It seems impossible to do these days. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get enough done; from house work, to work, to keeping in touch with anyone except my parents, not enough sleep, etc. That’s life I suppose, but I hate having such long to-do lists all the time. So, in lieu of catching up in my blogging world and boring you with a slew of separate blogs, I will try to capture the last few months with bullet points:
- In April, our immediate family celebrated Scott’s 40th with a surprise dinner. An even bigger, and quite wonderful, surprise to Scott was having his father and Kathy fly in for it. It was quite a night and I am blessed to have such a fabulous family!
- A few months ago I woke up with a nice pain in my lower back. It turned out to be a spasm so I’ve been getting chiro treatments ever since. They worked and the spasm is gone, but now I have 3 bulging discs. They are minor as they can be treated with more chiro visits. The worst case scenario would be a cortisone shot, no big deal at all. In the meantime, I have the green light to continue training although flip turns and open water swimming aggravate it so I am no longer doing those. Sitting isn’t fun either, but I don’t do much of that. 😉
- We enjoyed a fun Father’s Day at the Arlington Race Track. It would have been even more enjoyable had we won any money. 😉
- My race season has fared pretty well. Last weekend I won a 2 mile open water swim in Crystal Lake. Well, it was supposed to be 2 miles…it was 3!!! I had a few clients do it too so I felt terrible about the extra mileage as 2 miles was long for them. Sorry guys, way to hang tough! The next day I did an Olympic distance tri in Lake Zurich and defended my title. Ouch that hurt, but it felt great to win!
- I’ve been happy with my running for the most part this season, especially since I’ve only been able (doctors orders) to run 40 minutes at a time since November. I’ve worked even harder mentally because of this. I still want, and believe, I can go faster, but I no longer feel it’s necessary for ME to put in long runs in order to do so as I’ve been right on my best times. *After 6 years of coaching with New Trier, this is my first summer with them. Unfortunately, I am only able to be on deck a couple evenings a week, but it helps me stay connected to the swimmers and coaches.
- I love love love my masters coaching gig with Glenbrook Aquatics! It’s been a great 1.5yrs thus far and the team has flourished from about 15 members to over 60! The best part? It’s simply a great bunch of people! And, sometimes they allow me to be entertained by doing some silly/fun/different sets; swimming with one leg in the air, vertical kicking while playing duck duck swim, mass swimming sans lane lines, get out width sprints followed by push-ups, tombstone kicking, etc.
- For 4 consecutive years in Seattle, we had a Bradbury Bash where everyone had to bring an item which started with the letter ‘B.’ It was awesome so we thought we’d make an attempt to do something similar here. 80’s was the theme and there were some great costumes and good times.
- The 4th of July was a blast at our family cabin in Michigan. We had about 20 people for a couple nights so many of us had to camp, real camping that is with tents and sleeping bags. Sarah, Court, and of course Clayton loved it all too, yay!!! *Tornado!!! A few weeks ago, we had one hit just a block away! Quite the scary experience as several huge old trees came a tumbling down in our area…and so did our power. Fortunately, no one was hurt and we had no damage.
- Storm #2! No tornado, just some nasty winds, enough to take out more trees and cut our power for 4 days. Thankfully our neighbor Jake across the street kept our refrigerator plugged in! Thanks Jake! (A neighbor of ours has been a resident here for over 50 years. She said our side of the street always loses power, but she has yet to see the other side of the street do so. Odd).
- Thanks to Weeji, we have a vegetable garden again this year. I think she put steroids in the ground as all is growing in leaps and bounds! The corn, cucumbers, and beans are HUGE! It’s fun to have as the girls, like us, love to pick things daily and eat them too. A few types of tomatoes and peppers and a plethora of herbs are also in the mix. Yum!
- Great Grandma Trudy (to the girls) was here last week for a nice little visit. Unfortunately we aren’t able to see her often as she resides in NC, but we try to make the best out our time when she’s here. S&C had a ball with her! Love you Trudy!
- Scott’s doing great. Work remains a joy and he is quite the father, coach, sherpa, and husband! His run training has been going really well too…although we are not certain which race he is shooting for…
- Sarah and Courtney have been busy this summer as they had a month of summer school, gymnastics weekly, 3 weeks of swim lessons, and this week is bible school, all of which they love. They also did their first race, a 50 yard dash. They loved it so much, they did it again, and again, again. But like mom, they are truly like a pig in mud when it comes to the pool. Smiles abound!!! 😉
- I’ve been in mourning the last couple days as S&C will no longer be 3. Where did time go and how did the get so tall??? 😦 They are a hoot now though. They get mad when they can’t exercise, they always want to put on ‘exercise clothes,’ they cry because they can’t run with us, and Sarah even requested a heart rate monitor for her birthday. Yep, so we’re getting them bikes for their birthday. <a href=”http://villagecyclesport.com/”>Village CycleSport </a>was a huge hit for them to test out their cycling skills only Courtney whined when she first hopped on as she complained that she couldn’t clip in her shoes!!! At this rate, they’ll be burned out of triathlons by the time they are 8!
- And last, but not least…big news will be coming your way within a few months! ;)</
Multisport coaching. 