Race Update

So much to say about our race. I'll try to be brief.

Started out with a 1 mile run. I thought "I can do this". Did not figure in my 30 pound pack. Ran the whole way but that's all I can say for myself.

Got to the canoe and had to PORTAGE it! Yikes. This canoe was not meant to be carried on the shoulders. It had cup holders of all things that cut into my neck and bruised my spine. By the time we got to the water I was nearly crying.

Got in the canoe. Paddled 14 miles down stream. Passed one 24 hour team. Yikes for them. We did pretty well and only argued a tad. Realized that arguing in a race is over way quicker than in real life because you can't get away! You forgive and forget and MOVE ON.

Got to the bike. Could hardly get on it because I was shivering so bad from being soaking wet. Dried out quickly however. Being pulled behind Dave's bike on a tow rope at a million miles per hour will do that.

Stopped for an orienteering course. Did farely well, found all the checkpoints and moved on back to the bike. Dave and I hadn't biked as much as we should have but still felt we did well overall for the biking.

Back to the Boy Scout Camp to pump up the packraft. Wish I had a picture of Dave sitting in the back and me lying on my stomach on the front of the boat with my legs on Dave. But I don't have a picture. It was really hard to paddle straight out in front of myself but we did it. Took us 50 min. to go 1 mile upstream and 19 min. to come back. Hard paddle indeed.

Went the second 'O' course. This was tricky. We never did find number thirty four even though we searched for two hours. So we ended up quiting because we were at the 12 hour mark. Never got to do the ropes section which they put at the end. Although, I did get to practice ascending the night before. It was not as difficult as I had worked myself up over.

The best part?

We WON!!!!!

For our 2 person coed division we won!!!!

And all I have to say is Dave Huntley, YOU ROCK!!!

How many families can say DE JA VU?!

Our Weekend

Dave and I are headed to Oregon, IL for the weekend to do a 12 hour adventure race. It will be filled with firsts for me.

Packraft- in addition to canoeing, we have to fit both of us plus our packs into an inflatable boat and paddle to a specific point.

Climbing wall- I haven't even attempted this. This is the prelim. part of our race. They will time us and will determine our starting positions based on how we do. Dave already told me he expects we will be starting dead last.

Rope ascending- I didn't even know this WAS a rope event. You have to climb up a vertical rope with handles for your hands and feet. Not thinking this will go well for me.

All this is in addition to canoeing, biking, a zipline and finding checkpoints in the woods(orienteering).

I'm asking myself "And I want to do this why?"

Would you?

My question this day is would you?

Would you say yes when your sister and brother-in-law invited you to join them on vacation?

Without kids, for five days?

What about if you had four children and some are quite young?

What about if you know you have 4 wonderful grandparents in town that say "yes, we'll keep them" far more than you feel you deserve?

Would you drive 9 1/2 hours to get there?(Ugh)

Would you take a six mile hike around a lake?What if the scenery looked like this?


Would you enjoy 70ish degree weather and hearing loons right outside your windows?
Would you take a 12 mile canoe trek into the boundary waters?Would you portage a canoe 80 rods (1 rod=15.6 feet)?Would you visit a bear museum?
Would you still like your sister and BIL and want to do it all again next year?

Answer: We did! We do! We will!

First Day

It has been a day of goodbyes for me. First Zach, then the others. Alexis was extremely nervous. She has been not sleeping well for about a week and when she finally told me what the problem was I was able to help her a bit. It also helped to visit the teacher for unpack your backpack yesterday. She seemed fine this morning. Just first day jitters.

Leah, on the other hand, was convinced she was going to school too. When I dropped them off, she got out of the car and started walking to the school. After Dave got her back into the car, she cried all the way home. Good thing she wasn't awake when Zach left today.

My Big Little Boy

Today is a big day. Zach's first day of high school! Where has all the time gone? And why don't I feel old enough to have a son in high school?

A better question is, how are we going to wake up at 6:00 every day?

All 4 fun and fun 4 all!

Caroline is my sister Laura's daughter. She's 3 weeks older than Leah. They are best buds.

These are my nieces Joanna and Deborah. Daughters of Kris.
They are best buds with Leah also.Together they are...THE FEARSOME FOURSOME!

Not really, I just wanted to say that.These guys cracked us up.

I have a funny story to tell. When we arrived in NC on Sat. night, we were having a good time watching the three girls together and postulating how it would be with 4 toddlers in the house after the Brittens arrived the next day. We figured it could get pretty bad after we witnessed "The Flip Flop Incident". So Leah shows up and immediately takes over the one pair of flip flops that the twins own. They were clear with green straps and she loved them at first sight. Of course this bothered Deborah, who usually wore the flip flops. (I'll just say floppies because that's what Leah calls them.) So now Leah is happy as a clam and Deborah is fit to be tied. Now Joanna is upset because she thinks she needs them too. So I told Leah to go get hers out of her bag. Amazingly, we had brought two pairs. Perfect right? Wrong. By this time, Leah had reclaimed her own purple pair and given her green pair to Deborah. But this horked Joanna off because now Deborah has a 'new' pair and she gets stuck with her old clear pair. Sound like toddlers to you? It does to me. By this time they are all three crying and we are wondering what it will be like when Caroline arrives. We eventually got it figured out so Leah got the clear pair and the twins had Leah's.
As it turned out Caroline didn't even want to wear floppies so we were safe there. The girls actually played extremely well the whole week and had very few toddler/sharing issues. Thank God!

"What you looking at, Dad?"

Oh the things we accomplished

This was our week before we left for NC.

In one week:

I attended a MOPS meeting

I took the girls to a baby shower for baby Henry

I logged 20 miles of running

Dave logged 43 miles of running

We took Zach to West to run at 5:30 a.m. three times

Dave, Zach and I ran the Moonlight Chase (4 miles)

We transported Zach to his string camp and picked him up. About 10 trips to Davenport-my mom helped with some of these.

I gave a Lia Sophia party on Tues. which involved me doing a bunch of cleaning in preparation. (It turned out to be a very successful party:)

Dave took all the kids to his baseball game on Tues. night. And we all went to another game on Wed. night, then we enjoyed some down time with the Adams:)

Dave worked 11 hours at B&D.

This is a very busy week for us but doesn't even include the biggest project of all.

We made a sweet deal with this tree service. They come and deposit trees that they cut down, right into our yard and we don't pay a dime or have to go and get the wood. Sweet.

Our whole family put in 40+ hours of cutting, splitting, stacking and sweating.

This picture cracks me up. It reminds me of when Lexi was 4 and Trey was 2. The family was out stacking wood in the middle of winter. We had formed a chain to make it go faster. Zach was in the truck and passed the pieces to Dave who passed them to Trey who passed them to me so I could stack them. Trey was the best little worker and hung in there a long time. Lexi went and got a lawn chair, set it up close to us and sat down to supervise!

We finished this whole process on Thurs. night while Zach was running at the Bix @ 6.

This wood will heat our house for the whole coming year and hopefully into the next.

On Friday, we began our marathon packing spree for our 2 week vacation, did some last minute shopping and then headed to Zach's 2 hour long string concert. The rush didn't end there though because we needed to run home and get to bed so we could wake up at 2 a.m. to leave for NC.

Boy were we exhausted by the time we finally arrived in NC. We feel like we earned our vacation!

A Bad Day for Cars

We went to the zoo on Tues. It was a lot of fun. My neighbor Brie and Amariss invited us to go with them for half price day so consequently it was very busy but we still had a good time. My middles loved running ahead and shouting about what was next and Leah loved just taking everything in. I have no pictures because I took my camera and left the battery at home.

The trouble started when we got in the car to go home. The six of us were in the excursion and it wouldn't start. After figuring out that the battery was dead, some kind people offered to give us a jump. That was wonderful and off we went. For a few miles. And then the gauges all went dead. And then the air conditioning quit. And we couldn't get the power windows down. It was 95 degrees that day.

And then, just when I thought it couldn't get worse, the car died. Just like that. In the left lane of the interstate. After working my way to the shoulder and opening the doors, I called Dave. (By now the people in the office at school were, I'm sure, quite annoyed since this was the second time I had called to talk to Dave when he was supposed to be working registration.)

He tried calling all our parents but they were all busy so he came to get us, thinking he would tow my truck home with his truck. On the way though, he remembered we have AAA. Duh. So I called AAA and they sent a tow truck on the way to get us, free of charge.

By this time we had two tired toddlers, two complaining middles and two, ummm, exhausted? adults. The tow truck would only have seats for two people and Dave's truck seats three and now we are seven people since Dave showed up. I'm no math whiz but this doesn't add up.
We made the decision to send the two moms, the two toddlers, and Lexi all home in the pickup and leave Dave and Trey to wait for the tow truck. I drove home very illegally that day but it sure was good to be home.

This is where this story is supposed to end. But it doesn't.

Dave tells this part best because after waiting for the truck to come, load up the excursion and finally start toward home, he realized they had no AC. So he waited in a car with no air, now is riding in a truck with no air in the 95 degree heat, and then...the tow truck breaks down.
They waited over an hour for a different tow truck and finally got home around 5:00.
Since then, we've heard of four or five other people who all had car trouble that day. Must have been the heat.

The good news is that it was the alternator on our truck which was under warrenty since they just replaced it in feb. So for a rather serious dilemma, and a long day in the heat, it won't cost us anything at least. Miracles do still happen.

So....what shall I blog about?

Shall I blog about the marathon of car trips we've taken in the past few weeks?

Our trip to North Carolina where we stayed with my sister and my other sister was there and we were 21 people in all? All the jobs we got done around the house while we were there?

Our trip to the lake house in Virginia where we hung out and played in the water for two days straight?

Our trip home from NC where we started at noon and didn't stop until 8:30 that night?

Our trip to northern Minnesota where we hung out with my sister Tracy and Mark and worked our butts off and had a whole lot of fun doing it?

Should I blog about the fact that my sister-in-law Trish had her baby just yesterday and his name is Henry and he was 9 pounds!!! And he's super cute and sweet?

What about my nephew Bryce who has his birthday today and also his anniversary?

What about our trip to the zoo yesterday when I took my camera but left the battery at home?

But I think I will just leave this here post with a picture. Who are all these kids anyway?

Is it the Brihuntlins?

The Hunzintens?

The Rezuntlens?

It's hard to believe all these children belong to just three families, but it's true. And we all had such a great time together!