So long Laser Cannons!

This is my last post, no don't cry, we're just moving blog addresses. 
Here's what happened, blogger uploads pictures to picasa, and my picasa account is full! So that means I can no longer add pictures to my blog. And who just wants read about what is going on in my life?  There are options, I could buy more space (ugh), delete pictures (which would make previous post lose there pictures) or I could just start a new blog with my other email address.  I pick option 3, if you're willing to follow me there, it will be all the same crazy stuff, same people, just new name.


Come see us at our new place
http://spidercannon.blogspot.com/


Don't forget to update your blog with our new address.  Yes, as for now this blog will still stay up, you are welcome to browse and reminisce all you like.  As for me I am going to get blog book printed, so I don't have to reminisce online.


I've already got a few new posts at the new site, so see you all over there!

There are 2 type of Triathletes....

There are TWO type of Triathletes.....Those who pee in their wetsuits, and those who lie about it.

Part 1: Pre Race-

You know that feeling where you have a test and you didn't study, imagine that x100.  That's how freaked out I was about this race.  I've only done Sprint distance triathlons and this was my first Olympic distance (or International distance).  Sure, I trained, but until you do it there is a level of pure terror about the unexpected.

Saturday night Matt sets the alarm clock, 3:30 am (ugh, just thinking about it makes me sleepy).  I didn't sleep really well.  Neither did the kids, but that's how it always goes when you need to sleep.  The morning comes, the alarm goes off, I'm up and getting ready.  Matt calls to me, "Um, Terri... The alarm clock".  I start to panic. The time frame was important.  If I was late I would miss my race! You know that Seinfield episode with the marathon runner, well, I thought that that was going to happen to me. No, getting up late was not the problem, we got up an hour EARLY! Our clock thought it was daylight saving time and set itself forward 1 hour.  We got up at 2:30 am.  That's a first for me, sure I've stayed up that late, but never gotten up that early. We decided to stay awake and get everything ready and not worry about rushing. 

Once we got to Kemah Matt dropped me off and I got my bike set up in the transition area.  I walked about half a mile to the boat!  I got my wetsuit on and boarded. 

 This is the "Colonel". I was on the second floor with about 650 other racers. 

Part 2: The Swim-

The sun over the water was so pretty, but I didn't know about that till after the race. The boat took us out 1.5k (that's about 1 mile) and when the sun came up it was time to start the race.  Of course I still had to wait another 30 min. before I could start.  The pros (yes, real pro triathletes participated and won some serious dough) and basically everyone else got to go before I did.  The start was SCARY.  I knew we were going to have to jump in the ocean 1 mile out at sea, but I was not anticipating the drop.  It's not like jumping in a swimming pool a few inches below the edge, it was a 4-5 foot drop. And then it was rough, cold, water.  Hmm, a mile swim looks a lot longer as a strait shot.  You are basically in a long line, when your turn comes up, you just jump in and start swimming.  There is absolutely no time to hesitate, you just jump in and swim.  After I jumped in my first thought was that the wet suit was doing a good job keeping me warm, good! Second thought was how opaque the water was (hmm brown, nice). The third thought was (and the strongest thought was) how absolutely disgusting the sea water tasted in my mouth.  The water was choppy 1 1/2 foot swells, it made not swallowing the water very hard.  YUMMY, just what I wanted to wash down my breakfast, nasty brown, seawater!  There were people everywhere, arms, legs, heads, feet.  I got kicked punched and swam on and I even did my share of that too.  At one point I noticed that I hadn't been hit in a long time.  Shoot, I was way off course! There was a strong cross current that carried me away.  Then I had to spend precious time fighting the current to get back on course.  I'm complaining about the bad stuff, but I felt pretty good.  I came in just over the time I planned on doing it, but with my little detour, I'm happy about it.

Getting out of the water was new.  They had strippers (get your head out of the gutter) I'm talking about wetsuit strippers. Take the top off and then someone yanks the rest off, and voila, no more wetsuit! It's actually really impressive, since it takes 20 minutes to get a wetsuit on.  There was the longest run to the transition, and I was already tired.

Part 3: The bike-

15 mph winds on a bike makes for some slow biking. I had some good passing, that is to say, plenty of people passed me.  I coped with it by thinking that I already passed these people on the swim, and they were just catching up to me.  The ride was 40k (around 26 miles).  I wasn't worried about the distance I had been doing double that since the month before, but it seemed so long to me.  I was tired from the swim, battling the wind, and riding on an unknown course. Despite all that my time was about what I had been training for.  Here's a gross out factor, I kept blowing my nose, and the junk that came out was black from the nasty water! At about mile 20 I started to get really grateful for all the police holding up traffic for us.  So I started thanking them as I passed.  Some seemed pleased, some happy, some just nodded.  It made me feel good, so I kept doing it.   I know, I'm the only triathlete that cheers for the volunteers.

Part 4 - The dreaded Run-

I liked this picture of me in transition, I'm stuffing food in my pockets for the run, yum.

Okay so running is NOT my strongest sport.  And I was feeling drained.  The first mile was more of a walk/and run.  I was content doing what I needed to do to finish, so I wasn't worried about it. But after mile 1 I started to feel better, I got some energy back and started to run (albeit slowly). I ran most of the course, I stopped and walked at the water stations, but I was pleased with how I was feeling.  I continued my cheering for everyone, athletes that passed me, athletes I passed, people handing out water, police and paramedics.  I had a smile on my face the whole time.  The last two weeks I was having shin pain, so I didn't run for the two weeks leading up to the race.  It was the right choice, I had no shin pain! At about mile 3 a guy I passed on the bike cought up to me and starting running with me. It was nice to have some company, especially since we still had the causeway coming up.  The causeway scared me.  Sure there are little hills when I run (but this is Houston people) elevation changes in runs are not an issue.  But the causeway is the mother of hills, it's long and it's high, this is why the professional athletes were here. Yes, I did it I ran up the causeway, and then down it. Oh, but here's the best part, you turn around at the bottom, and get to do it again -nice. The second time around was not so great, it was mostly a run/walk hybrid again.  Oh and the worst part is the causeway is around mile 4.5 through mile 6, so you've already run a pretty good distance.  But at the bottom you are almost done.  I put it into high gear and sprinted across the finish (dang, I had enough to sprint, I should have run harder).

Overall Time 3hours 42 min. 

Part 5: Post race wrap up-

I had a blast.  I'm so glad I finished.  I am already starting to think about the next races and where I can do better.  This was definitely not your ma & pa's tri.  The athletes were serious about what they do.  I was the only one I talked to that didn't have a coach.  You didn't see mountain bikes, or touring bikes, they were all  tri bikes and fancy road bikes.  In my other races I was a super fast swimmer, in this race, I was in the middle of the pack swimmer.  In other races I am a middle of the pack biker, but in this race I was in the bottom half.  I am usually a back of the packer runner...hmm, at least that didn't change.

I have such a fun hobby, you should tri it! Get it.

Check out my cute cheering squad!

These boys got up so early to support me.  My husband is a saint, he's so supportive!

We thought we would be a little bad and have some Sunday family fun at the boardwalk. We let the boys ride a few rides and we all took a ride on the famous Kemah Train. I felt like a dork in my tri suit. I smelled, and my hair was stiff from saltwater, and I was covered in salt from sweating, but it was great fun.

My Dad

One of the best parts of my parents' trip to visit us was the pictures they brought.  My Grandmother passed away last year and we got some of her old photos.  There were lots of pictures, from pictures of my parents, to pictures of me as a little girl and even some pictures of my grandma with my kids!

Here are some never before seen pictures of my Dad as a little kid. Too good to pass up, sorry Dad, you were a cute little boy!

A baby picture of my dad (look at those curls!)

 His 3rd grade picture... what a nut!

Grandparents Round 2

I know it sounds a little scary, but we were excited to have a second round of visitors, really! My parents came down just one day after Mike went home, I had just enough time to do the laundry, clean the bathroom and the floors. But we got them all settled in to the grandparents suite (aka my sewing room).  We didn't do much, and we took even fewer pictures.  My dad was experiencing really bad allergies, and we got to take him to the urgent care clinic, where they gave him some medicine that helped him feel better fast.  We were really happy he didn't need a hospital visit!  Here he is having Ian read him a story (which takes lots of patience, he's a good little reader, but he likes to put comments in on every page).

 Grandma Lil got the boys a craft project when we were at Lowe's, we came home and put them together. I wish I would have gotten more pictures of this, because it was the women helping the boys with the manly project.

We spent a lovely afternoon at the park

Brave little jumping boys.

 I wish I would have taken pictures of Grandma light saber fighting with the boys, that was too funny! 

We did so many fun things, pedicures and inside jokes, movies, food, an epic game of pass the pigs (where I dominated) a date, and antique shopping. We did get a picture of me messing around at the antique store.  I found the saddest little mink stole, it had little legs and everything, I still couldn't resist dressing up with him.   

Matt, Pi, Cake, Presents, & Running

We celebrated the geekiest of holidays, Pi day! If you love Math or if you're nerdy enough to be married to someone who does, then you must remember that Pi day is March 14th (that's 3-14 for you slow people out there). For some reason, you celebrate pi day by eating pie (maybe because they are circles... who knows).

We discovered the the best apple cobbler, and then we combined it with Blue Bell pecan praline and carmel ice cream (yes, I have turned into that kind of Texan, bluebell is simply the best ice cream), omnomnom.  We also had a key lime pie, but it was just okay (still searching for a good store bought key lime).  Here's what we did on Pi day.... 2(pi) +I = yummy  (where I= ice cream)

Matt had a Birthday shout Hooray!

I gave Matt just what he wanted... cleaning supplies (and some candy too). 

I made the BEST birthday cake, it was so good.

A week long of eating leftover cake and pie... sounds like it'a time for a run!

 Matt ran his first race, it so happens that his first race ever is a half marathon! We got up early (thankfully you don't have to wake up too early for races where you only run, and you don't have to worry about too much gear). Grandma Lil and Grandpa Frank came to visit so I didn't have to drag the kids out of bed early, we had a great time being together without kids.  If Matt was nervous you couldn't tell. I felt great, it was fun to be at a race and not be racing! I know Matt was worried about his old-man knees, but they held out great. He did wonderfully and did his race in half the time it took for me to do mine.

 Honestly he wasn't even tired after his race, he even made a yummy lunch right after he got home.  The boys and I were at the finish to cheer him on.  He came in 9th in his age group and 142nd overall out of over 700 people (I wish I was fast). Matt Cannon you're my hero! I can't wait to see how fast he can do the next one!

Grandma and Bapa Come for a visit... and stay for the hospital.

We were so excited to have our first visitors! Grandma and Bapa drove all the way from NM to visit us in our new house.  I think Matt and I were even more excited then the boys (which is saying quite a lot). Saturday morning we got up and headed to Brazos Bend, which is now just a 20 min drive from our house, it was a glorious day, the alligators were out.

 Sunday we got to visit Mary in Surfside, the boys loved her house (I think they would rather have a beach house the ours, and it has nothing to do with the proximity to the beach) We talked, and enjoyed some pizza, then we went for a stroll to the beach. Ian was still pretty wiped our from being sick, we're glad he had Bapa to snuggle with. Jason loves playing in the ocean, and took no time rolling up his pants and hopping in. Ahh, so you noticed Joani isn't in the pictures, well, she's wasn't feeling well, and was laying down at Mary's place.

 Sunday night was rough, on Joani, she wasn't feeling good, she didn't sleep, Monday morning she went to the ER.  It was a rough couple of days for her, we would visit, or just sit and hold her hand.  To complicate matters the kids were on spring break, but Mike and I figured out quickly that we could help each other out by switching places.  He would take the kids in the afternoon, and I would spend time with Joani.  Matt would come visit after work, we did this for about a full week, it worked great.  The boys got to have special one on one time with Bapa, and I got some girly time with Joani.  We would make the transfer at the hospital so the boys could say Hi to Grandma.  Jason was curious about everything, asking what things were and why she needed them.  I can't imagine what it must have been like for Mike and Joani, It's not fun being sick, or being Hospitalized, but to have to do it away from home would be really hard.

I'm actually a little disappointed that I didn't get to see the magic tricks first hand! Good thing my kids picked up a few tricks, because I got to see some from them.

Oh, that's what exciting is like... I think i'd like boring back.

So my last post was about nothing special, in fact you could say it was a little boring. Just a note to the blogger, don't ask for excitement because it might not all be good or expected.  Over the past couple of weeks life has been far from boring. I have pictures and a full update coming, but for now, I just need to catch my breath, be grateful for all I have, and learn to love the boring things in life.

Here is a quick summary of the past couple weeks.
Week 1: Ian stays home from school for a whole week with the flu, 104+ fevers, lots of TLC and and a little stress.

Week 2: Spring Break! Grandma Joani and Bapa come for a visit, yeah! We had two fun days of enjoying TX weather and some sights, then Grandma Joani got sick...talk about excitement. Life kinda changed for a week.  We couldn't have been happier about the extended vacation, but the means were rough. We are truly thankful for the Houston Health Care system, good hospitals, supportive families, and many prayers. The week had some fun too: Pi day, Matt's Birthday, Magic Tricks, and bingo, were all mixed in with hospitals and medication (stay tuned for photos!)

Week 3: We got Bapa and Joani home safely and caught up on laundry for round 2 of visitors. Grandma Lil and Grandpa Frank stopped by for some much needed fun and a little R&R.  Matt ran a Half Marathon, and did great (he didn't even seem tired). Then we took my dad to the ER (yikes talk about worrying about round two!), but he was okay after some Rx's!  We are starting to think that family is just visiting us for Houston's health care system.  All our guests have left and we are settling back into boring mode (and I couldn't be happier).   Now I just need to get my head around my race on Sunday, should be fun...