We must be at Grandma's

Brookes Birthday Bash and Easter

We celebrated Brooke's 30th on Friday...it was determined that the last time the girls got a picture was 2004 - before any kids...time to update that one!   The Jackson girls

Then we allowed the kids...yep we were surely outnumbered

Easter was a blast...as you can see - all seven cousins

Jackson and Lyla - checking out the egg hunt goodies

The mad dash for the eggs

Callum would only pick up sports related eggs...the rest he just ran right by

Barry spent a good amount of time trying to get Callum to use the chipper instead of the putter

Here is is....what a good dad! Too bad Callum really did not care!

We HEART NH

We arrived on Wed night and we have been on the go since.  Ryan left for Las Vegas and Chin.a early Thursday morning.  We have been enjoying the outside weather and all of the new indoor play places around

Jackson was OBESSED with these ice cream cones at the play place this morning.....he sure does take after his daddy!

Tonight we are off to celebrate Brookes 30th birthday!

UMLY Sprint Tri

I did the UMLY Sprint Tri yesterday.  It was WINDY and COLD.  But before I do my little race recap of course I have a funny story about the kids.

When I got home it was so nice out I packed them all up and took them to the park.  There is a little park near our house that has a little dirt track around the play equipment.  The girls played for a while and I had Jackson on the swings. 

Then all of the sudden Aly lines up at the track and annouces that they are starting the half marathon soon so everyone needs to line up to race.  Brianna runs over and they do one lap of the track.  When they get to the end I announced that they each won for the 3 and 5 year olds.  We get home and Brianna lets Ryan know she ran a half marathon and won - crack me up.

Okay onward to my triathlon.  The swim was in an outdoor heated pool.  The forcast said a high of 60 - so at 7 am it was about 48 out.  Ummmm - that was chilly.  Coach Mary had written a prerace warmup - which I did about 15 minutes before the start of my swim wave.  The problem arose when they were late with the start.  40 minutes late...I froze.  On that pool deck waiting for them to start - it seemed like eternity.

We finally got in the water and were off.  The first 200 seemed like a warmup...but I never really got that warm, and then it was done 7:18 for 450 meters  Boo - getting out of the water was the worst.  The transition to the bikes was about .4 mile from the pool.  I think that was my fastest run of the day because I knew I had a dry shirt.

Onto the bike...which has been not that fun lately.  I got on and started off..it was hard to change the gears since my hands were so cold.  The ride was a loop through the ritzy mainline area, rolling hills, and plenty of wind.  I just kept hoping that the sun would come up.  I still need to learn how to ride up hills as it seemed every hill that came I thought I might fall over on my bike.  I headed back to the Y and was hoping that my legs would cooperate for the run.  Bike was 30.04.

The run...honestly my feet were numb when I got off the bike - I think I need toe warmers.  It took almost 2 miles to feel my feet and that was a weird sensation.  I have been working hard on my running, so I had high hopes for this.  The run was hilly and by the end I just wanted to be dry and warm.  26.31 for the run

Overall my time was 1:07.56 and I was 2nd in my age group and 5th overall women.  I was happy with this.  Initally I thought I had placed better but got the results online today.  Honestly this was really the first time I have really raced and I think only the third sprint I have ever done. 

Mooseman is next....I just better like my bike a little more!

i think i work best under pressure

15 minutes until the b-day party and I finished.

powerade and summer towels

making summer beach towels has been on my list of things to do for a couple of months.  well life got in the way and we got busy...

this is a quiet weekend for our family.  I am probably the only person who drinks powerade while sewing.  I have a race on Sunday and I am super excited.  I have not done a triathlon since I was newly pregnant with Jackson. 

Today since I needed to rest, I made the beach towels.  Above are Brianna's and Jacks.  In all honestly, I did not care for Aly's.  She picked out her fabric and I cringed but she is 5, she reminds me all the time and that allows her special privileges...I put it together and I still do not care for the way it came out.  She has already used it at the pool, so it is somewhere in the pile o laundry.

So there you are mom...I finished that project...now I need to make another one for a birthday party tomorrow....

Spring is on the way!

We've been busy planting and fixing cars!

Good Weekend

Great weather and lots of outside time.  Jackson took control of the cozy coupe and he thought that was pretty cool.

We played outside a lot this weekend.  I am so ready for Spring to really be here. 

Aly made sure she was riding in style...and Brianna may have borrowed Jackson's new love for a brief moment.

Jackson was not really impressed and soon regained total control.

This afternoon I met up with some others to learn a new bike route.  Last year I did not ride at all because I was pregnant with Jackson.  So I am really unfamiliar with good places to ride.  30 minutes into the ride, I get a flat.  Uggggh...I replace the tube and fill it - thinking I can be on my way and within 2 minutes the tire was flat again.  I swear this bike is possessed and it does not LIKE me at all.  2 broken tire levers, 3 CO2 cartridges and 2 tubes later, I threw in the towel and called Ryan to come get me.

We headed to the bike shop to see if they could fix it.  Turns out that there was small thorn between the tube and the tire and it was popping all the new tubes I put in.  At least there was really a problem and I just was not totally incompetent.

Hopefully this week will be better!

The Bike

Remember this picture...and how excited I was that I had a new bike.  Well - I think I want a divorce - from the bike of course.

I rode it outside for the first time today.  It is very different, the brakes are not with the gears, your weight is distributed different, and the way you ride is NOT like my comfy road bike.

I might have wanted to drive over the bike with the van when I returned home from my 2 hour jaunt.....only to realize that Ryan might take issue with that since he was REALLY on board with this new bike.  In fact, it is probably safe to say that he is just barely tolerating the triathlon world these days. 

This week has been long...a sinus infection, emergency root canal, babysitters not on time, kids being unruly at the indoor play park.....the list goes on.  Ryan made it better tonight as we went out to dinner, the kids behaved, and I did not have to cook and got to sit for the WHOLE meal.

Heres is to a long weekend of outdoor riding.

Small Steps

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step - Lao Tzu

Atta boy Jackson.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Our weekend in reverse order!

We celebrated Aly's 5th birthday on Sat...she was beyond excited.  She has wanted to wear this princess hat for days.  We jumped for 1.5 hours then had cake.....the kids were beat.  I jumped quite a bit with them and it is really tiring.  Here are a a couple of pics from the party

She is in love with butterflies... so we make vanilla cake and chocolate cupcakes!

Funny how the boys sat on one side and the girls on the other and then Brianna could not really decide!

On Wed I ended up taking our neighbor to the ER - she stood on a skateboard and hurt her elbow...check out  this fruit basket she sent us for our party weekend

the bunnies were chocolate covered pineapple.

On Friday, I ended up at the Dr with a pretty bad sinus infection....which made for a long weekend.  I also got to bring home my new bike...

I set it up on the trainer briefly on Sat and tried it out...it is certainly going to take some getting used to.  I think Ryan is still not over the fact that he actually agreed to let me buy a new bike!