She is thirteen already.

Time goes so fast and I'm just blown away that I now have 5 teenagers in the house at the same time. I feel so blessed to have all of them healthy and happy currently.

 Thirteen years ago at three weeks early I felt some pressure and called my doctor. This entire pregnancy was different because my doctor thought I had an incompetent cervix, so he decided to do a surgery called a Cervical Cerclage. at around 4 1/2 months along.   Because of this surgery I had to have ultrasounds every 4 weeks and whenever I felt pains of any type I had to go get monitored immediately.  I think he was sick of me calling him every few days near the end of the pregnancy, so he told me to just come in and he'd check me. He broke my water and within 5 hours I had my girl.

Here is Alyssa anxiously awaiting her presents.

For her "cake" she chose brownies with whipped topping and
crushed oreos on top.  It is a tradition in our home that you
get to pick your "type of cake".

She was thrilled with all of her gifts.  Her best gift
came the next day when she went to Adventureland
and got to ride roller coasters. 

20th Anniversary Celebration

Jason and I just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary and decided that going back to where we were married would be fun. We couldn't get away on our actual anniversary weekend, however we found time to get away one week early. The pictures really tell the story so here it is:

1.  We stopped first in Dixon, Illinois.  I wanted
to show Jason where Brenden and I did a 5K
race the year before and how cool that little
town was.  So we went to the childhood home of
President Ronald Reagan.  Jason posing with the
statue of the president.

2.  We got checked into our hotel in Shaumburg, IL.  It was
a Holiday Inn Express and was very nice.  It had a King size
bed and lots of extras.  Then we went to pick up our race packet in Hoffman Estates, Illinois at the packet pickup place.  There was this cool fountain so we got our picture
taken in front of it.

3.  For dinner we went to Medieval Times which
is a Dinner Theatre.  The food the great and the show
was very cheesy, but we had a wonderful time.

Our Blue knight that we cheered on.

More pictures of the entertainment at Medieval Times.

4.  The next morning we did a race, here is the link from that: race in Chicago



5.  After a shower and checking out of the hotel, we went to lunch
at Chipoltle.  Then we went to this Legoland Discovery Center. 
I wanted to go in but it was $19.00 per adult so we just took pictures
of a few things on the outside of the center.

Jason with Eistein made out of Legos.

6.  While driving into Chicago I saw my favorite building and
had to get pictures of it.

7.  We parked downtown and then headed over to Shedd's
Aquarium.  Jason took pictures of sailboats.

An awesome picture of a Jellyfish at Shedd Aquarium.

An Eel

This guy was sleeping.  I thought it looked cool.

Jason was messing around in the gift shop.

8.  We got all cleaned up nice and went to a great restaurant called Rose Bud.  I saw another fountain and had to get
pictures in front of it. 

A picture of the restaurant sign.

An awesome weekend overall. We had a great time.

The start of high adventure trip

On July 20th three of our boys left for a week long scouting trip up to the moutains of Wyoming. I hoped to have this posted before they got back, but failed to do so. They are now home enjoying running water and real food. I'm glad they had a great time and stayed safe and I'm grateful to great church Young Men's leaders that took 9 days plus more to not only take this trip, but plan this out of their lives to take a huge group of boys on this trip. Here are some pictures before they left. All of them were NOT thrilled to have their pictures taken by the way.


Jared, being silly.



Daniel finally smiling after 5 pictures.

Jared and Daniel together.

Jared trying on his 50 pound pack.  He was excited to go.



Brenden wondering why I was taking so many pictures.

Replacing the tub

This post was written by Jason. It says Michelle because she loaded the pictures.

About 4 months ago, on a Sunday morning, I was downstairs in the kitchen making breakfast when I could hear water dripping onto the ceiling.  Having already had to fix the ceiling once due to a leak, I was not in a hurry to do it again.  I ran upstairs and got Jared out of the shower (he was not pleased).  Sure enough, I found a leak in the tub. The next day, I went to the store and got a patch kit.  The patch held for about 2 months but the crack got bigger and I decided that I was just going to have to bite the bullet and replace the whole thing.

The patch is evident just a couple of inches from the drain.

Luckily, Michelle given me a reciprocating saw for Father's day a couple of years ago so my task of ripping the old tub out was not quite as miserable as it could have been.

If you ever have to do this, be aware that there is a lip that runs all the way around the walls.  This means that I had to demo some of the drywall as well.

I finally got the tub out after sawing the darn thing in about 5 pieces.  I also had to remove a bunch of trim work to get things out.  This bathroom has bead board from the wallpaper boarder down as well as a chair rail and of course baseboards.

Plumbing.  My nemesis.  Plumbing and I have a hate/hate relationship.  I have only once had a not quite so miserable experience plumbing.  I didn't even make an attempt to do the plumbing myself.  I called a friend to give me a hand.  We (well, he, in reality) had to move everything up a few inches.  I had to cut into the studs about a 1/4 of an inch to get things to fit.  When the rough in was finally finished, I layed some plastic on the subfloor, mixed up some mortor and layed a 1-2" bed to support the tub.  It actually fit quite well and leveled nicely.  The next day, after the mortor was set, I installed the back wall and the left wall. My next job was to cut the holes for the fixtures.  This went better than I expected and with a little help, I got the right wall installed and set.  The fixtures were easy to install but the drywall was a pain. 

The trim work has been re-installed here.

To get everything plumb, I had to put shims along the studs on the back wall (I stripped the entire back wall down to the studs).  I spent more time that I would care to admit taping and mudding but I finally got it done.  The boys were so anxious to stop taking showers in my bathroom that they didn't even wait until I got done texturing and painting before taking the first shower.

All the texturing and painting is now done and the green painters tape has been removed.  I am pretty happy with the results but am not anxious to do it again anytime soon.

Lake Geode Challenge

I oftentimes ask myself why I race.  I'm not fast.  To be completely honest, the only chance I'll probably have to get on the podium will be to simply stay healthier longer than anyone else in my age group so that by the time we are all 65, I will be one of the three of us who can still compete (and therefore at least place third).  And to be even more honest, I can't even call what I do competing.  It's participating.  Now don't get me wrong, this is not a "poor me, I'll never be good enough" post; I'm just being realistic.  I will never be able to run a 10K in 38 minutes like Saturday's winner (that's nearly a 6 min/mile pace).  I just don't have the genetics to enable me to do that.  But genetics is never a good excuse for not trying to excel at whatever you are attempting.  And that is why I compete.  My goal every year is to improve upon my time from the previous year.  I want to see how fast I can be.  I know as I get older, I am slowing down but I don't think that I have recorded my best times yet.  I am pretty sure that I have room for improvement - especially after Saturday's race.

When the gun went off, I positioned myself along the left side of the group so that the shoreline was clearly in view every time I took a breath.  I did this because the shoreline was parallel to the swim course for the first 500 meters.  That means that I didn't have to look up every 6 strokes or so to make sure I was on course - I just had to keep the shoreline an equal distance away.  My position also got me out of the main group which means that I didn't have to deal with flailing arms and legs.  I think I only came in contact with another swimmer 3 times.  I finished the 1500 meter swim in 27 minutes which is three minutes faster than last year.  I felt pretty good about my time and was itching to get on my bike.  The bike portion is the strongest portion of my race.  Cycling is about who can endure the most amount of pain for the longest amount of time.  Right off the bat, we had to climb a long hill but then there was a fairly short flat and curvy section before you crest and small rise and head to the first major turn.  I had a good head of steam built up by the time I came to the crest, having forgotten about the first turn.  As I crested the hill and started down to the turn, I realized that I was going too fast.  I came off the aero bars and grabbed the brakes.  Usually, I use the front brake as my main brake and I feather the rear brake to assist.  However, since I was going downhill, I didn't want to use the front brake out of fear that I would end up going over the my handlebars.  Unfortunately, I hit the rear brakes a little too hard and as I was trying to make the corner, my rear wheel slid out, dumping me to the ground.  I landed hard with the brunt of the force on my right thigh and the inside of my right elbow and right hand.  The sound of my bike scraping along the pavement was sickening.  As soon as I stopped, I jumped up, oblivious to my own scrapes, and grabbed my bike off the ground.  I stood there for a moment to clear the cobwebs and then began inspecting my bike (otherwise known as my other wife).  Other than some major scrapes and a slight problem with the rear brakes, everything seemed okay.  I fixed the brakes as best I could and after a couple of misfires, got going again.  Once I was moving, the pain from the road hit me.  At least nothing was broken.  However, as I approached the first big downhill (I hit 42 mph on that hill last year), I was very tentative and kept my hands on the brakes.  About halfway down the hill, I realized that something was wrong with my bike as it started vibrating like crazy and I was sure I was going down again.  Luckily, when I released the brakes, the vibration went away and I was able to ride it out.  Finally, over the next couple of miles, I was able to find a good pace and actually passed a couple of people.  The last 10 miles or so on the bike were some of the slowest I have ever ridden as I had to deal with more hills and more brake problems (I actually had to get off and try to fix them again).  I finally made it back to the transition area and as I was getting my running shoes on, the first and second place competitors finished.  Freaks. 

Having spent the last 6 weeks doing more running, I was confident that my run would at least be solid.  I managed to run the first three or four hills but had to walk a couple of them.  By the time I hit 4 miles, I realized that I was not sweating much which worried me.  I thought I had better slow down a bit.  But when I hit the 5 mile mark, I decided to throw caution to the wind run all the way in.  Crossing the finish line was a mixed blessing.  I was glad to be done but I was disappointed with my overall time.  It turns out that I turned in my slowest bike and run split ever.  However, in spite of that, I was still only 2 minutes off my time for last year.  If I had hit my splits like I wanted to, I would have cut nearly 10 minutes off my time.  At least now I have a reason to return next year.