ALASKA

Kyle and his brothers had the trip of a lifetime this summer.  Mason has a dental school friend that lives in Anchorage, and so he decided the time was right to take a fishing trip. 
After a devilish time getting there, and missing out on a half a day fishing in Anchorage, they finally made it on their charter.

 This was a big chunk of glacier they came upon, so they fished it out of the water to keep the fish cold.

Mason won the ugliest fish contest.  This is actually a pretty rare catch, a Ling Cod.  They told him he could never catch another.

Gross, but awesome.  Halibut.
After their first day of fishing they had about 100 lbs. of fish already.  It was a good day.  A really good day.

 

 

Fun with the waterproof camera!

I bought this waterproof camera at the end of last summer, after swim meets and splash pads and water balloon fights, and our trip to Lake Powell, realizing I needed a sturdier camera to keep up with my kids, and it has been the life of the party.  Here are some of the fun pictures the kids have taken:

This one is my favorite....can you see Josh under George?  He is standing on Josh's shoulders.
They loved to make totems of at least 3 kids.  Once they got 4.  This is what it looks like "under" the scenes:

             Sophie looks like she is a weightlifter....well I guess she is an underwater weightlifter!
This is what it looks like from above the water:

One more collage of some diving....

SUMMERTIME SUMMERTIME SUM SUM SUMMERTIME

Our adventures this summer were supposed to start with CHINA~ but it didn't happen due to our guide getting colon cancer, but one day, one day we will go.  Instead we went to LEHI! It was a little bit of a let down, no great wall, but China doesn't have awesome grandparents and cousins so really it's a wash ;).

You may notice George is missing from all of these.  He was at Scout Camp the same week of Roundup.
When we first got to Lehi we got to drop our kids off and continue to Salt Lake.  Kyle had a conference and it was our anniversary so we got two nights in Little America and got to go to grown up restaurants and stores, and we got to go to dinner and a movie with Jandy, whom we miss dearly.  I also stopped on my way to Salt Lake and had lunch with my long lost cousin Jenny. 
The best part was Kyle's conference......because I got to do NOTHING!
I woke up late and went to the temple and I read and slept and laid out by the pool.  It was fantastic to have free time and to not fill it!

The other great part about it being just me and Kyle....these are the only pictures I took! My little balcony was perfect because it looked right down on the fountains and green grass and was on the second floor so people didn't look in on me as they passed.  It was the best room in the place.  The weather was also divine.  Just an absolutely perfect 48-ish hours to recharge my batteries.

Lehi was great.  We went to the much improved Lehi City Pool, and up American Fork canyon for dinner.  We went to Hutchings Museum.  We went to the Parades and Rodeo and a quick trip back up to SLC to meet Traci and her family at the Gateway fountains and stock up on goodies from Trader Joes!  We spent a lot of time enjoying the yard and the beautiful weather.

The only pool I know that allows Chicken fights,  and still has a high dive.  The big boys were all so great with Matty.

The kids were brave on the high dive. The waterproof camera was lots of fun.

One of my favorite places, swinging bridge campground in American Fork Canyon.

Hutchings Museum (I haven't been here since I was in Elementary)  The kids loved it, black powder, morse code and all.

Liesel the clown waved at us!  The boys were mesmerized by the motorcycles and Emily lost a tooth while we were there.

The horse parade out in front of Grandma and Grandpa's house and the Gateway fountains.

I love the miniature float parade, I wish we did one of these in St. G.  The kids love the candy.  Matty would bring hers back to me for safe keeping.  Evan had to bring his back to Kyle for inspection and tithing!

When we weren't in Lehi we were in some sort of swimming pool in St. George to beat the summertime heat. The older kids have swim team again this year- Go Narwhals! and the little ones had swimming lessons.  Evan got to have two sessions of swim lessons so he is totally ready to join the swim team next year and is very excited about it. They have also been to their cousins pools several times as well.  It was very ironic that they didn't get sunburned until we went to Lehi, and Evan even got heat stroke.

The Narwhals first swim meet.  It was very exciting!

That Evan isn't doing much swimming in these, but he is doing a lot of smiling and that is what counts!

The other summertime refuge we have from the heat is Pine Valley.  We made good use of that fire pit each weekend during May and most of June, but now they have put stringent fire restrictions on the valley and it is a bummer.  Kyle added a shooting range this year....well, some straw and some kiddie bow and arrows, but they are a big hit.  So much so, that Sophie got her own archery set for her birthday just to use up there.

I love these pics of Kyle and his Mini Me.

I am none too shabby at this sport.....okay I got lucky, but I am not bad and it is really fun!

Kyle's Iron Journey

What an amazing experience!  My first blog (I think) was Kyle opening his Father's day present last June.  It was the registration for the Ironman 70.3 in St. George the following May.  Well, here we are.  He started swimming at Summit and I learned to swim too, to spend that little bit of training with him.  Shayne gave us some lessons and he fell in love with swimming.  He got a good road bike for his birthday in October and took a few verbal lessons from...everyone that bikes, and he fell in love with biking.  All winter he went to Spinner Steve's spin classes and we swam in 35 degree temperatures (the pool was 90 degrees though).  Spring came and he was biking Snow's Canyon every week.  Notice up to this point I haven't mentioned his love for running.... he says he hates running now that he has discovered biking and swimming!  He figured he has run 11 marathons....he knows how to run, and didn't train for the running very much.


Thursday, May 2rd 2013 

We went to the Ironman Village so he could sign up.   It was quite a process and they wouldn't let us go with him, so Matty and I made signs for him while we waited.

 That night after the kids went to bed he set out all of his supplies with their bags and checked everything against it's list and made another list of things he still needed, it felt a little like Christmas.  The anxiety was starting to build, but it was good, exciting anxiety, and for that I was very grateful.



Friday, May 3rd 2013

Kyle had graduation at Dixie State University.  So while he was gone most of the day I made us some t-shirts to show our support.

 

He got home about 3:30 and we headed out to Sand Hollow Reservoir to check his bike in.  That was an incredible sight and the excitement continued to build.

Kyle's bike placement was awesome....he was just three rows in  from the entrance and three bikes in on his row.   Pretty good considering there were  about 30 rows of 80 bikes.

I think it is amazing that they leave millions of dollars of bikes out by the lake all night long....and then when all the racers are on their bikes, they disassembly these stands, move them to city center, set them back up and the racers put them back on the rack and they sit there out in the open the rest of the day.  

He was very excited about seeing the swim route all marked and loved the swimming part the best. 
He was also glad he got to see the pro's take off at the beginning. They can swim the 1.2 in half the time Kyle did.  I think Kyle is pretty fast.  He did the swim in 43 minutes.
Okay but back to Friday..... The IRONKIDS race:

I think Evan was a little nervous for his run.  I couldn't get him to smile.

 They had a great time.  I think the girls wish they had participated too, but the boys had a ball and got awesome medals and a chance to be in the spot light for a minute.  Evan had me pin his number to the back of his shirt as soon as he got home from school that day.  He said he wishes they got to swim and bike just like dad!

There's that smile!  Good job ironkid!

 

Saturday, May 4th 2013: Race Day
 4:30 a.m. The picture is a little fuzzy because our brains were a little fuzzy this early in the morning!
Made our lists and checked them twice....Each transition bag was ready to go, and so was Kyle.

We were so excited when we saw him coming out of that first water station in Hurricane.  It was the first time we saw him and he was so happy, and upbeat!  We had a special "water" bottle to switch out and Josh Beckstrand took my camera and got a bunch of great pictures of us.

 That good old bike saw him through.  The big guys on their fancy bikes flew right past him on the downhills but Kyle's legs and that cannondale passed a lot of people going up the hills...

you can't buy that kind of power!

 And off he goes, just 43 miles left!...then 13 more after that.

We were taking pictures of random bikers as we were driving to and from Hurricane and cheering for them.  Evan yells out the window "Hey! You're beating my dad!"

 

 A few hours passed, we went to David's soccer game (which he won) and we got some food.  Emily joked yesterday that we could catch a movie while we were waiting...
He passed by Burgess' house at about noon on his bike and 20 minutes later here he came again pass Burgess' on his last mode of transportation, his Asics.

 He felt good, he didn't even want any of my Dr. Pepper, but he still had 12 miles of running (5 of which was uphill) and the sun was really starting to beat down.   We are lucky to have such a supportive and fun family to spend our time with.

 We waited a little while longer and cheered for a few more people we knew and let the kids play in the shade.  We saw John Beckstrand finish and then saw Joel finish, the bike portion, and a bunch of Spencer's neighbors, then we decided we better make it down to the finish line.

We got a pretty good spot on the side lines- well there was only room for Emily and Evan when we got there but then we picked people off one by one and got a pretty big section of fence by the end.
The kids were getting tired and hot and I just kept saying, "think how tired and hot dad is....we can stand here for 10 more minutes for him."  

Did I mention the weather?  Look at that sky.....there was no wind, it got a little hot by 2 pm but most of the day the weather was just gorgeous.  Definitely a tender mercy.

He did it! I was so relieved to see him come around that last corner and that it was a good experience for him.  It has been a rough couple of years and this was a great thing to focus on and a fantastic reward for all his hard work.  It has really been a wonderful journey for both of us.

 This was not his official time.  His wave started 42 minutes after the clock started for the pro's, so minus 42 minutes from that and it was pretty close to his real time.  6:34 minutes.

 The worst part by far was still to come for Kyle....just looking at this picture will make him queasy.  We are sure grateful for Spencer who can help us with his recovery.  Three bags of fluids and some Toridol, and he feels great today.  We are grateful to Mason too for taking the kids to swim at his house so Kyle could have a restful afternoon.  We have a great family.  We are truly blessed and felt it in great abundance in so many little ways this weekend.  Life is good.  Enjoy the journey.