Where Awkward Meets Athletics

About three months ago Jason had the idea to have a friendly competition among us college friends with respect to physical goals. He is training for a marathon, I a triathlon, Kirby and Noah both lift regularly, and Austin has been performing copious amounts of manual labor. But since we all have different focuses we needed a way to compare our performance (e.g. Jason can run 26 miles but not bench more than ~185 lbs while Noah can barely run 3 miles but can bench ~250 lbs).

After much, much discussion we came up with five events that were tailored to our particular strengths. The events were:

1. 3.0 mile run

2. 0.5 mile swim

3. Bench - Most reps of 135 lbs

4. Ups - Most pull-ups and sit-ups completed in 4 minutes

5. Free throws - best of 50

After much, much more discussion we came up with a scoring system that normalized each person’s performance to the best performance for a particular event. We decided to all get together in Corvallis for Memorial Day weekend to have our athletic competition. The name was the easy part. It would be called… the pentathetition.

So on Saturday morning, at 9:00 AM sharp, six adolescent 30ish year olds piled into the Sand’s Acura and drove to the corner of 35th and Harrison - approximately 3 miles from Timberhill Athletic Center. For the next 3 hours we ran, lifted, swam, and generally abused ourselves in the name of hyper competitiveness.

To start, we ran and Jason finished first in a little over 19 minutes. Next, we all did bench press and Noah did 38 reps. Third was ups, and Noah did 30 pull-ups and 60 sit-ups. Next was the second endurance event, the swim. It is much harder to swim 0.50 miles after running and lifting. Mark did it in just under 13 minutes, though. Finally we did free throws where Noah made 40 of 50.

Obviously Noah was the winner, but I was pleased to come in third. The best part was that we made shirts to commemorate the event. And since Noah is a graphic artist they actually look professional.

Planning of next year’s pentathetition is already underway. Luckily we have a full year to discuss it. Great idea Jason!

PS - If you want to see how you compare to me, here were my splits: 22:20 run, 12 reps of bench, 20 pull-ups and 50 sit-ups, 17:45 swim, and 28 of 50 free throws. It sounds easy, but doing them all in the morning is quite a challenge.

Company Picnic Fun

Andy's company had their annual company picnic last weekend. It was at Columbia Park in Kennewick. We got to ride on the "train" around the park. Claire was more interested in the bouncy houses, which she got to enjoy with her buddies Roman and Remy. Roman and Remy's mom, our good friend Sylvie, took a few super cute pictures while they were in the bouncy house. The company photographer took a cute shot of us on the train. So yes, we managed to get some great pictures without even taking any pictures ourselves. They had some yummy BBQ from Famous Dave's, which was great for mom and dad, but not so great for the kidlets.

Pickin'

We went to a local U-Pick blueberry patch in Burbank that our friend Amber found out about. She invited a bunch of her friends and Shayna and I took her up on her offer. It was a beautiful day and we came away with a few pounds of yummy blueberries. I'm not quite sure how many pounds Claire ate while we were there in the patch... Either way, we had a great time.

Shayna and the girls.

Noelle and Claire, picking away.

The whole gang, you can see I dressed up for the event. The belly made it into the picture, but my face did not. Hmmm...

How seriously cute is this?

Ouch

The other day, I was in the kitchen and Claire came in and said something about her foot hurting. I looked at it and saw a splinter that must have been about a quarter inch long just under the skin on her big toe. With a little help from Bob the Builder and a pair of tweezers, we were able to remove the splinter without any tears. Woohoo! Great job, Claire!

You can see the splinter, after I had pulled it out, on my fingertip

I tried to get a picture of where it had been wedged. You can see here that Claire is helping me with the tweezers.

Pool Time

Since the weather's been getting hot lately, Claire's been spending her share of time at the pool. Every now and then we get our little one set up in the back yard. Then it's a real treat when we get to go to the pool by grandma's house. So far, we've paired up with cousin Hannah and the crew, so it's a double bonus.

Crafty

So, just after Memorial Day weekend, there was this thing at the church for ladies to get together and learn how to sew an apron with just a couple of yards of fabric. Due to our bout of stomach virus, I wasn't able to go, so my friend Krista gave me some pointers and let me loose. It just happened to be Amelia's birthday, so I thought maybe I'd make one for her to go with her kitchen (not knowing that she was about to change the colors, of course). :)

I had a little bit of fabric left over and decided I needed to make something for Charles to go with his mommy's new stylin' apron. So I made him a smock. I thought the pattern was really cute. I may have to bust out a few more of these smocks, they are so cute and will be good for when Claire wants to paint or "help" mommy in the kitchen.

Bump Update

I thought it was about time to post another pregnancy update before I don't resemble the pictures we took of my belly. I'm 32 weeks now, which means that we're a scant 8 (maybe 9) weeks from Baby Boy making his official appearance. Last week, we took a belly picture, so you can see that I do look like a pregnant person now. Oh, and of course, the comparison from last pregnancy (at week 32)...

My friends from Bible study plus Deborah showered my friend Sylvie and I last week. Sylvie just happens to be expecting a boy a few weeks earlier than I, so we thought it would be fun to combine parties. We had a fun little get-together at PF Chang's. I hadn't been there before, so that was cool. We all got something different, then shared, family style. It was delicious. I especially liked the lemon pepper shrimp, the curry vegetables, and the banana egg roll dessert. I figured it was a good excuse to get dressed up, so here I am in my maternity dress-up clothes.

I'm still feeling pretty good. It's a little harder to turn over in bed, and the walks in the morning are tiring me more. They also seem to be putting a little more stress on my body than they used to. He seems to stretch more and kick less. I frequently find him pushing against my right ribs as if to say, hey lady, sit up straight, give me a little room here. I'm pretty sure he's got his head down now, so let's hope he stays that way for the rest of the duration. He does some wiggling now and then. It really is very odd to see your belly move on its own. Andy has gotten to witness some pretty good movement, but Claire hasn't felt him move yet.

The other weird pregnancy-related thing I've been having lately is more desire for food. I can't exactly call it hunger, per se. It's not like I'm "hungry" and need to eat four more cookies, it's like, the cookies just call to me, beckoning me to eat just a few more. It's like my self-control has gone out the window and even though I've eaten a full meal and technically feel satisfied, something inside my head shouts, "Eat more!" It's weird, kind of annoying, but I figure a few extra calories here and there won't hurt. So I've been eating more nutella lately and I've been really glad not to have candy bars, chocolate, or lots of snack food in the house.

Claire is just a few days away from taking up residence in her new "place" downstairs. We've moved most of her toys down there, we've made her bed, and moved a few clothes into her closet. We'll be posting more pictures of that soon. After we get back to life as usual after this weekend, I think we're going to go for it. I'll make sure to let you know how she does...

And what post would be complete without an appearance from the cute one. She's sporting her new skirt that grandma made for her and eating a dairy queen ice cream cone at the local hot rod show. It doesn't get much better than that, does it Claire?