Advanced Math Concepts

Alex is learning some advanced math concepts in 2nd grade, like greater than and less than. And what's the point of learning this unless you can make > look like an alligator? Don't know how to do that? Don't worry, Alex wrote a tutorial just for you:



And I really love that Alex wrote "you're." Let's hope he can keep this up before he hits facebook age.

And in training, I generally take Mondays off, especially after 100 mile bike rides. I didn't get sore from that but I was tired. I'm not following a training program this week so I did my regularly scheduled Tuesday noon master's swim class. Somehow I ended up in a lane with two much stronger swimmers and had a hard workout keeping up.

In the evening I ran with D3 again. I don't know what I'm getting myself into but this group is hard core. The evening workout was 8 x 800. The most 800's I've done on a track is 6. And on a track I can run them between 3:51-3:55 but somehow on this dirt trail that is not completely flat I was averaging 4:20. And the other girls we all MUCH faster, especially the fastest girl who was running them on 3:11. I'm trying to blame my poor performance on the bike ride and a tough swim class, so I'd better have a faster run next week.

G'mar Chatima Tova

And Happy Yom Kippur. Or something.

So I think Becky is a bit peeved that the blog is no longer about Little Miss Ariel. So here's a post just for her.

In retribution for my babysitting demands yesterday, Ariel spent the night. First, we took her to our annual weekend dinner at Chipolte. Ariel was not impressed and only picked at her chicken soft taco. Blasphemy! Bedtime went pretty smoothly. We let Adam fall asleep first (on the floor in his sleeping bag where he's been for what? 2 years?) and then put Ariel down in the bed.



For how alert and crazy she looks, she did fall asleep pretty quickly. And this time she stayed in bed all night.

We had a bath after breakfast so the kids could look proper in their Yom Kippur finery:



I sent the boys to school for two hours figuring for Adam, that's 2/3 of his day and in general it would make my morning much more quiet.

We biked (with Ariel on the tag-a-long) to the 10:30 family service. I think last year I put Ariel in daycare with Mae, but this year Ariel sat with us. And she did remarkable well. I don't think she paid much attention and she wasn't always sitting in the most delicate way, but she was quiet. A few songs reminded her of her JCC days and she perked up and sang. At the end of the service, her old preschool teacher Amy came over and gave her a big hug.

I had intended on taking Alex back to school in the afternoon but lunch took way to long at 1:00 it didn't seem worth it anymore. All three kids played very nicely with the train set. Yes, the train set I boxed up like 18 months ago to sell on Craig's list but never got around too. I think this is the most interest Alex has shown in it for all the years we've had it.

EPIC bike ride

I think today's adventure would be blog-worthy regardless of the focus here now. The funny thing about this ride is no one will even take credit for coming up with it. I think what happened was that earlier in the season we were talking about organized rides we could do this fall. We talked about the Buffalo Classic Century but Al was gone that weekend and I didn't want to do such a large ride. So Someone suggested that we just ride to Horestooth Reservoir on our own.

Our intrepid group included Al, Sarah, Marcy (my irongals) and Rachel and her husband Justin. We started a bit late, around 8:20 (there's a good story about Al and Animal Control involved) and got to Hygiene around 9:00, where we met Rachel and Justin.

We got to Carter Lake around 10:15 and had break at the marina store.



Rachel and I:



Rachel and Justin:



Me, Marcy, Rachel, Sarah and Al:



After Carter Lake, the true adventure began. None of us had ridden north of there before. I was equipped with the Buff Classic map courtesy of my dad. And evidently I am not capable of reading a map. We made it to Masonville ok, though we did end up taking a different road than the route suggested. But somehow at Masonville we went left instead of right and that's where our troubles began.

Here is Al and Rachel climbing up Horsetooth Reservoir Rist Canyon:



And here we are overlooking Horsetooth Resevoir Rist Canyon:



So somehow (and in my defense this road wasn't even on the map) we ended up climbing part of Rist Canyon. We finally thought we were at the top of a dam and were very surpised to crest and see... no lake. We met a VERY friendly cyclist (who, incidently, was not wearing a helmet) and he let us know that Horsetooth was about 10 miles east. Huh. So back to Masonville we went, with the Friendly Cyclist. He was so friendly that we had to lie and say we were heading back to Boulder to get him to leave our group.

At Masonville we had to decide if we wanted to continue on to Horsetooth, or call it a day. I tried to take a vote and got no "ayes" for continuting and one "nay" and 4 "I could be presuaded either ways." Eventually we figured we were too close to go home. So 5 more miles and then we could see the Resevoir (or at least a small inlet):



So it's always a bad sign when you reach your turn around point at 65 miles (even when you did a 10 mile detour up a canyon). The way home could have been much worse. We did not get any vicious headwinds and no one bonked too badly. However, I did anticipate finishing around 3:00 and not 5:00. Total for the day: 109.59 miles. And if I had more time, I would have gone 2 1/2 more miles to round up to the ironman bike distance of 112.



So will every weekend for the next year include a century ride? NO. Today wasn't really a training ride. Today was a "we have all this bike fitness from training this summer, let's do a fun ride" ride. It was a beautiful day and we might not have many more like it left in the season. We probably won't ride like this again until next June/July.

My fabulous adventure would not have been possible without the help of my fabulous sister. Becky had a sleepover with the boys last night and took them to the zoo today. And was only a little bit pissed off when I could finally call her after getting out of the no-service Bermuda triangle surrounded the Masonville area. Sadly, my kids behaved so poorly that I doubt I'll be able to use this arraingment again.

Sam's Birthday Party

We went to Sam's Super Fun 6th Birthday Party at the Louisville Rec Center today.

The Sam in question, now 6:



And my kids have reached that wonderful developmental stage in which I don't have to actually swim with them anymore. In fact, I only have to occasionally glace at them to make sure that one is not holding the other's head under water. They had a blast at the pool and played for the whole two hours.

Long Run

I imagine at some point in the near future I'll have a training peaks account. It's an online tool to log workouts and track progress. But for now I'll record things here. Today's run was a 7 mile loop (Becky, the one we did before the Bolder Boulder last May). When I do long runs, I try to run at a pace that keeps my heart rate down and I also walk every 10-20 minutes for a minute to relax. When I did this run in May, my average pace was 10:34 minute miles and today it was 10:37. But, in May my average heart rate was 165 bpm and today it was 158 bpm so I think that is a sign of gained fitness this summer. And the thing to really remember is my Bolder Boulder pace from '08 was 10:31 and my heart rate was maxed out. I'm slowly gaining running fitness and I have faith that someday I'll be a little bit faster. I'd really like my long run pace to be 10:00 and my 5k race pace to be 8:30. Reasonable, right?

411

Some of you may be wondering, how/what/why the heck did I sign up for an Ironman? Well, this year is not the first year that I thought about it. My journey really began 10 years ago, when I first started training to complete a triathlon. Back then I started with taking a swim class to learn how to swim laps. Sure, I could swim, like if you threw me off a boat I wouldn't drown, but I couldn't make it more than one length of the pool at a time. I think I took a swim class for about 18 months before I did my first triathlon, the Olympic Wildflower course in CA. In the summer of '00 I did 3 triathlons total, then trained for my first marathon - the next step in my Ironman journey. The marathon went exceedingly poorly. I was fine for about 15 miles, but then everything hurt, especially a knee that had given me trouble on and off all summer. I finished, but about 30 minutes slower than I had anticipated (5:07) and completely demoralized.

In the next months I tried half heartedly to run again, but my knee would start bothering me after a couple miles and I gave it up. I went back to cycling and in the spring of '01 I did a couple century rides and registered for Ride the Rockies again. In June I found out I was pregnant with Alex and while I still rode part of Ride the Rockies, I pretty much hung up my bike for 7 years along with my running shoes.

I got back into triathlon last year and it was fun. I found a good training group. I had problems and I worked through them. I think I fixed my knee issues with custom orthodics, a better running technique and lots of expensive chiropractor visits. Things were going well. Then, this summer one of my training partners kept bringing up Ironmans. At first, I was dead set against it. I ran a marathon and it sucked. It hurt. But she was persistent. And she got others to join her. And she made it sound like *fun*. And then peer pressure won out and I agreed to do it with her and two other TriBabes (and one token guy.) It helped that she chose a race that would have been in my top 3 - Ironman Wisconsin in Madison. My grandma still lives there and I've visited many times. Heck, I've already swam in Lake Monona (and thank goodness drank less of it than Becky, who spent several days puking after a day at the beach). The final event that helped me make this decision was that even though I was sick, I completed the 5430 Half Ironman, and did it well. Sure it was hard, and yeah I hurt but it was doable. And if I'm going to train for an Ironman, this is the year to do it. Adam is only in school 3 hours a day. That's long enough for a workout out, but not long enough to be gainfully employed (as Jeremy would like to have sometime in the not-to-distant future).

Step one of the Ironman adventure was registering. If you can believe, there are so many people interested in doing such a grueling, punishing race that several sell out on site and never make it to the internet. So on September 14th at 11:00 am, the 5 of us were at our computers registering to the tune of $576. Quite a racket they've got going on. We all got in. I have no idea how long it took to fill up, but when I checked back later in the week, registration was already filled.

Step two has been finding a new training group. TriBabes was a great group and introduced me to some awesome training partners but it's not an Ironman program. The coach has never done a distance longer than a half and if I'm going to do this, I need to do it right. Some of the girls are training with a swim coach at our health club but I'm not comfortable yet with working with her on my run. I've looked around Boulder at other training groups (yeah, this is BOULDER - for only a few grand I could train with legendary ironman Dave Scott if I wanted to) and I'm looking at D3. The D3 coach is Mike Ricci, who has done several ironman and coached many others. He offers sport specific training plans for triathletes to work on their weak sport and this fall I'm looking at starting a running program. I'd like to increase my run pace before hitting the endurance training later this winter. I'm envisioning training for a few 5/10k while maintaning my swim and bike base.

So what does this next year look like? This fall will start with an 8 week running program. I'll probably start with 3:30 hours a week and move up to 5:30 hours. That will take care of October and November. I'll take it easier in December through the holidays, then the real training will begin around February. During my peak training months, I'll probably hit about 18 hours a week of training. All the while, I have to keep my promise to Jeremy by keeping my shit together - cooking dinner, keeping the house clean and caring for various and sundry children. No prob, right?

A field trip to the zoo

One advantage(?) of not having Ariel as much is that I have more time to volunteer at the boys' school. So today I had my first gig as a field trip chaperon. Chaperoning 60 kindergartners to the zoo may seem like an impossible task, but somehow it gets done every year. Actually, the way they make it work is by having an average adult to child ration of 3:1. I lucked out and was only in charge of one other kid, so it was like taking my kid to the zoo, plus babysitting a spastic and energetic stranger.

One way we knew we were on the field trip was riding the school bus. Adam made us sit in the last row and I almost thought about being car bus sick.



My charge, Grant, and Adam posing at first opportunity upon learning I brought a camera:



One of the few times Grant stopped bolting and allowed us to actually look at an animal:



I asked, Grant is only 5 1/2. I guess if Adam is at the bottom 5% of size, this is what the 95% looks like:

Changes

Things are a-changing around here. I am no longer having many adventures with Ariel. Ariel is going to preschool 4 days a week and I only have the pleasure of hanging with her on Mondays. But this blog has always been more than just Ariel, and I'm not ready to stop it, or go through the hassle of starting a new one.

And since it's my blog and I can do whatever I darn well please with it, I'm morphing it into a training blog for my first Ironman. I'm sure Ariel will still make many an appearance, as will the boys in my life, but I'm envisioning it to be a cross of Adventures with Ariel and my MS50 blogs.

So, I hope you stick around. I have 351 days to train for the mother of all triathlons. A 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike and a 26.2 mile run. Believe me, it's going to be an adventure...

Oktoberfest

Well, Oktoberfest marks the end of the 2009 tri season. I had been on the fence about even doing this race but when I volunteered for the Tri Babe race last month, I earned a discounted race entry. Triathlons aren't cheap and I do LOVE splaving, plus it was nice to have a goal to keep me working out in September.

The Oktoberfest course is the same courses as the Tri Babes race I did last year (except they didn't short the run by 1/2 a mile this time) and the Summer Open I did in May. Going in, I had four goals.

1. To beat my Summer Open time.
2. To go under 1:20.
3. To beat fellow TriBabe Rachel. (Does that seem less snarky if I told Rachel that was my goal beforehand?)
4. To go under 28 minutes on the run

The swim went well. You never know with these things. Sometimes the course is long (*cough cough* Boulder Peak). Sometimes you have a panic attack (uh, Wildlflower?) and sometimes you just have a crappy swim. My swim felt fine and I was relived when I glanced at my watch and saw 13:xx. My official time was 14:04, a minute off the Summer Open.

TI went fine. Unlike the Summer Open, I didn't loose my bike, which is always nice and got me a few seconds closer to beating my Summer Open time.

The bike was fine. I took a minute off my Summer Open time but I don't know if it's because I'm in better biking shape, or because I was racing in my nifty aerohelmet. I mostly wear it for the intimidation factor, but who knows, maybe it does make me go faster:



My only biking snafu was somehow my magnet got misaligned and my bike computer wasn't working. Maybe that was better, I just put my head down and hammered.

T2 was also uneventful. I glanced at my watch on the way out and it was about 50 minutes, so I knew if I ran ok, I would go under 1:20. Woot! for goals 1 & 2.

And the run was ok. I tried to hold it in the first mile, and it was somewhere around 9:30. A bit too much holding in, but then there was the only uphill of the course. I got up the hill and then did all I could. Somewhere after the turn around I saw Rachel going the other way and cursed at her (literally. I think I screamed "damn you!"). I was sure she was going to catch me. I felt her on my heels the whole way in but she never passed me. My 5k time was 28:14. Dang, there went goal 4. Ah well, something to work for next year.



My total time was 1:18:56 and Rachel came in 8 seconds after me. I was a bit faster on the swim and bike than her, but I really beat her in transition, or as Jeremy calls it, Competative Clothes Changing. I had over a minute on her in T1 & T2 and that is way longer than 8 seconds.

Now, being that this event was called Oktoberfest, wouldn't you think there would be beer served afterwards? I mean, there was beer after all the 5430 races. But no, there was some issue with permits and non profits and blah blah blah and NO BEER. Luckily, I swam a masters class coached the race promoter and knew this beforehand and brought my own beer. See, it's St. Pauli's Girl - German and girly! And no, there's NOTHING wrong with drinking deer before 10 in the morning. NOTHING!



And the big surprise of the day, I won my age group! Now, much like Danskin, the 30-34 group was underperforming (I would have been in 5th place in both the 24-29 and 35-39 groups) but there WERE 30 women in my division so it's worth something, right? I was 18/172 women and 73/288 total.

And even more fun, TriBabe Michelle won the 35-39 group (she's hardcore, she was 8 *minutes* faster than me) and Rachel got second in 30-34. Well, Michelle won until we got home and looked at the results and she was bumped to second. But we both still got the first place prize of Zeal sunglasses.

And here's a really crappy picture of the three of us - somehow Rachel's husband kept taking video instead of stills with my cell phone and this is as good as it gets.



The award was a beer stein with an Oktoberfest engraving. Decorative AND useful.

So, that's it for this year. But stay tuned for next year and Ironman Wisconsin!

Updated - A decent picture. That's Rachel, Me, Michelle and Namino on top:

Three stories you can read to your cat

At the library yesterday, Alex picked out Three Stories You Can Read to Your Cat. And today, he read it to the cat.

Abby must be more attention starved that I realized. Not only did she stay, but if you listen very carefully, she was purring the whole time too.

Cuckoo!

I think it all started with Grandpa showing the boys Woody Woodpecker last weekend. In one of the episode, Woody confronted a cuckoo clock in, I'm sure, a hilarious caper. Then when we were at the parent's house last night, my dad showed Alex their old cuckoo clock. The boys loved it (and then the evening digressed into an eBay search for rolling ball clocks...)

Alex was up half the night with a nasty cough so I kept him home from school. He was not so sick to stay in bed and built this cuckoo clock with legos:



The cuckoo bird is on a sliding ramp that can be manipulated from the back. I think it's one of the coolest things he's designed, the attention to detail is amazing:



And in other bird news, we had a new bird come to the feeder today:



At first I was just excited to have a new bird in our yard, except for a nuthatch earlier this month, we've been new bird free since May.

Right away Alex identified it as a wren, but when we got out our Colorado bird guide we couldn't find it. It's not a House Wren or Rock Wren or even Canyon Wren. Next, I went online and still had trouble so I went to my last resort, the geeky bird forum. Right away a few people got excited because this is a Carolina Wren and their range usually doesn't extend past mid-Kansas. The forum geeks suggested I report this bird to the powers that be, or the people who might care so I emailed The Wild Bird Center, The Colorado Audubon Society and the Colorado Field Ornithologists. The last group emailed back wondering if I would let them put my address on their list serve so birders could come to my yard and see the wren too. I did decline that (lord knows no one should be subjected to my backyard) but let them know that I'm right next to the park.

Anyway, I just thought this was cool because two years ago I wouldn't have given that little innocuous bird a second glace (I probably would have dismissed it as a sparrow - the horror!) and now it's the second most exciting thing to happen to me all week. The first would be winning my age group at the Oktoberfest triathlon, but that's another post...

Crawdaddy Fishing

Ok, so this creek is like 50' from my house and this is the first time my kids have crawdad fished on their own (aka, not scamming some other kid's stuff). Alex made the fishing poles himself with sticks, string and paper clips. I was informed that hot dogs are the proper bait, but I was not so inclined to buy hot dogs solely for fishing. So we used leftover salmon instead (and it worked just fine).





Alex caught the first one:



Alex made me a pole too, so I got in the action. If I can brag, I'm quite a good fisherwoman. Or the crawdads aren't particularly bright.

We caught about 12 then dumped them back in. And then caught them again, did another dump and then one more fill.



I showed Alex how to pick them up right between the pinchers:



And that's how we spent 2 hours at the creek. And no, we didn't eat our catch, but our neighbors have eaten them before. Our little creek is kind of a storm sewer and I'm not sure that even if I wanted to eat crawdads, I would eat these.

5430 Long Course

The week before the Long Course did not go as I had anticipated. I had been fighting a cold/cough for over 2 weeks but up until the Sunday before the race, it had just been annoying. A week before the race, I did my last long run of 70 minutes and posted my worst pace of the year and had a small vomiting incident around 5 miles. It was not boding well for racing.

I swam on Monday and Tuesday, and did a bike ride Tuesday evening. I only ran 30 minutes on Wednesday and at least it was better than Sunday. And then my low point was Thursday morning at 2:10am. I awoke in the middle of the night with excruciating neck pain. I can only guess that in one of my coughing fits, I gave myself whiplash. As I lay on the heating pad, I actually wondered what the process was to get a medical waiver. Would I need a physician's signature? I really did not know if I would be able race.

I spent Thursday trying to fix my neck. I had a chiropractor appointment with a friend's guy (mine, of course, was on vacation). Then I had a doctor's appointment and got some antibiotics ("If you've been sick for 3 weeks, it's probably a sinus infection"), a cortisone shot and 3 muscle relaxer pills. I was able to do an hour ride in the evening, though the thought of swimming still scared the crap out of me.

The kids had their triathlon on Saturday morning. As usual, super cute. Then me and some of the TriBabes did our last brick practice. We only rode 30 minutes and ran 10, it barely seemed worth the effort. It was nice to think that a 40 minute workout had become beneath notice.

Race day came and while I did not feel like I was at the pinnacle of fitness, I did feel ok. My neck was mostly better, as long as I did not look straight up and to the left. I thought I could manage not to do that during the race.

Even though I was in the last wave, I still had to have my bike racked by 6:15. I was there around 5:40 and got a nice spot on an aisle. My age group shared wave 10 with the 20-24 men and it was weird racking up next to a big guy.

The morning started out nice and cloudy, until right before the start of wave 9 when the sun broke through the clouds. Which was really frustrating because the longest leg of the swim course was right into the sun. I gave up trying to spot on a buoy and just followed the crowd. Luckily, I did not end up off course. My swim was just so-so. I've felt stronger before but I really did navigate ok and like usual, my swim ended up being my best sport compared to the rest of the racers.

When I got into transition, I noted that the guy I racked next to still hadn't gotten on his bike. My transition was short because despite waffling on this all summer, I decided not to change into bike shorts and just wore my (not padded) triathlon shorts. I figured I might as well race it as fast as I could.

The bike was, as usual, was where I felt the strongest. I had already rode the 28 mile loop 3 times the week before. I worked hard where it was hilly and chilled when it was downhill. We even lucked out with a bit of a tail wind up Foothills, which is slightly uphill and not the most scenic of the race anyway. My only mistake was thinking that just because I could eat solid food while training, I would be able to eat while racing. I only ate 3/4 of 2 cliff bars and 1 1/2 of 2 cliff shots. I was thinking there would be Hammer Gel every aid station, but at least 2 of the 4 did not have any. I did drink Gatorade most of the race. If I ever race a longer race, I would need to do the nutrion much better. I squeaked by this time, but I could see getting in trouble too.

The best part of the bike was that I made my goal of under 3 hours with a time of 2:57. And the guy that I racked next to had not put his bike back yet.



The run, as expected, was the hardest part of the race. For the first mile, my left foot hurt in a weird and new sort of way, but it sorted itself out as things unually do after a mile. For the run, I had a goal of running to the aid stations and walking though, thinking about it as a mile by mile race. My first mile was sub-10, way too fast but I soon leveled out. I walked the aid stations, taking water every time, sometimes gatorade too. A girl from last year told me she put ice in her hat and I did that too. My mile to mile race worked pretty well until mile 9, then I was just hot and tired and ready to be done. I ended up walking most of the hills (there weren't that many, maybe 4 per loop, for 2 loops). My hips and legs started getting sore and achy, but at least they were sore and achy in a normal sort of way and not an injury sort of way. I got my second wind about 300 yards from the finish line but at least I was able to run through the crowd with some energy.



And I tried for a good finishing picture, instead of my usual pose of checking my watch.



Post race with the Babes:



There were actully two others that raced, one so fast that she had gone home (she finished about an hour before me) and the other a bit slower and not yet done.

All and all, I was pretty happy with my race. Before I got sick, I made a goal that if I raced well, I could finish in 6:10. I finished in 6:13. The run was hard, but in an expected sort of way, not at all like my marathon of 9 years ago way. When I finished the marathon, I was so sore and dejected, I did not run again for 7 1/2 years. The week after this race, I swam some, walked a bit and then even ran a couple 5k. I would have biked too if I was not 2,000 miles away from home in Maryland. I was a bit sore for about 3 days after the race, but I think the recovery was pretty easy.

1.2 mile swim: 40:19
T1: 2:02
56 mile bike: 2:57:21 (average 18.9 mph)
T2: 3:16
13.1 mile run: 2:30:10 (average 11:28 miles)

Total: 6:13:06

August 7, 2009

We had another full house today with Hannah-Banana.

I packed 4 lunches to take to the pool:



Buckled 4 kids in the car:



Stopped by the grocery store for more sunscreen and doughnuts.

Picked up Alex and Adam's race packets for the Boulder kid's triathlon tomorrow.

And then went swimming! Hannah enjoyed her lunch except for the mac & cheese:



Ariel modeling the swim cap she swiped from the packet pick up.



Underwater Adam:



Underwater Ariel:



Underwater Alex:



We swam from about 11:20 to 2:00. Mostly it was an easy day except I had to yell at Ariel again for doing a belly flop off the side of the baby pool. She just tips over like a tree and isn't in danger of breaking her neck yet, but still not a good habit. She's come so far with her swimming this year though, I even saw her doing some freestyle arms today.

After swimming we stopped by Whole Foods to buy salmon for tonight's dinner. They have a chipolte rub that's really good.

We got home around 2:45 and both Ariel and Hannah went down for a nap. Whew.

July 31, 2009

Not a lot happened today. So rather than bore you with that, I'll tell you about our Exploding Light Fixture Problem.

A long time ago, we had a nice house. When we bought the house, one of the features I loved was this line of blue lights hanging in the kitchen:



Unfortunately, they seem to be one of the previous owners many DIY projects that have not stood up to the test of time. A few month ago, one of the light EXPLODED when Jeremy turned it on. I was laying down on the coach in the living room and saw the orange flash. The glass shattered, the light fixture was toast. And we thought, "Huh, that was weird."

And then, it happened to a second light last night. Same explosion, same melted cord left. For precautionary measures, we took down the remaining shade. And now we have a row of useless, ugly black cords hanging out of our ceiling:



Like I said, it's been a while since the first Explosion. And Jeremy has a lot on his plate with work and the Breckenridge remodel, so I haven't said anything. But really, I think it's time to do something now. Before anything else Explodes.

July 29, 2009

Today was a very 1995 kind of day. Yesterday, Ariel showed up at our house with a new beanie baby skunk. Alex was enamored. He HAD to have one too. He even offered to pay for it, and that's a big deal. He won't even shell out $.89 for the nerd ropes he's always begging for at the grocery store.

So after my bike ride (and the kid's morning at the gym) we started our quest for Skunkers. Our first stop was Grandrabbits, which does not carry beanie babies. They did, however, have three other skunks in various sizes and Adam was happy with a similarly sized non-branded one. Alex was not.

Next stop, Hallmark. Hallmark had beanie babies, but not that beanie baby.

Intermission - we met Ellen at for Indian lunch. I'm not sure Ariel has ever had Indian, but she was game. She ate all her lentils, some rice and 4 meatballs. She would not try her spinach or fried veggies and did not care for the rice pudding or naan. She also drank about 17 glasses of water, which will become important later.



After lunch, we drove out to the mall for more skunk hunting. We first tried Fuzziwigs, but they were closed for a quick remodel. Next, we tried Hallmark, which much like the first had beanie babies, but not that beanie baby. And then, a desparate attempt at Justice (thank gawd I don't have a girl) but they only carry webkinz.

After exausted all possibilities, we played at the dinosaurs. Well, Adam and Ariel played, Alex had to sit next to me because he refused to follow instructions or rules. Which made it hard for me to want to continue on our quest.

On the way out of the mall, we made a pit stop and I suggested to Ariel that she check if she had to pee. She threw a full blown tantrum on the potty, going on way longer than I thought possible, especially for maintaing such a stiff body in a seated position. She finally stopped, but whimpered "Mommy" the whole way out of the mall. She didn't fall asleep in the car, but she crashed pretty quickly at home.

After Ariel left, we checked Walgreens on the way to swimming. They seem to carry TY animals, but not beanie babies. And then I gave up. I showed Alex we could order Skunkers off Amazon for only $12 including shipping or give up. He wanted to go back to the store that Becky bought the original Skunkers from, which while a logical idea, I had no desire to drive 300 miles to and from Glenwood for a $6 toy. Though Alex told me he didn't care how far it was.

But joy of joys, Grandpa found Skunkers and now the world, circa 1995, can go on.

July 24, 2009

In a somewhat annual tradition, we celebrated Alex's half birthday at Lakeside. While we've gone the past few years (I believe Alex was 4 1/2 the first time) this was Ariel's first time. And she had a BLAST.

Alex was very sweet with her for the first hour or so. He made sure he sat with her on the rides and told her what they were doing. And Adam was amazingly ok sitting by himself.



Love this shot. Lakeside is so old that this Broncos car is probably one of the newer things in the park.



And like most years, the Frog Hopper and the roller coaster won out on being the most popular:



And I said Alex was sweet for the first hour, he didn't end up mean. He wandered off by himself for awhile while Adam and Ariel rode together. Which didn't go nearly as well, at one point Adam didn't want Ariel sitting next to him on the roller coaster, even though it was the only seat left.

We stayed for about 2 1/2 hours and that's about right. Any more fun and they would have burst their brains.