Team Paintball party

Jeremy and the other docs have some of the greatest ideas for their team parties.  Their latest celebration was a night spent paintballing.  Almost none of the assistants had ever been, and didn't know what to expect.  But they enjoyed shooting their bosses so I think that's a win.  Jeremy and the other docs were in their element.  The stories they came home with, from assistants shooting the ceiling, to a a full blown attack from point-blank, make it sound amazing.  Jeremy is covered with welts though, and apparently that's a good thing for morale!

First day of school

The first day of school snuck up on us this year.  I think we were enjoying summer just a little bit too much.  So when school started the next day and we realized that the kids still didn't have their back to school looks figured out, we did what any girls would do in that situation.  We went to the mall.  McKenzie had a lot of success.  Cambrie's look is a little more unique, and she knows exactly what she likes and what she doesn't like.  That meant she came home with some new earrings, but not bags of goodies like her sister.  But we all had crepes for lunch and that's always a win.

The morning arrived and everyone was up and running around as we were trying to figure out what our new schedule feels like.  I had to make a cheat sheet so I can keep track of everyone's bell schedules.  

Cambrie was the first one out the door.  It's her first year of HIGH SCHOOL!  And we were both excited and nervous about it.  She and Megan decided to walk together that first day, which was great because that meant they didn't have to arrive alone.  

The boys were out the door next.  

Kelton is an old pro at this walk, and as soon as he saw Oliver he took off on his own.  Well, see you later bud!  

Daxton and I walked to the kindergarten door for the first day.  The longer we waited on the grass, the more quiet Daxton became.  

Luckily Elle showed up and welcomed him with open arms.  "Hi Daxton!  I'm excited about kindergarten.  Are you excited about kindergarten?  Do you like my pretty dress?  I have a new backpack!  Look, there's a girl over there with a cast on her leg.  Let's go say hi."  And on it went.  I've never been so grateful for a cheerful, talkative little girl.  She held his hand as they went and waited in line for Mrs. Olson, and stayed close to him.  I have no idea what the rest of the year will do to their friendship, but I love what it is right now.  

There he goes!

After school I found this sign displayed on the fence, and snapped this picture of Dax.  I wish I felt like 2034 was a long way away, but it's not!

McKenzie was the last to leave, which is ironic as she was up the earliest and ready the soonest.  

Her look would not be complete with her shiny new nails.

She had to wait for almost 45 minutes after her brothers left.  She will be riding her bike with kids from the neighborhood, and while she waited for their meet-up time she finally just hopped on her bike and started riding around in circles.  

I was able to get a picture of her, Mia, and Parker before they left for the larger biker gang.  Then suddenly my house was empty.  It was only going to be empty for about three hours this first day, but it was still strange.  I went to do my swim and on my way to Lifetime I finally had time to process all of my mom back-to-school thoughts.

"You would think by now that I would have this first day of school thing figured out. Unfortunately it doesn't actually get any better. This year's a little bit more intense because I have three kids at three new schools. It's a year of big unknowns for the three of them and they are nervous about it. Ultimately I know everyone will be okay. Everyone will be able to find their classes. Everyone will be able to find lunch. And despite what they might think right now, I know they'll all find friends. But it doesn't help the worry I feel in my mama heart. Sometimes I think I'm too tough to have emotions, and too tough to be worried about things like the first day of school. Then these days show up and I realize then I'm not. I gave the kids matching mom and me bracelets this year just as a little reminder that I'm always there for them. I thought it would help them, but I find myself tugging on my bracelet frequently thinking of them. I worry about Cambrie navigating the halls of a really big high school. I worry that she doesn't have classes or lunch with any of her core friends. I worry about her workload this year, both academically and athletically. I worry about this big world that she is entering into. I worry about McKenzie at middle school. The innocence of elementary school is going to be gone and she's going to be exposed to some things she probably hasn't seen before. I worry about her little sixth grade person in those great big halls. I don't think anyone really has a positive middle school experience, so I'm just hoping for a middle school experience that's okay. I'm worried about Kelton and his tender little heart. I hope that people don't take advantage of that and make him a target. I worry about Dax and his anxiety. He's been really excited to go to school these last couple of weeks, and even woke up today super excited. It wasn't until we walked onto the school grounds that the reality of what was happening sunk in and he started to withdraw into himself. Thankfully we found Elle who welcomed Daxton with big open arms. I hope that her friendliness and openness and generosity rubs off on him and gives him the strength that he needs to make it through this year. Today is a short orientation day so I will find out pretty soon how the day went for everyone. But none of that changes the fact that my mama heart is scared for them today. And even though I have this whole day of freedom for the first time, I find that I'm having a hard time keeping back the tears."

Boulder 70.3

I'm not going to lie, life has been really hard for me lately. Mostly it's a flare up of anxiety that has made dealing will all aspects of my life really difficult to handle.  So with Boulder 70.3 approaching, I had no idea how I wanted to race it.  I felt very apathetic towards the race and didn't really care how I did.  However, a quick email from Dan helped me refocus just enough to get my head in the right space to race.  Race morning I was feeling very nervous.  Bruce and Jeremy were racing too and they seemed perfectly calm.  That would be nice.  Even lined up at the swim start I had my usual race butterflies, but I also had this underlying stress that was making it really hard to feel ok.  However I'm pretty sure I was sent an angel in the shape of a college-age girl who was racing her first 70.3.  She was pumped and excited.  When the music started playing, she started singing and dancing, and got me to join her.  It was fun.  It was distracting.  And I actually smiled a real smile.  

The swim was uneventful.  I swam pretty straight.  I swam pretty much alone in clear water. And I came out ready to focus on step two.  That's all I could do at this race, just think about the next step and nothing more.  I didn't look at my watch the whole race so I wouldn't add stress to my load.  But apparently I was first out of the water.  It has been a long time since I've been able to do that, so that was really nice.

On the bike my instructions were to hold the front at all costs.  Since I knew I was out of the water near the front of the pack I knew that the strong bikers were going to slowly gain on me.  It was my job to hold them off for as long as I could.  I also knew that Jeremy was going to be chasing me.  We did the math and realized that we might be finishing the bike at the same time, so I was watching for him too.  One reason I like racing Boulder is that there are no surprises.  I know the roads and the course, and it's easy just to settle in.  So without looking at my computer or stressing about power or speed, I just rode.  My other instructions were to feel the race.  I really liked that.  It made me reconnect with why I race at a more intimate level.  The first girl finally passed me at mile 35.  I was pretty happy with that.  The second girl passed me at mile 50.  By then I was starting to feel tired.  I also knew that my nutrition was off for some reason and I wasn't feeling settled.  It was hard to eat. Luckily I was almost done with the bike though and that's always a big sigh of relief.

Out of T2

Onto the run I kept those instructions in my head, feel the race.  My first lap of the run felt amazing.  My cadence felt quick and I felt really comfortable.  I still hadn't see Jeremy so I was hoping that I would get a chance to glance behind me on some of the turn-arounds to see how he was doing.  I was on the course at the same time as the women pros and that was fun.  Here I am with Emma Pallant who went on to win.  The only difference was in this picture she looked like she was feeling amazing and I could feel myself starting to falter.  

My nutrition was starting to catch up to me.  I was running out of energy but nothing sounded good to eat.  I just hoped that I could finish before I threw up.  I could see other women who were stronger runners starting to catch up to me.  I knew I was near the front, but I was worried I was falling too far behind.  I was supposed to have a killer finish 5k.  Not looking at my watch I wasn't sure what pace I was running, but it didn't feel like a killer 5k.  

When I crossed the finish line I started crying.  This has been such an emotional journey lately that I was just crazy proud of myself for doing the race at all, much less doing it well.  I felt ill at that finish line and a medic kept an eye on me to make sure I wasn't going to lose my lunch..  Jeremy crossed the finish line not long after me.  He had a good race too.  Good enough that we decided it was worth sticking around for the roll-down because he might get his spot to worlds! This is how we celebrate after a race...laying on the hard cement because we don't even care how tired we are. 

While we waited for Bruce to finish we hung out with the kids who had come to cheer us on.  I had only seen them once during the race, but McKenzie and Kelton had run along side me for a brief second and I loved seeing their smiles as they chased me.  These guys make the cutest support crew.  

Keeping mom's medal safe

McKenzie looks pretty good in my aero helmet doesn't she?

Here comes Bruce

It was a good day at the awards ceremony.  I finally podiumed at Boulder.  Had I been able to keep that last 5k together I might have taken second instead of fourth, but I'm just going to have to be okay with that.  

And Jeremy did get his roll down spot.  So now both of us are going to worlds in St. George in a month.  Bruce also cut an hour off of his time and was pleased with how that went.  All in all it ended up being a great day for a race, even with the crazy smoke and haze in the air.

Annette: Swim 28:16, T1 2:09, Bike 2:34:17, T2 1:11, Run 1:47:51, Final 4:53:45

Jeremy: Swim 34:11, T1 2:12, Bike 2:28:16, T2 1:40, Run 1:51:08, Final 4:57:27

Bruce: Swim 38:34, T1 6:19, Bike 3:02:04, T2 6:24, Run 3:04:56, Final 6:58:18

Walls and some flooring

I think it's time I post some updates about the basement.  Things have been going very slowly.  Jeremy and I have both had so many other pressing matters that the basement has definitely fallen to the bottom of our priority list.  However we are still making some progress.  

The boys helping Jeremy while he put up insulation.

The TV built-in looks great (we definitely didn't build that).

As soon as I finished the floor in the storage room the kids decided it was their new fort and moved in immediately.  

They were super troopers and helped me install the floor in the workout room.  They just liked hitting things with the rubber mallet!

US Olympic Watch Party

After all of the chaos of the last couple of weeks, I decided (well Jeremy decided) that I needed to get away for some R&R. The timing was perfect then when I got an email from USA triathlon wondering if I wanted to go to a watch party down in Colorado Springs for the US Olympic mixed relay, and take a tour of the newly opened US Olympic and paralympic museum. 

The museum was incredible. They have paraphernalia from so many different games. They have all of the torches from every modern games. They also have every metal from every modern games. It was fascinating to see how both of those have evolved. They had a lot of interactive displays so that way you could pretend to be an Olympic athlete. I raced against Jesse Owens and lost in spectacular fashion. There was shooting, skeleton, and wheelchair hockey displays among others. They also showed a bunch of the paralympic technology that these athletes use. I think my favorite part, after seeing the medals and the torches, was seeing some of the athletes' Olympic gear. I saw gear for the miracle on ice hockey team, Kristie Yamagucci's ice skates, Nastia Lukin's leotard. It was just incredible to be there when emotions are running so high for the Olympics right now. More than once I got teary eyed by being inspired by it all. 

After we toured the museum we went upstairs for the watch party. Olympian Andy Potts was there providing commentary for the race. It was pretty sweet to be there among all these other triathletes watching the US compete. It was also really cool hearing Andy's insights on how the athletes were doing and what to expect. 

I didn't rush home right away. I decided to stay and have some more quiet time in Colorado Springs. I thought about going on some hikes, but I'm rained into my hotel for the afternoon. I've decided there are worse things than laying in bed and watching the Olympics uninterrupted all afternoon.