Rosco

Well, I caved. I knew it would happen sooner or later, given how much my boys love dogs. We got a puppy last night. His name is Rosco, and he is 3/4 Border Collie, and 1/4 Springer Spaniel.

He is 6 weeks old, and the kids just adore him. We got him for free, and he's already spoiled rotten. We are crate training him, but he likes his regular bed better than his crate. Last night I was up (and outside in a storm) at 11:30, 12:00, 3:00, 5:00, and 7:00. Not fun, but at least I'm not used to sleeping all the way through the night yet anyway. Tonight, I moved his crate into my room so I can reassure him better, and I'm going to try putting his bed inside his crate to make him more cozy. He misses his brothers and sisters, and remembers at night.

He will grow up to be a medium to large sized dog, and John hopes he might be able to learn a couple of hunting tricks. I just hope he learns the trick of going potty outside.

The Kidz Tandem Train

I think it's worthy of a post to say that I can now officially take all four of my kids on a bike ride by myself! We just recently picked up an awesome invention called a "Kidz Tandem" mountain bike. This bike lets the kid sit in the front seat and pedal, while the adult sits behind and steers. To that we hooked up the Tug-a-Bug, and to that we hooked up the bike trailer. Officially, everyone has a seat, and we can go for a ride!

The Colorado Trip

We just got back last week from a trip to Canon City, CO, where my grandparents, Uncle Bob and Aunt Linda, cousin, Bryan, wife and two kids all live. Canon City is about 45 minutes south of Colorada Springs, where Steven and Jen Hammons live, so we dropped our circus in on them too! We had SO much fun, I hardly know where to start, so I'll just start at the beginning. We left on Wednesday night after John got back from working in Las Vegas. We drove until 3:00 am, and made it to Grand Junction. That left us about 5 hours left to drive on Thursday, which was great since the kids just slept that first night. We arrived at Uncle Bob's house about 5:00 and it turned out to be the highlight of the trip for the kids. He was adequately prepared for us with a special basement centered around his almost 3 year old granddaughter. He had a special hideout they could climb up to, then swing on a rope to get out of. He also had a jumphouse set up in the downstairs living room! Legos, rubber mulch with lots of silk plants, and a play kitchen topped off the fun! Everywhere else we visited paled in comparison to Uncle Bob's house in the kids' minds.

The actual purpose of the trip was to visit my grandparents. Grandpa just turned 87, and Grandma is 86. They are just not well enough to travel anymore, so when we want to see them, we go there. They had never met Kaden or Kole, so we thought we better make the trip. We are so glad we did. It was so fun to see the kids make memories with their great-grandparents. It was also so nice for me to get to visit with them and also my Aunt and Uncle, who were so kind (and brave!) to let us stay with them.

The Friday after we got there, we went to visit the Royal Gorge, which is home of the World's Highest Bridge. It is 1053 ft. above the river it spans. It is absolutely amazing to see. I was so excited about seeing it, I left the camera in the car. We got there at the end of the day, so we didn't even have time to go back out and get it. Sorry!

Saturday turned out to be one of the most exciting days too! We drove up to Colorado Springs, where we got to go to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo with Jen Hammons. We also met up with my closest cousin, Daisha, and her 3 boys (Rainier, 4 and twins age 2 Ky and Jonas). My two favorite parts of the zoo were the girrafes, to which you could get close enough to feed crackers, and the "Budgie Buddies" where you could go into an aviary and feed birds seeds off of little popsicle sticks. Jen was nice enough to remember her camera, take pictures, put them on a disk, and send them to me because I left our camera in the car for this one too!

We got to eat dinner at Outback with Steven and Jen before heading back to Canon City for our last night there. So fun to see you guys!

Saying goodbye on Sunday was hard. We had had so much fun! Kaden cried and cried when he realized we were packing up. He kept yelling, "I don't want to leave! I want to stay here till we die!" Just to let you know how much he liked Uncle Bob's house! We decided at the last minute to try to make one more stop in Moab, so we called our old friends Jonny and Jenny Hymas. We used to work with Jonny in Las Vegas, and he has been out in Moab running a bike shop/tour business for the last 7 years or so. The last time we saw them, Jenny was pregnant with her now 6-year-old, and we hadn't even started having kids! Being the kind of people they are, they let us drop in with 6 hours notice and stay the night on a school/work night. We had so much fun catching up with them, we can't wait to go back for a "just Moab" trip. While we were there, we found the coolest little "Kidz Tandem" mountain bike. We had to buy it. See my next post for more pics!

Tuacahn Duathlon

Well, I completed my first competitive race since before children! I raced on Saturday in the Tuacahn Duathlon with my friend Sadie Best. I did the Sprint distance race because when I registered I had just started running in the gym, and wasn't sure how far I could go. The race was 1.5 mile run, then 12 mile bike, then another 1.5 mile run. I finished in 1 hour, 12 mins, 35 secs. That was good enough for 2nd place in my division, 7th overall women, and 25th overall including the men. (74 finishing racers).

I have to say that I did not expect to be competitive in this race. I was just there to have fun (which I did!) and finish the race (which I did!). The fact that I actually placed in my division just gave me the bug to do more races! So, on that note, I am now planning several more. I have a half-marathon in April in Austin, TX with Alyssa. I am going to do the St. George Trifecta, which is 3 triathlons here at Sand Hollow in May, June and September. John says he will do those with me, and I roped my brother Matt into doing the June one with me. I will do the Sprint distance for those. I also plan to do a half-marathon in July in San Fransisco with Sadie, and then I would like to complete one olympic distance triathlon by the end of the year. Yea! It is so fun to me to have something to work toward in the gym. It makes it all worthwhile when I can say I participated in something cool.

Anyone who wants to join me for anything or has a suggestion for the full length triathlon, let me know!