Triathlon-Kansas City

Finally...the much anticipated pictures of the triathlon.  Andy has been training like crazy for this and it paid off.  He had a great finishing time and felt good throughout and at the end.  As we speak, he is training for the 1/2 Ironman, which is in 2 weeks.  But for now....his latest adventure:

Andy and Rob preparing for the swim (Dane and Drake on either side of Rob)

 Both of them watching the Professionals start their swim

Andy's age group (red caps) waiting to leave the "gate" to do 1500 meter swim.

Andy after his swim...he's smiling and getting ready to high-five us.

Looking Great!

Dane and Drake waiting with their cowbells (to make lots of noise) and the sign we made.  We're waiting for Andy after his transition from the swim to his biking leg of this race.

Here he is...saddling up and going!

This would be the longest leg...40k...here they are on the blanket drawing pictures for Dad and enjoying snacks while he rides his bike.

He flew past us when finishing his bike...so here he is entering the transition area to begin his run.

And for the last leg...10k run...white shirt, red hat...still going strong and smiling:)

At the end...Rob and Alana

Rob and Andy packing up bikes

The two TRIATHLETES!

Our family picture....strategically placed in front of the porta potties...instead of standing a few feet over and having the lake as our backdrop!

I'm so PROUD of you ANDY!

Springing into Summer Part 2

Apparently I missed several photos when I did the previous post.  So here is part 2...the other one was lengthy anyway, right?

Here's our last day of soccer.  It was plenty warm and you can tell by Drake's red little face.  But he's happy with his snacks and trophy.  

 I have a picture of Drake right after the game, however I was unable to get a picture of Dane since our coach had to be the ref she told me I would be the coach.  So she briefed me on the rules right before the game.  The only thing I have going for me is I could run the whole hour and keep up with the kids.  I must say, it was a lot of fun.  

Here's a pic of them relaxing in the shade before we rushed off to see Andy in Kansas City for his triathlon.  That's the next post...I promise!

The Passion Painter came to our church and after he was done everyone had an opportunity to purchase one.  We chose the far right one, but we wanted the far left one as well.  These are on 4' x 6' canvas and are amazing.

Dane and Drake built a habitat for our turtle.  I wrote their names on it before we let him/her go home to mom and dad at bedtime.

Drake was helping me make homemade bread.  See the size of the pan; we made 6 loaves!  I'm sure if he had a tank on (and not his pj's) we'd see his muscles popping out with all the effort he's putting into it.

Early release day and it was raining...so I let the kids who came over for a play date play the WII.

Dane has lost another tooth.  This time I was at his school eating lunch with him so I got to go to the nurse with him; she gave him a cool tooth necklace.  I remember only getting mine wrapped in a Kleenex when I lost mine at school.

Apparently I also didn't include all of the Easter pictures either.  Here they are on Easter morning and it's actually what they ate for breakfast too.  See below....

I also found this cool idea on Pinterest:  Deviled eggs, Easter/Spring style.  I did a Halloween version in which each looked like an eyeball, but this was cool too.

Drake sleeping in the car.  I can never get enough of these pictures:

I chaperoned Dane's class to Purina Farms and it rained....no it poured....the whole time.  No worries we had umbrellas and raincoats and the show went on.....we just watched it from the pavilion rather than the bleachers.

Another sleeping picture

Andy and I went on a date and when we came home Drake had caught a salamander and a frog.  So we set them free to go home to their families and went to bed.  Drake was very upset but agreed to let them go home.  In the middle of the night I woke up and he was crying.  I went in there to see what was wrong and he said in his pitiful sobbing voice, "I miss my salamander."  If it wasn't the middle of the night I might have smiled or even been more sympathetic.  Instead I promised we could look for another one tomorrow and said, "good night!"

Our friend Julie has a lake house and she often invites us to spend days with her.  We fished while Rob and Andy trained in open water for the triathlon.  Grandpa would be so proud with the boys using the poles and tackle boxes he bought for them.  They use the wagons he bought for each of them on their 1st birthdays to make habitats for their critters too.

After a long day of fishing and swimming.

Drake is very proud of his army set-up.  You can't see it from this picture, but it goes around his bed and he also has soldiers staged on his shelf beside him.

Midwest (our company) sponsors athletic events.  Here are 5 of the 6 of us who did the 10K run in Owensville, MO.  Shown here:  Amber, me, Andy, Jessica & Denise (Rick left before the picture).

And here's Dane afterwards....

And Drake....

Mother's Day!  My alarm went off at 7 to work-out before church and Andy said to stay in bed.  He went and woke the boys up and they delivered me roses to bed.  Then Dane (the host) gave me a breakfast menu and took my order.  Drake (the waiter) brought me coffee and my silverware.  They did this for lunch and dinner too, but by then we'd gone to church and I was not in bed anymore.

All the great things they made for me....

The menus Andy designed.....

Tomorrow school is out and I am so excited to have time with the boys.  And really, the triathlon is next....give me a couple days.  I've already downloaded the pics, I just need to organize them:)

Sprinting into Spring

Somehow it has been a couple months since my last posting and again...I will try....no scratch that, I've already said it and failed, so I'll just say this...I'll try to post again soon.  Actually I need to because Andy did is triathlon yesterday and did great and of course I need to post those pics before his 1/2 Ironman in a few weeks.  Speaking of triathlons, we did a family bike ride and of course Drake was bored so we returned to the park to collect rocks and karate kick trees, but Dane and Andy rode for 10 miles!  That's Dane's longest ride and I am very impressed:)  He is supposed to do IronKids in September so we hooked him up with swimming lessons to learn to swim distance and now he's excited about it.

Here's a random picture of Drake in his pajama's and cowboy get-up.

Dane had his 1st grade musical and here he is with a few of his buddies.

We met my friend Emily and her family at the mall and all of the kids jumped.  Here's Dane....

And now Drake's turn....

Basketball has ended....actually soccer has since started and ended too, but I'll get to that in the next post.  Here's Drake....#1

 Here he is shooting the ball during practice

And here's Dane....#6

We went to Lone Elk park and saw lots of animals and since it's Spring I anticipated seeing little ones, but we were a few weeks early.  But it's always a fun place and they really like going up in this tower.

The Easter Bunny invited us to eat breakfast with him again at the zoo and here the boys are checking out the fish tank in the dining room while we waited for our food.

Of course you can't go to the zoo without riding the train (which is the main reason we are zoo members...free parking and free train rides!)

We colored a few Easter eggs.  We actually colored 3 batches.  This was the glitter batch, we had the space batch and the neon color batch.

Our subdivision had an Easter Egg hunt...in addition to the one I had at our house and the one at church...we had a surplus of candy...we still have some that no one wants anymore.

Most of you know that we do Foster Care for Bethany Christian Services.  There is no Children's Division involvement and it's generally short-term for families in crisis.  I don't have any face shots to protect their identity, but I have been able to catch some cute pics.  Here's Dane helping K (3 years old) up the steps at a restaurant.

 And here's K loving on Chloe.  He loved our dogs.  He only stayed with us a few days.

C (8) and C (6) are jumping on the trampoline with Dane and Drake.  They came to live with us in March and are returning home this Thursday after school is out.

For St. Patrick's day Dane thought we should try to capture a Leprechaun again.  So he built this box and I only helped a little with the ladder.  We scattered pennies around it and......

 Well, he must have caught one, but it escaped and in doing so left a huge mess...ripped the box, turned over pictures...oh, if we would have caught him, we would have made leprechaun stew!

And of course the easiest treats in the world to make...rice krispees...green:)

On early release day we had a water day since it was so warm...and our horses decided to join in on the fun.

 And so did all the neighbor kids....10 total...it was so fun.  I love the noise of kids laughing and playing.

Ice Cream for dinner anyone?  It was really hot after soccer practice so I took a vote on who wanted to eat Ice cream for dinner and it was unanimous.

Dane and C doing homework during their last couple of weeks of school.

Thanks for reading and keeping up with us.  Look back in a week or so and I'll have Andy's triathlon posted....maybe:)