A summer post because October is here

8-15-09 - Tyler's Mini-triathlon:

A quarter mile swim........

an 11 mile bike ride.........

and then a 3.1 mile run!(my friend Mari got this picture of Tyler running. I took the liberty of cropping it so you could see little Whitney cheering her guts out in the background. It's easily my favorite picture of the month... I just wish I had done her hair or something that morning!)

Tyler kicked boo-tay in his first mini-triathlon. He finished in 1 hour and 10 minutes... about 10 minutes less than he had hoped to get. Even though I was a grouch when Tyler got me and the kids up at 6am, we were sure glad we went. I think races are so inspiring... especially when there is an older man with a prosthetic leg doing the event. WOW! Wish I had gotten a picture of him.

Here are the 4 buddies after the big race:

We celebrated Tyler's race that night by going to our church's Annual Men's Cook-off. We had a really great time, and Tyler's "Salsamole" (his own homemade salsa + sour cream + guacamole) won 3rd prize for appetizers. Woo-hoo!

Some other events from the summer included:

Riding the train to the A's game--$2 seats and $1 hotdogs...
Another Giants game:

Not only did our friends give us tickets to the Giants game... they were box seats... fully catered... behind home plate... with a view of the bay... with face painting & bounce houses for the kids... on a perfect day in San Fran. Could we be any more lucky? I don't think so. (Annie LOVED the mascot!)

Whitney participated in the library's summer reading program, and loved checking off her boxes and reaching her goal. One morning I caught Whitney reading to this monkey with a laundry basket full of books...

We took advantage of our many local parks, and even met up with friends here and there...

(Thank you, Mari, for another great picture!)

Ate some dirt at another park...

Played in ditches instead of parks...Splashed at splash parks...And even visited our local police station for fun...

Whitney started Kindergarten on Tuesday, August 25th. She (of course) is loving it and loves her two teachers as well.

Whitney is so great at telling me how each day of school was--the friends she played with, what her teachers told her, and what they learned about in school. During the first day or two of school the teachers were going around to each kid "testing" them to see where they were reading-wise.

Whitney told me, "My teacher came to my table and asked me to read something for her." I asked, "How did you do?" And Whitney replied, "Oh mom, it was soooo easy, but I didn't tell my teacher that because I didn't want to hurt her feelings." Ha! I love that she thought her teacher didn't know how to read the simple sentence.

So 5 days after school started, we packed up and left town for almost all of September (Tyler had another break from residency). We had a great visit with family, but now the party is over and we're back to life and reality. Our September travel log hopefully will be posted before Halloween! ;)