April 23, 2016

I had a great morning with Owen! I surprised him with a trip to Art in the Vine to paint BB8, then to Steak and Shake for lunch afterwards. He was so excited to get started with tracing and painting, and the end product turned out awesome!! Owen said 'this is my biggest, and probably my best, painting ever!' And he wants to take it to Faith for Show and Tell this week because he's so proud of his work : ) At lunch, he ordered his first footlong and ate the whole thing! I love getting to spend one-on-one time with the boys and wish it could happen more often!

Garrett was a little jealous that Owen got to paint BB8, so, not to be outdone, he hand-drew and painted his own. It turned out great! Eli painted a giant squid fighting a sperm whale and Dylan painted a panda bear (mostly on his own). I LOVE that these boys love art!!

April 22, 2016

Charlie has been gone all week, but we made the most of it. Today's outing: the library and DQ. Beautiful day, fun activity, and the best company : )

April 21, 2016

I am so grateful that I am homeschooling the boys when I come across words like this in our Science book. Never in a million years would they read this in public school and I'm so thankful that they can learn the truth about the stars from the perspective of the MAKER of the stars!!

April 17, 2016

The Caveman Tri was the most insanely wild weather race I have ever experienced! It was supposed to start at 7am, but was delayed until 7:45 because of lightning. They were trying to determine if they would cancel the whole thing, cancel the bike portion or let it all go as planned. In the end, they let it go as planned and told people that they could decide on their own to do the bike portion or not. 

I thought I would make a last minute decision about the bike. I jumped in the water around 8:15am and by the time I finished 5:36 minutes later, I was on auto-pilot and ran straight to my bike. It was pouring!! I took the bike slow, and just kept thinking my weather motto ('there's no such thing as bad weather, only soft people"). I was slower than my last tri on the bike (obviously) coming in around 14.9 mph, but I crushed the run compared to last time!! My tri in September clocked me at 8:45/mile and this time I was at a 7:56!! 

In the end, I couldn't really compare this race to the last one because of the weather. I did cut a little time off my swim and a ton of time off my run, but my bike was much slower. I couldn't actually believe how fast the winners were still able to bike in the rain (20+ mph!!) By the time I sign up for my next tri, I would love to be confident on a road bike instead of racing on a mountain bike. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience!!

Final results: 1:18:27

275 Swim, 10.8 Bike, 3.1 Run

Age group: 9/21

Women: 54/177

The best part of waking the kids up at 5am for a race is when they fall asleep on you mid-afternoon : )

April 16, 2016

Garrett's last soccer game with the Panthers! This team has been a great fit for him over the last three seasons and it was been so fun watching him improve and get more confident in his skills. And he's pretty cute in his uniform too : )

(Back) Si, Samuel, Jacob

(Front) Ethan, Asher, Garrett, Daniel

April 14, 2016

My first painting class at Art in the Vine was so much fun! I wasn't crazy about the image, but I really like how she turned out, and I loved that the instructor let us personalize the colors. I'm going to miss these girls when we move to NC!

April 10, 2016

Garrett made up a song complete with instructions for how to play it. He made it all up himself!

April 9, 2016

So sweet. Dylan and Garner : )