The Year of the Triathlon

So last year around Nov. my sister-in-law Beth had this great idea that we should do a family triathlon. She would swim, Michele would bike, and I, or course, would run. The boys would also do one with Aaron swimming, Shawn biking and Jon running. The boys took place at the end of June at Jordanelle, in Utah. They took second place out of the relay teams (only 3 teams competing). Aaron was the ninth person out of the water, and got an awesome time of 23 minutes for 1 mile swim. The girls race took place on July 11th down at Hagg Lake in Oregon. So all of Aaron's sister came out (Erika was our cheerleader/driver/baker). The girls took gold medal for the all girl relay (there were only 2, but at least we beat one team!). My sister-in-law Beth posted an awesome time of 24 minutes, and was the sixth girl and 30th person out of 250. Michele did great as well, completing her 25 mile bike in 1 hour 45 minutes, and I finished the 6.2 mile run in 55 minutes. We had a blast. It was a really tough course for Michele and I, with no straight aways, only up a hill, down a hill and so on. Erika was waiting with some fabulous chocolate/peanut butter cupcakes and diet Coke.
We also decided to have some fun since this was the first time they had been to visit us in Vancouver, and we were almost kid-free. The pictures are of the whole trip.The first few pictures are of our beach day. First we went to Astoria, OR, and for you Goonies buffs, this is where the movie was filmed. Then we went to Seaside to check out the beach. It was soooo windy that day though, so we didn't stay long.

This picture is at the Goonie house.

This is the Flavel house, or the museum where Mickey's dad worked. This is the county jail. Here we are after the race with our medal. I think we look pretty good after doing all that work, don't you?

This is at the pit, where we had to do the hand-off.

On the Thurs. before the race, I left my kids with Wendy, and the girls went up to Seattle for the day. We spent about four hours in Pike's market. So this is (starting on the left) Erika, Beth, Michele and me. (i just love, love, love Aaron's sisters!)

We also took a ferry ride.

We had dinner at a resturant called the Crab Pot, where they just bring a huge bucket of crab and dump it on your table, and your only utensil is mallet. (i had a seasme chicken salad, since I hate seafood, and everyone in the resturant looked at me like I was crazy!) Beth's sister-in-law, Annie, joined us for dinner.

After our race on Saturday, we picked up Kaitlyn and treated ourselves to a pedicure. Then the girls (minus Kaitlyn) headed to Cinetopia where we saw Tranformers 2 in the living room theatre. It was not so great of a movie, but the food for dinner and dessert was fabulous!

Here is the boys with their medal.

Here is Aaron coming out of the water. Word is that he collapsed shortly after this.

My Baby is 3!!

My little baby boy turned 3 on Thursday. I can't believe he is that old already.

A few things about Matt:

*He loves to build legos. He is alway putting them together and explaining what he has built in intricate detail.

*He has quite the imgination. He is always playing make-belive, usually involving monsters and knights.

* He also loves cars and has quite a collection going already.

*He is very cuddly and loves to just sit and cuddle on the couch right after he wakes up in the morning.

*He can count to 10 (although he almost always leaves out six)

* His favorite person in the world is his Daddy, who he still cries for sometimes after Aaron has left for work, especially if he gets hurt.

*His favorite past-time is to pick on his sister, whom he really loves, but also torments.

* We love him to death and can't wait to see the little man he is going to become!

He had his first b-day party this year. We invited seven of his friends for a festive pirate party. We dressed all the kids up, and gave them all swords (which were the hit of the party, literally!) The party started out with the kids making telescopes (from paper towel rolls), then we played a version of pin-the-tail, only with a treasure map and the kids had to put their treasure chest closest to the X. We ended with a treasure hunt. THen cake and ice cream. Aaron's mom was here for the party, so luckily I had help making the cake this year. Matt had a blast. I tried to take pictures of the kids all dressed up, but getting 8 3-year-olds to sit still long enough for a picture is no easy task. Happy Birthday Matt!!

4th of July, Vancouver style

We started of our 4th of July with our annual ward breakfast. Aaron went early to play tennis, and then we joined him at the park. There was then a bike parade for the kids where they ride around this path at the park. Since Kaitlyn just got a new, bigger bike, I followed her along the path to make sure she did okay. At one point there was this hill they had to go down. Well, kaitlyn got going pretty fast and started to get really scared, so being the good mom that I am, I grabbed onto her bike to slow her down. In hindsight, I should have told her to push her brakes, but I didn't. When I grabbed onto her bike to slow her down, it tipped the bike over, and she ended up with a scraped knee and I ended up with a torn off toenail. All in all, not my finest moment.
Later that night we went over to the Jackson's (some friends in our ward) for a BBQ. There was a bunch of other families from the ward as well. We ate hamburgers and hot dogs, the kids swam in the pool and jumped on the trampoline. About 9:30 they started the sparklers for the kids. All was going well until Kaitlyn stepped on a burning spark and charred the heel of her foot. It was just a little burn, but still hurt a lot! So word to the wise, make sure your kids are wearing shoes when they do sparklers. Kaitlyn is all right now, and I fully expect her heel to make a full recovery (despite what she might tell you!).
After the sparklers, it was finally dark enough to start the real show. I will not embaress my family by telling you the ridiculous amount of money that Aaron spent of fireworks this year, but apparently all the other families did too. It was the best show we've seen so far. And just so you all know that Vancouver really is the coolest place to spend the 4th, I've provided pictures and a little video of our finale. All of the fireworks that you see were shot off in our friends backyard byt the men of the families, (who incedently are all part of a pyro club, I think it's a gene that only men have which draws them to dangerous explosions!). There would be like 8 guys who would line up all the fireworks, and then light them all of at once and run away before they went off. There are no illiegal fireworks in Vancouver. You can buy and shoot off pretty much anything, as you can see in our video. Next year Casa De Krimme will be taking reservations for anyone who'd like to join us for the festivities!