Reese's triathlon

Here is a video of Reese's race. You can see Avery's on the parker blog www.theparkersblog.blogspot.com

crash

This is what I found on the living room floor when I came out of my room just now....Tuesday night, 6:45

Weekend Recap

Wow. What a weekend. I am exhausted. Ok, so here's a recap...

Saturday 5 am

Left the house and headed to Keller for Reese and Avery's first triathlon! Oh my goodness; it was ADORABLE! The kids were awesome. It was a balmy 50 degrees, so getting out on the bike while wet from swimming was hard on some of them. I have a great video that I hope to post as soon as Pete shows me how (I know, I have promised that before). The race was a 25 yard swim, 1 mile bike and a 1/3 mile run. They did not time the kids, so everyone was a winner and got a medal. When it was over Reese said that her favorite part was the swimming...hmm, do we have another swimmer emerging?

maybe a little too early for pictures?

pete, reese, avery and zach lined up to start the swim

reese's awesome freestyle!

cruising on the bike

heading out on the run

bringing it home for a strong finish!

one proud little triathlete!

Avery on the bike portion

check out Avery's little red nose! It was COLD!

Nice Job!

Best Cousins

After the race we all went separate ways. Reese went home with Avery to spend the night, Pete went to do a 3 hour trail run and I took Soren to Rockwall for another swim meet. The meet was great. Soren continues to improve her times; her biggest improvement this time was 22 seconds on her 200 IM! WOW! Way to go, Soren!

Soren with her swim coach

As usual, the meet went quite long. Soren and I arrived home at 7 pm and she quickly changed and we took her to a birthday party. She came home at 10 pm and we all crashed.

Sunday 6 am

We left the house and headed back to Keller for Nana's triathlon. What a great race. It was the Monster Triathlon which is a really fun event. It had an awesome turnout with 520 athletes. Nana took 2nd place in her age group! That means that she has done 3 races and has received 3 medals. Not bad.

Pops took us to lunch and then we headed to his house for Avery's 5th birthday party. All of the cousins were there, which makes for an afternoon of endless playing and good times. Zach and Jodi surprised Avery and rented a bounce house for the party, so we only saw the kids when there was a casualty or hunger.

check out Parker's face art. those are genuine cement scrapes he is sporting!

this is the only snap shot I got of the kids today. sorry, I was slacking. I bet pops has some good ones, though!

We are home now and the girls are passed out cold; I don't think I could wake them if I had to. Another fun filled weekend! Watch the parker blog http://www.theparkersblog.blogspot.com/ for pics of Nana's race!

gearing up for another packed weekend

Today Reese and I spent the day with Soren at school. It was Family Fitness Day as well as the annual pumpkin carving fall parties. Our neighborhood, which is across the street from the school, donates hundreds of pumpkins for the kids to carve and then lines the street with them that night for people to come see. It is pretty cool; I am always so impressed with what these kids can do with a knife. It also makes me laugh that they are not allowed to do so many things (like climb up the slide on the playground) but the carving knives are handed out to all kids and they are free to carve away. Whatever.

here is Soren's "owl" pumpkin glowing brightly.

Tomorrow is Reese's debut as a triathlete, another swim meet and a birthday party.

Sunday is Nana's race and Avery's birthday party.

Stay tuned for more updates on the excitement!

AND

Today gas was....

$1.95/gal WOO HOO!!!

Let's all go out and impulse buy a suburban.........or not. Whatever.

one more

This one is from Jodi. We have always teased her about her toes. That is what she gets for marrying into the Parker family.

I love Texas because....

Yesterday I took Reese to school and it was cold and pouring rain. Came home 20 minutes later to no rain and clear skies; mowed the yard in short sleeves. Picked Reese up from school and drove west to the bike shop; temp gauge in the car read 78 degrees. Hit a wall of wind and watched the gauge fall to 55 degrees with high winds and more rain. Two hours later drove to swim team, gauge reads 67 degrees, sun shining. gotta love it. what to wear, though?

Also, the gas game yesterday went from $2.21 to $2.19 to $2.16.

Don't complain

My dad, who has been training hard for his first half marathon, sent me this picture of his toenail problems to show me....it could be worse. hee hee

running casualty

I have had my first experience with a very common running problem. There are funny poems and songs about how runners lose their toenails. They turn black and fall off. One guy has collected his and made a necklace. That is really gross. Anyway, I was very glad after my White Rock marathon and again after Redman that I did not have ANY toenail issues. Sunday I felt something funny in my sock, I checked it only to find my nail hanging on by a mere thread of skin at the top. I turned to Pete and said "my whole toenail is off!" He came over, looked at it, yanked it off and agreed, yes it is. He says it is residual from my race but I wondered why it fell off since it did not ever turn black. So strange. It feels weird. I showed it to Soren and she asked me if I was going to eat it. That is REALLY gross. Pete says when he starts doing ultra running he is going to the doctor to have all of his removed. I think God gave them to us for a reason. right?

By the way...my drive by's are still working. Today gas is $2.25/gallon. Yea for gas wars!

Our usual packed-to-the-rim weekend

EAR INFECTIONS!

Tis the season for Reese to start in with the ear infections. She has doubles this time. Yea!

SIX FLAGS!

To celebrate their birthdays, Wyatt and Ashton chose to go to 6 Flags, so, naturally the girls and I invited ourselves. It was a blast, and let me just say that we have the bravest kids I know! Since the rides are controlled by height and not age, Wyatt and Soren could ride everything...and they did! Even the Titan. I still cannot believe it. I watched Soren's face and it told no lies about the terror she felt, but for the same reason as the rest of us, she loved the rides in spite of her body telling her that what it was experiencing was not natural. Ashton was tall enough for almost all of the rides and she rode the shockwave! She was with Uncle Dan, Wyatt, Soren and I and she said "I might cry a little, but I want to try it." She was sitting in front of Soren and I and as soon as the ride came to a stop I asked her what she thought and she turned around with the biggest smile on her face. Wyatt insisted on riding in the very front car and Soren did not want to, so he was up there all alone! Crazy kids. Reese was tall enough for things like the Mine Train. I found out that she really likes to go fast, but does not care so much for the drops. All in all it was a super day. We all wanted to stay longer and ride more rides but as the sun went down the park turned into a haunted house with lots of scary characters walking around, so we opted for some Chili's and home for a bath.

SWIM MEET!

Soren had to be in the water at 8am Sunday for a swim meet. Cold and early. She is a trooper! This was a great meet for her. She improved on all of her times by a minimum of 4 seconds. 4 seconds in swimming is forever! We are so excited for her. We will know what places she got sometime this week, but it will be interesting because there were over 100 girls her age racing.

I think I slept for 2 hours when we got home. There was drool. Sill tired. Enjoy the pictures.

kara, hannah(ashton's friend), ashton and reese
mat, parker and soren
uncle dan, kara, soren, steven(wyatt's friend) and wyatt
my sweeties
parker, kara and soren
me, soren and reese

uncle dan and soren
see!!! I told you Wyatt was in the very front ALL ALONE! You Go, Wyatt!

Back in the saddle again

FINALLY after 3 weeks, coach (Pete) allowed me to resume running yesterday! Those three weeks were the worst thing about doing an iron distance triathlon. After training so hard for so long, doing so little made me feel like a real slacker! I should have been swimming everyday, but the pool that I use has a busted heater and the temp is only 74 degrees. That is wetsuit legal for a triathlon! I swam for a long time yesterday and my face never got warm, but it does make you swim fast and not take breaks at the wall.

Now I have to buckle down and work my distances back up for the San Antonio Rock-n-Roll marathon on 11/16. I am really excited to make this a fun race. There is no way for me to really train for it since it is so soon, but it should be a great time. Pops, Nana, Kara and Zach are all doing their first half marathon and Pete and I will slug out the marathon distance. I am most excited about a great post-race San Antonio meal! The goal is to get all of your burned calories back in one sitting! That is a challenge but I am sure we are all up to it.

So no more stalling...gotta get out there and run.

Just keep driving

I am not sure about the rest of the metroplex, but down here gas prices are dropping like flies. You can all thank me for that. You see, I have to pass the same station each time I leave my house and for the past 6 days, without fail, each time I pass the price has dropped. It has become a game for me. I have less than 1/4 tank of gas because I can't wait to see how much lower the price has dropped the next time I pass by. I am totally serious. Yesterday at 4:15 we left for swim team and the price was 3.14, when we came home it was 3.02, this morning I dropped Reese off at school and the price was 2.99, when I picked her up 4 hours later it was 2.98, left for swim team it was 2.88, came home just now and it is 2.85. Woo Hoo! I will keep driving by so that you guys can enjoy these super low prices! You're welcome.


No Respect...
Last night while Soren was swimming, the local emergency groups (fire, ambulance, police) put on a demonstration in the YMCA parking lot. It was very interesting. They simulated a car wreck with a dummy inside and had someone call 911. Police arrive, followed by fire truck and ambulance. The car is smoking and they can't get the victim out, so they cut open the car with the jaws of life...so cool! Then they put her on a stretcher and take her inside the ambulance only to realize that she needs to be care flighted, so in comes the helicopter! After it was all over, we got to get inside all of the rescue vehicles and see everything up close. It was a great demonstration and I really think the kids got a lot out of it. Anyway, when we got home Reese told me that she wants to be a "police" when she grows up and proceeded to ask me what I am going to be when I grow up. I explained that I am already grown and I am a mom. She kinda laughed and said, "yea, but what are you going to BE". I guess being a mom doesn't count.

DORBA North Texas XC Series Mountain Bike Race

Because Soren is not quite busy enough ;) Pete has successfully hooked her on a new sport; mountain biking. This weekend the Dallas Off Road Bicycle Association (DORBA) had a race in the area and it had opportunities for all ages, so Pete signed Soren, Wyatt and Reese up for a day of fun on the trails. They were at the race site by 7 am to volunteer and get things going for the adult races. Mid morning there were some family fun activities and then the big race was at 1:30. Talk about a full day for those kids! When I arrived at 11 they were already completely filthy, hot, and tired, but that did not stop them from enjoying the rest of the activities.

This was the log pull contest (who can pull the log to the finish line in the least amount of time)

The tight rope contest (ride your bike on the the rope without falling off)


bike limbo!

Reese won first place in the limbo contest! a random lady whose dog had on sunglasses!
Wyatt races down the path during his big race. They had to do 4 loops for a total of 4 miles. I have to say something here about Wyatt's perseverance. He crashed HARD on the first loop. So hard that people were talking about it. When he got back up he did not realize that he twisted his handle bars around which caused all of his cables to wrap tight around the stem of his bike which made it nearly impossible to steer. On top of that, he was stuck in a very hard gear unable to downshift to go uphill. By the time he came around the first loop (where his dad was waiting) his face was glowing red. Mat fixed his bike and sent him on his way. He finished in spite of all of this; I think that is pretty cool. Not all of the kids finished this race; it was not a course for wimps!

Soren took 1st place for girls 12 and under. Woo Hoo!
A nice beer glass for the kids to enjoy :)



On a side note, I want to congratulate all of my friends who completed the Benbrook Women's Triathlon this weekend. I was privileged to go volunteer (coach *pete* won't let me race just yet) and it was so inspiring to see you guys out there. Way to go!

Happy Birthday to.....US!

Between September 14th and October 3rd there are 8 birthdays in my family so we always get together and have one big party to celebrate them all. Our favorite part is sitting around the table reading all of the crazy cards. We have had more fun with that than anything. This year was no different. We went to Pops and Nana's, ordered in Car*ino's, gambled, ate WAY too much desert and then got to bid on some special gifts with our gambling winnings. Soren was the big winner of the evening and she bid on bag #1 and in it was an Oli*ve Gar*den gift card! Thanks Pops and Nana! Great times and great company. Happy Birthday to Granny, Mat, Zach, Kara, Wyatt, Me, Nana and Ashton!