Bluebell Fun Run 2015

After living in Texas for more than 30 years, we finally decided to join the Bluebell fun run.

We started off with a trip to Bakery Donuts, compliments of Bethy.  May the sugar load begin!  Worth it!

We had to get a family picture before the race - DTB with his girls!

Brandon brought the girls to cheer us on!  Sweet Mabel, Annie and Leah!  It probably helped that there was all-you-can-eat "free" ice cream at the end.  Little did we know Bluebell was about to be shut down and our world would be shattered. :( This was to be our last chance for the best ice cream  in the world!  (Listeria or not)

 Here is Shady showing how much she LOVES running!
Best.Picture.Ever!

Boston Marathon 2015

The Boston Marathon is pretty much the ultimate goal for all runners.  To qualify you must run a time for your age group much faster than the average.  In my dreams.  But Poodle managed to beat the odds, aka trained her little butt off getting a qualifying time to run the marathon.  We joined in the festivities vicariously by going to Boston to cheer her on.  Brittany's friend, Emily Bones flew up from Washington, D.C. to support her.  What a great friend!

First item on the agenda was heading for the Expo.  It was held in the Convention Center in downtown Boston.  We took lots of pictures, of course.

Here she is in front of the wall of sponsors.

You have to take your picture at the finish line BEFORE the race, as they don't let anyone in the finishing area during the race.

She added her name to the wall of runners, and we wrote some encouraging words as well.

Carbo-loading is essential!  She chose pizza at Regina's - best pizza EVER! (as well as goodies from Mike's Pastries)

Marathon tradition - picture of the clothes you will wear the next day with your bib number.  She wrote BRIT on the front of her shirt so people would cheer for her.  IT WORKED!

They had more school buses than I had ever seen in my life.  No wonder the schools shut down for this event!

Race day turned out to be COLD, and windy (25 mile per hour headwind facing the runners the entire 26.2 miles)  To make matters worse, it began raining as she began running and didn't stop until she finished. 

Before the race

After the race

She's a winner!

Panama 2015

Our Christmas vacation this year (my week off from work) was to Panama City, Panama.  We started out in the city, which actually is quite modern and pretty.  They have a beautiful boardwalk along the ocean with parks and walking/biking paths.  Scattered along the paths are work-out spots, soccer and basketball court that are alive with activity most of the day.  We visited the Panama canal, which was a learning experience.  Apparently, I had forgotten a chunk of US history.  

After our brief stay in the city, we flew to Boquette, Panama for some adventure!  Boquette is a tiny town located in the mountains north of Panama.  The weather is much cooler, and, apparently only during the first two weeks of January every year, is rainy all day almost every day.  After those two weeks, they have perfect weather.  (lucky us)  The rain didn't spoil our fun.  We bought slickers and ventured out for many adventures.

We hired a rock climbing expert, Ceasar, who drove us to a secluded lake and taught us how to rappel.  Unfortunately, there were no successful recordings from the new GoPro that we purchased for the trip.  (You'll just have to take my word for it that I rappelled down a waterfall.)  

 We stayed at a beautiful spa resort, which almost  made up for the Go Pro disaster.  We had out own patio backing up to a beautiful forest.

We hiked almost every day, encountering beautiful waterfalls, flora and fauna.  

I think my favorite adventure was white water rafting with this cute couple from Canada.  Our guide was amazing.  He was a little concerned, however, when DTB fell out of the raft while before we started the journey and was swept down the river.  He managed to get back into the raft without problem, however.

DTB came out unscathed from his mishap, which is more than I can say for myself.  Somehow this happened, although I'm not exactly sure how.  (it's a natural talent)

\
We loved out trip and look forward to another adventure this year.  Thanks for planning a great trip, DTB!

Christmas 2014

Christmas 2014 was great!  We continued the family traditions of  caroling on Christmas Eve, complete with eclairs of course, Bethy's wonderful  breakfast, and family dinner later on Christmas day. We missed the Funks but the Lees made a visit.  We added a new tradition - hula hoop wars!  The kids loved it.  I'm sure all will agree that I was the champion hula hooper!  (hehe).  The best part of Christmas was being with family.  Such a wonderful way to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Grateful

The Sunday after Thanksgiving my cute niece and her husband visited on their way back to Austin.  It was great to have them, especially since I have grandchildren the ages of Emily and Brett's children.  Violet loved having some girls to play with, since her cousins were out of town.  At church the speaker was giving a talk on gratitude, and asked each of us to think of what we were grateful for.  The little girls spent most of the meeting kneeling by their chairs, coloring and giggling.  They kept bringing me some post-it notes with words written on them.  I didn't care that they weren't paying attention, because they were entertaining themselves.  It wasn't until after the meeting that I looked at the notes, surprised to discover that they indeed had been listening.  Here is their list:

1. fruit

2. plans

3. family

4. my mom and dad

5. water

6.  my body

7. my bruther and sistere

8.  the skeripshers

9.  freinds

10.  grand parints

11. door

12.  my hair

13.  my eyes

14.  my mathf

15.  my nows

16.  my leg

17.  my ers

18.  my tows

19.  my jolry

20.  dror

21.  butrfliys

22 tents

23  frosin

24.  techers

25  stop siyns

26  stors

27 sporkols

28 jolls

29  the erth

30  flawrs

31 pecocs

32  snowflaks

33 fethrs

They ran off to Primary and Emily and I had to laugh at their list.  They were trying to make it to 100 items before the meeting ended.  We seriously underestimate our kids!

I am grateful for children!

Shoreman Triathlon - September 6, 2014

Poodle and DTB  have been preparing for the Shoreman Triathlon (1/2 Iron man) race all summer (well, longer than that actually)  We flew to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where we met up with Poodle and her fan club, Emily Bones.  They were hoping for some cool weather, as last year the temp was 50 degrees at start time.  No such luck this year!  It was a whopping 90 deg by a couple hours into the race.  

 Even though they were competing against one another, DTB helped her zip up her wet suit.  What
a good sport!

This is my favorite picture of them!  (Pre-race, obviously)

Brittany and Emily

 It was a scorching day, but she managed to cross the finish-line smiling!  The medallion she received after swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56 miles and running 13.1 miles was a quarter-sized trinket hung from a ribbon.  But then, most people don't do this for the medal!  She certainly didn't!

We went to the Boardwalk along the Atlantic Ocean afterwards and ate at a great restaurant!

Congratulations, Poodle!!

(Unfortunately, I'm not the greatest photographer (I know, shocking!) so we don't have many great action photos.  DTB managed to capture a few.)

This just in . . . Poodle won first place in her age category for the Triathlon!!

congratulations!!  See race results here:  http://www.dqtridu.com/shoreman14.htm 

Anders Lee Reed (9/3/14) #15

We were SO happy when Ryan called to tell us Brianna was in labor and was going to the hospital to have their fourth baby!  She was scheduled for induction this weekend, and we would be out of town at the Triathlon.  She had him just in time, and I was able to visit them in the hospital before we left!

 So cute!

 Brianna is so calm - I guess it's all the experience she's had in the past five years!

He was a big guy - 8 lb 3 oz, and such a cutie!  We are so grateful for his safe arrival!  That makes four new grandchildren this year.  WOW!  :)

Lynard Skynard

For our anniversary this year I bought Mike tickets to a Lynard Skynard concert that was performing in Houston.  He was pretty excited!  Unfortunately, I had to leave poor Bex a little early.  Good thing Poodle was there to help out!  Surprisingly, we weren't the oldest people in the crowd!

 DTB sported his new haircut!  I think he got it cut just for the concert, so he could fit in better.

 An earring and tatoo would have helped!

 Unfortunately, we are frequent fliers to the rock concert scene, so we didn't realize that, although the tickets stated the concert started at 6:30, they lied.  The "rock stars"  play at the end.  The pretty crappy bands play beforehand.  That's probably so you'll appreciate them more.  At any rate, dad was ready to leave by the time Lynard Skynard began performing.  He changed his mind pretty quickly.  They were amazing!  (and I'm not a big rock star fan.)

 We did have to leave early, as DTB had an early high council meeting and needed to get to bed.  :(

Next time we'll know - wait until dark, then show up!

George Allen Funk

I love visiting Nashville, with it's beautiful trees, fabulous climate, art and music fanatics, but most important - the growing little Funk family!  This time was especially fun, as we were welcoming the handsome George Allen Funk to the family.

I usually started off picking the kids up from a friend's while Carrie was waiting to be induced.  We convinced Devin to eat at Five Guys by enticing him with Yogurt Mountain treats afterwards.  So fun!  (not as much fun for Carrie - sorry!)

The next day I convinced them to help me make cookies.  Devin and Graham volunteered to hammer the Heath Bars that I needed crushed up to put in the cookies.  They did a fabulous job!  Unfortunately, the cookies were pretty much a bust!

 We were so excited when Carrie called with the news of the delivery!  We went to church but left early to visit her at the hospital.  She did awesome!

 Graham was quite the super-hero helper.  So were Devin and Caroline, although they didn't require the costumes.

 Eating healthy with grandma he he.

 Getting little George home from the hospital was an ordeal.  They gave Carrie her papers and allowed her to walk out holding little George in one hand, her bag in the other.  As there were several different places to pick up patients at the hospital, we had a difficult time finding each other.  I may have been a little sharp with the garage attendant trying to find my precious children.
All was forgotten, however, when Poodle showed up and made everyone smile!

So grateful for the arrival of George Allen!   (the third of four 2014'ers)
Love them all!

SLUMBER PARTY!

We had a great time last weekend with the "babies."    Lindsey was here waiting to move into her house, so we had the Peterson girls over so that mom and dad could have a well-needed "adult night out."  (We had more fun, though.)

Mabel and Violet were the  cool "oldest kids."

We had cooking lessons (wish Bex were here) and made  Levain chocolate chip cookies.  And I was nice and shared my aprons. Aren't they lovely?  (hehe)

 Everybody climbed in our bed (except DTB) and watched Frozen, until they were asleep, when we transferred bodies to their final resting place.

To complete the party, we had Shipleys donuts for breakfast, and sent everyone home on a nice sugar overload.  You're welcome.  ;)
Definitely a must do-over.

Summer Vacation 2014

We spent July 4th at a fabulous resort in the Hill Country.   We had a great time playing, relaxing, and eating (yeah, baby!)
We stayed at the Barton Hill Resort in Austin, with the nicest golf course in Texas.

 Of course, we got in some exercise hiking and biking.  We didn't realize there would be a swim hole here.  Big mistake!

 Being the "foodies" that we are, we had to try out the hot spots for good grub.  This one didn't disappoint!

We also tried out Hopdoddy's (I believe there is one in Houston now.  First try we went to the one on 6th Street and the line was out the door and down the street.  After waiting 40 minutes in line and only moving a few yards I got anxious.  The hotel was shooting off 4th of July fireworks and I wanted to see them, so we went next door for some "street tacos" (not very good) and headed back to the hotel for a fabulous fireworks display.
We talked to the staff at the hotel for advice.  When we told her we had been to the Hopdoddy's on 6th street, she said, since that's where the "hip" people go, it would be much more crowded.  (apparently we're hip!)  So we tried a different location the next night.  Still a long wait, but worth it!
Although it was only a long weekend, we had a great time, and can't wait for our next get-away!
(That will be September in New Jersey for the triathlon)