Spudman

First of all, there are a couple of pictures that I apparently forgot to download from my camera.  Tyler's class went to visit a fire station a couple of weeks ago, and these pictures are too cute to not put up here.

Tyler got to try on a fireman's coat!  He thought that was rather interesting.  They also got to see all the firetrucks and listen to a fireman tell them about his job for a while.  Tyler's teacher had asked them to bring a thank you note for the firemen, so afterward I gave Tyler the "Thank You!" picture he colored and told him to go give it to the fireman.  He didn't stick around long once he did his job, so this picture is of him running away instead of talking to the fireman.  But he was sure proud of himself for doing what I asked him to do!

With that out of the way, on to current events.  We spent the weekend up in Idaho to watch Daddy run the Spudman triathalon.  It was his longest triathalon yet, and he did great!  When I asked him where I should be at what times so I could watch him, he said that he expected that it would take him about three hours.  But his final time was under 2.5 hours!

Now, in theory, I should have pictures of him swimming, biking and running.  But waking up the kids that early was tough, and the swim started so early that even he barely made it in time.  In fact, I should tell that story.  They left with plenty of time, but got stuck in traffic.  So when he was jogging in, he heard them send off the first wave of people.  The waves are 5 minutes apart, and he only needed to drop off his bag in the transition area and walk down to the dock, so he figured he could make it just fine.  But somehow they didn't actually wait 5 minutes, because they sent off his wave while he was still on the dock!  He had to rush past everybody, struggling to get his swim cap on as he went, and then when he finally dove into the water a minute behind his time the water was so cold he had to backstroke for 30 seconds while he caught his breath.  Needless to say, he was quite the entertainment for everyone standing ready for their start times.  But he was rather pleased when he started to catch up to his wave before they even finished the swim.

Anyway, I tried to get us set up to see him as he started out on the bike route.  I stood there with the kids examining everyone that zoomed by for a half an hour before finally giving up.  I had missed him.  So we headed down to the waterfront where he would come in to transition into running.  Thankfully, there was a playground for the kids.  It wasn't much - slide, teeter totter and jungle gym - but they didn't care.  Heaven.

I made sure I was in place to watch Christopher bike past in plenty of time, since I figured I just missed him the first time.  But once again, I never found him!  This time, we figure I missed him as he came in with a big group, because I really was there at the right time.  But since I didn't know that, I walked to the finish line trying to decide if he was having the race of his life or if he had crashed and would finish with the 60 year olds in a few hours.

I was so glad when I found him running into the finish line!

Two of Christopher's co-workers ran as well, and all three of them were very happy with their times.

The race was in Burley, but the closest hotel we found was an hour away in Twin Falls.  And I have to say, we were quite impressed by Twin Falls.  My expectations were somewhere along the Rawlins, Wyoming level - I expected a nothin' town in the middle of nowhere.  But our hotel was beautiful, we were three minutes from Costco, Wal-mart, Target and Macy's, and we saw all kinds of restaurants we wanted to try out.  We went to the hotel pool twice, where Daddy could soak in the hot tub and the kids could have an absolute blast playing around.  And we also figured we would check out the Shoshone falls.  Once again, I was expecting a tiny waterfall.

Wow!  Not bad!  There was a spot up the river a bit where all the locals were swimming, cliff diving, and having some weekend barbeques.  Our kids loved the playground in that park.

As we headed out of town, we went to a lookout point near our hotel.  The huge canyon was beautiful!

What a great trip!  Christopher is so hooked on triathalons now that he is signed up for a Half IronMan in a month.  If you have never heard of an IronMan before, they are insane.  It is a triathalon where the run portion alone is a full Marathon.  The swim is 2.4 miles, and the bike is 112 miles.  Each portion is insane, so why not do them all right in a row?  And of course, this is Christopher's new goal in life.  He is hoping to be in shape for one at the end of next year.