This weekend Christopher became the second triathlete in our household when he competed in the Hill Country Kids' Triathlon. I *highly* recommend this race if you've got a kiddo who'd like to try something like this. The race director is awesome, the volunteers were wonderful, the course was great, and the distances are manageable even if a kiddo is still using training wheels.
Here's Christopher before the race, setting up his gear in the bike transition area:
Even though Christopher is 6, the USAT rules determine one's age by how old one will be on the last day of the year. So, Christopher competed in the 7-8 age group rather than the 5-6, which meant a 100m swim instead of just 25m. He and I went to the neighborhood pool a few times to make sure he could swim the distance. He could.
But wow, I was so amazed how he just blazed through the 4 lengths of the pool without stopping for a breather, and was out of the water after about 4 minutes. Here he is warming up for the swim:
Here he is shivering, after the 'warm-up', before the race start:
And here's him starting the race. They stagger the start so the kids don't jump on top of each other:
Here is our little tough guy in the transition area, getting his gear on. We weren't allowed to help him, but a volunteer helped him double-knot his shoes.
Because the bike portion was much farther than Christopher had ever ridden alone before (2.5 miles) Frank ran behind him. Several other parents did the same thing. We were really proud of him for riding his big boy bike, after only a couple days of knowing how to brake right and start by himself.
Here he is coming into the transition area again, after the completing the bike section.
Here he is about 20 yards before finishing the race (1k, or .6 miles) with a time of just over 35 minutes. He's clearly tired, but determined.
Here's the champ cooling off after the race:
And just for good measure, here he is calling Uncle Scott to tell him about the race, and to brag that he did a triathlon before Scott did:
The rest of the day was hilarious. Christopher kept asking for special treats & privileges, reminding us that, "Well, I am a triathlete." He can't wait for his next one (the Pirates Triathlon, at the end of September).
I'm having a run of luck lately. First, it was the fire rainbow. And on this current packages of hippie eggs (as Frank would put it) I've had double-yolked eggs on every single one. I'm 6 for 6.
Here's today's:
From what I've read, double-yolkers are pretty rare, though if a hen is predisposed to producing them, she'll produce a lot of them. Traditional egg companies use candling (shining lights at the eggs) to weed out the double-yolkers, but my hippie egg people apparently don't do that.
The eggs are good, but I'll need to buy another brand for baking since the double yolks will mess up my recipes.
Christopher: Mom, can I have another piece of cheese? Me: No, because I'm almost done cooking dinner. C: (exasperated sigh) ... ... 1 minute later, he hands me a folded post-it note with this on the outside...
I overheard Christopher saying this to Frank this morning:
"So this bad guy (Lego) wizard? He has special books you have to be evil to be able to read. If you're good, the pages are blank. Yeah, so he buys them at Bats & Noble."
I've been doing some genealogy research - something I've been doing off and on for about 12 years now - and thanks to a new newspaper archive I found yesterday, I've discovered another funny story about a crazy branch of my family.
First, some background: William L Thompson moved to the Boise area from Philadelphia in about 1863. He had a huge homestead, and he and a guy named McClellan made the first ferry across the Boise river and apparently charged a fortune for people to cross. He also practiced medicine (though I've checked with the medical schools in the Philadelphia area and verified that he didn't attend medical school. Eh, no matter. In the wild West people tended to reinvent themselves, and he must've been somewhat skilled as he later married one of his patients, who he had treated for typhoid fever.)
WL Thompson was a generally* well-respected citizen. Too bad that didn't hold true for his kids, 5 troublesome sons and a daughter.
Here is a picture of the family outside their home in 1886:
So, the story that cracks me up is that the daughter, Lillian Thompson, married a criminal named William "Dell" Wolley (or Woolley?). He was a criminal before she married him and - shocker - continued to be one after they married. He eventually tried to forge his brothers-in-law's signatures on some checks and went to prison for four years.
Dell tried to commit suicide in prison by drinking carbolic acid, but I think he was just an attention-getter because the prison guard heard Dell scream "Well, here goes!" (He'd apparently sneaked the poison into prison, and after poisoning a prison cat to make sure it worked, he drank it himself.) He wasn't seriously injured, and still had to do his time. What a tool.
I'm sure the story wasn't funny for poor Lillian, but the idea of someone announcing his impending suicide with a scream strikes me as really immature. And funny. Really, really funny.
Stay tuned for more adventures of the Thompson Bad Boys.
* generally well-respected except for the time WL (at age 75) and his son Lafayette got arrested for killing some turkeys belonging to his old business partner, McClellan. It must not have been a big deal, though, because the newspaper filed the story under "Local Brevities".
A couple of weeks ago when he had to get up really early for a swim meet, he was whining for a long time about how eeeeeeearly it was and how he didn't want to beeeeeee there. When I told him I only wanted to hear positive things coming out of his mouth, he told me "I'm positive I don't want to be here." I had to laugh even though his attitude was irritating.
Yesterday, I quizzed him about Harry Potter, asking him who Harry's friends were. He said, "Ron?" and then had trouble coming up with another name. When I prompted him with, "Her........" he replied, "Monica!" Yes, folks. Her-monica.
And today, he said, "If you're tired and then you take a nap and then you get tired again, you're re-tired!"
They're definitely age-appropriate jokes, but I love that he likes to play with words like his goofy mom.
Well, we saw the fireworks on the lake last night, complements of Carlos & Charlie's. We anchored the boat in a cove and did some swimming, ate some Thundercloud, and settled in for the show.
We'll be heading over to Shelley's parents' house today for grilling, swimming, and probably a few drinks. I made a pie for the occasion:
Not quite as pretty as the one in the recipe, but it was easy & fun.
Hope you have fun today - nothing says Independence quite like bbq and sparklers!
It's no big secret that most commercials for household products involve women cleaning up the mess their hapless, helpless family members carelessly leave for them (except for one silly Hoover Floormate commercial involving bikers, but it was only novel/funny because it *wasn't* a commercial involving a women, hahahaa, ya get it? The man is cleaning, haha!).
Normally, I think these commercials are annoying to men as well; most portray a bumbling, clumsy but generally benevolent man and an efficient woman who solves the problem for him while rolling her eyes and smiling at the camera.
But this one sort of pisses me off and make me laugh at the same time:
This one makes me go, "Hey, a-holes! Why don't you sit there a bit longer guesstimating how big a mess it's going to make once it hits that rug. And hey, Doormat! Why don't you grow a spine and throw the paper towel roll at the a-holes who are laughing about how much work you have to do!"
And then I laugh at myself for giving the commercial more thought than it deserves.
This weekend Christopher became the second triathlete in our household when he competed in the 
Well, we saw the fireworks on the lake last night, complements of Carlos & Charlie's. We anchored the boat in a cove and did some swimming, ate some Thundercloud, and settled in for the show. 
