John's Duathlon

At the same time Dallen was doing his triathlon, I did a duathlon, which is a 3.1 mile run, 18.6 mile bike and another 3.1 mile run. This was my first duathlon ever, and it was the longest race I've ever done. I got 28th place out of about 150-160 participants with a time of 1:42.13. It was pretty fun, but not as fun as triathlons. Results here.

Dallen does a triathlon

Mom has pointed out that everybody but April is too lazy to post so I will try to do better.

I did my first triathlon of the year yesterday. It was About 49 degrees for the race. I was worried about how cold it would be in the 58 degree water, but after a couple minutes it wasn't all that bad. My feet did completely freeze when I was on my bike. 50 degrees is too cold to bike with wet feet and no socks. They were completely numb until halfway through the run. I did the race in about 1:06 and got somewhere between 3rd and 6th place. Proof here.(3 people who beat me in the results didn't go through all the checkpoints. They may or may not have actually done the whole race.)

I was most proud of the fact that I had the 18th fastest swim out of 278 people. Much improved from last year. I might have done ever better if I was capable of swiming in a straight line. Sadly somebody beat me by one second on the run.

I don't have any photos because Marie was home with sick Jonah, but I do have this.



Now I have a photo

Blake Is (kindof) Potty Trained

We finally have Blake Potty trained. He peed in the potty for the first time a couple days ago. Yesterday he woke up dry and peed in the potty. Then he peed in the potty 5 more times throughout the day and never once in his unders. Then he woke up dry again this morning (unlike either of his brothers). His favorite part is the treat he gets each time (which has now been reduced from a mini-candy bar to an M&M). Now if we could just get Jill to do something about that hairy belly of hers . . .

New purchase

Marie and I are now the proud new owners of this new pool table.



It cost us about 250K and as a bonus it came with this nice house.



We are signing a contract to rent the place for about 6 months and then purchase it. Hopefully we will have enough money for a down payment by then. The pool table and most of the furniture in the house came in the deal.

If you want to see more the house is here

And the Winner Is........................

April is the official winner of the family fitness challenge. I only added up the top three placers because I didn't want everyone else to feel bad. Here are the results.

April had 90 points. During the challenge she lost 20 pounds and ran one race.

Dallen had 88 points. He ran several races before he had an injury.

John also had 88 points. He also completed several races.

All of us did an excellent job. However, everyone needs to mail April $10.00. I will be checking to make sure that she gets her just reward. Maybe she will get herself something new and very cute to run in.

Fun Days

Here are some of the things we have done over the past few weeks. Claire had her first soccer games. She may not have made the most goals, but she was the cutest!


Jonah came to play. We loved seeing the train and the depot and was even happier when someone gave him a balloon.


We tried to feed the ducks but everyone else did that day also and they weren't hungry so we went to feed the fish instead.

Blake was very excited to turn three years old.

Jonah and Lauren become "kissin Cousins"


All the grandkids had fun playing together.

Jonah got to feed some food to a goat. He thought it was a lot of fun.



Too bad he didn't have a fruit snack or he might have kissed the goat!


Fun at the zoo

(Somebody has to post other than April)

Hard Work Pays Off

This year was my TWENTIETH year anniversary for work. In the past they always had a nice awards dinner. This year they canceled it because of budget cuts. The school felt sorry for the five employees at our school that reached milestone years so they had a little get together with crackers and cheese and all the wine you could drink! This was the prize that I got. I'm not so sure I am going to work long enough to go for the 25 year prize. It did have some Hersheys kisses in it also. The first night Ben wanted some and I told him "no way" I worked way too hard for those. Later on I was nice and shared.

Our 5K date

April and I had a hot date on Saturday! April complained (jokingly) that I left her during the race though! We ran a 5K in Copperas Cove, Texas. The course was challenging with a big long hill. We both did great. April had been training since February and this was her second 5K this season. She ran the course in 30:57 and I ran it in 26:09. She got 7th in her age group and I got 6th. The race had about 600 people that ran it. We are now looking for more races for this summer and are excited to be doing this together. Now that the track season is over I am excited to have more time to train and hope to drop my time significantly. April is working to get her time under 30 minutes. She will get there. I am so proud of her doing this and wish that I would work as hard as she is. It is crazy that I complain about not having time to train but she is managing to get in her training while being such a good mom to Reagan and Benson in addition to taking care of our home and of course the biggest kid, ME!!

It's official...

My dad is getting married in June to Arlene Shaffer! I know that you guys grew up and went to Borah with her kids. We are happy for him and are excited that he is so happy! Here is what their announcement looks like.

Kickball

Some ladies and I started a kickball league with most of the children in the ward that are 3. We meet every Thursday at one of the elementary schools and let the kids play kickball. The kids all have a blast playing. It is quite hilarious watching them play. There is a huge range of skills. Some don't really get the game at all. No matter how many times you explain where to run they don't get it. Reagan is on the other spectrum. I wouldn't say he fully understands the game but he has a greater understanding than the other kids. He can also kick the ball pretty far. None of the kid have very long attention spans. After about 20 minutes there all playing in the dirt and picking dandelions. So we end the game and let the kids play at the playground.

Reagan getting ready to kick the ball.


Reagan big kick.


Running to first base.


Watching the kicker so he would know when to run to the next base.


He absolutely loves playing kickball and looks forward to playing every week.


The cutest kickball fan in my opinion.


Did you notice that Reagan has his tongue sticking out in almost all of the pictures?

splash pad

It been getting pretty hot here lately so we did play group at the splash pad on Thursday. Reagan has been wanting to go out and play in the water for a couple months now so he was pretty excited when I took. Benson discovered one of the sprayers and thought it was pretty fun sticking his hand in it. Here some pictures of the fun.

Primary Talk

Reagan is giving his first talk in primary on Sunday. He is pretty excited. He has been practicing all week. Here is a video of him practicing his talk. When I watched the video I could imagine what Abe must have looked like when he gave his primary talks. Sorry, I guess not holding still is genetic.