Blogging is fun

I just found out that my friend Crystal also blogs.....through Blogger. I talk to her on a weekly basis as our children do playdates on Fridays, and I never knew that she, too, was keeping a journal online. How weird is that? She has taken some great pictures of her son, Nolan, who is 2 now. I do think blogging is a great way to keep in touch with friends and family, whether they live far away, or just across town.

Wordless Wednesday: Henry the Photographer

Wunder Woman

I've been somewhat continuing my training after the Valley Girl Triathlon to get ready for the next sprint distance tri......Wunder Woman. It was today and I had a great time competing. The swim was shorter than Valley Girl, only 1/4 mile rather than 1/3 but the bike and run were comparable; 10.5 miles and 3 miles respectively. It was fun. I felt like I had a pretty good swim and my bike was pretty good too. I do need to work on my run though as it is my weakest link. Today was a hot one though. It was predicted to be about 104 deg. At race time, 9 am, it was already quite warm. The swim was refreshing, but too quick. The bike was warm and the run was very hot. But I didn't stop, so that's good. I am eagerly awaiting the results to see how I did.

Dismounting the bike....

Crossing the finish line.....

Happy to be done!

Family Water Park

Spokane's south hill just opened a new Family Aquatic Center. It's perfect for kids 12 and under. My sis and I took the kids for a couple hours of fun in the sun. There was a large bucket that dumped water over the play structure; water shooters, small water slide (perfect for the elementary school kids) as well as a lazy river that you can either just float around using an inner tube or just walk through, and there is one big water slide for the bigger kids and adults to enjoy. It was a great time. Lucas, my nephew, loved it all. He went down the big slide with my sister. His favorite was the lazy river. Henry was still a bit small for a lot of the stuff, but he and I went down the big slide together and we both enjoyed that. He didn't like it when bigger kids would shoot him with water but that's okay. Natalie really like playing in the water. It was a fun time.

Natalie playing with the water fountain

Henry lying on the water fountain

Dinner with Grandpa and Grandma Lohstroh

Daryl's folks came over for dinner the other night and Henry and Natalie really enjoyed their grandparent's company.

Spokane Indians

I bought some vouchers for our local baseball team, the Spokane Indians. They are a minor league team for the Texas Rangers. The vouchers were for a fundraiser for a fellow PartyLite Consultant's son. I thought it would be nice to go to some games with family and friends. Well, we finally exchanged a few of the vouchers for tickets to a game one night. It was just the four of us. It was an experience. Natalie was bored right away so we moved from our seats to the very end of the left field line. There was no one there so the kids were able to play on the bleachers without disturbing anyone. Henry wanted to see the mascot, Otto, but as soon as Otto was close, Henry started screaming. I guess he's not into big blue fuzzy creatures at this time. We only made it to the top of the 5th inning (which is about 4 innings more than I thought we'd make it). The Indians were playing Vancouver, BC's local team and were winning 5-0. Since we were ahead, we thought it was a good time to head home. Maybe next time we will try to make the 7th inning stretch!

TROIKA

Pre race photo: Patricia, Daryl and Stephenie

Daryl has been wanting to compete in the bike portion of a local 1/2 Iron Man triathlon. I told him I would do the swim, we just need a runner. Our neighbors, Stephen and Patti, have a daughter, Stephenie, that is training for a 1/2 marathon in Long Beach this fall, so she was kind enough to volunteer to do the run. AWESOME! So we had our team for TROIKA. I had to swim 1.2 miles in Medical Lake which in years past would have been fine, but I haven't been swimming any long distances since the kids were born so this was going to be interesting.

Patricia starts the swim...

Daryl completes the bike.....

Stephenie runs across the finish line

I actually did okay. It wasn't my fastest troika swim time (33 minutes, 13 years ago) but 40 minutes was good for me. I really thought it was going to take me at least 50 minutes if not 1 hour just because I haven't had any endurance swimming during the last 3 years. Daryl smoked on the 56 mile bike ride. He average almost 20 miles and hour and it is a very hilly course. Good job Daryl. Stephenie, who had to run in the heat of the day, did a fabulous job with an average 9:30 minute/ miles. I was totally impressed. We had a great time and look forward to it again next year!

Post race photo

Backlogged

I know it's been a couple of weeks since I've blogged but it's been a bit crazy this summer. So, instead of adding a bunch of blogs at once, I am actually going to back date them. Even though I'm writing them on Aug. 1, they will post on the day that it happened, or close to it. I know it's a bit like cheating, but oh well.