Triathlon!!

A dream came true! On July 18 we did our first triathlon! This all started back in April when I found this sprint distance race (1/2 mi swim, 12 mi bike & 3.1 mi run) scheduled for July and I also found a training program that did not seem too hard. If only I had a training partner to help me along... so of course I thought of Nancy, my good friend next door who I can usually rope into crazy things. She turned out to be pretty interested and she showed the training program to her husband Mike who also though it looked doable. With the three of us on board, Rich was helpless before the power of peer pressure and we were off and training!

Obsessed is probably not a strong enough word to describe the four of us over the next 12 weeks or so. Everything revolved around the race. Just ask Hannah - she was pretty sick of hearing about it. We were all so good about our training program. Luckily, Rich's work cooperated until the very last week. This was okay because that was the lightest week of the training program, but for a while it looked like he might not even be able to get to the race. He worked crazy hours that week, but he made it.


So here we are packing up to go to the race. We went the night before. There is Rich with his constant companions - the briefcase and the laptop!



Here are Nancy & me flexing our guns before the race! :)


Here are the four of us ready to go. Nancy & I were in the women only race that went first. An hour and a half later Rich & Mike went in the coed race over the same course. Since they were not starting as early as us, they got to come see us off for the swim. Now this race was in Racine, Wisconsin ans the swim was in Lake Michigan. According to the announcer, at the time of our race, the water temperature was 59 degrees! It was sooooo cold. Thank goodness we had our wet suits but even then it was so cold on my face that I physically could not put my face into the water for about the first quarter of the swim. Every time I tried I could not breathe and my heart was racing. Finally, I got used to it and was able to settle into a rhythm. Other than the cold, the swim was really nice because the race was pretty small - only about 200 people - so there really was no chaos at the start. That was great!
The wet suits help so much with the swim. They really make you more buoyant and you can swim faster. And if by chance you get tired, you can just hang out and float!


Yay, we did it! Nice picture with the porto potties in the background, I know! :)

I was so pumped after the race! It was so much fun! It is such a great feeling to set a goal and then achieve it. And to do it all together made it even more awesome. Mike & Nancy make the best training partners. So now that we worked so hard to get into shape, we are going to try to do 2 more races this season and then next year maybe try a longer one. Come and join us!

Independence Day

The 4th of July weekend became Independence Day for Joanie this year!






Yes, that is Hannah cutting the grass! Woo-hoo!

Our New Yard

After two years here we decided to do some landscaping in our backyard. All that was back there was a crummy old play set from the people before us and a small vegetable garden. Being in a subdivision, the lack of any trees or shrubs meant that we were staring right at our neighbors' yards and houses. The plants we put in are still small but hopefully as they grow and we add to them we will have a little more green to see.

So here is before:

We took the play set down a couple of months earlier and got our trampoline. The play set area makes a great spot for the trampoline, but it needed some rehabbing too.



And after:

Our plan calls for more planting along the fence, but we are waiting until next year to deal with that. In the meantime, I am loving what we have out there now.

Summer Stuff

It appears that this blog is becoming seasonal - I really have to try to post more often. Many of my friends put me to shame with the frequency of their updates, but one special person (I hope she knows who she is -she started all of this) keeps me comforted. :) She updated recently so I though I'd better get moving!

So what is new in Illinois? Well a lot, so this will probably take a few posts. We started our summer a few days late since the kids had snow days to make up. It still baffles me that here in Illinois there are no snow days factored into the calendar. Each one must be made up at the end of the year. Of course, in Georgia there are days built into the calendar. While we had only a few "snow" days down there, we never had to make one up. Anyway, we started our summer with a bang with a very special visit from our awesome friends Jan & JT & their kids. We miss living in Georgia with them (of course, they left first so we have been missing them for a while). The kids had fun hanging out and spending a relaxing day together. The Bananagrams party that night was icing on the cake! (If you have not played Bananagrams, you need to - it is very fun). It all ended way too fast.


It is hard to believe how big the kids are getting. It seems like yesterday Hannah the dinosaur and Savannah the ladybug were trick or treating on Pine Grove Drive.

At the end of June we got to take whirlwind family trip to New York City to see my family and celebrate my Aunt Pauline's 90th birthday. Aunt Pauline's birthday is June 29 and Mary's is June 27, so we celebrated for both of them (the party for Aunt Pauline happened to be on Mary's actual birthday). During the trip we went to the Statue of Liberty, the Intrepid and even the beach! It was a very bust but very fun weekend. We stayed with my sister Jennifer in Brooklyn in her 3rd floor, 1 bedroom walk up apartment. She is a very good sister and aunt to have all of us there. The kids got a very nice taste of the city life their mom grew up with (although we did not have a walk up, thankfully).







Mary really wanted a Statue of Liberty crown,so since it was her birthday weekend we indulged her.

The Intrepid was way more fun than I thought it would be. I pictured something only Rich would enjoy. However, since they redid it, they put in a lot of family friendly activities to do in addition to all of the airplanes. Of course, since we had Rich with us it was like was were taking the audio tour for each airplane there. After 15 years of marriage I am pretty good at smiling and nodding and totally ignoring him all at the same time! Jen was less experienced so she got many earfuls of aviation history that I am sure she uses all the time.



We had Aunt Pauline's birthday luncheon/dinner (it was at 3:30) at a Greek restaurant in Brooklyn. Jen ordered this incredibly beautiful cake with "Happy Birthday Pauline and Mary" written around the sides. It had these groovy tall and skinny candles. We were going to put 97 (90 +7) on it but we decided to just put a whole bunch without counting them out. My sister Jackie was there too with her husband and twin boys as well as Antoinette (my grandmother's sister) and Doreen (I am not sure what she is too me - she was married to Aunt Pauline's nephew who recently passed away; Aunt Pauline is my grandfather's sister so maybe Doreen is some form of cousin in law once removed???)
We don't get to see Jackie's boys very often so it was a treat to spend time with them. They are 6 months younger than Mary. They got a kick out of playing the DS with Megan.

So that was our crazy June. July has been pretty busy too. The whole summer is passing by way too fast.