks the top three! I always knew that dramatics would be his thing, and I was not disappointed. I enjoyed working with him, helping him with an intro, listening to him practice, and watching him improve. It was pretty awesome to watch him earn first place in his very first oral interp contest. I was one proud mom!
Number 2
Family vacation in May.
We traveled to Spook Cave in eastern Iowa. The drive out was long and construction filled but the drive back was scenic and peaceful. The cabin we stayed in was just right. The little lake that was close to our cabin had a kayak which made most of us fall in love with the peaceful activity. We also enjoyed things like mining, exploring a cave, playing on playgrounds, catching tadpoles, making smores, catching a toad, and perhaps best of all, driving a golf cart. We let Cohan drive around the campground and all I can say is, when it comes to teaching the kid how to drive, we'll have our hands full! We even ended up venturing over to Wisconsin where we had ice cream for lunch so the kids could check it off their list. The hotel we stayed in actually had 2 sets of bunk beds but was otherwise downright comical. The fact that I also got to take my dad with us on this family vacation was pretty awesome..which leads me to number 1 on my top 10 list...
Number 1
My dad come to visit for two months.
Getting to see him, vacation with him, and just watch him play with the boys was so much fun. We had a fun little trip up to Minneapolis to pick him up. We even took the boys to their first ever coin show in St. Paul. They loved looking at all the cool coins and were always thrilled when one of the guys would hand them a coin or two for free. Dad said that they don't see too many kids at coin shows so they are happy to get them interested when they are around. The boys spent plenty of time going through coin rolls with grandpa and finding some pretty sweet coins. They can't wait for him to come back and visit again.

This list was a lot harder than I thought it would be! I could have easily made a top 20 list for all the things that I had to leave out. I cannot wait to see all the 2018 has in store for my little family! Wishing you the very best in 2018!