Zach's Final Fall Hockey Game! (November)

Zach had a great season of Hockey (Roller Hockey, that is) this past fall. His team for the season was the Flames and he was able to get the red jerseys this season (his favorite color). He had a great time and really improved on his defensive skills. In fact, he played back on defense 9 1/2 out of ten times (he gets that from his mom - always liking defense more than offense). He is learning to skate backwards and "poke" check to get the puck away from the other players.

His team ended up getting first place for the season and on November 24th, they had the championship of the tournament for their age bracket. The tournament had started a few weeks before (during my triathlon) and as the first place team, they played the fourth place team. Unfortunately, they had a bad game and ended up losing. They began the journey up the loser's bracket the following Saturday (Nov. 22nd) by playing the 3rd place team and winning. On Monday, the 24th, they played the 4th place team again and won. They had an hour to rest and eat some oranges and get ready for the championship. Luckily, they were able to rest enough and played an amazing game and won again! Good job Zach! Here's a picture of his team getting their trophies:

The little guy on the far left is (was?) only four years old. He started the season not being able to get up if he fell and only being able to grip the hockey stick if it was placed just right in his glove. By the end of the season he could get up by himself and was even beginning to move toward the puck. He was fun to watch. As you can see, they all worked very hard and we had a great season!

Good Job Zach! We look forward to another fun season!

My First Triathlon (November 2008)

I know most of you already know this, but this past November I ran a "Beginner" triathlon in St. George. I wanted a goal to work toward to get in shape. Otherwise, it's hard to get out of bed and run (or bike or swim) - especially now that it's cold outside. Anyway, I actually enjoyed training for it and I got really excited to do an athletic event again (I miss High School Sports!) I was pretty nervous before it started - you can ask poor Ryan who had to hear all about it and listen to me agonize about it - but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (probably because it was only a beginner's distance).Here's me before the race started. Zach says he can see the nervousness in my eyes!

Now I'll take you through the race from the bystander's point of view (thanks for taking the pics Ryan!) This is me in line waiting to start the race. I met a great lady (Tracy in the blue) from the Salt Lake area that I got to know and I'll look for this Spring.


Here is me swimming and "gasping" for air!

In this shot I'm in my first transition from the swim to the bike. It was only in the upper 40's when we started the race, so that's why I'm wearing all the clothes. While it made for a comfortable race after the swim, it made me take way too long in the transition area. I took over 3 minutes and if I would have cut off two, I could have almost won the beginning distance for women!


Now I'm taking my bike up the path for the 5 mile ride...

Ryan and I had gone to check in and view the course the night before the race. Although it was dark, I made him drive the bike course so I would know what to expect. I was scared to death because there were a lot of hills and I hadn't practiced any at all (where do you have hills in Vegas?!) It ended up not being as bad as I had anticipated, thank goodness! Here I come down into the parking lot after my bike ride.


The run was the last part and I have to admit that I thought it wouldn't be too bad because I've done a lot of running to practice (or so I thought...) I guess it's a lot different when you don't have to swim 200 meters and ride 5 miles on a bike BEFORE doing that run. Anyway, here I come down one of the last hills into the home stretch. What a great feeling it was to run that last 100 meters knowing I was almost done (especially compared to the first 100 meters knowing I had a mile and a half still to run!)

Overall, it was a great experience for me. As for results, here goes:

In the Beginner Distance I placed 20th out of about 68 runners total (men, women and teenagers).
I placed 8th out of all of the women (all ages and I'm not sure how many - I didn't want to keep on counting).
In my age group I placed 3rd (men and women - about 10 total)
In my age group of females I placed 1st! (about 3 or 4 total)

I was about 8 minutes off the fastest time (a male) and about 2 minutes off the fastest female. I'm sure the results will be quite different when I try it again in April as I'll be going twice the distance...

Valley of Fire Trip (11/1)

I have to admit that the Holidays really threw me for a loop with my blogging! I'm hoping to get more used to it to be better at it next year. In the mean time I want to highlight a few "happenings" in November and December. Then I can hopefully keep up!

On November 1st, we, and by we I mean Ryan, Me, Zach, Kaitlyn and Caleb (Will was having fun with his grandparents for a special day) headed out to the Valley of Fire. We had such a great time rock climbing at Red Rock that we wanted to try it again. We stopped at the picnic area first and had some hot dogs and goodies and then started on the hike to the Mouse Tank. I carried Caleb in the back pack and Ryan carried his camera bag (which probably weighed more than Caleb!) Here we are at the top of the Mouse Tank rock.

Zach and Kaitlyn had a good time finding holes to climb in so Ryan could take some fun shots of them peeking out. They thought it was pretty cool to hide in the rocks and Caleb thought it was fun to try eating the sand...


On the way back to the parking lot, we went a different route, off the beaten path, and came across an amazing arch. We decided to climb up and get a few shots on top of it (yes, we're crazy!)Of course Ryan was able to capture a lot of amazing shots, so I put a collage together of my favorites. Good job Rye! We had a great time and the kids want to go back soon!