General Foolishness

Storytime at the library on Thursday was General Foolishness. That was his name. He was hilarious. Here are some pictures and a video of some of the things he did.




This is him without his mustache. He wiped it off at the end.

Football Player

Don't let the title fool you. I don't mean Nattie will be a football player. Nattie likes to put things in her mouth. Alyssa got a little ball that had arms and legs and a football head. Nattie's favorite thing to do with it is to put the football part in her mouth and crawl around with the other half hanging out. It's so funny.

National Night Out

I don't know how many people know about the National Night Out but it's the 1st Tuesday in August every year. It's to get out and have a good time while meeting police officers, fire fighters, the girls got to slide down a blow up slide that was a Navy Ship and an Air Force jet. Then they went over and got snow cones and popcorn... we'd be back for cotton candy. Then there were a whole bunch of booths set up to give information about their company such as USAA was there and Target etc. There was a clown making balloon animals and one painting faces, both lines were very long so we didn't do those. We got to see a hellicopter land right next to us. The girls were excited to feel the wind off the hellicopter. Then they got to sit inside the hellicopter. Then, they got to sit inside a police car and push a few of the buttons to make the sirens go off. Wow what a fun night. We thought it might rain but it didn't. Last year we went to this event and it was extremely humid and I was pregnant so we had fun but at a price. This year it was almost perfect weather for it.

They climbed the wall to go up the long hill to get to the slide.

Mara sliding down.

Syssa sliding down.

This is a trailer that the fire fighters use to stay in if they are going to be at a site for a while. I think. The girls had these fire cheif hats and they had one of those rubber band type things that go around their necks so they kept tugging at them all night because it kept bugging them. Samara finally let me put the string outside the hat and just wear it without it but Syssa was dead set on wearing it the way she had it.

The hellicopter has landed.

Sitting in the hellicopter.

Our next triathlete and being a kid

Here is our next triathlete. We finally got this on video. She'll be walking in no time. Although she's able to walk now she just chooses not to. The little stinker. I walked into the playroom today and she was sitting on a little table in there like it was a chair. She's getting so big. She looks more like a toddler and less like a baby every day.

Nattie is officially a grown girl. She has in this truck a car and a block and she put them there herself. Then she drove it around the house. She is so cute!

Triathlon splits

I finally got my splits from my triathlon but I think they're a little wrong. They timed the swim but they didn't stop the swim time until you were down the hill going into the transition area. Every other time is right but when I got into the pool Micah took a picture and when I got out of the pool Micah took a picture so I know my time on the actual 300 meter swim was 7 minutes 39 seconds but here's what they had for me. By the way, I already know I need to work on my transition times. They were quite high.

300 meter swim 8 minutes 14 seconds
Transition 1: 1 minute 16 seconds
11.5 mile Bike 39 minutes 32 seconds Average of 16.8 MPH
Transition 2: 1 minute 52 seconds
3.1 mile Run 27 minutes 11 seconds Run per Mile: 8:46
Overall Time 1:18:05.3

I know what I can cut back in and hopefully next time you'll see lower times or the same times for more mileage. I forgot to mention that my inspiration to start doing triathlons are my sisters Melissa and Angela. They kick butt at their triathlons so I figured I can at least try. You guys are awesome.

Bike, Run and the end of the race

The transition was something that worried me a bit just because I've never done it before. I didn't do great but I didn't do poorly in transition either. I had to put on my shoes and helmet and get ready for the bike and then I had to do the same with the run.

Here I am getting my bike down to go for the bike ride.


Here's the end of the race. I had a little left in me... surprisingly... so I had a kick at the end. I know now that I need to go a little harder on the bike and run so I'm more worn out at the end. ;-)

Samara wanted a drink of Mommy's water at the end so here she is drinking my water. I'm so glad that my kids were able to see me do this. Alyssa keeps saying that she wants to do a triathlon now. I told her that she had to learn to ride her bike without training wheels and learn how to swim and then I'd let her. She got really excited and started running all over the house saying that she was training for her triathlon.


I am so proud of my friend that we were able to do something like this together. It was awesome. So the swim was 300 meters, bike 11.5 miles, and then run 3.1 miles. I don't know my split times yet but I will post them as soon as I do know. My overall time was 1 hour 18 minutes and 5.3 seconds. I was 10th in the 25-29 year old age group. I was 131st overall men and women out of over 310. I was the 38th female... I'm not sure how many raced though. When I find out my splits I'll be posting those as well. Thanks for everyone's support and confidence in me. You'll hear about me doing this again I'm sure. I'm kind of lost as to what to do next. I guess I can just start training for next year. Maybe a marathon soon!!! Who knows.

The Swim

Don't laugh at my swim technique. I did better than some. I'm the one that's headed to the right.




I'm getting out of the pool in the middle getting ready to run down the slippery grass hill to my bike. I was scared of falling down that hill and then scared of falling off my bike again. I didn't though. That was one of my main goals and I made it.

Race Day... Before the Race

Here are a few pictures before the race starts

Me and my racing buddy.


Standing in lane waiting to get into the pool. I'm the one behind the guy that looks like he's talking.


The transition area.

Night Before the Race

I probably shouldn't post all the pictures I have but I want everyone to see the events that took place on Sunday. For those who don't know I did my first triathlon on Sunday. So enjoy the next few posts as they will spell out our adventures of my first triathlon.

Alyssa and Samara had a hard time falling asleep they were sooooo excited.


We had to roll Nattie's crib into the bathroom so that she couldn't see us. She didn't want to sleep if we were awake.


My handsome hubby.


I can't believe we have a picture of me the night before the race. I thought I had the camera the whole time.

Too Big for her Briches

Samara had her crayons on the floor trying to color today and I told her that she better get up to the table quick with her crayons so that Nattie couldn't get them and eat them. She said I can't Nattie took my chair. I went over to check things out and this is what I saw. Sure enough Nattie had taken the chair Mara normally sits in. She's getting too big for her briches lately that's for sure.

Story Time at the Library

We went to storytime at the library today and Alyssa and some of her friends went up to help out with the demonstration of the airplane. Alyssa had a really good time and of course wasn't a bit shy to be on stage. She tried tap dancing and twirling, both not part of what she was supposed to be doing, but it was so cute anyways. Here's a glimpse of the excitment.

Nature Pics on Date Night

Micah and I are very lucky to have the friends we have. I think I said this before but if I didn't here you go. We are swapping kids with our friends every other week so we can get out with no kids. This week Micah and I decided to do something very inexpensive so we went to a nearby State Park. It was fun to hike and eat a sack dinner with the love of my life. We even found another road that we can ride our bikes on. We don't know how far it is though so we'll have to time it.


This is called "Swinging Bridge". I am scared of heigts, not deathly afraid, but enough to make me shaky, this bridge shakes a little as you walk across it so I was a little scared.

Nattie stands all by herself

We were sitting at our house and Nattie was being so cute and smart playing with the popup toy. She would push them down and then push the buttons for them to go back up. She did it over and over again so I decided to grab the camera. I took three videos and in all three she wasn't very interested in playing with it with the camera on her. Then I started again and this is what I got. Check it out!

She's getting too big. She is going to be a year old already in about a month and a half. I can't believe that!!! Time goes by too fast.

Biking

Since I got my knew bike, we have wanted to go biking as a family. Yesterday we got our chance. We had to figure out a way to have Natalie and Samara sit in the bike trailer that we found that someone was trying to throw away, and figure out what Alyssa was going to do as well. This is what we figured out. Alyssa gets on a tandem bike behind my old Wal Mart bike and Micah pulls the little ones in the trailer. He gets the bum end of that deal I think because at least Syssa sometimes helps me pedal. They all loved as did Micah and I. Nattie ended up falling asleep and Mara just sat there looking around. Syssa had a blast but towards the end started complaining that her bummy hurt. I think we're going to find some bike shorts or a bike seat cover for her so it won't hurt her to go so long. We took a 10 and a half mile bike ride so my bum was sore too because I didn't wear my bike shorts. On the way the girls got to see horses and a plane that was landing at the airport went right over us. Alyssa said, "Duck Mommy!" It was cute.We plan on doing more and more bike rides now that we can go as a family.

Nattie's wearing Mara's helmet so Samara had to wear my old helmet. We're going to have to get Nattie her own now. Although they don't really need them back there they like to be like Mommy, Daddy, and Syssa.



Syssa's new tandem bike.

Chick-Fil-A Cow Day

For all of you who live in the western region of the United States you may not know what Chick-Fil-A is. It's become one of my new favorite fast food restaurants. On the 11th of July every year they have Chick-Fil-A cow day where if you dress up like a cow you get free food. I don't mean just a sandwich or just a drink I'm talking a whole meal. So I got the girls dressed up like cows and I wore a sign that said Eat More Chicken and had a cow spot on the back. I got 3 kids meals and a meal for myself for free. I thought that was a good deal. Anyways here are some pictures of the event.


Natalie dressed up like a cow.


Alyssa dresed up like a cow. She does have spots on you just can't see them.


Samara dressed up like a cow. She also has spots on but she decided she wanted all her spots in the same place at the bottom of her shirt.


This is who the kids were calling Mr Cow. I thought that one of my girls would be scared of him but they weren't . Samara was in the play area calling out to him, of course he couldn't hear her but she just kept yelling for him. She went and gave him high five and a big hug. It was too cute. Then for the rest of the day she kept asking, "Where's Mr Cow?" It was so cute. They all laughed and laughed every time they saw him. It was a good time.


Syssa also with Mr. Cow. She ran up and gave him ten and then he did high ten and then low ten and too slow. Alyssa got a kick out of it.

Giant OCR 3

I will try to take pictures of my actual bike sometime but here is a picture of the exact bike that I got. This is just a picture off of a website and not my actual bike. It's a Giant OCR3. Syssa keeps saying that when she gets bigger that she wants a Giant bike too.

Walking?

Last night Nattie, who's now 10 months old, took her first two unassisted steps. Of course she walked to her Mommy. She has been quite the Mommy's girl since birth and so it's no wonder that she would take her first steps to me. It makes me sooo proud. Will she be walking soon all by herself soon? Only time will tell.

The Fourth Of July

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Fireworks

We just got back from the fireworks show. It was awesome. I forgot my camera but I can tell you some of the highlights. We left our house about 8:30PM because the fireworks were supposed to start at 9:30PM. Well, as we were getting in our car at 8:30 it starts pouring down rain. Of course because every year we've been here it has rained on the fourth of July. We get to the parade field and it starts raining even harder so we decide to sit in the van and see if it will either stop or at least slow down a bit before getting out. So here we were sitting in the car waiting when we see a ton of people going to their cars and leaving... DRENCHED!!! I mean soaked from head to toe. The fireworks started at about 9:10 we think because they didn't want it to start pouring again before they could start them at 9:30 so we hop out of the van with the wagon and go to watch them. Nattie did extremely well watching them and only occasionally grabbed onto me for comfort. Samara did extremely well but wanted to hold my hand which was fine with me. Alyssa on the other hand hates loud noises so she cried through almost the entire thing saying that she wanted to go home and that she hated fireworks. Then we headed back to the car after they were over and Alyssa says in a loud voice "That was awesome". It was so funny. Anyways I think we all had a great time. Oh, by the way, all of you who thought we were going to DC for fireworks, we decided to cancel our reservation at the hotel because we knew it was going to rain and there are other things that we are planning on spending that money on other things since we're probably going to be moving within the next 4 months. That's our story of our wonderful fourth of July, well at least the fireworks part of it. We hope you all had a happy fourth too.

Fourth Of July

California sledding

When Alyssa was about a year and a half old her grandparents wanted her to go and stay with them for a little while. So we let her go. I got so mad at his parents and Erin for letting her go down the stairs in a box. I guess I was a paranoid first time mom too. You have to remember though that this was her first time away from us... ever. I now would be the one helping take her down the stairs. Wow things have changed.

Free Movies

At a local theater they have free movies on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for families. We went on the 1st to Everyone's Hero. We had already seen it before. Surprisingly all the kids did really well except Natalie got really overtired about 30 mins from the end and threw a fit. She finally fell asleep on the way to Chick-Fil-A but then woke up when we got there. What do you expect from a 10 month old right?

Drive in Movie Theater

This last weekend we went to a Drive in Movie theater. We saw Kung Fu Panda, very funny, and while the girls slept Micah and I watched the Incredible Hulk.


This is a pic of the girls when we started on the road to the movie theater. We took out the two middle seats in the van so we'd have room to lay down and watch the movie.


Natalie actually did quite well. The movie didn't start until 8:40 since they have to wait until it gets dark so she fell asleep in the middle of the first movie.

Vacation Bible School

Alyssa did VBS at a church close to our house the last week of June. She had a good time with it. Here are some pictures of it.


Alyssa was in Pink 6 group.


Alyssa with a couple of her friends.


Bubbles


Hand motions to one of their songs. When Alyssa would get home she would sing me all of her songs that she learned. It's really cool to hear my 5 year old sing to Jesus like she does.