Bengal Spring Sprint Triathalon

This past weekend, I participated in my first ever sprint triathalon. I have been wanting to do this for a while, and about a month ago I saw this one advertised. It was here in town, cheap, and the swim was the day before the bike and run. I thought it was a good way to get my feet wet, so I started training.



A month is not enough time to train. Need longer.


I was not last! That was my worst fear, that I would be dead last.



I was second to last, but I was not last. And I did beat my own record, so that was good. But there was an 11 year old boy who beat me.

Here I am getting ready for the swim. Oh, the focus.

I had to swim 700 yds, which is 14 laps or 28 lengths. I knew I needed to rest some, and was so relieved to see other people doing the same. My mom and Jason and the kids came to see me. Michaela brought her MP4 and was taking pictures of me. My swim time was 21:09 minutes. Not bad; it usually takes me 1/2 hour at the gym. I ended up being the 4th slowest swimmer. Someone did it in 8 minutes. 8 minutes!!!

The next day, Jason and I went to the bike/run at 9am. My mom took the girls to an Easter egg hunt in our neighborhood and then brought them later.

Here is Ava in front of the clock. This is about 2 minutes before I finished.

A picture before the race began.


Since I was the 4th slowest swimmer, I had to wait a while to start the bike. They had the fastest swimmer start at 9:30, then the next person started based on how fast they swam. So I had to wait until the clock said 21:09 until I could start. There were some super fast swimmers, and then a bunch with 17 and 18 minute swims, and then 3 people after me. So that left me standing all by myself, waiting for the clock to tick to my time. Akward.

The cheese stands alone.

Then, because I started all alone, I pretty much had the course to myself. I saw other bikers on their way back, and two people passed me, but other than that, I was alone. It was hard to know how I was doing this way. I didn't have anyone around me to gauge my progress, and since the computer on my bike is broken I couldn't tell how fast I was going. I think I would have done better if I had been more in the thick of things. Next time I will swim faster!

This is coming in from the ride. It was a 13 mile ride, the last bit uphill. I had promised myself I WOULD NOT get off my bike and walk it up that hill. I didn't have to!

I took off my leggings, jacket and helmut and started running. At this point I am thinking " 3.2 miles. I am going to die." I had a gel pack in my jersey that I ate. Not sure it helped, but it sure didn't hurt.

During the run, I actually passed someone, and that is why I wasn't last! At one point, I went off the trail by accident, and had to climb up a steep hill to get back on. I am sure that effected my time by at least 1 minute.

My girls were all there waiting for me, and Ava ran up to me saying "Mommy! Yeah Mommy!" As I came into sight, all the other contestents were cheering for me. (Because I was almost last, they were all already done!) It was emotional for me, but I would not embarass myself by crying!

I ended up finishing with a time of 1 hour and 43 minutes. The person who won did it in 47 minutes. Wow. I took 50 minutes to bike and 1/2 hour to run. Next time I will push harder on the bike. Maybe if I can see some other people biking, I would know how hard to push!

I am so glad I did this. I want do to another one soon, maybe the one in August. I will need to train more; my goal is to be at least 3rd last next time!

Random memory

From time to time, when I remember something, some sweet memory that pops into my mind, I will blog about it. I am sure I didn't journal about it, so this way I can remember!

I was remembering Michaela's Easter when she was about 15 months old. I had made a trail of jelly beans to her Easter basket, thinking that would be a cute way for her to find it. She followed the trail, eating the jelly beans along the way. She had an adorable trail of jelly bean drool down her chin.

It was morning, and she hadn't had breakfast yet, and a belly full of jelly beans when you usually aren't allowed much candy can have it's consequences.

She was fussy all day, and by early afternoon when we were having Easter dinner, she was crying so loudly we couldn't eat, and she wouldn't eat. I put her down for a nap instead.

Lesson learned; breakfast first, candy later.

Don't grow up...

When my girls are little and being so precious it hurts, I often will ask them to stay little; don't grow up.
Tonight when I was putting Ava to bed, she was being very cute, cuddled up with an armful of stuffed animals. I asked her if she could just stay 4, because I sure liked her being 4. I said "Can't you just stay my little 4 year old?"
She said, yes, then changed her mind, and said "I can be your little 5 year old!"

Just Peachy

Corrine LOVES to eat, and really enjoys just about anything we give her. She does seem to have a texture issue, if her baby food veggies are too thick, she doesn't like them and I have to thin them down.

Also, if I am sweaty or smell like a pool, she won't nurse.

She pushes her self away from me and holds her mouth closed.

Even wiping the neccesary equipment with a wet cloth doesn't do the job; she needs me to shower.

Oh, I am way off topic.

Anyway, Corrine was eating a frozen peach slice and had some interesting facial expressions while doing so.

Allow me.

She licked it a little here, not much tasting going on yet.

Got a little piece with that bite.

Ohhh, boy. I am not sure if it was the tangy peach or the frozen coldness, but she was shocked!

Oh, yeah, getting the hang of it.

Eventually she got over the initial shock and ate it all. I think the coldness felt good on her poor swollen gums.

I am doing enough.

I am so thankful for General Conference this weekend. All the talks were good, but a few really touched me personally, like President Uchtdorf's talk on Sunday morning.
http://www.byub.org/generalconference/

If I was uber cool ( though I would use a Germanish word in honor of Uchtdorf) I would just add a link and say go here to watch it, but I still don't know how to do that, so you get the whole ugly url.

Anyway, I struggle often with feeling that I don't do enough in the spiritual aspect of parenting my children. Not being born a member, I wasn't raised with the example of how to do certain things. Certain things are a given, like going to church every Sunday and holding FHE (fhe because it was an answer to a prayer and I will never forget it) but others are harder to remember. Like having family prayer daily. I have tried and tried to remember to do this, even enlisted the help of my children by saying that whoever reminds us to have family prayer gets a piece of candy upon us actually praying. I have it posted on my fridge "family prayer" so I won't forget.

Still forget.

I will hear things that life long member families do, or read something on line that brings on a surge of guilt and thoughts that go along the lines of "I should be doing that".

Case in point, I was looking for something to print off for my kids to do during conference. I usually have them write the speakers name, a sentence of what they thought the talk was about, and have them count the number of times that speaker says a certain word. Then we pause between each speaker (love DVR) and talk about what they got out of each talk. We also always have doughnuts on conference Sunday. But when I read what some other families do, I was overhwhelmed. I didn't even think in this vein, let alone do anything about it.

I had no idea that some members prepare for conference by holding certain FHE's the week before or praying certain things in the coming week, or things of that nature.

Preparing for conference weekend up to a week or more before? It would certainly highlight the experience, but I didn't even contemplate it.

Hence, more guilt.

This is just one tiny area, just one small example of all the ways I often feel inadequate to teach my things of all things gospel related.

I pray continually that Heavenly Father pick up my "slack" in the spiritual area for my children. It is not that I don't want to do more, quite the contrary. I just don't even KNOW what to do.

Then on Sunday, I was listening to Uchtdorf's talk. Something he said made me start down the guilt path and I was thinking things like "I don't do enough, will my children suffer for it" etc.

Then Uchtdorf says "To all those who have not been life long members of the church,"

Ok, I am listening.

He went on to say that God needs our unique talents and abilities, and I was left with the thought that even though I may not do as much as my friends or neighbors, I do enough. I do enough for my children. As long as I am doing my best and always trying to improve, I am doing enough. Heavenly Father will give me what I need to parent my children, and I don't need to worry that I am depriving them of spiritual guidance with my ignorance.

Thank you President Uchtdorf. Thank you Heavenly Father.

And for those of you who may notice at what time this was posted, give me a break. I woke up to feed Corrine, this was on my mind, and since the house was quiet I thought I would take advantage of it. I am going back to bed now.

"Spring" Picnic

Oh, what to do when everyone wants to have a picnic, but it is still SNOWING outside? Have one indoors, of course.

Corrine joined us, but didn't partake of the picnic offerings. She seemed to enjoy the change of scenery, though.

I made lunch, and we ate downstairs in our spare room. We spread out a blanket, and opened the blinds so what sunshine there was could shine in. We pointed out birds, the green grass, and squashed ants that were trying to invade our picnic.

We even had a sun and some flowers, courtesy of Payden, who wanted the room to be as springy as possible.

We may have to wait for a real outdoors picnic for quite a while, given this weather.

April Fools!

We had a fun day on April Fools day. I couldn't think of a good way to get Jason, but I had fun with the girls! It started in the morning. I had made jello in juice cups, so when they went to drink their "juice", it wouldn't come out. Payden figured it out right away, and ruined it for Michaela by saying "it's jello!" out loud. Ava wasn't at the table yet though, so it worked on her. She looked in her cup, then leaned down and smelled it. I asked her what she was doing, and she said, "smelling my juice." I asked her if it smelled good, and she said yes, then picked it up and tried to drink. She tipped her head way back, then with a frown on her face pulled it down and stuck her finger in it. She said "it's all sticky, mom!" I also put food coloring in the bottom of their cereal, so that when they poored in teh milk they got a surprise.
Then for the girls lunches, I cut a slit in a package of candy, took the candy out and put in baby carrots. They came home and said they knew they would find something funny in their lunches!

For dinner, I made fake cupcakes: meatloaf cooked in muffin liners and topped with mashed potatoes tinted with food coloring. These looked like the real deal! Ava was home when I was cooking them, and she asked what I was making. I told her cupcakes for dinner; she got excited. I felt a little guilty tricking her! I had to work that night, so Jason served them. He told them that mom had made cupcakes for dessert, but that he thought they should eat them for dinner. This is so out of character for us that Michaela kept saying "are you sure dad?" Ava just got excited.
I wish I could have witnessed it, but Jason told me all about it.

They tasted really good!

Payden figuring out that they weren't real cupcakes.

These looked like the real deal!

Then for dessert, I had cut the tops off of bell peppers and put candy inside, so it looked like they were just getting peppers for dessert. When I was preparing these, I almost didn't wash them, because I was thinking they wouldn't get eaten. But I know my girls, so I washed them. Sure enough, they ate the peppers, too! Our daughters love their veggies. Michaela even said she would have happily just had the pepper, the candy was the bonus. I am not sure about that by the look on her face in the picture below, when she was taking her pepper!



Ahh, there is the dessert!