Ironman Conquered!

WARNING: SERIOUS DEREK GUSHING!

This last weekend Derek completed the Ironman 70.3 triathalon. This is a major accomplishment - all in all, he swam 1.2 miles, rode his bike 56 miles, and ran 13.1 miles - for a total of 70.3 miles.
He has trained like crazy for months - he registered clear back in December and knew there was no turning back. He's done several tri's before but never anything this huge. But come race day, he was totally prepared.
What was so awesome about this race was the big time-ness of this. The current world champ of Ironman 70.3 was there defending his title - and Derek was in the race with him! It was just huge - and he wasn't a spectator, he was a participant. There are only 33 of these races in the world - and Derek did it. It was amazing to be part of.
The night before we took his bike to Lucky Peak to drop it off. They had security everywhere watching the bikes throughout the night, and rows and rows of bike racks. Reality started to set in on what he'd signed up for!
The race started at 2:00, quite unusal for a race, so Derek got to Lucky Peak about 11:30 to have enough time to get his swim and bike things all ready. We have a friend in our ward who also did the race, so his wife and I went to the swim together to watch. We got there early enough to see the 1500 athletes getting everything ready for this giant race. For the swim they had lots of different waves starting 5 minutes apart. The pros went first and then they went through by age groups. Each wave had a different color swim cap given to them. Derek was in the red wave. It was awesome to see the waves start and after swimming more than a mile see them come in all intermingled. We were able to see our husbands get out of the water, rip off their wetsuits and swim gear, put on all their bike gear, and take off for a 3 hour bike ride. After they left, Alison and I headed home to pick up our kids for the finish line.
My mom tended my kids so that I could be there to cheer on Derek - she's such a cheerleader she couldn't stand the thought of no one being there cheering for him. So she took over our typical Saturday schedule - which is baseball, baseball, and more baseball! She drug all the gear to Emmy's game, took kids to the park, McDonalds for dinner, and fit in a nap for Logan. Without her I wouldn't have been able to watch Derek swim. Thanks mom!
On the bike it sprinkled, but it rained through the entire run. Derek thought he would for sure walk some of the 13 miles - but he felt so good he ran the entire thing.
My parents came me with me and the kids to watch the finish line. This was so awesome to see these people finishing something so grueling. There were so many people finishing you would never look at and think they could do something like this. The announcer said, "Determination comes in all shapes and ages." - and he was right. These people were so inspiring!
Derek had hoped to come in around 7.5 hours - but after seeing how great he'd done on the swim I knew he would be ahead of his goal. We waited in the rain for him to come across the line and right after 6 hours - here he came! He looked so great as he finished this race - with his official time being 6 hours, 19 minutes.
He really deserves to have had such a great race - he's trained so hard and for so long - and in the process, he's lost 50 pounds (fifty!). It's just amazing how much his determination paid off. It was an awesome experience.

Wonder of Wonder . . .

. . . Miracles of Miracles!

You won't believe it, but I'm here to tell you it's true: Logan walks! I know, I know, it's truly unbelievable - but true nonetheless. The kid walks!

All of my kids have been super slow walkers, so the bar for Logan was already set really low - but he hit a new record. Tyler was my fastest walker at 15 months (yes, fastest!), Emmy was 17 months, Bay was 18 months (started walking the week she started nursery - I think it was because she was scared of going in there as a crawler), but Logan felt no pressure and felt no fear about going into nursery crawling - he just crawled right in.

So we didn't know when that kid would start walking, 2, maybe 3 years old . . . he'd already let us know this was going to be his decision. Then a few weeks ago he finally started showing some intrest in walking, and would go between people. A week later he would walk between furniture without being prompted, then last week he realized walking is better than crawling! Now he wants to walk all the time. He certainly struggles in grass or bark, and he's still mastering standing up without holding onto something - but he is now convinced all of the people around him walking are onto something!

I'd forgotten how fun it is to have a new walker in the house. It is so fun to see him just walk around as his entertainment - he just walks around because he can. He doesn't want to be held nearly as much either. It is so cute to see him walk a little unbalanced, but stay upright. It's so fun to hear him coming around the corner and expect to see him crawling and he surprises me by walking.

I don't know what finally convinced him about walking - it wasn't social pressure or fear from nursery! Maybe it was my threats that crawlers can't go to the water park or camping! Whatever it was - it's a wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles at our house!

Phillies in the House!

Tyler and Emmy have both started baseball - Tyler is playing U9 and Emmy is playing U7 and coincidentally they both got put on the Phillies team. Makes it easy for us to remember who to cheer for. Tyler's level is now playing where they both get 6 coach pitches and if they don't hit it, they're out. They also play that 3 outs or the entire batting order ends the inning. Emmy gets 3 coach pitches and then they hit off the tee if they need to. Emmy doesn't have outs - just once through the batting order. They both play 3 innings or an hour - whichever comes first.
My friend, Kim, and I signed up our girls to play and we decided that if we volunteered to coach we'd get to pick when and where practice is. Deciding that control was worth it, (and having Kim talk me into it!) we agreed to coach - the first time for both of us. So Kim and I are the Phillies coaches. We don't know much about coaching - but we got a few things figured out fast: one of the dads offered to haul their equipment to every practice and game - yep, we'll take that; another dad offered to pitch at the games and practices - yep, we'll take that too. So as coaches, we're really good at delegating, and isn't that what makes good leaders anyways? :)

Go Phillies!

Our First Piano Recital

We had our first piano recital a few weeks ago. Tyler just started piano lessons in March so I was surprised we had a recital so quickly. His teacher picked the theme Movie Music Mania so all of the kids played songs from movies or TV shows. For the program she had the kids listed in the order they would play but not the songs they would play. All of the songs were listed on the other side in random order and the parents had to match the kid to the songs they played. I thought it was an ardoable idea. There were cute songs played - High School Musical, Star Wars, and lots of Disney songs.
Tyler played 2 songs - Mickey Mouse March and Winnie the Pooh. He did a great job and had both memorized. For Winnie his teacher asked me to play the duet part with him. I thought other parents or his teacher would be playing duets to other songs, but nope, we were the only duet. It was my first piano recital in 15 years! It was fun to play with Tyler, even though he was disappointed that I didn't have my part memorized.
Tate and Angey were in town so they came to hear him, along with my dad. It was great to have such a fun night celebrating Tyler's new interest.

School's Out for Summer!

Today was our last day of school! I love summer: I love having my kids home, I love slow paced mornings, I love not worrying about bedtimes, I love being outside - I love it all. It just seems right to have my kids home - call it a control issue, but I like knowing where they are, and what they're doing. It just feels like my world is right when my kids are home.
For the last day of school our school always has a family picnic the last 2 hours and then you can take your kids home whenever you're ready. I didn't drag the picnic this year - dragging kids was enough dragging for me. So I just went, we said good-bye to teachers, and we came home.
This afternoon we went to an End of the Year party at my friend's house who has a pool. She invited everyone to come and and swim. It was so fun - kids swam and moms chatted. Yes, I only had 2 swimmers with Bay in a cast and Logan but 2 in the water is enough to worry about! I bet there were 40 kids there and the pool wasn't crowded at all. It was so fun to end the school year. (In fact, Emmy is still there because she wasn't ready to come home and Logan was!)
Tyler and Emmy have both had good years and done great. Tyler's teacher sent him home with the cutest thing - she gave all the kids a postcard with her address on the front. On the back is a place to write the title and author's name of 8 books. When they've filled this all out for books they read over the summer, they can mail it to her and then sometime in the summer she's going to have an ice cream party at the school for all the kids who've sent in their postcards. Isn't that the cutest? I love our school - they do so many extra things like this.