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!