I was excited to show a picture of my book after seeing Audrey’s pictures. My book is called Dr. Seuss’s ABC.
My favorite page is: “BIG U, little u, what begins with U? Uncle Ubb’s umbrella and his underwear, too.”
I also like this page: “BIG B, little b, what begins with B? Barber, baby, bubbles, and a bumblebee.”
These are all of the Magic Treehouse book I have read.
Posted in Audrey, Book Report, Reading
Jack, Annie, Cowboy Slim, Lonesome Luke, Sunset, Dusty, the mare, the rustlers.
They went to the wild west. Slim was a cowboy. He rode a horsie, Dusty.
They were camping by the fire. Lonesome Luke was a ghost. He played the piano every night in the hotel.
Lonesome Luke on the top. Annie with her horse on the bottom. Annie’s horse was named Sunset.
So Jack went with Slim to save Sunset’s mom. The guns start shooting. Jack ducked because a gun went off.
I got a passport stamp when I was done reading the book. This is book number 10. My next book report will be about Africa: Lions at Lunchtime.
Posted in Audrey, Book Report
On June 14th, Jamie and I did our second adventure race. This one was co-ed and we really didn’t know what we were getting into. The race website informed us that we would be biking, running and kayaking with some possible mystery events. All adventure races say they might have a mystery event, but they are usually pretty minor. We showed up to the race and there was a sign with the order of events.
The funny part about this is I had a dream the night before that we got to the race and found out that we had to swim too. I told Jamie about the dream on the way to the race and when she saw the sign, she said, “We DO have to swim!” Neither of us have trained in swimming for over a year now, so as we waited in line to sign in and get our packets we just kept laughing nervously thinking, “What have we got ourselves into?”
Luckily someone explained that the swim portion really entailed putting on a life jacket, running through the water (swimming if you wanted, but not necessary), and getting out where the kayaks were waiting for us. So, the race began with the running portion. We were running mainly on biking trails so it was really hard to pass people without running into trees. Jamie did great at passing a bunch of people, but I didn’t have so much luck, so we were separated for a while. We were supposed to stay within 20 seconds of our teammate, which we easily did, but I just couldn’t keep up with her. Then, we got to the swim part and after the hot run, it felt so good to get into the water.
Next, came the kayaking. Jamie and I have taken kayaking lessons, but never in an inflatable kayak. It was impossible to steer at first. Every time we shifted our weight at all, we would turn sideways. They told us to bring beach balls to sit on, which didn’t work for us, so we tried kneeling…. no go. So we ended up sitting on the bottom of the kayak. I had some nice chafing up my arms as my short little torso tried to have enough height so that the paddle could reach the water. Not our strongest event.
Onto the biking. The biking was awesome and hard. It was long. Jamie crashed 4 or 5 times and got some nice bruises and a little road rash. I endoed once and caused a crash behind me. Because of the tight trails, it was hard to pass people on the bike too, but we did alright. We ended coming in 10th in the female category.
This race didn’t have any navigation involved, but they set up some checkpoints you could find for fun after the race, if you wanted to. We decided that this could be some good practice for our girl adventure race at the end of this month. However, once we had finished the race, we had really lost steam. We kept trying to talk ourselves into it, but we just weren’t too excited about it. We started it, but quickly changed our minds and headed back.
Our families got there probably about 10 minutes after we crossed the finish line. Scott had been at scout camp all week. He rushed home, grabbed the girls and then headed up. So, we were quite the stinky family.
Our team name is AOKE – named after our daughters in age order: Audrey, Ocean, Kate, and Eden.
They also had a kids race afterwards that the girls got to do. They got singlets and medals for doing it. They now have more medals from races than Scott and I.
A week ago, our family participated in the Round Rock Roadrunner 10k and kids fun run. Our friends, the Rothes and the McBrayers, participated too. Thanks again Sandra for getting up early to hang out with our girls while we ran the 10k.
Jeana wanted me to see how good I could do running it on my own. I really enjoy the social aspect of running with her and spend most of our runs talking while she runs. Chris, Jeana, and I started out the race together but after the first 30 seconds I felt like I needed to take off so I could “see how good I could do.”
The race was a big challenge for me. I pushed hard, and the last mile or so was tough – so tough that I questioned if I ever wanted to run again. The last quarter mile was one lap around a track and that was much easier to run on than a never-ending mulch trail. When I turned the last corner on the track I decided to finish strong and sprint it out. As I was about to cross the finish line I glanced over my shoulder to see a 13 year old boy speeding by. I thought I was going fast, so he must have been moving!
The awesome part about the race is that Jeana and I each finished in 8th place for our gender and age groups. I was competing in the 30-39 group since my birthday was the week before, and Jeana was still competing in the youthful twenty somethings.
Jeana’s time was 57:57, finishing 8th in women 20-29 and 99th place overall.
My time was 48:02, finishing 8th in men 30-39 and 24th place overall.
Audrey ran the entire kids race (one lap around the track) and finished strong. Kate made the first 50 yards, then gave up. That worked out well so we could go cheer on Audrey crossing the finish line.
One of the sponsors was Home Depot. They brought cool projects for kids to build. Our kids were keen on the safety goggles, so much that we got resistance from Kate when the time came to leave them behind.
Posted in Running
