End of the year picnic!

First of all, these are cell phone pics, so they are not great.

We went to the park to have a picnic today. We do this every year just before school starts, one last lazy, relaxing picnic. Today was a great day, beautiful weather.


We all had water bottles filled with lemonade, and Corrine drank from them all. She crawled around on the blanket, would find another water bottle, and take a sip!

We had a bothersome squirell who was getting way to close for comfort. He came right up to Jason's feet and wouldn't leave even when we yelled at him. Kind of freaky.


We just ate, relaxed, and let the girls play. And wondered why we hadn't done this more often this summer. Too busy, I guess, but what a shame. Simple things are really the best things.

This is why the girls wanted to go to Alameda park; they love this digger thing.

Ava pushing her little sister; sooooo cute!

Wheeee!

Look at that face; who wouldn't love her?

Michaela shimmied right up this pole, then when I tried to take a picture, said "hurry up mom! I'm slipping!"

Is summer already done?

Wait...

we haven't gone camping one more time,
we didn't go swimming at a lake,
we had way to few lazy days,
we didn't shop at yard sales once,
we never saw a drive in movie,
we never started swimming lessons,

But...
we did make lots of fun memories,
we did go swimming at pools,
we did visit Lagoon,
we did go camping with friends,
we did have picnics,
we did have to buy sunscreen a few times,
we did play in our pool,


And I am ready for school to start! Bring on the routine!

Pocatello Sprint Triathalon

This Saturday, I participated in my second sprint triathalon. It was a lot of fun! There was about 200 people in it, about 75 women. Here is a picture of the start of the tri. It was a reverse tri, so it went run, bike swim. The men went first at 7:30, then the women started at 8am. I wish we could have gone earlier because it was hot! I am about 2/3 of the way back in this pic.

My mom , Jason and all my girls went to cheer me on. I had to be there at 6:45, and Jason and the girls got there right about 7:45, so it was an early day for everyone. During my run and bike, the girls went and played on the toys.

Corrine is just too cute! When she saw me from across the parking lot, she waved and loudly said "HIIIIIIIIIIII"

Here I am coming back from the run. It was 3.2 miles, and somewhat uphill. It took me longer than normal to run that far, not sure why. My run time was 33:32 minutes long.

Here I am after transition from run to bike, coming out of the transition area. You have to walk your bike to the mount line, if you mount early you get a penalty. I also slammed down a hammer gel, Jason got a pic of that but its not very flattering. So sorry to the man in the background, didn't mean to get you almost naked on my blog.


Here I am coming back from the ride. We rode almost 13 miles. My time for the bike was 54:10 minutes. It was a hard ride, with a brutal head wind during part of it. But after the head wind, coming back, I felt great. I wasn't tired, and I was thinking, "I got this! I can't wait to swim!" It was so nice to see everyone sitting on chairs, waiting for me and calling out to me as I passed!

The swim portion was 500 yards, 10 laps. I was feeling really good when I got into the water, then after one lap I was pooped! It just hit me. For a bit, there was 5 people in my lane, which was a learning experience. I knew what to do, it was just awkward swimming with so many other people. I am sure that effected my time, which was 15:58 minutes. I had been doing it in 12 minutes or less at the gym, so I guess after running and biking that wasn't so bad. When I was doing the breaststroke, Michaela and Payden were calling my name and saying "go mom" every time my head came out of the water!

Whew, I am tired by this point, and so glad to get out of the water. It is really hard to swim when you are tired and out of breath!

You got out of the water, then went through the finish line. Yeah, I did it! And guess what, I wasn't last! I wasn't even third to last, which was my goal, ha ha! I placed 58th out of 75 women! There was over 10 people slower than me! But something I noticed on this race, I am really not competitive with other people, just myself. I wanted to get a better time than what I did, 1:46:07, but I am pleased. This was a harder course than the other tri I did, and I did all three things in one day, so I think I improved over my last one. I can't wait to do it next year and hopefully improve my time!

Horsin' Around

The girls got to ride horses the other day with their Grandma Marlene, aka Horsey Grandma! (That is what Michaela called her ever since she was little, and it stuck.

Michaela and Payden have taken a couple of horseback riding classes but it has been a while, so they were super excited to get on Grandma's horses again. Here is Michaela of Frosty, a very tall and fast horse!

Here is Payden on Apache. She had started of on Axel, a very slow horse. It is hard to get him to go faster than a walk. Payden wanted to go faster, and it was so funny watching her try to kick out Axel. He actually bucked a little, but it was a pretty pathetic buck. So we put her on Apache, who went a little faster!

Ava wanted to get on this year! In past years, she has been afraid of the horses. Grandma led her around for a bit.

Here is Kaden, the girls cousin, Ava and Corrine. Corrine was only up there a moment, when the horse was stopped. She wasn't a huge fan.

She did like the horses from afar, however. She would look at them and point, reach, and act like she wanted to get closer, but when we did, she recoiled and looked scared. So we enjoyed the horseys from a distance!

The girls actually remembered a lot from the classes they had taken. They want to ride again, and soon!

Damage done by 4 women in Park City

Observe the damage done by 4 women on a back to school shopping trip in Park City. And I have to say, this picture does not do it justice. The trunk was deep, and filled to the brim with bags.

We had so much fun! Jason stayed home with the kids, and I went with 3 friends to shop till we dropped. Two of them were pregnant, and I was impressed with their stamina. We left at 8am, shopped, had lunch, shopped some more, had ice cream for dinner, then came home. SO MUCH FUN!

Make sure you notice the new highlights in Anne's hair.


Tiffany enjoying her ice cream dinner.

Kim, our personal chauffer.

When we went to gas up the car to go home, none of us had cash to pay Kim for our share. So I suggested we each put in our share with our cards, and that is what we did. So funny.

It was fun girls, thank you. I want to do it again next year!

Too Cute

Corrine likes to try on shoes. She does this often with the shoes by the door at our house. We have a hair stylist who has a little doll for kids to play with, and the little doll has little shoes. Corrine tried to put them on.

Heart melted.

A fun night

Last night we had a really nice night with friends. Some friends of ours were home on vacation, so we all got together to chat and eat and let the kids play.

Ava and Russell, holding hands and being cute!

Michaela had a fun time with the younger kids.

Rolling down the big hill was a hit.

We all circled around, moving a few times as the sun moved and hit our eyes. This group of friends have been together since high school, and could talk all night long, if we weren't getting so old and the kids wouldn't get tired!

Corrine loved her little chair.


Brian will get Zach back for this, I am sure.

I made a dutch oven chocolate cherry cake.

Micheala rolling down the hill.

We brought a couple of grills and shared dinner, which was yummy. The weather was perfect, and we really enjoyed ourselves.

We did this last year, and hopefully it will become a yearly tradition. Such fun! Thanks Nichelle for organizing our motely crew, we are looking forward to a game night!