Michael's Henry .22

The deal has always been that Michael wouldn't get a gun until he turned 12. He's had airsoft guns and got a bb gun from Great Uncle Bill and stuff but not a "real" gun til he turned 12. WELL 12 CAME FASTER THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD! :) So the funny story about the gun is that my birthday is the week before Michael's. Daniel had hid the gun under our bed... and then sent Michael in out room to wrap my birthday present... but forgot that the wrapping paper is also under our bed and by putting the gun there had just pushed the paper further underneath. So I think Michael got a sneak peak. :) He didn't actually SEE it, but he saw the box. Julie went to see if he and Haleigh needed any help and Michael was a little giddy like he knew something he shouldn't. He told her he thought he might have just run into his birthday present! (Daniel doesn't know this story, as of today) But he was SUPER excited when he actually received it on his birthday. Daniel and Grandpa took him out Saturday morning to shoot it, the following pictures tell the story of the first 2 shots.

He's definatly related to BOTH his Dad, and his Grandpa! WHAT A SHOT!

Family Pictures

Grandma and Grandpa came this week for Michael's 12th birthday. It's been really fun, it always is. (except Grandpa is suffering from a major allergy attack)

We had family pictures taken and I use them in the layout of the blog but then don't post them and then when we get new ones and I change the layout the pictures aren't anywhere to look back on. So here's a post of some of my favorites...

I'd actually really like to know how people make it through life with big sexy hair?

I wouldn't know.

Haleigh's hair cut

Haleigh donated 10 inches of her beautiful hair today to Pantene's hair donation program that makes wigs for adult women who have lost their hair in cancer treatment! She loves her new "do" and it was fun to see Dad's reaction! (he'll get used to it) ;)

Birthday Cake

Valerie and I share the same birthday... so I made this cake for her today. She's a lovely English lady in my ward and we are becoming good friends thanks to sharing our special day!

Baseball

Michael is finishing up his season of baseball. Daniel coached and I took pictures! :) Michael has had a really fun time being the oldest player on the team and learning to be a leader. He's even hit a HOME RUN this season! Their last game is on Wednesday, but we're hoping they announce a tournament by then and hope it starts next week when Grandma and Grandpa are here so they can see him play! (needless to say the communication with the league commissioners has been lacking this year... they're not really "on the ball") Michael thinks he loves baseball and wants to play year round. So we're looking into it... I'm just greatful he's not in LOVE with football!

Happy Mother's Day

This is the totally precious card that Mya made for me today in nursery! I love it! And she was so proud of it too! Note to the men in the ward: We want chocolate on mother's day! A book is only o.k. when accompanied by chocolate. :)

Why I love St. George...

vs.

We win!

(No wonder Grandma & Grandpa are so excited to come visit in 2 weeks!)

STGIM 2010!!!

Our first Ironman experience was absolutley amazing! I am absolutely exhausted and it's Sunday night. Who knew we needed to be training to volunteer!? Daniel and the kids and I picked up Jen at 530am and drove out to the fair grounds where we loaded a bus and headed to the lake to watch the swim start. It was pretty exciting, not quite as exciting as being in the water during a swim start fighting for your life like the Titanic is going down, but given the air and water temps. I was quite content to sit on the red rocks and watch the start (and the sunrise).

This is the line of cars coming down the hill to the fair grounds.

We saw our friend Margo come by from T1 on her bike, unfortunatly she didn't make the cutoff time and never got to start the marathon. Can't wait to hear her story though. Daniel saw our friend Locke blow by and later that night we enjoyed watching his family catch him as he crossed the finish line and became an IRONMAN!

It was VERY EXCITING as Margo zoomed by us on her bike! We went crazy!

I was so glad to have Carol Sue, Maren, and Locke's sister Robin and neice Teala on my team and it was very exciting to see him come in. He was greated by just about everyone at the finishline.After getting back to the fair grounds by bus and fighting the droves of people who do NOT know parking lot etiquette (mainly people from Califonia who already had drove Daniel crazy with their conversation on the bus!... we won't be going to Disneyland any time soon.) We made it home about 11am and had some pancakes and then I passed out for about 30 minutes and dreamt about stuffing my wetsuit full of handwarmers! Daniel and I went down to the finish line at 1:oo and helped set up and just get ready. The Sudweeks family showed up to help and we unwrapped medals and then they helped check in my team of volunteers. Thanks to Colleen and McKenna and Haleigh for manning my registration too, and Jimmy and Taylor and Carter for taking over the second shift. I went through what I feel like was about 20 different sets of instructions and thank you to Cindy for taking over and showing everyone the drill as we waited for people to finish the race. We waited forever. Finally the winner Michael Weiss came in. More pro's came in, all pretty spread out. Somewhat uneventful for us as Catchers because they didn't need us, but we sure had front row seats! This is Michael Weiss the pro male CHAMPION! He was an olympic mountain biker at the olympics in Athen's and when he didn't make the next team he turned to pro-triathlon. He's like 6'6! (aka freakishly tall like Jimmy)This is Heather Wurtele. She is the 2010 pro womens CHAMPION! Super cool. She was a scientist in Canada and quit 2 years ago to be a full time pro triathlete with her husband. She is also freakishly tall. Like 6'3These are some of the pro athletes name plaques for the post race interviews at the media tables. I was pulling for Kate Major because we're the same age and she's pretty much awesome, unfortunatly she had to pull out at mile 10 of the marathon.It was a tough course, ask any athlete there! This pro couldn't even lift his own foot up to get his time chip removed.This is Caitlin Snow, pretty much a fan of hers now too.The rest of the night got going and we got in our grove and brought people in, got their medal, t-shirt, and hat, the timing team took off their time chips, took their pictures, and walked them down the shoot to medical, athlete food, and massage (which I needed by about 10pm, the ibuprofen is helping) It was absolutely amazing to be able to walk with the athletes and get the first account of their race. I have to say though, it's the first race that I've been to and not participated in, that I have had NO INTEREST in participating. Sure, I think about the individual parts... I could swim 2.4 miles (easy), I could ride 112 miles on my bike (so long as I'd trained by butt off, literally), and I could run a marathon (maybe STG someday)... but there is no freaking way I want to do it all in a consecutive 17 hours!
Everyone raved about all aspects of the race and our city! Click HERE for a review from one athlete's view, I think it's pretty much what everyone experienced. And HERE for one of my volunteer's blogs (He got AMAZING pictures!)

This is Dave. He was a participant in the very 1st Ironman as a young Marine. He finished within the last 30 minutes and was the last person I acutally got to escort down the shoot. He was a celebrity of sorts there! :)

The crowd counted down the last 10 seconds which was somewhat melodramatic as no one was even within sight of the finish line. About two minutes later a guy finished, unfortunatly not as an official Ironman, but in our eyes he was. Then we started picking up and the crowds left and about 12:20 I saw 2 of my catchers waiting with a mylar blanket at the finish line, I went to see what was going on and they said one more guy was coming. The bike police escorted him in and Sanjoy and Benita caught him and I medaled him and gave him his finisher shirt and hat. SO glad he got to cross the finish line! Thank you to Lisa for taking Mya for us and Jimmy and Jen for letting the kids have a sleep over!
My official count was 127 volunteers for 635.5 hours!! Our $750 donation from Ironman will go to our local school district. Next year I have a scholarship I want to give it to. And here's some interesting #'s: 2384 spots were issued, 2050 picked up their packets, 1915 actually started the swim, 1643 people finished the race. From a medical standpoint--39 people "officially" checked in at the swim med tent-20-30 more were warmed and sent on their way 106 people checked in to the medical tent (that does not include the triage/walking wounded tent)- no exact numbers for that as they came and went as they pleased. 32 L of IV fluids were given out to ~40 athletes.

Count me in again for next year!