Greenville Triathlon

The Caine Halter YMCA Triathlon was yesterday in Greenville. The ladies from the S'ville hood set out to have a good time and we did just that! It was Kristin and Alice's first triathlon and they did AWESOME!!!! They looked like seasoned pros out on the course.

On Friday when we got up to Greenville (about a 3 hour drive) we got to see the course for the first time. After checking out the bike route we were all about ready to turn around and drive back home! To our surprise the "rolling hills" were quite significant. There are no hills in Summerville to be heard of which meant no training on hills for us. We got pretty worked up and nervous about the bike portion but turns out we all did just fine and didn't let the hills get the best of us.

Here is my race info. . . .

Swim: 06:15 T1: 02:18 Bike: 29:24 Run: 31:00 (T2 was combined with the run time)
Overall time: 01:08:55 (This was good enough to get me 3rd place in my division and ranked 47th out of 137 women! Hooray!)

And a big thank you to Scott who was willing to stay home and hold down the fort with the kids. I missed having them waiting for me at he finish line!

Home with the kids

Before you think "aren't you always home with the kids" let me say this is not a Jessica post but a Scott post. This weekend Jessica headed to Greenville, SC for a triathlon. Her and her triathlon buddies left Friday afternoon. I worked from home to be with the kids. We decided it was easier for me and on me to watch the kids at home that out the triathlon. Easton can entertain himself and Mia is moving around now and can also keep herself entertained. She's not yet crawling but she's so close. She does the military crawl on her belly.

So why am I writing a post? Well, it's because I'm so very proud of my wife. For the last 3-4 months she has been dedicated to training for this triathlon not only by exercising daily with her good friend and our good neighbor Alice Hardy but she has also been dedicated on a diet and has been able to lose quite a bit of weight. She'll probably be embarrassed for me saying so but she looks fantastic and she feels great! That's what's important. She's been a motivation to me since I first met her so many years ago but lately she's been an even greater motivation. I've lost some weight myself, which I call "sympathy weight." She tells me if only everyone could eat anything they want and still lose weight. :-)

And now after being without our wife and mom for nearly 24 hours I'm happy to report the kids are still alive, well fed, and clean. The house is not a mess, the dishes are put away, and the dog is still clean (mostly because I sprayed him with the hose morning while putting water in Easton's swimming pool). It doesn't mean we don't appreciate her, of course, because she does a lot more for us on a daily basis than we can ever say thank you for.

Congrats Jess. We love you!!

Deal of the Day

So I promise I'm not too overboard on this coupon thing but yesterday I was so proud of myself . . . . I got 6 Duncan Heinz cake mixes and 6 Duncan Heinz brownie mixes all for $3.18!!!! We are always making cakes and brownies for youth activities so this was a steal of a deal. Thank you Publix!

Confessions . . .

ONE. This week has been a horribly long process of loading programs, etc. back on to my computer after the big crash AND dealing with a baby with a stomach virus. I get so extremely upset when I call customer support for assistance with unlocking my Adobe Photoshop CS4 upgrade and every time I have to speak with someone "foreign." Now I have nothing against foreign people it's just that it is SOOOOO HARD to understand someone on the phone with lets say . . . a heavy Indian accent. I feel like a retard when I have to tell him that I didn't understand what he said every 30 seconds. Sometimes I feel like asking if anyone is available that speaks English and is American. Anyone else ever feel that way?

TWO. I never thought that I would admit it, but other than our puppy having a bad case of worms when we got him, having a dog has been lots of fun. And . . . . . he is just like having a friend for Easton to play with. They play outside in the backyard all day long. I keep an eye on them through the windows and Mia and I stay in where it's cool. I only have to go out for an occasional incident when the dog tries to use Easton as a chew toy!


THREE. Running isn't necessarily such a bad thing. In the past (and when I say past I mean my entire life), I have never really liked running much. My body was not built for running at all and I would get really bored when out jogging. In the past 3 months I have tried to IMPROVE my attitude toward running and it has really helped. A 5K distance (3.1 miles) used to be my absolute max but now I am up to 10K and hope to go a lot farther than that because I have had a moment of insanity and signed up for the Pine Valley 15 miler (http://www.sgrcseries.net/) in August in the St. George heat. At this point my strategy is to PRAY that I don't die in the process!

FOUR. I have become a fanatic "coupn clipper." I was always skeptic of getting into the whole "coupon" thing up until a few weeks ago. One of my friends talked me into checking it out and learning more about it. There are quite a few ladies in my ward that could do it as a profession they are so good. I would cut out a coupon here and there but thought that if I collected too many that I would end up buying things that I didn't necessarily want or need just to get a good deal on it, or that I would never find any coupons for some of the more healthy stuff/brands that I prefer to buy. So, I'm careful to only buy what we need and I have so far done really well. I'm surprised at the amount of money I have saved. Today's deal was DiGiorno Pizza's for $1.50 (regularly $6+)!!!! Can't beat that!

No news does not necessarily mean good news!

The last few weeks have definitely been eventful and it seems like I've had no time to post anything on the blog. Lets starts with the good news . . . . .

Potty training Easton since his his 3rd birthday has been SO much easier than any attempt before that. It only took a few days and a trip to Chuck E. Cheese for a reward and we were set with the peeing. After a week he said he didn't want to wear a pull-up to bed so he started wearing his underwear to bed and he's never had an accident overnight since. Hooray! Now, number 2 is a different story for some reason but I'm sure that will come around here soon. :0)

The not so good news . . . . .

On Thursday of last week my computer crashed. Turns out it was my hard drive and they were unable to recover anything. :0( Luckily I keep a majority of my stuff on an external drive so I wasn't completely devastated. I had not created "Recovery Discs" on my own (the computer was only 8 months old) so I had to contact HP for the discs. The Geek Squad at Best Buy is replacing the hard drive and restoring the operating system, etc. I'll have the daunting task of reinstalling all of my programs. Moral of the story . . . . when your computer prompts you to back things up, DO IT!

I had posted over a week ago about our new Beagle puppy Boots. After having him for only 2 short days he started to go downhill. Scott left on a business trip to Denver on Monday for 5 days and that's when Boots stopped eating and moving. By Thursday I got him in to see the vet. They ran a bunch of tests and found that his stomach was chalk full of worms and that his blood count was very low so he was very anemic. They basically said that if we could get him turned around in the next 24 hours he was going to die. What!!????? Scott was gone and I had never owned a dog before let alone had to take care of a sick one. They sent me home with various medications and some perscription food. They also gave him a shot that is supposed to start killing the worms off pretty quickly (better than the pills they give them). Boots vomited on the way home and did his duty from the other end and was sitting is puddles of blood by the time we made it home. It was seriously the saddest thing I've ever seen. I ended up having to feed him through a syringe and all kinds of things. Long story made shorter, about a day after seeing the Vet Boots started eating the perscription food on his own until he evenutally got back to normal over the next 4 days. It was quite the ordeal. We're just glad our first puppy didn't die on us. Easton is way too attached.

Adding to the Family!

Please welcome the newest member of our family . . . . . Boots (as chosen by Easton)! Boots is a 7 week old Beagle who has proven thus far to be a loving and loyal companion. He sleeps a lot in between running around the yard with Easton. :0) Boots is adapting to his new home well and is already sleeping outside like a good puppy.

Memorial Weekend Camping

Here are some pics from our fun camping trip at Santee over Memorial weekend. We had a great time and made it home in time to miss the day-long downpour of rain.

Playing in the lake . . . . no aligators present (that we could see anyway).

This ugly thing is a skink.

Mia fell asleep in the carrier on a short hike.

Roasting hot dogs!!