Monthly Archives: June 2013

Tri-Latta

Tom and I did another triathlon yesterday. This is the first one that we actually did on the same day and at the same time. It was a “sprint” which means that it was a half-mile swim, a 17 mile bike and a 3 mile run.

We awoke before 5:00am, jumped in the car and drove up to Latta Plantation which is north of town about 20 minutes. The race started at 6:30am so we had to be there by 5:30am in order to park. It was nice to be going somewhere together. We were both pretty tired, mainly because Wilson woke us up in the middle of the night, insisted that he sleep in our bed, and then coughed for about an hour. Typical….

The swim was an open water swim in Mountain Island Lake. During the swim I realized two things:

1. You can’t “wing” a triathlon.

2. I don’t think I want to do anymore triathlons. I hate swimming that much.

The water temperature was fabulous: 82 degrees. I don’t know why, but the swim took me much longer this time than it did at White Lake. Maybe it was because I only swam laps three times in the last two months. I seriously hate swimming laps. I try to look at it as my “zen time” without kids and noise. This doesn’t seem to work. Swimming laps is hands down the longest twenty minutes of my life. I avoid it like the plague! Ironically, Tom is a great swimmer. He was an All-American swimmer in high school and scholarshipped in college. You would think that it would rub off on me, at least a little.

As for the rest of the course, it was great. A long and hilly bike ride and then a run through the woods. I really enjoyed the rest of the race. I can see how doing triathlons are addicting. You have 1-2 hours to think, you are always competing against yourself as well as others, and the pre-race adrenaline is fun! That is why I keep doing them….and the fact that I think that if I sign up for a triathlon it will motivate me to workout. Unfortunately, I am not motivated enough. I just show up and “wing” it….because the rest of it is exhilarating.

My times weren’t too bad for not training very hard

Becca’s Race Times:

23:01 – Swim Time
3:00 – T1 Time
1:01:57 – Bike Time
2:48 – T2 Time
30:09:00 – Run Time
2:00:58 – Overall Finish Time
Becca placed 18/26 in her age group/division. Congrats on a great race!

Tom’s race results:

16:09 Swim

2:22 T1

49:23 Bike

3:00 T2

27:51 Run

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The Busiest 24 Hours Ever!

I thought I published this a few days ago…sorry.

We have been going non-stop since yesterday afternoon….well, at least the kids have. They have been to a sleepover, VBS, the pool, the playground, and the Youngs’ house. I am exhausted.

It all started yesterday afternoon when they went to play in the tent at Ella’s house across the street. We have great neighbors. Last summer Ella (who is 6) moved in across the street with her mom and dad, Abigail and Eric. Over the last few months we have really gotten to know each other. Abigail is great! She creates princess tents and gives them ice cream. This time she had a tent set up in the garage and let wilson and faith spend the night. They watched movies and out on makeup.

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The next morning they were off to Vacation Bible school. There they played, snacked, did art, and learned about Jesus. They will go four days this week.

We then went home to rest for a few hours before before Wilson had his Sports Camp. They played tee-ball again.

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After tee-ball, since we were at the Y already anyway, we went to the pool. We invited the Youngs to join us.

After that we went to their house for pizza. Here are all the kids eating outside.

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We all finally got home and in bed by 9:00pm. I guess that is how things go in the summer. I fell asleep by 9:30…..only to be woken by Wilson climbing in bed with us….as usual.

We had a lot of fun on our very busy day!

Vacation bible school

Little Church had it’s Vacation Bible School this week. In years past I was the person in charge and running the show. This year it was Sharon’s job. I am so thankful. The only thing I was in charge of this year was the snacks. Here is what we made Tuesday: a blue, wiggly heart (before Jesus) and a red heart to show God loves them.

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If you ask either one of my kids what their favorite part of VBS is, they will invariably say that it is the bounce house and the slushies!

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Tom was even there some this week. He and Miller played the drum together on Monday morning during the opening.

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This is Wilson (who is always grabbing his crotch these days), Ella and Faith in front of Lazarus’ tomb in the Story Time room.

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This kids had a great time, as always.  It was a very busy four days, but worth the time and energy.  It is a great outreach for the church and the kids learn a little bit more about God each year.

Pool time!

Summer has officially begun…the pool is open for business. We are members of the Siskey YMCA which has a fabulous pool. there is a huge kiddie pool that is only 1.5 feet deep and then a graduated kiddie pool with a slide. Now that the kids are getting bigger, they want to swim in the deep pool. Unfortunately, unless Tom is there with us, the deep pool is off limits.

The pool opened last weekend, but the water is always freezing for the first few weeks. We decided to brave it this weekend only to find out that it was still cold. I give the older two credit: they swam for about half an hour before Faith started crying because she was so cold. Miller was shaking almost immediately, but his drive to play in the water over rode his chilly little body. Eventually Miller got out, walked across the pool deck, asked me to open the gate, walked over and picked up his towel. Smart kid, and obviously cold.

Tom took the kids the next day and had more success. They lasted an hour this time. It has been raining here for almost two weeks straight which has not helped the water temperature at all.

Oh well. We have the rest of the summer to enjoy the pool.

Better looking house

We came home from the beach two weeks ago to find beautiful new floors in the bedrooms and on the stairs, and a new darker stain on the existing floors. They look fabulous! It feels so much warmer in here. I love them. We had also painted the master bedroom a brighter green and now had two rooms with no more popcorn ceiling. Yeah!

The only downer of the whole thing was that the house was a wreck! There was white dust everywhere! Scraping, sanding and painting the ceilings has to be one of the the messiest job in the world. As soon as we got home from the beach we had to move all of the furniture that was in the kitchen to its usual place. The entire top floor (where we all live) had to be emptied out so that the floors could be done. Slowly but surely, we have been moving drawers and furniture back up the stairs. It has taken a few weeks to get it all back together again.

Moving everything has made me clean out my closets. I have given over four trash bags of clothes and toys to the Goodwill. I am hoping that the house, and my closet, will be much less cluttered after all of this work.

Because we had to move the furniture anyway, we rearranged the kids room. Over the past year, Faith and Wilson’s rooms were downstairs. However, they never actually slept in them. We decided that the kids were just too young to sleep downstairs by themselves. They wanted to be near us and so we needed to make that happen for them. We have officially moved Faith’s bed into Miller’s room. We also moved Wilson’s bed and dresser upstairs into what was the guest room. Oddly enough, it is actually Wilson’s old room. Musical rooms…once again.

So far, the kids all seem happy with their new rooms. Tom is also happy because he may actually get an office after all.

A good blogger would have taken before and after photos. I, however, did not. Anytime I thought about it there was so much clutter everywhere that I was embarrassed to put that on the website. Like jacqueline said,”it would have made even more impressive before and after shots”. Oh well. Now you can see how pretty the floors and the stairs look with out the nasty blue carpet that used to be there.

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Wilson’s Sport Camp

Wilson had his first day of “Sports Camp” at the YMCA. It isn’t really a camp, but it made it sound cooler. I was afraid that he wouldn’t want to go so I tried to spruce it up a bit. It is actually a 45 minute class every Tuesday and Thursday for the month of June. The class teaches one sport each week: t-ball, soccer, flag football and a random sport the last week. He ended up loving it!

The coach asked the boys what their favorite baseball team was. None of them had an answer and then Wilson spoke up and said, “The Steelers!”. Tom was very proud. :)

After class Tom took Wilson to Walmart to buy him a new lefty glove. Of course they couldn’t leave without buying a bat, a ball, and a new tee. Wilson was so excited about it this morning that we were all out in the driveway playing tee-ball at 8:00 this morning. He would practice hitting the ball and then we would switch so that he could field it next.

I am so relieved to know that he enjoys organized sports. He usually isn’t one to follow the rules of game, but usually makes up his own. I am excited to have some new things to play with him. I have a feeling that we will have plenty of new sporting equipment around the house.

Tom brought him to the class

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Discovery place

Today we drove uptown to Discovery Place. Wilson has been asking to go for two weeks and a friend if our’s invited us to go with them. We actually have a year pass but we don’t go up too often. Mainly because I am too lazy to drive the 25 minutes uptown and too cheap to pay the $8 parking. However, we do need to make the trek more often because the kids love it.

The place is usually packed with school groups, but today it was practically empty. We were the first ones in the young children’s room. We met up with Faith’s friend, Tyler, and his family. We immediately headed upstairs just in case the school groups were on their way….they never arrived. Because there were no big kids, my kids were able to play with things that they usually couldn’t.

We were there for over three hours. It was great! Faith and Wilson would have stayed longer, but Miller really needed his nap.

Wilson on a bed of nails..

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Luke, Tyler, Faith, Wilson and Miller in front of the fish.  Miller loved the fish!  He was practically jumping up and down and licking the glass…

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wilson in front of the wind tunnel with his goggles and streamers…

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