St. George Island, Florida

Ahhh, the beach. I have longed for a trip to the beach and I finally got one!!! During our trip down south, we were lucky enough to make it to Florida for a little vacation. My brother, Aaron, and his family were going down for a week and it just happened to be the same week we were there...and they just happened to have some extra room and invited us down!! How nice was that!?!

Clate like playing in the sand more than he liked playing in the water. "Too salty," he says.

Halle liked playing in the water as long as she was holding tight to me or sitting in a beach chair catching some rays. She came home looking like the Coppertone baby!

Halle also palled up with Seth, her cousins' cousin. If there wasn't such a height difference (or age difference), they could make a pretty cute couple.

A trip to GEORGIA!

So, here we are on the airplane headed to Georgia for 2 weeks. Looks like a lot of fun, doesn't it!?! Amazingly, the kids did exceptionally well on the plane both there and back; it was me that had to make a run for the lavatory on the flight to Georgia...I barely made it in time. Some might look at this picture and say, "Is that legal?" And no, it wasn't legal for all 4 of us to be in the same row...not enough oxygen masks. However, my mom was on the flight with us and kept one of the girls (lap kids) with her most of the time. The flights were good, though. Clate and Halle watched The Little Rascals and The Carebears and were as happy as could be...all 4 hours!!

One of the main highlights of our stay in Georgia was The Georgia Aquarium. If you've never been, I would highly recommend putting it on your to-do list at some point. It's pretty amazing.


Just as you walk through the entrance you come to this wall of fish. They are not very pretty fish, but there are a bazillion of them swimming and swimming and swimming (kind of like me during my triathlon)...the kids were so excited!! That was just the beginning. They had to see everything....fast!!


Luckily, there were places like these that really caught the kids' attention and we got to take a little break and just watch for a while.

The other big event in Georgia was riding grandpa's tractor. I'm not sure who had more fun, the kids or grandpa.

Clate really liked sitting on the tractor, but got a little nervous when it got moving.

Halle tried to takeover the driving.

And Chloe just got to sit on it for the picture.

I "duck"...

So, one morning I got Halle out of bed. She was still a bit out of it so I sat her on the couch while I folded some laundry. She always twirls her hair when she is tired, and I thought that's what she was doing until she looked at me with a confused look on her face and said, "I duck." Once I figured out what she meant, I had to grab the camera before I helped her get unstuck. She had been twirling her hair in her bed and got her finger stuck in her hair...it really wouldn't come out either. I ended up having to cut the hair from her finger tip. Even though everybody else loves her hair, I think this girl is going to have issues with it.

"I duck."

Bad news!!

What about the kiddos?

I guess its about time for an update on the kiddos. THEY ARE AWESOME!! and growing up so fast. This summer Clate and Halle have totally been into bugs, worms, snails, or anything that moves or makes me squirm. One day I saw Clate and Halle lying on the grass moving slowly across the yard, very fixated on something. I went to check it out and they had found a box elder bug (I think that's what it is called) crawling through the yard...and they watched it crawl the entire way.

Clate and Halle moving their way across the yard.

Can you see it?

Then just a couple of weeks ago we went to go for a walk. We made it about 2 doors down and had to stop to watch a snail. After about 15 minutes, I told the kids that the snail had to go home, so Clate put him in the plants and we got on our way.

Look at that!!

We love snails!

Little Red Riding Hood 2008

So my next event was the Little Red Riding Hood bike event; an event, not a race. The options were to do 36, 45, 62, 80, or 100 miles. I probably would have chosen 45 miles, but Elisa somehow talked me into doing 62. It was up in Cache Valley; the ride was beautiful. They had rest stops along the way with all kinds of good food; fruit, chips, cookies, candy bars, drinks, etc. At the half-way point they had Subway sandwiches for us along with all of the usual goodies. I felt like I ate a ton that day, which I probably did. Total bike time for us was about 5 hours, total overal time was 7 hours. Once again, it was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again!!

The Moab Half

I was wrong...our spring/summer did not begin with my triathlon...it started with Adam's running of the Moab half-marathon. I knew I was forgetting something. Anyway, it was fun, and Moab was beautiful. I had never been there before, so it was a treat for me. We did take some time to go and see some arches...AMAZING!! I can't wait to go back and do some bike riding through the area.

I was waiting for Casey to pass by before I got my camera ready to wait for Adam to come running by so I could get some good pics of him in action, but when out of the blue I saw Adam and then Casey about 20 yards behind him, it was all I could do to get one shot of him as he passed us...so there you have it!

All of us under an arch.