Oops.

So, this really cool family just moved into our ward. They have four children. A boy age 8 (I think), a boy age 6, a girl almost 5, and a new baby. They are super nice, and their kids are much better behaved than ours. Keep reading for a great demonstration.

Monday evening they invited us to their home for Family Home Evening. Since my brother Scoot was here, he was able to go with us. They gave a short lesson, and then we had ice-cream cones. After the ice-cream, we all went upstairs. The kids played (quite nice actually) while we played pool. (They are renting the home and it has a pool table.)

While we were playing pool, the mom looks over at Alex and says, "Uh oh." He was in their laundry room (adjacent to their bathroom, which I guess he didn't' know about...) with his pants and undies pulled down around his ankles. He was standing over the garbage can....Yeah....He had "relieved himself" in the garbage can. Luckily, for the first time in his short life, he had perfect aim. It all landed in the grocery sack they had lining the garbage can. We showed him where the toilet was to finish his "business", and cleaned up the mess the best we could.

Mortification was achieved on our part.

New Blog!

http://iworkharderthanyou.blogspot.com/

I've created a new blog to help motivate me. I'm hoping others with join in as contributors. This way you can post your own workouts and we can compare notes, gain ideas, and hopefully help motivate each other.

Today was a horrible day to start my new blog. I did absolutely NOTHING today. I was going to go swimming, but the kids changed my plans when they wouldn't go to sleep for their naps.

I met with my Dr. yesterday, and I've been "grounded" from running for about six months. I was diagnosed with achilles tendonitis. I have to work on strengthening my calf muscles so my tendons won't be irritated when running. Until they're strong enough (he estimates about 6 months) I have to lay off. So, I guess it's going to be biking and swimming for now. Tomorrow I have plans to head to Coeur D Alene for a good swim workout. I guess we'll see if I actually do it. Check out my new blog to see if I did!

http://iworkharderthanyou.blogspot.com/

Oh...to be 4!

A 8 year old girl in our ward was baptized last night. I thought it would be good to take Brenton to it. I spent part of the day trying to explain to him what a baptism is. I explained that when someone is baptized, they are baptized by immersion. This means that they are put all the way under that water. After a couple of good conversations regarding baptism, I thought he had a small understanding of what he would watch that evening.

Once we were dressed in our Sunday best, we headed to the church. Brenton asked me again where we were going. I told him to the church for the baptism. He got these HUGE eyes and said, "MOM! We can't go! I forget my goggles!"

I once again explained that you have to be eight years old to be baptized, and this wasn't his baptism. I guess I need to be more diligent when it comes to teaching my children gospel topics.

Why do we wear clothes?

True story...

Alex came up to me with no shirt on, just his pants and underwear.

Steph: "Where are your clothes?"
Alex: "I took it off, it was wet."
Steph: "Go get a new shirt and put it on."
Alex: "Okay."

A few minutes later, Alex comes back downstairs with a shirt on, but no pants or underwear.

Steph: "Where are your pants and underwear?!"
Alex: "I took them off."
Steph: "Go put them on!"
Alex: "Why?"
Steph: "Because we cover up our private parts and we wear clothes!" (He's been told this numerous times!)
Alex: "Okay."

Alex goes back upstairs to get some pants on. A few minutes later he comes down with no clothes on at all!

Steph: "Where are your clothes?!"
Alex: "I don't know."

So, I go up and help him pick out clothes to put on. I see the NUMEROUS outfits sprawled all over his bedroom floor.

Steph: "Why are all these clothes out of your drawers?"
Alex: "I had to find clothes to wear."

Our little rocker

"Look Mom!"

Brenton has outgrown his current underwear, so I bought him a few packs of the next size up. I put the new ones in his drawer without showing them to him. A few hours later, he made the discovery of the new underwear. He came downstairs and said, "Look mom, I'm wearing ALL my new underwear!" He was so excited about the underwear, that he'd put every single pair on.

New goal

Now that my triathlon is over, I need a new goal. Any suggestions? I still have weight to loose, and a new goal is necessary to stay on the road to a healthy lifestyle. Help me come up with a new plan. I'm open to all suggestions.

I Tried a Tri!!!

I "competed" (that is in quotes because my goal was to just finish the race) in my first ever triathlon. To be clear, it was actually a sprint triathlon. (1/2 distance of a full triathlon.) This entailed a 1/2 mile swim, 10 mile bike, and 5K run. My friend Crystal & I have been going to a local gym for about six months now, three mornings a week, but I still lacked the real motivation to work hard enough to do a whole lot of good.

My friend Mary had a baby about four months ago, and she really wanted to work on getting back into shape. Somehow triathlons came up in one of our conversations, and we decided we should try it. So, we registered for one on August 1st in Hayden, ID. We had a goal, which kind of caused us to kick our "training" up a notch. :)

We started working on our running/walking, biking, and swimming. We joined a gym in Coeur D 'Alene that had a pool. I helped Mary with her stroke, and she helped me with the motivation I needed to work hard during my workouts. I actually discovered that I still enjoyed swimming. I've hated swimming since the one year I swam in college. I wasn't happy with how swimming ended for me, and I've kind of avoided it since then. I'm finally over the bad feelings I have toward swimming. I'm to the point now that I really want to keep doing it. I wish there were a local Masters team I could join.

Anyway, when the triathlon was getting closer, I emailed my friend Kelly (my roommate from college) and told her about my triathlon. I jokingly told her she should fly out and do it with me. (She is still in amazing shape. She still swims, bikes, and even plays ice-hockey! Pretty cool, huh.) Kelly, being the amazing friend that she is, decided that she would come out and do the triathlon with me! She hates to run, and informed me that she would NOT run, but she'd walk that part. After she made her plans, I was actually getting excited to do this!

Here are the pictures from our wonderful, fun, and torturous day!

Us before the race. We are such studs!!!
Left to right: Kelly, me, Mary

Kelly & I coming in after the biking. (Kelly stayed with me during the swim and the bike. She was such an amazing support!)

Me coming in at the end of the tri. That last .5 mi run was the longest and hardest 1/2 mile I've EVER done! Kelly and I walked most of the first part of the run. I decided that I would run the last 1 1/2 miles of the race. I was able to do that, and still be able to walk after it was over. Kelly managed to even run some of it (even though she swore she wasn't going to!)

All of us after the race. Look, we're actually smiling. It was a surprisingly fun day. Thanks for the motivation Mary, and thanks for the amazing support Kelly! Oh yeah...Crystal, thanks for the bike donation. It was wonderful!

If you'd like to see the pathetic results go to The Hayden View Triathlon. I did pretty well at the swim. When I was exiting the water from the swim (keep in mind I am still about 20 lbs overweight) I actually heard someone say, "SHE swam that fast?" I'm not kidding. Those were the exact words. Wouldn't it have been funny if I stopped, walked over to him and said, "Yeah, and I'll kick your butt if you'd like to race right now!" I may be fat, but I can still swim!! :)

The only thing I'm really disappointed with is the run. I'd made it up to running 2 miles (without stopping) a few weeks before the race. This is something that I've never before done. After the day I did my 2 miles, (which actually felt great!) my calves started to hurt. They weren't hurting in the front, so I knew it wasn't shin splints. I thought maybe it was just sore muscles. This continued even though I was stretching, taking IBUprofren, and doing an ice/heat regimen. The pain began radiating from my calves to my ankles. It got to the point (even though I was no longer running) that I could barely even walk on them. The right is much worse than my left, but some days my left hurts, also. After doing some research, I'm pretty sure I either pulled a tendon, or developed tendinitis in my ankles. The injury is common in "middle-aged, overweight men who begin to exercise". Well, I fit all of that, except I'm a woman instead of a man. I have yet to go to the Dr. for it, but since it's not improving that much, even with rest, I guess I'm still going to have to go.

Anyway, I was happy that I was able to run the last 1.5 miles of the race and still be able to walk afterwards. That was a good thing...but my original goal was to be able to run the entire thing. Oh well. I guess life happens.

My timing goal was met. My goal was to finish in under 2 1/2 hours. I actually finished in under 2, so that was also good.

Now that you've read an entire short novel detailing my triathlon adventure, I'd better sign off. Thanks for everyone who supported me in this life changing event. :)