The Big Race

We finished our first duathlon! It was a lot of fun. It was a 2 mile run,16mile bike, 3mile run. Getting off the bike to the run is such a weird feeling. We had a few friends racing too. Toni was with us of course, it was bittersweet as this is our last race together in Ohio. But we're looking forward to meeting up for a race in the near future. It was perfect weather and good scenery. Besides it being a little unorganized at the end where it took a few extra hours to track down our bags it was a great race! Ray did awesome, it was a lot of fun to finally race together again, it's been 6 years.

Here are the kids on one of their many bike rides these last few weeks. They've been troopers , this day got a little hot but they didn't complain once. Ray and I are both racing on Saturday, we'll let you know how it turns out. After our ride last week we passed this post office box. I thought it was pretty unique, worth stopping for a pic! And a few pics from our most recent trip to the science center.

Kate's Craft Carrier

I wanted to attempt quilting and had a project in mind so I made the outside of this notebook a few months ago. It has now sat for so long I can barely remember what I made it for. Kate saw it and asked me to make a notebook for her. So this is what it turned into. The inside blue is lined with plastic (thanks to Stephanie for telling me about clear interfacing, I've used it many times), the bottom left pocket is a clear zipper pocket meant for stickers etc., and the top is a crayon pocket (thanks to Rochelle - she has a great crayon roll idea to check out), and the right is just to stuff paper or whatever in. I'm going to make a mini chalk board to just sit in the notebook. I'm hoping this will hold all her crafting needs for our long car journey coming up. A friend of mine encouraged me to take pics along the way to show how it was made. I took a few which didn't turn out so I guess you'll have to chat with me if you want to make one. I am going to attempt a similar thing to put our quiet book in.

Double Dose

What a week we've had. Our house is much quieter this morning, almost lonely. We've had two friends staying with us for the past week and with them gone my kids don't know what to do. We stayed busy and did so many fun things this last week. Here are a few pics. The first morning I rode the bike and Ray ran while pushing two of them, we played in the sprinkler almost every day, played at the park, pizza night twice, had a barbecue with friends twice, had a garage sale, rode bikes, went to the fountains with the dancing bunnies, Kate took her friend to dance class with her and loved it, had movie night more than once, searched for frogs at the pond and ate lots of treats! I think we might take a breather today. As much work as it was I liked having 4 kids in the house, felt full and fun. Plus we've lived next to these friends for over 7 years, our kids have known each other their entire lives, Ray has known them since high school, if not before and we will be sad to say goodbye in 4 weeks. We were glad for the chance to spend more time with them, especially when they all got along!

More zoo

We can't get enough of the zoo animals - It is a good day when we get to the zoo and we got to go twice this week! That makes it a great week. On Tuesday we went solo, just me and the kids. I think that is always fun because we can let Jack lead and we just follow him around. We even got him to ride on the horse on the carousel, he usually prefers to sit on one of the benches. Although you'll see by the last picture he had had enough!
Then we went later in the week with friends. I'm disappointed I didn't have my camera that day because we went on the boat ride for the first time this year. And at the petting zoo they have the cutest little baby goats. They are only 2 weeks old. They are about the size of a cat just bouncing around running from all the kids. Anyone local should try to go see them soon, they were the cutest baby animal I've seen there.
At one point about 10 or so goats and sheep were lined up around some hay eating. Although Jack is a bit scared of the carousel horse, the goats don't phase him. He was right there picking hay off their backs and adding it to the pile for them to eat. Then he'd run to the far corner gather up hay and bring it back for them. One of the goats hit Jack from the side as he swung around and jack knocked him right back. It was so hilarious, he really fit right in with them.
We have had fantastic weather, warm with a slight breeze, cool nights - doesn't get much better than this.