Singing to the Fan

Gwen loves to sing. Loves, loves, loves it. She is always belting out a tune. One of her favorite places to sing is standing in front of the fan. I think she likes the way it feels or sounds with the wind blowing her voice. Regardless of why she is a happy girl and I love to hear her voice singing along.

Aquarun 2013

The Aquarun is becoming quite a tradition with our family each summer. The kids are quite excited to participate and so am I!

This year I ran the 5k. Since I don't normally talk about my racing and stuff here I will not give the detailed version of the race. Let's just say that trying to do a race two and a half months post-partum does not translate to a swift race time.

I had fun though and my friend Joanna ran with me. Part of my problem was that we ate at the fireman's breakfast right before the race. Pancakes, eggs and ham are not exactly good pre-race food. But the fireman's breakfast is also quite a Aquafest tradition so we went with it.

I was wiped out for sure!

Next up was the kids fun run. We sent Andrew down to start the run and then sat back to watch the end of the race.

We made a mistake though. Apparently last year there were a couple of waves for the run and this year there was a mass start for all the kids.

By the time we figured it all out the race was basically over. We found one of the people in charge and asked if the kids could go run it anyway and he very nicely obliged and ran with the kids. I went to and pretty much got smoked by everyone, even the 3 year olds. I was completely out of steam!

The kids didn't seem to mind that they were running in their own race. We weren't in it for the prizes anyway.

7:22 pm

They were both SOOOOOOOOOOO sleepy.

Chunky Monkey

He is so delicious. I could just eat him up.

Kayak Point! A Thursday Adventure

This installment of Thursday Adventures found us at Kayak Point County Park on an utterly gorgeous day. We could not have asked for a nicer day to play at the water.

Our good friends came to the beach with us as well as Grandma Meow and the kids had a marvelous time. The boys spent almost the entire time in the water up to their waist looking for clams and crabs and any other sea creature they could get their hands on.

 Lucy was very interested in finding creatures as well so she hung out with the boys most of the time as well.

We even saw a seal in the water while we were there and playing. The kids were pretty excited to watch it swim.

Gwen played on the driftwood a lot and stayed much closer to our little camp set up. Reid fortunately did not want to spend a lot of time in the water.

It made it much easier to keep an eye on him. He and Isaac mostly played in the sand right near our chairs. And I promise that Oliver did come to the beach with us. I just apparently did not get a photo of him at all! Kayak Point is definitely on our list of places to visit again. Especially if we can get a day as nice as this one.

IronKids

Lake Stevens holds a IronMan 70.3 race every year and this year had it's first annual IronKids run.

The four big kids were very excited to give it a shot and run this race. Since it was so close to our house we decided to make it happen for them.

Our good friends came to the race as well with their kids and insanity ensued! Joanna and I did triathlons last summer so these kiddos have been to a LOT of race venues. It was a lot of fun to have them be the stars of the show this time.

Reid and Isaac. Too young to join in the insanity this year. The cut off was age 3 and older.

Lucy and Gwen periodically play triathlon so I knew they were very prepared mentally for this race.

The event was split into two different age/distance categories. There was a half mile run for the younger group (or those that just wanted to do one lap) and a mile run for the older group.

We put Toby and Gwen into the first group with just one lap. They are both 3 so we figured it was a good call. Gwen wanted to run and hold Toby's hand the whole time. It didn't end up working out that way. Toby wanted to run much faster than Gwen can.

I didn't come fully prepared to run and Joanna did. So I took pictures of all her crew and she went on a run with Gwen. She ran the whole time too. I was impressed!

Headed toward the finish line!

Two IronKids!

After all the little/one lap kids finished they set up for the longer race. There were many more kids that were running this one and apparently there was a huge pile up at the starting line.

Andrew as always did a great job running. He has great form and really has a lot of hustle in him.

Lucy was THRILLED with the race. She kept running the entire time. She is very ready to do a kids triathlon next year. The one close to us is for kids 6 and up. So next year for her.

Zane apparently had a small fall at the beginning of the race (not during the pile up but shortly after the start of the race). Combine that with the fact that he had already kinda determined in his mind that he was walking this race made for a very grumpy race face.

After seeing Zane and Levi on the course I jetted up to the finish line to catch photos of the kids as they came through. Andrew was the first one of our crew to finish.

Lucy finished strong!

And then we waited. And waited. They started to shut down the course. They announced that the last kids had finished. And still we didn't see Zane and Levi. I mentioned to one of the race officials that there were two more kids out there, they were just walking. So they sent an official out there to find them. SIGH. Finally we saw Levi and then there was Zane. Walking up the chute with a grumpy look on his face. He still got a medal.

The whole IronKid crew!

Future 70.3 finishers? We shall see...