The Golden Ticket

The ULTIMATE Girls Night Out....


I can't WAIT!!!

Lightning Bolts Strike Again

Ian has started playing soccer - here are some great pictures of him taken by my dad with his digital rebel... only two more years until I'm going to have one! (I'm purposely waiting until Brayden is in kindergarten, so I will be able to have the time and free hands to lug one around!) All these pictures were taken from a cozy camp chair on the sidelines... aren't they amazing?

I'm still undecided on this league. We LOVE our coach and the other families on our team... but I've seen some coaching nightmares on the teams we compete against. This week's team??? So bad that I'm going to email the league and complain about the coaching and parents. It was appalling and embarrasing! Why can't the grown ups just let the kids relax and have fun?

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I turn 35... boy that sounds old, even to me! I remember when I looked forward to being 30... can't really explain why... now that 35 is here, not so excited... oh well!

I have just one request for my birthday - leave me a comment! It can be about anything in the world... but I'm just looking forward to meeting some of my blog lurkers out there! I promise not to bite... and I'm not going to talk politics either!

So, come on... I DARE YOU....

no, I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU...

wait, I TRIPLE DOG DARE YOU...

I hope it won't be as painful as sticking your tongue to a frozen light pole....

Happy Birthday Taylor!

Today you turn 14! In honor of your 14 years, here are 14 of my favorite pictures of you....

Thanks for being such a great guy! We LOVE you!

Desert Grande Triathlon

Saturday morning was clear and cool and most importantly calm (no wind) ... we headed down to Casa Grande for their annual Desert Grande Triathlon/Duathlon. Here is my bike with my friend, Hillary's bike... we were in the minority as far as bikes go... most people had super streamlined road bikes... maybe next year....

Hillary and I just before we lined up to start... I did the Triathlon, she did the Duathlon (torture in my opinion... running, then biking, then running AGAIN!) I'd much rather swim!

The first leg... swimming... my favorite part! As prepared as I thought I was, the swim was much harder than I anticipated! Swim time: 9:33. ( I thought I could do it in 8:30, but I've been swimming in a 25 yard pool and this was a 50 meter pool, so my estimations were a bit off I guess....) I was really trying to save my legs during the swim, so I gave it everything I had with my arms and shoulders... the end result of that was that I could barely pull myself out of the water at the end. I was shocked at how hard it was to get out of the pool!

No pictures of me on the bike, which is just as well, because this was my weakest link. I didn't have biking clothing on, didn't have a road bike and didn't even have toe clips for my shoes! Oh well, I still had fun, although I was wishing I had my ipod or someone to talk to... 10 miles riding solo gets boring and tedious after about 15 minutes. (I missed you on this stretch, Maureen! Remember how fun the bike was when we did the Pleasanton Tri all those many moons ago?!?)
I didn't pass one person on the biking portion of my race... which can be disheartening, but thankfully I was prepared for that reality. I blame it on my fat tire handicap.... My bike time 54:25 (this includes the transition from swim and dropping off the bike to start the run).

The bike to run transition is BRUTAL! I had practiced it, but it still didn't prepare me for the real thing! I used Eric's garmin GPS watch to keep track of my milage and pace and it was an absolute LIFESAVER because I could easily tell how much father I would have to go before I got to the end... here I am just crossing the finish.... I was sooooo dang happy to see that finish sign, I can't even tell you! My run time was 29:45! Based on my treadmill training, I thought my best possible run time would be about 33 minutes, so I was dang happy about this one!

My overall time was 93:43!!! I was estimating 105 minutes, so I was very happy to come in twelve minutes under the expectation! Many thanks to Eric for getting up on the crack of dawn on Saturday to drive me down and cheer for me and take pictures and to Hillary for sticking around long enough to cheer for me when I crossed the finish line! I wish I could have done the same for her, but she finished before me!

I've come to a very interesting conclusion about myself... I have to be motivated by something to workout. When I don't have a "reason" to go to the gym, I can find all kinds of reasons to talk myself out of it. When I sign up for a race, then believe me, I'm motivated to get my butt to the gym and get prepared. (I have the same issue with cleaning my house... I often invite people over because it is about the only motivator to get myself to get it clean!)

Now I'm going to attempt something I've never tried... Eric and I are going to sign up for a 10K run on Thanksgiving morning in Mesa... I've never been able to run much past 3 miles, so this will be quite the adventure for me. Only 3 and 1/2 weeks to really ramp up my running, but I think for the first time in my life, I can actually do this! And, I've finally got Eric excited about trying out the Triathlon circuit... he was really wishing he had signed up with me on Saturday morning!

Halloween Part Three

Halloween pictures... Taylor took off to hang out with friends... apparantly he's too cool to hang out with us...

I managed to get out of carving pumpkins this year and we used some cool paint markers to decorated them instead... so much easier for me! Yeah! I took the kids out for the first half of the neighborhood and then I came home and traded places with Eric and he took them out for the rest... we have candy coming out of our ears!!! They definately scored!
Pounding the pavement... I was suprised at how many houses were not decorated or even had any lights on at all (compared with past years on Halloween)... Maybe there are more empty homes in my neighborhood than I had previously thought....

I've already bagged up 2 gallon size ziploc bags of candy and put it in the freezer... one more bag went to a candy drive/fundraiser at Taylor's school and we still have enough to fill 2 more gallon size bags... hope we don't get too many cavities at our next visit to the dentist!

Halloween Part Two

Pictures from Brayden's Halloween Preschool Carnival...