My tri

Just wanted to brag on myself for this post...it's my blog anyway, so I can do that right! I really just thought it would be neat to have it documented on here for me to keep up with. A couple of weekends ago I went to Huntsville to compete in a sprint triathlon. My sweet sister gave up her spot because the race was full by the time I went to register. She said that it was part of my birthday present. How many people do you know want to physically exhaust themselves as a birthday present-sounds crazy now that I think of it.

The race was great! I felt so good the whole time. My run was the fastest I had done in a while so I was excited. The swim started off kind of slow and I got kicked and elbowed several times. Luckily the bike trail is easy and relatively flat. I did this race 2 years ago for the first time and came in second in my age group. Well 2 years later I still came in 2nd. My overall time had improved and my overall position was better as well. I finished 106 out of close to 500 people and 18 out of 172 women. I was super excited, and now I am shooting to finish under #100 next year...anyone want to join me! Okay that's all the bragging I'm going to do for now!

They mark all over your body before the race starts 260 was my race # can you guess the other??? That's right my age! Everyone walks around with their age proudly inked in permanent marker on their calves. It is a real motivator at times, and embarrassing at other times. I do love to see how old people are because I am not that good at telling. I must think that I look younger than I do because I would see someone that I thought was about my age, and they would only be 30 or so! I guess I am getting old and I need to face it!















Here are some of my biggest fans - my sister Jamie that gave me this as by present, my mom who helped wrangle the little ones, and the my precious Pip and Squeak! Oh, and I found these rotten teeth kids calling my name on the way out!!!

School Days

These guys started school 8/07. L.C. is now a 3rd grader and No-Bo is already in Kindergarten.
They both had a great first few days of school...and I was nervous!!


These two little peeps also started "school". They are going 2 days a week to a pre-school at a church. I wasn't going to send them this year, but I am glad that I did...they love it!!! What about this confidence with a little attitude they are showing here.

Edisto

We had a chance to go to Edisto for one last whoo-rahh before school started. One of my college roommates called and said that nobody had rented out their house for the week, and she wanted to know if we would like to go. There was no hesitation on my part!!! Jeff had football camp that week, so the kids and I packed up and took off. If you have never been to Edisto you are missing out. It is such a neat non-commercialized beach. There are no chain restaurants, high rises, or crowds. It was so much fun and the kids had such a great time. There were 6 little boys and then Pipi. I had so many great pictures that I had a hard time deciding which ones to use, so there are a lot of pictures below!

That's some serious crabbing! We caught about 10 crabs that we kept, and just as many hermit crabs.

L.C. got started catching the crabs by just using the net. This part of Edisto is on a private beach, so there are so many seashells, sharks teeth and other fossils. The waterway behind L.C in this picture leads out to the ocean. When the tide is going out you can ride in the water like a lazy river and then the tide changes and it pulls you back.


Check out this Stone crab. Its claw was the biggest that I had ever seen. Notice in the picture below the size in relation to L.C.'s hand!


One of my torture picture sessions. They did pretty good (with a little bribery at least).


We watched the sunset almost every night after dinner. Here it was at a friends house who lives on the marsh. She has a super long dock that leads out to the water.

Jumping has never been so much fun.

Another sunset! Look at poor Pipi standing away from all those boys. We will have to recruit some little girls for the next trip.

One day the older boys and I walked way down the beach. On the return walk back we got hot and decided to get into the water. No-Bo was the first to find one of these sand dollars. It was so cool because we were sitting in the water just pulling them out of the sand with little effort. I think we found about 12.
See I did go to the beach too...there are hardly ever any pictures of me because I am always behind the camera. (Another sunset)

Fort Morgan

I know it has been a while since my last post. I can tell you it is not for lack of material to write about. We have been so, so busy. I am trying to catch up from this summer because we have so much to tell about that I am sure you don't want to miss. These pictures were taken at Fort Morgan, AL. While we were visiting Katherine we decided to take the ferry across the bay to the fort. We decided just to walk onto the ferry instead of driving our car since the fort wasn't too far from the bay on the other side.





The Fort is a really cool place. The kids really enjoyed it mainly because there were all kind of cool places to run and hide and get lost. It was neat to see a bit of history. There were so many great places to take pictures, if only the kids had cooperated more!



This picture was at the end of our day and would have been really cute if I could have gotten them all to look out and look happy!













Check out these stairs! They practically went straight down. I'm glad we don't have those at our house.



















Notice the Gulf in the background.














































A tunnel into the court yard.














This was a super long wall on the beach/gulf side of the fort. We walked all the way down it!
















Here's a funny story - At the end of the day we looked at our watches and saw that we had only 10 minutes to make it back to the ferry or we would have to wait 45 more minutes for the next one. It was about 1/2 mile away from where we were, so we all took off running. L.C. was pretty far ahead of us (not surprising). We ran about 1/2 of the way and Pipi stopped and said that she could not go anymore that her legs were too tired. At that same time a UPS truck drove up and asked if we wanted a ride! It was awesome timing and we all jumped aboard with the packages in the back. We got there right as they were loading everyone! Thank you Mr. UPS man you saved the day!

More from Dauphin Island

I know, I know, more pictures from our trip. We just took so many that I have to share. There will be another round coming just to let you know, but hey this blog is about us, so I can post whatever I want! I can't believe that there are only two more weeks until school starts! We have two more trips planned before then!

Mom AKA Granna was able to come down to Dauphin Island and spend some time with us. We went to the beach all day and played in the water. These kids sure do love her being around...not that she spoils them!




BEFORE















AFTER















Yum, Yum! Jeff (JT) cooked us yet another feast this night. We also had some more of the fresh fish. His sweet parents joined us as well.

photog trix

On our way to Dauphin Island, I finally got to read part of the manual for my camera that I have had for a while now. I tried a couple of things that turned out kind of neat if not anything else. Of course I need more practice, but these pictures are straight out of the camera. The first three pictures are black and white except of course the color I choose to highlight. The red sky picture is color swap.

It's all in how you work the tongue!

Beach front property???

Dauphin Island part 1

*** WARNING WARNING...there are a lot of pictures to come. I had a hard time narrowing it down, so I chose many of them.

Aunt Katherine and Pipi on the long walk to "our" beach.


And if you don't mind walking a million miles to the beach you get it all to yourself!! Isn't this great?

Would you like to gobble up this one...

...or this cute-t-pie...don't you love the tongue?

My sweet babies...oh wait they aren't babies anymore. This is the first time in 8.5 years that my youngest child is over the age of 3! Weird!

ARGHH me Matey's...We've found treasure!

Katherine has been teaching the boys to fish on our visits, and now they are hooked (really no pun intended). Check out what they caught...

This was his very first fish!

And check out what this lucky bird got!

And this is what they caught...

Jeff (JW) spent the day deep sea fishing with Katherine's (Captain) Jeff (JT) and this is some of what they caught. JT is awesome at what he does, and was able to put them right on the big fish. Oh and he is a great cook. We enjoyed fresh fish all week!!!

A great day had by all!