Catching Up

One funny story from tonight and then some catching up. We walked up to one our local parks tonight that has a climbing wall. It is probably about 9 feet tall and Madeleine has learned how to climb up it (which is great until she has to come back down!). She wanted to do it tonight and another girl who was probably about 7 started telling Madeleine and Jim that she didn't think Madeleine would be able to do it. Well, Madeleine showed her. The girl was impressed and asked Jim if Madeleine had taken lessons :) Jim's all ready to take her to a climbing gym now. It is something I have always wanted to do myself so I'm ready to go too!

Now for the catching up... In July, we headed to the lake with Jim's family. It was a fun week and we all enjoyed seeing Uncle Dave. Madeleine caught her first fish on the barbie rod! Both girls enjoyed swimming in an inflatable pool on the dock. At the end of the week Ann, Bart, Tanya and kids joined us. On Saturday, we started off for what we thought was going to be a short boat ride... we ended up spending most of the day on the water. It was definitely the most unprepared long boat ride with 5 kids but we had a fun a time. The ride back though was really rough in a ski boat with ocean size waves! Wish we would have had more time down there this summer.

Swimming off the back of the boat
Fishing on the dock
Madeleine reeling in her first fish... she knows you have to wait for the bobber to go under
This used to be a tree in our backyard
Hadley and Uncle Dave on the long boat ride... the camera was one of the few things we did have with us.
Swimming on the long boat ride... next time I will remember to wear my swimsuit when we set off for a "short" boat ride... it was really hot watching everybody else swim.

Land Between the Lakes

The summer has been flying by and we have really been enjoying it. This last weekend we met up with Holly, Nathan and Abby at Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky. It was our second time taking the pop-up out and all I can say is thank goodness for the AC in it! It was an extremely hot weekend mixed in with several thunderstorms. The kids all had a blast... so much fun that they didn't want to go to sleep ever. Madeleine was the best sleeper and that is unusual for her. Hadley stayed up very late and everytime we tried to put her to bed she would just call for Abby.

Holly and Nathan towed their boat and we went out on the lake on Saturday. That turned out to be quite an adventure. Lake Barkley is definitely not a great boating lake. It would go from 55 ft deep to 3 ft deep very quickly. As we headed back towards the launch ramp, the boat died. We were lucky to find some nice fishermen who towed us back. Madeleine seemed totally unfazed by this... I thought for sure she would talk about it non-stop. I guess we all did a good job of not making a big deal of it.

Sunday morning we woke up to a thunderstorm that seemed to never end. As soon as it ended we hurried to get everything packed up thinking another storm was on the way. As soon as we were all loaded the sky cleared and sun came up. All in all it was a fun weekend with friends and the girls really enjoyed playing with Abby. Next time I might plan this trip for the fall though and not the middle of August!

Hadley attempting to brush Abby's teeth for her
All the girls actually staying in one place and playing
Enjoying the sunset
Getting towed in the boat
It was so fun to see them all play together
Abby got a lot of hugs from the girls
Going crazy in the Visitor's Center... I think they were probably happy when we left but everyone sure had a fun time running around in the ac!
More silly pictures
Late night camping with Hadley
Breakfast in the camper

Happy Birthday Madeleine!

This is catch up week for the blog. Madeleine turned 3 on 4th of July. We celebrated a week before her birthday with a small party at Drace Park. Madeleine was very excited for her princess birthday party and had a great time. It was a classic 4th of July birthday party with lots of heat and humidity. Afterwards we went camping in our new pop up camper (that will be another post). Then on Friday before her birthday she brought crown cookies into school to celebrate with her friends there. There have been quite a few birthdays in her class and she had been eagerly anticipating her friends singing Happy Birthday to her. For her actual birthday, we celebrated at the Lake with Mike, Laurel, Michael and Jack. Laurel spruced up the party with some fun party favors. Jim added a surprise by buying trick candles accidently. She was getting a little concerned about why they weren't going out but Jack stepped in to blow them all out over and over again. All in all she had a great birthday and is very excited to be 3... although after finding out you have to be 4 to ride the go karts at the lake she was already talking about turning 4!

The Birthday Girl with her princess cake

Hadley attacking her watermelon
Madeleine handing off her wrapping paper
Playing on the playground
Madeleine getting concerned about her candles that kept relightingThe glamorous birthday girl
New sunglasses!
The new ride!

Austin Weekend

As usual, we are way behind in our blog posts and what follows is a weak attempt at catching up...

Me and the girls headed to Austin in early June for cousin Pete's wedding. We made it a long weekend so we could visit with Uncle Dave and hang out with family and friends. It was a full weekend and is amazing to think how much we crammed in: the non-rehearsal rehearsal dinner, a visit with the Marrs family, creek time, Rudy's, the wedding, a hike, Rudy's, park time, and a super fun day at Mike and Laurel's. We had so much fun Madeleine didn't want to leave Texas. Shoot, even the 4 flights to get there and back went well!

I think I took 500+ pics that weekend. Trying to pick out just a few was a pain, but here you go...

Erin & Hadley at the Non-Rehearsal Rehearsal Dinner:



Madeleine & Georgia:



Breakfast at Uncle Dave's. Maybe someday he will have a table to eat on that is intended for something other than coffee (or Natty Lights):



Partaking in Uncle Dave's favorite activity - playing in one of the creeks near his place:



Rocks!:



Pete & Kejda:



Making silly faces with Uncle Dave:



Dancing with Dad:



Madeleine & Dad:



The spectators at Mike and Laurel's:



Owen's first time on skis!:



Mike & Laurel's new place:



Conditions don't get much better than this:



Not even 3 years old and tubing with Dad:



Dad trying to remember how to wakeboard:



Believe it or not, Hadley climbed right on and tried to fire it up!:



Of course, Madeleine had to follow:



Apres (water)ski at Pancho & Lefty's:



This lovely ride was in the parking lot. Replace the Keystone Light with Natty Light and paint it white and it could have been Dave's:



Family pics:



More family pics:



G marking her turf:



Rockstar Madeleine:

Catching Up

I am going to try and post some updates tonight and tomorrow night of our recent good times. I'll start tonight with a few things leading up to this past weekend and save the recent weekend's adventures for tomorrow night.

A couple weekends ago I had a dumpster delivered and ripped the deck and poorly built retaining wall off the back of our house. The deck came down suprisingly quick, thanks in part to my Dad's help shuttling loads to the dumpster. Two Husqvarna chainsaws and 4 chains helped out the process quite a bit too. I ended up using a vacation day on the Monday after just to tidy things up.

I used another vacation day that Wednesday. But this day was for me, not housework, and had me meeting Paul, Bob, and Scott at the 141/44 lot early in the morning (and Kevin at the trailhead) for a full day trip to Council Bluff Lake to ride the Middlefork section of the Ozark Trail. I'm embarassed to admit it, but this was my first trip to the Middlefork. This section of the OT has been receiving a lot of attention from the local mtb scene recently, and while I can't say I have ridden the OT extensively, I can say that I have ridden an extensive number of mountain bike trails throughout the country. That said, the Middlefork was awesome! We left from the boat tramp and accessed the MF via the connector, riding an out-back for a total of 35 miles and over 3000 feet of climbing. Unlike some of the other nearby trails, I couldn't believe the overall condition (great!) of the MF and its lack of rocks. Smooth and fast describe this trail. No doubt I am headed back. Of course, the trail itself was only part of the fun. Taking a vacation day mid-week and spending it with friends was pretty good too. Work has been busy recently, but I think I need more days like this. My college used to have "Wonderful Wednesdays," which originally (pre-me) meant no classes and essentially lots of drinking, but during my time still generally meant music and beer. I'd be fine with having these type of Wednesdays more often, keeping the beer but sub'ing the music for bike riding.

While the Middlefork was great, it wasn't the only riding that week. On Saturday, Erin and I rode from our house over to Grant's Trail, then all the way to the end and back home for just over 20 miles. This was good pre-triathlon training for her, and with 2 kids in a trailer, a pretty good workout for me too. Then on Sunday I followed up the mtb and trailer rides with a road ride, heading west to Wildwood's hills and back for 65 miles. Coincidentally (?), each ride this week was my longest year-to-date for each bike: 35 on the Superfly on Wednesday, 20 on the Karate Monkey with trailer on Saturday, and 65 on the Giant on Sunday. Hopefully these rides will keep me from blowing up at the next mtb race...

Deck before:



Deck during:



Deck after:



Middlefork before... Geezer showing Bob the love:



Middlefork during... break time:



More Middlefork during... Kevin in the burnt out section near the end:



Middlefork after... "Now how do I fit this here?":



Grant's Trail before... well, at the beginning of the trail:



Grant's Trail during... at least they're awake now:



Grant's Trail after... after at least the first half (10+ miles):