Cap Tex Tri

Right after we got back from vacation, my friend Danielle and I competed in our very first Olympic Distance Triathlon. The distances are supposed to be 1500Meter Swim, 24.8Mile Bike and 6.2Mile run. That is what we trained for. We both finished with respectable times, but thought we would do better. (We take out about 15 minutes of my time because I had to change flat tire.) Anyways, we learned about a week later that the actual distances were measured wrong. So the swim was really 1800Meters, the bike was right and the run was really 6.6Miles. Whew. That explains why our times were off.

Danielle and I spent lots and lots of Saturday mornings riding our bikes and running together. She has become a great friend. She has 3 kids so I'm always asking her for advice...let's face it...she's been there. Danielle has such a great story of God's love for His children and how he chases after them. She's just such a joyful person...love you Dani!

This picture is grainy because I took it off of the race website. We were a little nervous for the race to finally start and to actually get to see how our training paid off!

Destin 2010

In May, Daniel's parents took the family to Destin for a vacation. It was awesome! I'm kicking myself now for not taking a single picture of our house. It was so huge and nice. It felt like we were staying in someone's mansion.
We did a lot of relaxing, swimming in the pool, swimming at the beach and eating.


Clarke absolutely LOVES to swim. And he's pretty good at it too. He's not scared one bit. We have to keep a very close eye on him because he will run away from us and jump into the pool...no reservations at all.

It was fun to spend some good time with Gracie Beth. She's such a good baby. We were laughing at how different we are with Grace and Clarke at that age. Grace was 6 months on this trip. Everyone was still really careful with her. By that age with Clarke, we were already throwing him up in the air (not too far) and starting to wrestle with him...not GB. We just sit and look at her and tell her how pretty and sweet she is :).


One morning we attempted to take a family picture. Unfortunately, I didn't plan it out very well. We should have positioned ourselves more creatively. We all look uncomfortable and awkward...which, this family is neither of those two things.


The Harrell Family


The Edwards Family

This was a great trip. Daniel and I are blessed to have such great family on both sides. We also both really enjoy eachother's family, Which I think is rare in an 'in-law' type setting. I'm very thankful for that!

My Friend Rachel...From Washington

"My friend Rachel, from Washington State..." That's how I start alot of my sentences. Rachel is one of my very best friends. Even though we spent less than a year living in the same town, or state for that matter, we have continued to have one of the most special friendships. We don't talk nearly as much as I would like, but we do get to catch up really well about once a month. We usually get a few short phone calls in before one long catch up session...
Rachel and Addelyn came to Texas to visit us! We had not gotten to meet each other's kids in almost 2 years. Crazy! We kept talking about how different it is when we hang out now. Not bad different. Just different. Here's a few pictures from that week.

Both of the kids LOVE Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. So we pretty much kept that on repeat while Adde was here. The difference (one of many) in Clarke and Adde, is that Adde will sit and watch a full show. Clarke however, is the blur you see in the middle of this picture. He just likes it on for background noise while he goes from toy to toy to toy.



Other than eat (which we did alot of) we took Rachel to see the famous Bats in Austin. We didn't have a great seat, but it was still fun. Austin is the home to the largest urban bat colony in the world. Every summer, they live under the Congress bridge. At sunset they all fly out down the river in search of food. It's pretty neat to see millions (literally) of bats flying through the sky. They look like smoke when you can see them really well. They even show up on the weather radar maps as a cloud. They are stinky though.


These kids were so sweet to each other, most of the time. I can't tell you how many times we made them kiss and hug each other...they didn't mind. I like how innocent their kisses are at this age...I'm sure Adde's daddy Eric will probably get a gun out in a few years if he catches Clarke kissing her like this.


And this is the best picture we got of us with both of our kids...We did have several attempts.


Rach with our sweet kids.
Rachel will be having her next little boy Payne any day now. I hope it's not two years before I get to meet him.

The Ranch House

Our friends the Barretts have a ranch house just outside of San Marcos. They invited all of us to go out there and cook hotdogs. This was way back in April. I'm behind :)> Anyways, here's a few pictures from that night. It was so fun. The Barretts know how to throw a party.

Clarke and Daniel. This was probably about 10pm. Clarke had so much fun that night. He didn't even sleep on the carride home. I'm not sure we got home before 11pm, but he was WIRED.


My sweet friends from the gym. The pregnant girls have both had their babies. On the same day, in fact. Very sweet little boys.


Rylee, hammin' it up.


More kids playing. I think they all had a blast!

Thanks, Barretts, for hosting another great party! Ya'll are the best.

Deep Thoughts

Not long ago, Clarke got sick. I hate when Clarke gets sick. However, it is the only time that he will snuggle and let me hold him. So, it's a special time.

I got to thinking about it, and I feel like my eyes were opened up to a new aspect of God's love for us. Hang with me for a minute. When do we really crawl up into God's lap and let him hold us and know that he is the only thing that can make it "better"? It's when we are hurting from a loss, or overwhelmed or whatever it is in your life. So, I know God does not love for his children to hurt, but I really feel like he LOVES the sweet time we spend with him in our desperation. I have no Biblical reverences for this thought. So it's free.

Thank you Lord for sweet times with Clarke and for allowing me the opportunity to spend sweet time with you.

Our Crazy Life

Sorry to both of our readers for my slacker postings lately. We've been busy. Here's a little picture post about what's been going on...


Clarke turned 2 last week. He was really into presents this year. He did the typical boy thing and threw the clothes out of the bag, as if they were tissue paper, until he got to the toys. Clarke has been so much fun lately. Here's a few cute stories:

He's talking a ton...and all of the time. He's rarely quiet unless he's sleeping. We've been doing our numbers lately. Clarke usually just repeats us 1-10. And then we do them in Spanish. Well, last week in the car, he did 1-4 by himself IN SPANISH. Yup, that's right, he's a Mexican.

We've been allowing Clarke to make some of his own (age appropriate) decisions. His favorite thing is to tell us what he wants for lunch. The first time I asked him, he said "Cake". Ha. He also likes and has asked for chicken salad, yogurt, mac and cheese, rice, gold fish, raisins, grapes, tomatoes and a sandwich.

He's in his big boy bed now. We found an incredible deal on a sweet bunk bed on Craigslist. It's "T" shaped and has a ton of storage. It's a twin on top and a full on bottom. He's done so well with sleeping in it. It really only took a few days of him getting up a nap time a couple of times and then getting into trouble to learn to stay in his bed.

When we tell Clarke to shake his booty, he puts his hands on his face and stomps his feet. I'm not sure why.

He loves music. The other day he had a fit in the car because he wanted "the B song". That would be the Blackeyed Peas song "Imma Be".

We took Clarke to Chick-fil-a (his favorite) for dinner on his birthday. He ate a ton of pickles and chicken nuggets. Some time around 1am he woke up crying. It's pretty rare that he wakes up in the middle of the night, so I brought him in the bed with us. Well, he ended up throwing up because he had eaten too much. He looked at me and said "I burped a chicken. I go night night now." Ugh, could he get any cuter???

We've been reading the "Jesus Story Book Bible" every night at bed time. He loves it. After the story, we talk about what the story taught us and then pray for courage, obedience, love etc. The other night, Ginger was keeping him. After she read the story, he wouldn't let her leave. He said "no Gi Gi, prayers".


This is Clarke's hair when he wakes up most days.


After birthday cake.


I'm not sure what' he's telling Gracie Beth here, but I'm sure it's important. He was so good with her when they came to visit. He loves "Gracie Beff". He's always asking where she is.


And there's his sweet face again. Such a great kid. We are so thankful that God has trusted us with this life. Here's to not screwing him up too much :)>

Gluten

I've been reading and hearing a ton about how good a Gluten Free diet can be for some people. It's a great for some people that have Celiac Disease, Autism and even MS. So, as a family, we don't have any of those issues. In fact, we are blessed to rarely be sick at all. Knock on wood, but Daniel and I haven't even been to a doctor for the last 2 years that we have lived in Austin.
However, I do know some people that have some health issues and concerns that might be helped out by a gluten free diet. I've passed on the little information that I know about gluten to them.
I decided last week that D. and I would try to be completely gluten free for a short period of time. Here are my thoughts from the last several days of our gluten free lifestyle:

• I could do it, if I had to
• We love that corn tortillas are a great substitute for flour ones
• I need a lot more carbs in my diet than a gluten free diet allows (i teach 6 classes a week and i'm working on training for a 10K and a triathlon)
• As long as french fries aren't battered in flour, they are gluten free :).

So, all in all, Gluten free is not really for our family. However, we will try to cut down on some of the glutens in our life. We can certainly sub corn for flour tortillas, rice or egg noodles for regular noodles and potato chips and corn chips for cheetos and nacho cheese doritos. All of those substitutes are also less processed and have 'all natural' or 'organic' options. So that's always good. Whole grains and fiber are good for most people. That's what we will stick to when choosing bread for rolls or sandwiches. My friend Jen calls it a gluten light diet. I like that option :)> .