July

Well July went out with a bang (in San Diego - more on that in my next post)!

 But let's start with the beginning. We convinced our girls to join us on a July 4th hike. We hiked Wetterhorn basin and it did not disappoint!

Ben and I did not mean to be this patriotic - but it worked. :)

It was a gorgeous hike and a perfect day for it.

Pictures are a bit out of order, but so be it. This was our destination spot - we made the summit and then dropped down just a little bit. We didn't go all the way down to the basin. This was a fun shot - I was so happy it worked! Look closely . . . 

We had some fun at our turn-around spot with silly/creative photos . . . 

Wetterhorn Peak - a 14er that Ben and Paul summited last summer. Whoa!

There was still quite a bit of snow as we neared the top. This part was super-sketchy and once Ben made it to the top, he directed us to a slightly-less sketchy route. We made it. :)

Next up was we girls heading over to Utah to see my sister and her family. They were out west for a few weeks and so we got to spend a little time with them. It was truly great to see them! We had some fun dinners, played some fun games, and enjoyed an afternoon in Park City. Our kids (my girls and Erin's boys) went on the mountain coaster ride and the alpine slide. A first for my girls. They had a good time! The only lame thing about the trip was me not getting any pictures of Erin or her family. :(

July was also exciting for me as I had my first colonoscopy - whoop, whoop. The prep went okay . . . until it didn't. Then I was up until like 2 am using the toilet. Lame. The procedure itself was totally fine - but man was I bloated and distended afterwards. I was not a fan and glad I had a perfect-looking colon and won't have to do that for another 10 years!

The breakfast, lunch and dinner of colonoscopy prep! :)

Lucy went to the Stake Youth Conference and had a lot of fun! As soon as she got home she went to work on taking down her room decor and getting it all ready to redo. We pulled her peed-on Bella carpet out and painted the walls all white. Ben created a pallet-bed for her (her request) and Lucy loves it. :) It's fun and definitely "more mature" than it was.

Cute!

Our garden started to take off (it's even more blossoming now. . . )!

Jonas, while at A.I.T, enjoyed an awesome concert by the Gary Sinise band (Lt. Dan from Forrest Gump). Jonas said it was really great and that Gary Sinise was actually there, too. Fun!

We ended July heading to Cali-for-ni-A. . . More on that soon!

Happy Birthday Goose!

Happy birthday Lucy - also known as "Luce," "Goose," and "Loosey-Goosey." 14 years young today . . . but old to you, I guess. It's not so much that you're fourteen now, it's more that you're now in high school. That's what's crazy! You actually started high school at age 13 seeing as you are one of the youngest in your grade and school started super-duper early this year! You were definitely one of the youngest and shortest freshman there. :) Your first day of orientation included A LOT of, "Oh are you a Maxwell!?" comments from the teachers and staff there. Haha. And I think every single one of your teachers this year has had at least one of your siblings - which is a good thing, even for those connected to Jonas, ha! The teachers all enjoyed your siblings and are happy to have you in their classes. Here's to a great year Lucy - both your year-of-14 and your freshman year!

You are well into teenage-hood now. Gone are the sweet and innocent days of Lucy and here are the teenage-attitude years . . . mixed in with a bit of sweetness. :) You are growing up and are developing your own personality and your own ideas and your own sass. Yep, you've got plenty of that, too! It's not just Emmy these days . . . haha.

You are a good and smart student and I hope that continues. High school gets a bit tougher and you are in a lot of honors classes and so I hope you can arise to the occasion - I KNOW you can; I just HOPE you do! You have a lot of friends, but your best-friends at the moment are Lila (who lives in Utah but you two get together several times a year and act as if no time at all has passed) and Ruby N. They are fun friends and I am so glad you have them!

You like to be busy - usually busy with friends. Definitely not busy with cleaning up/doing chores. (You used to be so good with keeping your things picked up . . . now, not so much. Your room might look clean (don't look under the bed), but the closet you share across the hall with dad is always in chaos and the hallway itself is a mess ("But my room is clean!"). As soon as you came back from YW camp (getting anywhere from 2-4 hours of sleep at night), you started prepping your room to paint. You were devastated (in a bad, not sad, way) that dad and I wouldn't begin painting your room at 8pm that night . . . I helped you the next day and dad did the finishing touches later that week. And you got a new look to your room - created and designed by you (and Pinterest). All white walls (no more kiddie-cute green and yellow) and we pulled out your carpet (stunk like Bella pee . . . :( ). You wanted a crate-bed and so dad and I (mainly dad) made one for you. It's a different room, but definitely has YOU written all over it. Teenage YOU that is. :) I like it!

You had a great season in gymnastics in your first year as a Platinum-level gymnast. You pulled off a back-handspring on the beam and managed your fly-aways from the bar and performed well at all your meets. You went to state and did so well - including a 7th all-around placement! Go you! You tried a new sport this year - track. You made some mistakes (ahem, hand-off temper-tantrum), but overall did a fantastic job - especially for your first year of it! You were fast at the 100 meter sprint and was always in the top-4. You participated in relays (earning 1st) and the long-jump as well. It was a great experience in many ways and now you are planning on doing it in high school.

You are a confident and intelligent and good girl. You are generally upbeat and positive about life. I know you will be successful in whatever you put your mind and heart into - be that interior design, architect, or in the Air Force (all ideas you've had). Your future is bright and I am happy to be along for the ride  and to watch and help you learn and grow into all you can do and be.

I love you - even the teenage you. So much. So very much. :)

Love,

mom

Lake to Lake Triathlon 2024

For some reason (because I have so many photos?!) I have been putting off this post . . . but I need to get it done, so here we go . . . 

Last year Ben and I had talked about "upping" our triathlon game - meaning, moving up to the next level. Which meant an Olympic-distance tri versus the sprints we had been doing for the past few years. Ben obviously went crazy and signed up for a half-Ironman, but I kept within my limits and signed up for an Olympic-distance triathlon, haha.

The Olympic-distance tri is about double the distances of the sprint - except the swim is actually more than double. The sprints seem to vary in their distances, but are usually around a 300-750 meter swim, a 15-ish mile bike ride, and a 5k run. The Olympic-distance triathlons seem a bit more standard and are the following: a 1500 meter swim (close to a mile, especially when taking into account all the non-straight lines you swim in open-water ha), a 30-mile bike ride, and a 10k (6.2 miles) run.

We signed up for the Lake to Lake Triathlon held in Loveland, Colorado - for mainly the reason of our good friends (and neighbors) who help run it with their family. Our friends, Alex and Molly Shockley, help Peggy Shockley (Alex's mom) put on the triathlon. She's been doing it since 2001. This was to be her last year running it and so we decided what better (and last!) time for us to do it with the Shockley family as a huge part of it.

Ben and I signed up early and began our training. Ben's training was really training for the half-Ironman and then stepping back for this, ha. Mine included the longest bike-rides I had ever ridden (I was doing one 35-mile ride a week, plus one shorter one) and swimming in open-water. Yuck! Actually, Taviwach (the local pond) wasn't horrible and I felt pretty comfortable with it.

As Emmy prepared for her lifeguard test and training, Ben took her swimming at the rec's pool. Emmy, who hadn't swam in years, did great and was motivated to sign up for the sprint triathlon. So we signed her up, too! Her training was definitely sub-par, but she did a few bikes rides and a few open-water swims with us at Taviwach. (Emmy was always awfully un-happy getting up early to go swimming . . . but she was also pretty happy at the end. Funny how that happens . . .)

Anyways, this is already so long and I haven't even begun race day, ha! Loveland is north of Denver and my best-friend, who moved from here a few years ago, lives in Johnstown - about 15 minutes from Loveland. So we stayed with Sarah (Bugarin) and her family the evening before the race. It was delightful and I just love them so - especially Sarah. :) We walked around their beautiful neighborhood and I truly ached for a beautiful neighborhood (love my house, but not our 'hood).

We then got up bright and early on Saturday, June 22nd. We got ourselves ready and out the door and to the race venue. From there we were setting up our bikes and transitions, etc. Debbie, Ben's sister, was staying with her parents in Littleton for a few weeks and she made the early-morning drive up to Loveland and was there to see all of us compete. It was so fun to have her there! She hung out with Lucy and so it was good for them both to have each other. 

We were all set-up and dressed (getting on wetsuits is No Joke) and then it was game-on.

Ben began at 7:04; I started at 7:12; Emmy started at 7:42. Or close to that.

Ben: He, of course, rocked it. It's a bit tougher competition than a sprint (you weed out a lot of athletes who can't or won't train for the longer distances), but a bit easier than the half-Ironman. Ben ended up placing 55th overall (out of 220 competitors), 43rd overall male (out of 133), and 5th overall in his age-group (out of 12). Pretty impressive! I spend some free-time at work and came up with the following in his age group: 9th in swimming, 4th in biking, and 5th in the run. His times in the overall male category were the following (remember, out of 133): 82nd in swimming, 38th in biking, and 41st in the run. Pretty great! His overall time was 2:54:40. Splits: swimming 35:30 (includes the 1/4 mile distance between the shore and the transition area), 1:261:14 on the bike, and 48:41 on the run. He met all of his goals, which I don't remember what they were. But he met them, yay!

Me: I almost quit twice in the water. I don't know what happened. Panic attack? Even though I didn't feel nervous at all about the open-water - I mean, I always have nerves beginning any racing event, and this was no different. I can't even really explain it - but I felt flushed and a sense of impending doom. That literally is the best way to describe it. I felt it twice. It was awful and that thought of not finishing was more awful. But I don't know . . . I prayed and just kept swimming hoping it would go away. And it did. But then it came back. But then it left again and I was pretty good for the rest of the swim. I still am nervous about doing an open-water swim again because I think my body will remember that sense of impending doom and I am just nervous of it happening again. Sigh. So I was glad to have done it and get out of the water. I was a bit bummed of my swim time - not my actual swim time, it was decent for me (43 or so minutes). But I took my sweet time to get to the transition area, which was about 1/4 mile away. And that few-extra minutes just makes me mad, ha. But now I know . . . I LOVED the bike ride, which is shocking because biking is so hard for me. But I felt so strong and absolutely loved the course. I passed a lot of other riders and that felt pretty, ummm, awesome. There were some great climbs and amazing and fun descents. I would ride it again just for fun! The run was kind of long and it was just hot for me . . . I hate running later than 8am in the summer and by the time I was running, it was almost 10 and just sunny and hot. But I kept up a decent pace and had a decent run. 

I ended up placing 150th overall (out of 220), 47th overall female (out of 87), and 8th overall in my age group (out of 10). Not amazing but okay. In my age group I was the 9th swimmer (not last!!!), 8th biker, and 5th runner. Overall for females I was 77th (out of 87) in the swim, 42nd in the bike, and 26th in the run. Anyways, my overall time was 3:35:59. I was wanting under 4 hours and so I was super happy with my results! My splits were 46:22 on the swim, 1:48:36 on the bike, and 55:25 on the run.

Emmy had a good race and was happy - which was the best result of all! She ended up getting last in her age group, but for not really training at her full-capacity I was just glad she did it and felt good about her performance. :) She felt really strong with her bike ride and was happy about that. She went faster than she'd ever gone before in a training ride and so that was exciting. (Emmy's distances were exactly half of what Ben and I did - a 750 meter swim, 15-mile bike ride, and a 5k run.) Emmy got 8th out of 8 in her age division. :) She was 185th out of 277 in overall sprint athletes, and 91st out of 162 in the female athletes. Her splits were: swimming 22:22 (112th in the female category - so out of 162), biking 58:21 (107th), and running 29:47 (63rd). Not bad at all for her minimal training and it being her first full sprint triathlon. I was just happy that she was happy! 

Alrighty, now on to pictures . . . 

Getting ready in the morning at Sarah's house. See how thrilled Emmy looks, haha!

One of the hardest things just about done - getting our wetsuits on. Aiyiyi.

It was so fun to have Debbie - and Lucy! - there to cheer us on and get lots of great photos and videos. :)

Ben getting ready for his swim!

My turn in the water . . .

Ben and I were off in the water and Emmy was hanging out with Debbie and Lucy until her time to go.

Getting close!

And she's up!

Ben had a good swim!

Two thumbs-up from Emmy - can't beat that.

Emmy coming back from her bike ride.

Ben coming in from his fast riding.

Whoop, whoop! Emmy's all done!

The finished pretty close to each other and so that was kind of fun! Go Emmy and Ben!

My turn to finally finish, yay!

Here's a link to a lot of the videos we got! It's long so no worries about watching it or not. :)

After hanging out, getting pictures, grabbing some food, visiting with the Shockleys, etc., we were ready to go. But on the way home we had to stop at Buc-ee's. I had only heard of this the year before (I think it was then) from Erin. It's basically a gas-station on TEXAS STEROIDS. Haha. It was awesome and we had fun in the crazy huge store. What an adventure for sure. All in all, a really great day!

June 2024 is Over

 

I am pretty sure we have had the wettest June we've ever experienced in Montrose. So much rain! I think Bella was burying a bone in the mud and came in with this beauty of a face . . . Brigham has been tormented by the thunder. So much so that he ate up our hot tub lid. Goof.

Goodbye Jonas! Jonas flew to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri to begin his AIT. He gets a lot more phone privileges than at boot camp and so that is at least something good! Jonas crushed his ACFT (Army physical fitness test) and got the top score in his group of 72 soldiers. So awesome!

This is what Jonas is being trained on how to drive. They started off driving it about 50 feet, but have now moved on to much longer courses. Jonas told me about this compliment he got on the longer course: "I didn't get yelled at once on the radio." Haha, for the Army that's a HUGE compliment not getting yelled at. :)

Emmy finally brought home AND showed me her gym photos. I love them! I love the messy chalk - so fun.

Her Diamond team: Ruby, Risha, and Kiera. Emmy, Aby, Liv, Denae, and Audrey. 

Lucy ended the month going to our stake Young Women's camp. She had a fabulous time!

Her cabin.

Lake time = best time.

Lucy and a new friend from a different ward. 

Lucy and Jadyn.

Lucy and more friends.

And that's June for ya!