GO BRAD GO!!!

This weekend we went to Burley for the Spudman triathalon. Brad along with 13 other friends and family competed in the Olympic size event which included a mile swim, 26 mile bike ride and a 6 mile run. The girls and I had a lot of fun watching everyone. Brad did really well! It was his first triathalon and he finished in 2 hour 22 minutes. He accomplished his goal which was under 2 1/2 hours. Here I caught a picture of the back of him during the end of the bike. He is the one waving in the black suit.

Then the girls and I ran across the golf course just in time to see him begin his run. I know it is hard to see him but this is him waving again.

Here he is finishing the race with a great sprint. He is the one in front. Way to go Brad, I am so proud of you!

The girls were very excited to see Brad finish. Everytime he would go by and then not stop for us Alex would get pretty upset. I am not sure she understood the whole thing, she just wanted her daddy.

Brad, Jeff and Amanda
This is brad with his sister and bro-in law. They both did really awesome too.

After the whole event Brad's Mom put on a great picnic of wonderful food for everyone.

Here is a lot of the friends and family that competed.
From left to right: Dana (bro-in law), Ryan (friend), Tyler (friend), Brittney (friend), Brad, Amanda (sister), Jeff (bro-in law), Todd (friend), Lindsy (cousin), Rita (Aunt- who has done it 17 times!) and Hailey (cousin).

We all got a little silly with the swim caps for a while.

Alex
I know, right, you are all thinking that we are horrible parents for putting this over our children's heads. We probably are but it created great laughs.

Ayden

Emily (brad's sister)

One of Ayden's very favorite things about going to Grandmas house are the 4-wheeler rides from Grandpa Mike. He gave her a fun, long ride and she loved every second of it.

I feel moved to say that while the Spudman was a great experience for us we know it was not for everyone. We would like to give our condolences to the Morehouse family who lost their loved one during the event and we pray that they will be comforted for their loss at this time.

The old ball game

We went to a Boise Hawks baseball game last night for Brads work party. They had a BBQ dinner at the beginning and then everyone stayed for the game. It was a really nice evening so it was also just fun to be outside. It was also great because Brads cousins, Lindsy (who also works at CH2MHill) and Jolie, were there too and the girls love them. Thanks CH for a fun night.

Lindsy, Ayden and Jolie

I LOVE SUMMER TIME!

I can't believe summer is halfway over! I've decided I want to live somewhere summer lasts all year long because I love all the activities summer brings. This past weekend was a pretty typical summer weekend and I really don't think there is anything better.

It started with Brad coming home early from work on Friday so we all went swimming at our neighborhood pool and then made homemade pizza for dinner then brad and I watched Fools Gold after the girls were in bed.

The next morning Brad and some friends did some training for the triathalon they are doing this coming weekend and then we all went boating. I know we go boating every weekend but what can I say, we love it.

Brad doing more surfing.

Me wake skating. Besides tubing, this is my favorite.

On our way home from boating we dropped brad off downtown for the twilight Criterium. I went home and got the girls in bed and then after the babysitter came I went downtown to meet up with brad. We had a great time watching the race even though I did not think it was near as exciting as the eagle criterium.

The exciting thing for brad was being able to see Kristin Armstrong race. She is a boise native and one of the best female bike riders in the world. This was her last training race before she heads off to Beijing for the Olympics. She lapped all the other riders and had an easy victory.

Brad noticed this lady with her tag hanging out. The funny part was that her husband noticed it and tucked it in her shirt. Really? Why not just rip it off? Are you planning on wearing and then returning a shirt that was $5.99? Kinda funny.

Anyway, back to the race. Here is the finishers podium with Kristin Armstrong #1. I made it for the mens race which was fun to watch and the awards ceremony and then spontaneously stopped in a little Basque restaurant that looked too fun to pass up for some dinner. It was delish!

After a fun filled weekend we all enjoyed a lazy Sunday.

A day like today of exercising, mowing the lawn and cleaning the house kinda stinks after such a fun weekend but it is also okay because I know we have a fun weekend coming up too. That is why I love summer!

The Tongue Has Been Cut

The Tongue Saga-

For those who may not know, Alex was born tongue tied. This is when a child is born with a really tight lingual frenum (or frenulum) under her tongue. It is characterized by a heart shaped (forked in less politically correct terms) tongue (you can see Ayden's in this previous post). Ayden was born with one too actually but her pediatrician had enough fore site to see it would be a problem with her speech later so he clipped it when she was 5 days old. Alex's pediatrician said she didn't believe in cutting it when they are little and she said if she could nurse fine then it wouldn't pose any speech problems later. I didn't know any different so I didn't fight it. Well Ayden has never had a problem talking but Alex has a really hard time with articulation because she cannot move her tongue to get the right sounds. It is really hard to understand what she is saying. We recently had her speech evaluated and they told me it would be a good idea to have it cut. Now getting it cut when they are 5 days old is nothing but having it done to a 2 year old who knows what is going on is a bigger deal. Usually an ENT would have to do it and they would put her under anesthesia and it would have ended up costing a pretty penny. Luckily our good friend and dentist was willing to do it for us. He made me leave the room so all I heard was a bunch of screaming and then she came out a little bloody and still crying. It must have been more fear then pain though because once we got in the car she was fine. I am really excited to see how much it helps her speech. She is still going to need some speech therapy to help her learn how to use her tongue but since we are taking care of it pretty early she should be fine and caught up for school.

Here she is not really knowing what is about to happen.

Once we got int he car she stopped crying and even sort of smiled for me.

Here she is trying to show my her "owie".

I felt a little bad doing it today because in other news, yesterday she fell at the pool, chipped her tooth and got a fat lip. But hey, while she already has a hurt mouth why not get it all over with at once.

While we were there we also had our cleanings and Ayden did a really good job this time. The past couple of times have been horrible. Ayden would not cooperate and would scream the whole time but this time she did really well. I was so proud of her and she got a really good cleaning and floride treatment done. Way to go Ayden!

They have done it again

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Glacier

The Sunday after the 4th we left Brad's moms house at 4:00 am to begin our drive to glacier to meet up with our friends Wade and Elizabeth Pilling and their 4 kids along with Wades brother Brek, his wife Emily and their 6 kids with two babysitters. It was quite a big group and that made it a lot of fun. The 9 hour drive went really well and I was impressed with how good the girls were. It was nice to get an early start. The last part of the drive, around Flathead Lake, was really pretty which helped too.
After we arrived in West Glacier around 1:00 we set up camp and since the pillings were gone we decided to drive up the Going-to-the-Sun Road which is a 75 year old road that spans 50 miles through the parks wild interior, winding around mountain sides and treating visitors to some of the best sights in northwest Montana (ha ha, I copied and pasted that from their description of it). Even though we were all done being in the car it was an incredible drive and well worth 2 more hours in the car.

We stopped at a waterfall for a family picture.

Here is the view from part of the road. It was so beautiful. The picture really doesn't do it justice.

Here are the girls at the summit. There was still a lot of snow. I guess usually by this time of the year there isn't any snow left. Global warming my butt, oh wait, that is right they changed it to global climate change.

This was our first animal encounter. There was a big horn sheep just wandering the parking lot.

Another view on the way back down.

This is Weeping Wall and we got to drive through the water. It felt like we were in a car wash.

On our way down we saw this little head peaking over the barrier. Then he jumped up on the wall.

I wanted to be like the big horn sheep I suppose and so I jumped up on the wall too.

This is a night picture of the lake close to where we were camping.

One of the days we decided to go on a hike to a Avalanche Lake. It was a fun, scenic 4 mile hike which all 12 kids handled very well. I am sure hiking is easy sitting atop mom and dad's shoulders.

This is what we saw at the top. It was really breathtaking with all the waterfalls coming off the mountain into the lake. Ayden said it best as we walked towards the lake she said "Wow Mom, Heavenly Father created a beautiful earth for us." It is so true.

Ayden and Sidney on the other side of the lake. Sidney is Wades brothers daughter and she took a liking to Brad. She is a super cute little girl and Brad didn't mind his little shadow at all.

This picture is for Grandma Marsha the big fisher of the family. Ayden caught her first fish on this lake.

After the hike we walked around the "Walk of the Cedars" which is a mile loop of these cedar planks and it was really beautiful.

One of the evenings everyone decided it was time for a bath so they all bathed in the freezing lake. I decided I didn't feel dirty enough to endure the frigid water but it was fun watching everyone else suffer.

We stopped for ice cream a couple of times in Apgar village.

One of the mornings Brad got up early to ride the going-to-the-sun road on his bike. It took him 4 hours to ride the 64 mile round trip (about a 3500 ft climb to the summit). At the top of the summit a German couple went to Brad and said they wanted to take the picture for Lance Armstrong.

Brad saw a lot of wild life on his bike ride. Brad claims this mountain goat tried to kick rocks down onto his head.

A couple of days were spent boating on some spectacular lakes. The first time we went to a little lake called Echo Lake which is surrounded by really cute lake houses. Definitely a place I would love to live. We didn't have our camera that day. The next time we went to Lake McDonald which is the lake we were camping on. It was so beautiful but like I said earlier the water is freezing. Where else is there a back drop like this?

Everyone thought Brad was crazy to only be wearing a wet suit. Most everyone wore a dry suit but they had to look like the stay puff marshmallow man.

We also went white water rafting one of the days but we didn't get any pictures. At the end of our rafting trip everyone jumped off a 35ft bridge into the freezing water. It was fun but I woosed out and jumped about 8 feet lower then everyone else. It was still enough of a thrill for me. Click here to see Brad jumping off the bridge one year ago.

One day after boating, the men (Brad, Wade, Brek and two of his sons Scott and Josh) went on a back country hike to a lake (Harrison Lake) for some fishing. They had to raft across a river and then bush-whack for an hour to find the trail head. They successfully got to the lake after getting really scrapped up and seeing a lot of proof there were big grizzlies in the area.

Notice the cuts on Brad's legs.

After fishing they ran down trying to beat the dark and saw two grizzly bears. One crossed the trail about 100 ft in front of them and another was seen walking through the brush (the same brush they had bushwacked a few hours earlier) as they reached the raft. Luckily they had bear bangers and maise. They all came back to camp tired, hurt and scared.

This doe and fawn came by our camp site a couple of times.

Some of the kids getting a picture with them.

Alex and Sidney on our last day there.

We took a little hike on our way out of town and I guess I just felt the need for some jumping shots.

I was really disappointed that I didn't see a bear in the wild. I am glad we didn't see one around our camp site and considering the fact that every hike I went on we were in a huge group I am not surprised but it was still a bummer. So on our way out we cheated and drove through a bear encounter place. The girls had fun seeing some black bears but it didn't make me feel any better. Ayden decided that she could like the bears since they seemed freindly and were cute.

On a strong recommendation we stopped in a little town called Whitefish and ate at Mambo Italiano. It was a really great restaurant and we were not disappointed.

We broke up the drive home a little bit by staying the night in Missoula. We felt a little unlucky beause most of the hotels we checked out were full. Then someone recommended the Stay Bridge suites because it had just opened the night before we arrived. They had room and we were the VERY first guests to ever sleep in it. It was sooo nice not having to do my usual ritual of re-cleaning the room and pulling all the comforters off the bed before I can feel comfortable in a hotel room (I did work as a housekeeper at a hotel for one day (yeah that is how long I lasted) so I know how well those rooms are cleaned). It was really nice too and oh did the shower feel nice after a week of camping!

We drove back to Boise over the LoLo pass and it was beautiful the WHOLE way. It is amazing how beautiful Montana and Idaho really are. Most of our drive home was the way Lewis and Clark had explored and it was crazy to think that they made it through that kind of terrain without roads. We stopped on this little foot bridge to stretch out legs and get a few pictures.


I just have to say that this was a really great family vacation and I am so please how well it went. It was so much fun and I fell in love with Montana. I can't wait to go back. We also had a great time with both Pilling families and all the kids. Thanks to everything and everyone who made this trip a success!