Back to School Night and God Rest Penny's Soul!

On the Thursday before school started we had special "Back to School" night at Footprints...the kids took their supplies and met their teachers and saw their classrooms.  It was SO SWEET watching our big girls be in the Pre-K class...they were SO SO EXCITED to go see their new room!

I can't believe these THREE AMIGOS are in Pre-K...it's just crazy,  Love these little girls to pieces!

And of course the two younger sisters are going to school too, so they wanted to be in the picture.  =)

The next night we headed to Pagliai's with my parents and then drove over to the SEMO football field to run some energy off.

By Saturday afternoon we were wiped out...Brynn loves taking weekend naps on the couch with Daddy.  =)  

Did I ever write a blog post about our cat?  We had an outside cat for maybe a month before she ran away (or maybe something worse?)  I can't say that I'm super sad she's gone...but I found this picture of her laying under our table.  She LOVED to pull on the strings and then she'd scratch and paw at the french doors, which drove me crazy.

One of the funniest things lately about the cat was that we were telling some friends about her "running away" (we said she's probably just having a sleepover at her friends house because we were worried Brynn would be so sad.  Thankfully she's handled it fine...probably because she thinks Penny's just having an extended sleepover somewhere.)  Anyway - we were telling the friends about the cat being gone and I started laughing and said "Oh Penny...God rest her soul."  Emory repeats EVERYTHING and started yelling "God rest her soul!  God rest her soul!"  It was hilarious...and it sounds more like "GOD RET HER SO!"  You should hear it!

Oh Penny...God rest your soul wherever you are!

The Week Before School Starts

Our friend's little girl Cameron came over on Monday night to hang out while her parents took her big brother Alex to kindergarten Back to School night. The girls had so much fun playing together and then we all headed to the park to soak up the last couple of times before school would start.

I start back a couple of weeks before the kids, and the girls had to get up pretty early to head to Nonna's house.  Emory was so ZONKED when I went in to get her up.  Normally, even if she's asleep she just pops right up, but she was OUT one morning.  I guess that's what happens when you are used to sleeping until 9, and mommy wakes you up at 7:15...yikes!

We had to get the girls school supplies for our Footprints Back to School night and Brynn and I went together and had so much fun picking everything out.  I love getting school supplies and I think Brynn is going to be no different...

She was just like how I used to be...she wanted to lay everything out and get all the bags ready, etc. 

The girls and I headed out for a hike one day...they did really good.  We don't get a whole lot of mileage in =) but the girls LOVE looking for bugs and butterflies, and looking at all the leaves and trees, etc.

 I was explaining to Brynn about how to count the age of the tree and she kept saying "it's gotta be older than Grandpa!"  HA!

 Emory actually walked more than she has on pretty much any other hike.  Progress!

The girls went to Nonna's all week while Chasidy (my boss) and I worked on Back to School stuff.  Nonna has just been the BIGGEST BLESSING to us.  She watched me when I was little, and she still keeps teachers kids.  Both my girls have been her full-time "babies" but now they will both be with me full-time (our preschool runs Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays) so I won't see Nonna every week like I'm used to.  I know we will still stop by just to visit with all the sweet kids and their moms (who I will miss!)  But it was a bittersweet day on Thursday when I knew we wouldn't be seeing her nearly as much as we have the last several years.  We love you Nonna!

Half Iron-Man - Part 2

My parents sent a text the night before...Grandpa and Brynn made this little creation out of play-dough! =)

It may look somewhat light outside in this picture, but it was DARK...we had to get up at 4:30 so get Ryan out the door and drive to Benton Harbor to meet with the rest of the guys and then head to the race.  They had to have their little "transition area" (you know, where they change out of their wetsuit and throw their bike helmet on, get on their bike, change from bike gear to running shoes, etc.) all set up pretty early.  So it was an EARLY morning...but really fun.  Thankfully I'm a morning person.  =)  And our hotel had a sweet coffee bar.  =)

2500 bikes and transition spots...clearly I didn't get a very good picture of that.  =)

Since there are so many racers, they start in "waves", which basically means that your age group starts together separate from everyone else.  They all wear a chip, so you can beat people that start before or after you, it's just all about your time.  One of Ryan's buddies started way before him, and Ryan and Matt started together, since they are in the same age group.  Jason and Alex started a little later.  But this way, you don't get kicked in the face (as much...ha!) when you jump into the water (which I kept calling the ocean, but evidently is just Lake Michigan, but it definitely looked like the ocean).  =)

Getting ready before the race...

I think that's Ryan in the light blue swim cap...(every age group got a different color).

Starting to take off the wet-suit...

I watched him leave on the bike, but then had an almost 3 hour break so I took my towel on the sand and laid down and read a People Magazine and a book for a little bit...then I headed out on the running part of the race so I could find the guys a couple of times on the run.

We could track them online and Ryan was doing AWESOME.  (A girl I used to run in high school with, and who now trains professionally as a triathlete gave them some tips for not going out too hard on the bike to save their legs for the run.  Ryan was following her advice exactly, and it was amazing how fast he was able to run it.  Thanks Kim!)

I'm not super geographically inclined, so when my friend Kristi texted me this picture of the run course I was like "oh great..." I only asked for help like 5 times as I tried to follow this map to get to a good viewing location.  =)  But I got to see all the guys run through and it was great cheering for them!  And Ryan was having the race of his life, so it was really fun to watch!

There were 3 different teams in the race where a dad pulled his handicapped son on the race (like, strapped his son in an inflattable raft and pulled him while swimming, pulled him in a bike buggy thing, and pushed a wheelchair/stroller.  Can you imagine doing that?  I watched the swim helpers help two different dads get their kids out of the water and loaded into the bike and it was SO EMOTIONAL to watch.  I tried to hold back the ugly cry, but it was overwhelming to watch.  People were cheering for them, and one of the sons was cheering for his dad.  It was amazing.

His goal was to finish in under five hours and thirty minutes, and he finished in five hours and fourteen minutes!  WHOA!  GO RYAN!

These tracking updates and split times were cool to see!

After the race we headed back to our hotel in South Bend and relaxed for a couple of hours before going to grab dinner.  We found this Irish (shocking I know) pub place and it was really good!

He was so happy, but he also couldn't hardly walk in this picture.  =)

What a GREAT weekend!  So proud of him for training so hard and working his buns off.  GOOD JOB RYAN!  You are a stud!

IronMan - Part 1

Ryan and his buddies love to train for triathlons and about a year ago they decided to do a 

Half-Iron Man race (swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles, and run a half-marathon of 13.1 miles).

The race was in Benton Harbor, Michigan, about 7 hours away on Lake Michigan.  My parents kept the girls for the weekend and Ryan and I enjoyed a great weekend away!  Thank you Mom and Dad!

A bunch of families caravanned (how do you spell that?) up there together...it was a pretty smooth trip, except for when Jason forgot that his bike was on top of his car (in a bike carrier) and drove through a Starbucks drive-through and knocked his bike off.  YIKES!  Thankfully, after some craziness, his bike was fixed in time for the race.

When we got to our hotels on Friday it was A DUMP.  Like, it was really bad.  Like my friend Meredith said "well...if we were on a mission trip to a third world country this would feel pretty nice."  HA!  The problem was we weren't paying third world prices...I was seriously sick to think how much we were paying for the yucky hotel room.  (Because there were so many racers in the small town, the hotel room prices were bumped way up, even in crappy hotels.)  Thankfully, Ryan got on hot-wire and found some great hotels in South Bend, IN (which was only about 40 minutes away and where we were planning to go to the next day to visit the University of Notre Dame, so it worked out great.  Praise the Lord.  We stayed in a FABULOUS hotel for HALF the price.  Thank Goodness!

On Saturday we got up and drove to the Expo...

Who works out the day before a half-ironman...our boys.  HA! I guess they needed a final tune-up.

So proud of these boys...Alex, Blake, Matt, Jason, and Ryan

And then let the real fun begin...

Ryan and I drove back to South Bend to tour the campus of the University of Notre Dame.  Growing up, my Dad was always a big Irish football fan, so of course I was too.  It was so cool driving around the campus and then taking a stadium tour!

The campus was GORGEOUS!

Let the stadium tour begin...I was a little excited...and my dad was a little jealous...

It actually ended up being a tour of all the athletic facilities, and it was REALLY cool!  At the beginning, Ryan was like "this will be fun, but I'm just going because you want to go." But by the end he was like "that was awesome!  I'm so glad we did this!"

And then we headed to the football stadium...I was hearing the Notre Dame fight song in my head the whole way (thanks to my dad who played it in the car every chance he got! HA!)

In the locker room...WHOA.  

And then they LET US TOUCH the famous sign the players hit on the way to the field...Ryan was pumping himself up for his big race the next day!

In front of "Touchdown Jesus." (That's what they call it because Jesus looks like he's putting his arms up for a touchdown, and you can see it through the goalposts in the stadium.)

We had THE BEST time!  Then we headed for some yummy Italian food, and then back to the hotel so Ryan could get a good night's sleep before his BIG race.  =)