Padden Tri and Other June Things

Oh man the triathlon was rough this year. 

I keep blaming it on the fact that the vibe was different and the course was a bit different, but the biggest problem is that I didn't train as hard as I usually do. 

I was slower by about 15 minutes than I usually am. 

I was so tired the whole time. 

As I was finishing my first lap around the lake, Jim and Evan and Andrew were there cheering me on. 

I was SO SO TIRED. I seriously thought I couldn't do it. 

They were surprised I still had another lap to go.

Andrew asked in horror "are you going to quit?"

I asked Evan if he would run with me? 

Nope.

But then Andrew said "I'll run with you! I am number 95" and he pointed to his crocs.

So then he started running with me for a little bit. I thought he would stop and go back with Jim, but he just kept on running and chatting. 

He made me feel like I had so much energy and this was no big deal. 

He kept saying "my pace is your pace!"

He ran most of the lake lap (2.5 miles), but had to walk for a beat. I told him to meet at the finish line. 

Eventually he finished and asked if he could run through the finish arch. 

I'm so glad they got a picture of it. 

Look at the difference between my demeanor in the picture without him and with him.  

We had a planning meeting for our backpack trip.

A lot of logistics had to be ironed out -

ferry schedules

shuttle schedule

tide tables

We are treking the Washington Coast, and there are parts that depend on low tide, so there was measuring of tide windows when it is lower than 2, using a playing card as a straight edge and a tide chart. 

Our house is now dry walled!

Ready for mud. 

The other night I was playing a soccer game, and a giant Allegiant airplane came flying over our heads.

 I knew Jim would be landing at that time, so I yelled "that's my husband!" and all the gals stopped and waved and yelled excitedly. 

haha it was awesome.

I asked Jim if he saw me, but he just saw the idea of me down there and took a picture. 

I'm in the upper right field, playing right wing. 

The other night we went for a sunset swim with dogs and Blacks. 

There were so many seals swimming around,

and Mount Baker 

and beautiful. 

Avery swam like a seal over to us on the dock. 

The main June activity was going to Fallon...

to be continued

 

Padden Tri and Other June Things

Another triathlon down. 

This year I did the whole thing without not one single person there to cheer me on.

Jim had to work and I kept it a secret from Roxanne. 

I liked doing it all alone this year - no pressure to try very hard. 

Driving to Padden with no one but the butterflies in my stomach, I turned the music up real loud and sang along real loud.

Then while I'm riding my bike and running and such, I also sing out loud.

This year I had a Ben Folds Five song in my head:

"There are rooms in this house, that I don't open anymore,

dusty books and pictures on the floor.

That she will never see, she'll never see that part of me,

I want to be for her, what I could never be for you..."

etc

The swim was strangely lovely: my goggles didn't leak not one time.

The bike was great: I sang out loud to myself.

The run is so hard: I didn't train much in the cardio. I weight trained a lot and did a little running a little bike riding, so the run always kills me to death. One foot in front of the other. 

All these pics are from the photog guy.

7th year of Padden Triathlon Shirts and tattoos. 

The kids were playing Telestrations, and Koda plopped down in the middle of the fray. 

Opening day of waterslides! We were there counting down out loud for the people to let us in. 

We thought there would be a line around the corner, but it was just us banging on the chain link fence. haha

Happy birthday Jim! 

He put the candle out by smothering it in his mouth. That freaked us all out. 

Dad move. 

We had friends over to eat sheetcake with. I got to rock Rue when she got fussy. 

While we were in Hawaii, Avery got sick. 

When we got home, she was still feeling crummy and then she got red dots on her feet, hands, and mouth.

You guessed it: Hand Foot Mouth Disease. 

(PS I love teledoc. I have skipped so many trips to the doctor's office with teledoc. I thought for sure I would have to go in and get cultured for this, but he asked a few questions, and bang it was suddenly obvious what it was.)

Then we found out lots of kids at the middle school have it - they must have spread it around at the 8th grade dance and YAY! I am so happy to have dances and activities EVEN IF SICKNESSES MIGHT BE SPREAD. 

So the first week or two of summer vacation, we had to lay low since all three kids ended up sick. 

So this year we picked strawberries, played at Bertheson, and ate Edaleen without any friends. 

We had fun though!

We attempted to recreate this picture, but they were a little off. 

First beach day. Both Andrew and Avery were home sick and the water is so cold because this spring has been sooo cold. 

We met up at the rocky semiahmoo one day, Avery and Andrew still home with HFMD.

Me and Lisa happened to be wearing our Nevada shirts Mary gave us.

besties

One day Andrew made up a game and we tried to play...I was a bit unsure of the rules.

There was a fire dragon, water dragon, grass dragon.

There was blocking cards and action cards. I think if he honed the instructions a bit, it would be fun! 

The grey whales are feeding in Birch Bay, so me and Lindsay paddled out to see them.

We did not see any grey whales darn it. But I got a blister on my thumb from paddling! 

Another activity sans friends to BP while we were all contagious with HFMD.

The kids had so much fun pretending on the old farm equipment. It made them extra excited to go to Fallon. 

One day Joe was taking his family on airplane rides in their little airplane. 

I texted and asked if they had landed yet and they said they were still doing preflight on the airplane, 

and Jim piped in "Where are you? I'm sitting in the Golden Knights airplane!"  He had just flown in from Vegas. 

"Right outside the FBO"

"I see you"

So I said TAKE PICTURES OF EACH OTHER!

That's fun stuff. 

That's a root. 

The other day Andrew was chattering to me and then he got into bed next to me and fell right asleep. I don't even think his head had hit the pillow before he was twitching and OUT.

This was a Sunday family walk out to Rockpile.

One day Andrew dressed up as an "adult" and drew himself a mustache and wore my watch and put a sign on his door that said "Mr. Larsen". 

Then he called me into his office and had me sit down and talk about some serious business things. I told him I was busy trying to complete a Rubiks Cube so how long is this going to take? 

Then he said "my wife and I want to have a baby..."

haha I don't know why he called me into his office to tell me that.

 I said "That's not something I can help you with, but I do need to get back to work finishing this Rubiks Cube". 

Then I went back to my office and finished the cube.

So yeah, I know how to do a Rubiks Cube, no big deal. 

Keep your back pats to yourself, really it's not a big deal.