Relaxing At Our House

More pictures of Maryn falling asleep in funny places :) This is becoming more of a rarity since she doesn't actually fall asleep during quiet time anymore. I thought she was up in her room playing quietly by herself... low and behold she fell asleep in the middle of playing.



Awwwwww... she's so precious :)


Oh and Maya. She just makes herself at home... this is her watching Elmo one morning (her absolute favorite!). She usually stands 3 feet from the TV and sings and dances the entire time. This particular day she must have been a little tired :)

Hail Storm - Sept 2010

Marion got pelted with a hail storm a few weeks ago. I have never heard or seen anything like it. It was so loud inside the house. I thought for sure the windows were going to break so I got Maya up from her nap and hurried the kids into the basement. The hail went from pebble size all the way up to golf ball size. The damage within a 1 mile radius of our house is quite impressive. The insurance adjustor determined that we need a new roof, partial new siding (mostly west side of the house), re-finish deck and swingset, a new grill and new gutters and downspouts. We were one of the lucky ones that didn't have our vehicles outside... all the teachers at Makenna's school have extensive damage to their cars and I've heard that it's running them $5000 plus to get it fixed. When we came up after the hail stopped, Maryn looked out the back door and exclaimed "Mom, it snowed!" Ugh... bad sign.

Here are some pictures shortly after the storm... it was warm on this particular day so it probably melted some by the time I got around to taking pictures.

Marynisms

One day after Josh's Ironman race, Maryn and I were putting together a puzzle. Out of the blue she says "Now that Daddy's an Ironman, I think he should do a hot dog eating contest." Of course that seems like the next logical step in her mind :)

Today we were all playing softball outside and enjoying the beautiful fall weather. I noticed that Maryn had disappeared inside so I went to check on her. She was standing in the kitchen trying to get a cup. I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was hot and needed a drink. I helped her get something to drink and she stands back, with her hand across her forehead, and proclaims in an exasperated voice "I have a hot wife." I about died. It only took me a split second to figure out where she came up with that one. Josh frequently refers to me (ha ha) as his "hot wife"... as in "Hi hot wife, how are you?" No, I'm not kidding. He really does this on such a frequent basis that my 4 year old has now picked up on it :)

Maryn has a new friend at preschool and her name is Odelia. I've known Odelia's mom through church for quite some time (she was Maryn's 2 year old Sunday school teacher), so it was a pleasure to see them at the preschool open house! To understand this story, you will need to know that Odelia's family is originally from a country in Africa (the exact one is escaping me at the moment). One of the first days of preschool Maryn was telling Josh all about her day at preschool while we ate dinner. I asked her who she played with and she started listing off her friends. She failed to mention Odelia so I asked her if she played with Odelia. She replied excitedly with "Yes! Odelia! She's the one with the chocolate all over her face." We nicely tried to explain to Maryn that everyone has a different color of skin and Odelia's is just darker than hers... it's not covered in chocolate. I'm not sure why this came up now since we have numerous friends of different ethnicities... maybe she's just old enough to notice the differences now. She continued on the chocolate kick for a few weeks every time she saw Odelia (luckily I don't think she ever said it to her face), but it opened up a good discussion about how God makes everyone different!

Maryn's 4th Birthday

Finally... Maryn's 4! She's only been talking about it for 9 months now!!! Maryn celebrated her birthday with a Cinderella themed family birthday party. Then on her actual birthday (the following day) she opened presents in the morning, we went to church (where all the kids sang to her!), went on a bike ride with her new bike and then went out to eat at Red Robin (her choice). She claims her favorite part of her birthday was Red Robin. She grinned from ear-to-ear while they sang to her and she loved every second of the extra attention! And let's not forget the ice cream sundae they gave her that was as big as her head!

Maryn requested a Cinderella castle cake. Not my favorite of all the birthday cakes we've had, but Maryn loved it so that's all that matters.


Maryn proudly posing with her cake


Trying to blow out the candles


All the cousins that were at the party (we were missing Eden and Hannah)


I've never seen a kid react to presents quite the way Maryn did this year! She continuously gave off some high-pitched squeal of delight the entire time she was opening gifts! It was pretty adorable! She was so excited that it was finally her turn to be the birthday girl!






Makenna, Josie and Addie watching the present opening fun!


Josie and Makenna


Maryn opening gifts on the morning of her birthday. She got a Polly Pocket doll with clothes, the Polly Pocket glamper (her request) and a Leap Frog learning toy.




And of course the big gift.... drum roll please.... A BIG GIRL BIKE!!!!

Maya's 18 Month Pics

There is a first time for everything... I had to walk out of a photo session with a very cranky child and no pictures this week :( Maya just wouldn't cooperate. She would bury her head on the floor or go limp when I'd try to stand her up. I figure I'd just save everyone some time and I re-scheduled for the next day. Things went much better the second time around :)











She decided she liked climbing on the blocks more than posing by them :)

Ironman Louisville - Bike

Continued from Ironman Louisville - Swim post

I took off SPRINTING for the bike start. I had no idea how fast he would get out on his bike and I wanted to make sure I saw him out the bike chute. Apparently I didn't need to sprint, he took more time than I thought he would in transition ;) Finally saw him riding down the chute. I yelled something about nutrition (since he tends to forget to eat) and he yelled "How's that for a long transition?!"

I then walked about a block away and stood in line to take a shuttle bus to LaGrange, Kentucky. LaGrange is a small town just north of Louisville that has the pleasure of having all of these triathletes ride through their town at miles 40 and 70 of the race. I stood in line for a long time and was starting to get nervous that I was going to miss Josh's first loop in LaGrange. Luckily I made it on a bus just in time. LaGrange was set up in a town festival kind of atmosphere. Food, vendors, loud music, you name it. And then there is the main drag in LaGrange... lined with people on both sides of the street for probably a mile long screaming at all the bikers as they come through! It was awesome! I tried to strategically place myself (for the best pictures and so Josh would see me) along the street. He came barreling through, looking calm and laidback, right on pace! I had enough time to grab a bite to eat and then headed back to the same spot (figuring he would look for me there again) and got to cheer for him yet again for mile 70!!! Every time I saw him on the race course it was like a burst of adrenaline! So good to see him and know he was doing alright.

Josh's first loop through LaGrange




Second loop through LaGrange







I took the shuttle bus back to Louisville and actually had about 45 minutes to hang out in my hotel room until he was due to finish the bike. I then situated myself just outside the entrance to the bike chute and saw a not-so-happy Josh finishing on the bike. His pace was awesome... right around 19 mph for the entire ride. He paced around 20 mph for the first 3/4 of the race and then fell off after that.

Josh headed toward the bike finish





According to Josh, the first part of the bike went well. Lots of hills. He heard over and over "this course is consistently inconsistent." Meaning he was continuously changing gears. I could tell via the athlete tracker that things were going well for him on this stage of the race since he was riding at exactly the pace he wanted to be at.

The main story from the bike starts at the mile 80 aid station. Typically what happens as you get to an aid station on the bike is the biker pitches an old water just as they get to the aid station (to make room for the new water bottle) and then a volunteer hands them a new cold water bottle on the other side as they're leaving. Josh pitched a 3/4 full water bottle that was warm in hopes of getting cold water. He soon learned that was a bad decision as the volunteers start yelling that they are out of water. BAD NEWS. You can not be out of water for an endurance event with 3000 athletes on a day that is 95 degrees with 90% humidity. That just spells disaster. From here on out Josh saw amazing things... local Kentuckians that lived along the race route bringing their hoses out to the road and letting bikers fill up their bottles and some actually bringing their own water bottles out of their houses and giving them to the racers. But obviously that wasn't enough. Josh didn't have enough water to sustain him from 80-112 miles on the bike and thus started getting stomach cramps. This would then set the tone for the rest of his race that day (and hundreds of other athletes as well we found out later).

All in all, Josh is happy with his bike performance. He still finished with a great time despite not having adequate fluid on the last 30 miles. He said he saw one guy with a flat tire just 3 miles into the course... how would you like that start to the day? He said he couldn't count the number of bikers he saw just sitting on the road, with mechanical difficulties or just plain exhausted. And there were more bike crashes than you'd like to know about. We heard an amazing story of one guy that had FOUR flat tires over the course of the race and after he exhausted his own supplies, other generous racers gave him their spare CO2 cartridge and tires so he could continue. But probably my favorite story from the bike course... a guy ended up somehow breaking his pedal at one point during the race. Tech services arrived and tried to help him, but it was unfixable. He sat in despair on the side of the road knowing his year of training and his dream of being an Ironman was going up in smoke due to a stinking mechanical deficiency in his bike. Low and behold, another triathlete that was a complete stranger, rode past him and saw him on the side of the road with a broken bike. The racer was struggling already in the race and knew he wouldn't finish. He turned around and went and GAVE his bike to the racer sitting on the ground so that guy would have a chance to finish when he knew he wouldn't!!! It just gives me chills!

If you want to know why Josh and I are so crazy about triathlons, this is one of the number one reasons. The people that do these races are amazing. It is a tight knit community where everyone is welcome and everyone wants to help. It doesn't matter how slow or fast you are, if this is your 100th race or your 1st race, everyone wants to talk to you and hear your story! I love it!

Ironman Louisville - Swim

Continued from Ironman Louisville - Pre-Race

After Josh got his bike situated in transition, I quickly ran the bike pump back up to our hotel room and met him back at transition for the long walk to the swim start. I figured it would be a little jaunt, but had no idea... they need to add an extra 3 miles to the race to fully count how far these athletes went that day! Keep in mind it is still pitch black outside and we are blindly following a crowd that is supposedly making its way to the swim start. Finally we hear music and figure we're in the right place. We come to a big parking lot filled with volunteers marking athletes. Josh got his number marked on his arm and his age on his calf and off we went.

This next part is the part that is comical... we started walking to find the back of the line. It went on and on and on. It seriously had to be at least a mile long. We ended up standing alongside a highway to await the official swim start. Josh was doing extremely well at this point, he was his typical self and chatting it up with all the people around us. I, on the other hand, was starting to get extremely nervous and trying not to show it.

What else is there to do in line besides take pictures??!! Thanks to the cool triathlete from Maine that took this picture for us. And yes, that is the sun rise in the background :)


Best shape of his life!



Finally the line is moving!! We hear the official canon and know that one by one the athletes are now jumping in the water. It's just a matter of time before we wind our way through the long line to get to the dock. I stayed with Josh nearly the entire time (despite warnings for non-athletes to get out of line). On a side note, the athlete standing in front of Josh (his wife is in the pink) had applied sunscreen just prior to this and got it in his eyes. He couldn't see and was panicking. Huge mistake at the beginning of a long day. I felt horrible for him.




This is the back of Josh's head, but I included this picture because you can see all the athletes in the background peeing anywhere and everywhere as they're waiting in line! Ironman didn't expect the line to go so far back so there weren't any porta-potties by where we were standing. At any given time that morning you could look around and see a dozen or so athletes relieving themselves before the race!


At one point while we were waiting in line, you could see the swimmers already in the water!



This is a picture of the swimmers going up and around Towhead Island and then they make the long trek back to the swim finish.


I hugged and kissed Josh and told him I loved him. We said a quick prayer together and then I knew I had to get out of line and go. I could've probably stood on the other side of the sidewalk by him but decided it was best if I kept moving... I had tears in my eyes and didn't want him to see me emotional at this point in time. He needed to focus his energy on the race. So I ran off for the dock area hoping to catch a glimpse of him jumping in the Ohio River.

This is what the dock area looked like. Athletes running down a narrow dock (on the other side of the white partition by the boats) and jumping off one of two docks.


It will be tough for everyone else to pinpoint Josh in this picture, but he is just turning onto the dock here. I love it because he was clapping and totally trying to get himself pumped up!


He is the second athlete from the left - just before he jumped in the water!



I stood at the starting docks for a little while longer watching other athletes jump in. Then I started making the long haul back to the swim finish/transition area.

Here is a picture I got of the first pro athlete leading the way back to the swim finish. Look at that nice lead he has! No one else in sight!


To make the morning complete, there were beautiful hot air balloons floating over the Ohio River during the swim.


I spent a good portion of my wait praying. I didn't know what else to do with my nervous energy, so I figured praying was the answer. I expected Josh to get out of the water approximately an hour and 20 minutes after he started. I managed to weasel my way up to the front of the gate (somehow I got really good at this over the course of the day and never once had a to stand behind anyone!). Josh came out of the water almost exactly as expected - swim time of 1:22. He looked great and was taking his time walking through transition (as planned... no need to run now when you've got 26 miles to do that later!). I was screaming at him and he waved and walked right by. I was once again totally overcome with emotion - relief that he was out of the water and he was okay.

Josh's swim report post-race - The water was warm, I believe we heard 85 degrees. He had a very uneventful swim, which is a good thing. No kicks to the face! He ran into a few people that weren't sighting very well and thus swimming erratically but he managed to get around them. He also said he had a close call with some guy that almost jumped right on top of him right at the swim start. But it all went well! Phew.