Stewart Falls

Yesterday evening we went on a fun little hike to Stewart falls! We were told it was a pretty kid-friendly hike, and it really was--but I thought we would be carrying Reid the whole way. He surprised us though and did most of the hike all by himself! He did especially well considering he was the only kiddo walking the hike instead of getting carried. We were so proud of him for being such a trooper! It was a really fun hike, and we are definitely doing it again this summer!

Look how DIRTY we all got. There's just something about being covered in dirt that lets you know you had a great time!

This is us trying desperately to get Linkers to smile for the camera--he just continues to look at us like we're idiots...

Success! One little smirk for all of that hard work!

Beautiful waterfall!

Reid spent a lot of time picking up rocks and throwing them into the river. Sounds like my idea of a great time!

Beautiful!

We haven't done as much hiking since having Link because we have always been worried that Reid wouldn't want to walk, but we discovered that he is quite the little hiker, and plan on taking him on many more hiking trips this summer! Yay for warm weather and dirt!

Another One Bites the Dust!

Last week we took my nephew, Garrett to the MTC! He is going to serve his mission in El Salvador, and we are so excited for him! One thing I LOVE about living in Utah is taking family members to the MTC and being home base for the lovelies that come to go to school at BYU. Yay for living in the Mormon Mecca!

We love you, Garrett!

Provo Tri

Well, I did another sprint triathlon this past Saturday, and it was really fun! Nate was able to come to this one, and my lovely friend Jess came to support me as well. Thanks Jess! You're such a great friend! Anyway, Nate decided to take some snapshots of my race, and I posted every picture he took because I think they are hilarious! I'm no photographer, but I at least know how to zoom. So, I would like to play a little game called "spot the triathlete." See if you can find me in each of these pictures...ready, go!

Transition!

Too Fast!

This is a good one...

There I am!

Finish!

In all seriousness though, I love that Nate is interested in what I do and that he tries his best to come and support me, or at the very least take care of the kiddos while I'm gone!

RACE REPORT

The course here was pretty boring, but it was a smaller triathlon, so I was actually kind of competitive this go around. They did all of the timing by hand here, so I'm not going to post my times because they were way off. Also, we were supposed to do two loops on both the bike and the run, and the girl that finished a spot in front of me only did ONE loop on the run, so I am going to say I beat her because if she can cut the run short I can cut her out of the lineup, so THERE!

Anyway here's the info. that I DO know:

--I was the third woman out of the water. This was really exciting to me because I did feel like I had a pretty good swim and I saw a lot more men around me than women.

--I finished 4th overall out of 25 (the website says 5th, but really it was fourth!)

--Two girls passed me on the bike and I caught the fourth place girl right at the beginning of the run! Woot!

--As usual, I need to get better at biking, ha!

It was a super fun race, and I decided to step it up a notch a do an Olympic triathlon in July!

Happy Daddy's Day!

Did you have a happy daddy's day? We sure did! All weekend was devoted to our favorite daddy just to show him how much we love him. He suuuure is good to us being a full time student/worker/daddy, and he excels in all three areas. Yay for our daddy-- we are so excited to have you all to ourselves, and look forward to spending more time with you this summer!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

World cup fever...Just in Time

I believe I have mentioned here before how crazy I get during the World Cup. In 2006 I spent the entire month going between Nate's parent's and my parent's houses to watch the games. You see, I started watching English Premier soccer (football :) back in 1997. I stumbled upon an English soccer channel and was hooked. Then when the world cup came around in 1998 I got to watch all of those players play together. Ever since then I have always been a big England fan, and have followed them (and other teams) religiously in the World Cup (sadly, I don't have the time or the TV to follow the club teams anymore).

Unfortunately, when Nate and I got married we made the decision not to have a TV, and I had to start mooching off of friends and family to watch the games. The other problem is that not many Americans really care about the World Cup that much, and don't care to wake up at 2AM to watch Serbia play Croatia--where are those places anyway?

THIS year I have been really worried because none of my family lives here and NO ONE I know REALLY wants to follow the tournament like I do. Well, along came my great new friend Heather, and she loves it just as much as I do, AND she has a TV, AND her husband doesn't like soccer either-and how! Hooray! So, she and I got together to watch the England/US game on Saturday, and the Germany/Australia game today. It has been SO MUCH FUN to have a friend that is a total weirdo about this tournament too.

The boys and I getting ready to head over to Heather's (she was gracious enough to let me and my boys take over her little place.) Both boys wore their England jerseys (we were glad it ended in a tie because I had a hard time deciding who to cheer for!)

I am so happy that I found a world cup buddy just in time! The only thing that would have made the game better is if I had my favorite English pal there to watch it with me (you know who you are!)

Salem Spring Tri

I did it! I ran my first REAL triathlon where I actually trained, and practiced and used a road bike instead of a mountain bike (never do this, trust me). It was so fun! I really did enjoy it. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I signed up to do the Provo triathlon next Saturday!

Why did I post a picture of this helicopter? Because it was flying around right before the race began and chucked fun prizes out for all of the triathletes. Great idea, right? Actually, it got so close to the transition area that everyone's stuff (including some super expensive bikes) got blown all over the place. Yikes!

OK, so I'm not sure why this is out of order because I SPECIFICALLY tried to put the swim pic first, but here we are I guess. Anyway, I have to preface this post by saying: I HATE these pictures of me. I feel like I look 20 pounds heavier than I usually do, (and that's without the wetsuit!) so I didn't want to post these, but I really wanted to document this race...sigh.

THE SWIM: My swim time was OK. I was a little disappointed with it because I really got ran over by the other "ladies" at the start, and it took me a while to get moving. Swimming is usually my strong suit, and I feel like I have an advantage because I have a lot of experience with it, but I had a hard time keeping my face in the water and had to take a breath every other stroke. It was a lovely day though, and the water was perfect!

THE BIKE: Here I am on the bike looking pregnant. Ha, ha. Anyway, I was pretty happy with my bike time. This is my first time racing on a bike, so it was definitely my weakest leg, but for a first timer I actually did alright! I discovered that I really like it and that I can push myself harder next time.

THE RUN: My run was really my best performance. I can definitely run a 5K faster than I did, but after swimming and biking, AND the course being a little hilly I feel really good about it. I really need a triathlon top though because running in my bathing suit is not AT ALL flattering!

Also, both of my transitions went perfectly! There is a lot that can go wrong in transition, especially for a newbie like me, but my great friend Sarah gave me some stellar advice. I have really appreciated her because she comes to these races to have fun and to WIN, (she did win by the way, way to go girl!) but she still took the time to help me out with warming up, setting up, training advice etc. etc. What a great friend and amazing athlete!

So, here are my final stats:

SWIM: 14:19

T1: 2:38

BIKE: 40:14

T2: 1:13

RUN: 24:29

Do these numbers mean anything to you? Me neither. What is a little more helpful is that I got 8th place out of 40 in my age group and 24th place out of 150 overall-not too bad for my first real go at it. It makes me excited for my next race because I am hoping I can do this one even faster!

But don't look at those pictures for too long, OK?

The Camera adds 10 Pounds....

(Heather, Sarah, me practicing the swim at Salem Pond. Not sure how they managed to still look skinny...probably because they are real athletes who really ARE super skinny...)

...and apparently a wetsuit adds 40. I love that the wet suit says "orca" on it because that's how I feel...like a whale. I am doing my second triathlon EVER tomorrow, and will be wearing this lovely ensemble for the swim, so stay tuned for more pictures of me looking like I belong at Seaworld. Wish me luck!

A Day Out With Thomas!

So, Thomas the Tank Engine pays Utah a visit once a year, and I have wanted to take Reid for the past two years but haven't been able to for whatever reason. This year, at the last minute we decided to head up to Heber City to see what all the commotion was about. Honestly, it was fun but it got REALLY cold that evening, and it wasn't quite as awesome as I had imagined it in my head. Reid, however was ecstatic so I suppose it was worth it!

Here is the cool Thomas train they got to ride on. I thought this was the best part because it really does look like a life-sized Thomas!

Reid and Daddy waiting in line.

Reid was so excited to be on the train he could hardly contain himself. I didn't want to pay for three tickets, so I just let Reid and Daddy go while Linkers and I played in the hay maze.


I'm not sure what went wrong with this picture, but Reid must have hung out the window and yelled "goodbye, mom!" about a zillion times. It was so cute!

He even got a cool Thomas tattoo. He was pretty much done with smiling for pictures at this point though.

They had a tent with all kinds of train tables to play with, and I wish we had found this sooner because both boys LOVED it. We had to literally PRY Reid away kicking and screaming. Seriously, Reid is usually pretty good about not throwing fits in public, but he was embarrassingly loud on the way back to the car. Sigh. Gotta love this stage.

Goodbye, Thomas! See you next year! (Maybe...or actually maybe not)