Swim Meet #2

Today the kids and I spent 8 hours at the pool.  Luckily my friend Liz took Mason and Heidi for 2 1/2 of those hours, but still it was an extremely stressful day.  At about 10:45 the fire alarm went off.  We all filed outside.....swimmers were stopped mid race.....and we had to stand outside for 20 minutes while we waited for the firemen to "clear" the school building.  What was bad was that they had to get the fire truck out of the parade that was in progress to come over to the school!  I knew the guy who was driving as well as his kids who were riding with him!  We were finally let back into the school and the swimmers began to warm  up and the racing continued on again.  Emma had a wonderful meet and placed first in one of her races (She was the only swimmer....but I am still proud:) )!!!!  The cool thing is that you get a little rubber duck if you finish first in your race, so she was able to get one of those as well!  Heidi and Mason were tired cranky and did not want to sit still at this point and while I was getting Mason a drink the fire alarm went off for the second time!!!  Imagine my horror when a little boy comes up to me and said " that little girl is the one who did it," as he points to Heidi!  My heart sunk into my stomach I was so embarrassed.  My friend had brought a playpen and I stuck both kids in it and told them to play quietly.  I think they took one look at my face and knew I was going to explode if they messed around, so they were pretty good the rest of the time.
Anyway here is a few pictures of our excitement as well as a video of one of Emma's races.

Lake Swimming

My friends came over and had tea this afternoon, and then later in the evening we did another lake swim. This time we were not able to get in the lake until after 10:30pm and we were in until 11:15!  I also took Emma and Madison, who were spent the next day, but had lots of fun with us as well.  I fully intend to go again this evening....and hopefully as much as possible until I leave in mid August.  Right now the temp. of the lake is in the low 50's and I am starting to see the heat rising from the lake, which is a bad sign for me! :) 

I love swimming in the lake because it has such a calming effect on me, and I love the peacefulness of it.  Some people might say it is a little crazy due to the temperatures but they don't bother me much.  I find it a great time of reflection and rejuvenation! I don't know if my friends feel the same, but they do keep coming with me every so often, so it cannot be too bad. :)

Mushroom mixture in phyllo dough! Was simply divine!

Jen, Liz, Farrah, and me :)  Pre swim!

Our (camp) Lake

Emma and Madison testing the waters!

Emma a little cold after the swim.  Madison was shivering before she got in....poor thing!

Singing Camp Songs in the Rain

I let Emma and Madison go outside at 9:30pm tonight to join their friends, even though they had already been sent upstairs for bedtime.  They had done well with the cleaning earlier that day and I felt that every now and then it is ok for them to stay up and have fun, since it is summer afterall!  When they went outside, all the kids were singing, and Emma and Madison joined in.  I sat and listend and then decided to grab the camera so I was able to capture the last song that they were singing.  They have all just been to camp the last couple of weeks and so they were belting out the camp songs that they had learned!  I hope you enjoy the song as much as I did!

Hammerman Triathlon

Today Crystal and I went to Anchorage, leaving here at 5:30am, to participate in the Xterra Hammerman Triathlon.  Being and xterra race the mountain biking was a treacherous 13 mile bike with lots of grueling hills and single track!  The run was 4 miles, which was Crystal's protion, and was also that way with huge hills that you almost have to climb on all fours to get to the top!  I did the swim portion, which was 1/2 a mile of lake swimming.  I had a wonderful time, and enjoy doing this tri with a team because I am not comfortable at all with doing the mountain biking portion!  The Triathlon had about 200 participants and 13 teams, and our team was 9th.  The first teams that took off were top athletes at what they do, and they were some of the first people to get through the whole corse, so even though we were 9th we were all happy with our times, and our placing!

Little Cambell Lake is where we started the race.  As you see above this is the swim corse, out and back!

                                                    Gathering for final race instructions

                           They had us swim into a group and then we did a mass start in the water!

                  Elijah, Crystal's youngest, was our team cheerer! Although he slept most of the race! :)

                                   

                                               Crystal waiting for Regina, our biker, to get back

                                                                 Here comes Regina!!!

Crystal at the finish line!

Our team, Soldotna Sole Survivors

Regina, Me, and Crystal

This is some of my tri training buddies!  The first picture is Tony coming in from his bike, and the other is Cassie in Transition from bike to run.

This is our fearless leader Angie, right after she finished the race, and the other is Gretchen, Janette, and Sandy waiting to start the race.

This is half of this years Triathlon Training group....the other half either left early or did not do this race.

Tobin, Ricky, Will, Me, Tony

Sandy, Angie, Janette, and Gretchen

Adventure Trip #4 to Cannery Road Beach and Kenai Landing

Well, it has been a while since my friends and I have had one of our little adventures, partly because of my family stuff, but also because of the less than appealing weather.  There is just not any motivation to go and hike with kids that are already about to break down when the weather is also "breaking down!!"  While the rain is really good for the land and it keeps our fire danger down, which is important.  So today was our first day of full sun all day in a long long time, basically since our last trip! 

So Crystal got home and let her kids play outside instead of napping, and I told my kids that we were going to the beach and of course they wanted the neighbors to come and in 20 minutes we had decided to go and left.  That is 11 kids and 2 adults ready to go in 20 minutes!!!! That never happens :)  , but today the sun was out and we were ready to be gone! 

We had a wonderful time playing on the beach, and the kids loved splashing around in the water.  The waves were unusally big for here which made it even more fun for the kids to play.  We were concerned for the little ones just because the current was pretty strong and it was easily knocking them down.  After a few hours at the beach we headed to the Kenai Landing, which was the old cannery 50 or so years ago.  They have turned many of the buidings into sleeping quarters and there is a few shops and a resturant there.  We walked around and took in the scenery and stopped for a few photo ops too!

The 4th of July

Today was a most unusual day.  It started out beautifully sunny, but that soon faded to dark ominous clouds, which dumped rain drop after rain drop.  Not extremely inspiring for a day of picnicing and fireworks (which we can not fire off here in Soldotna), so instead we stayed inside and cleaned a little, played with puzzles, and visited with friends as they popped in and out throughout the afternoon.  It was a slow paced day, and most relaxing! I just wanted to express how extremely greatful we are to all the soldiers that have served, are serving, and will serve this country and protected the freedoms that we often take for granted.  Thank you for another year of service and protection.
Tomorrow is camps' country fair  for family camp, which we try to have on the 4th but sometimes does not always work out.  There are lots of games for the kids to do and the parents can sit and talk with friends and family.  Chad will be roasting two pigs for 12 hours(starting at 3am), as well as cooking the hamburgers and hot dogs for our family campers to enjoy for dinner!  Hopefully we will have a rain free day and I promise to take lots of pictures!