A Smattering of Duehrings

We were punished by the prairie again this past Saturday. We woke up to a very muggy foggy day. It was so foggy that I couldn’t see any bikers ahead of me or behind me the entire race. It was very weird weather, but at least there was no sun beating on us until the end of the race.

My foot and hip have been giving me problems since the 1/2 marathon so last month I decided to do this duathlon as a team. There was a girl from church that wanted to do the running and I much prefer to bike so we made a team.

We finished in 1hr 59 min 43 sec. Woo Hoo! We beat 2 hours. Barely. I think last year it took me 2hr 15min to do the entire thing. Obviously, having someone else run for me helped me quite a bit.

My mom and 2 of my sisters all were on teams this year, too. There were only 4 girl teams and we made up 3 of them. My friend Rachel teamed up with one sister and my mom teamed up with my other sister.

Damon did the whole thing and did awesome. He beat his record from other years and his goal for this year. He finished in 1 hr 43 min.

I forgot my camera so I am stuck with stealing pictures from people’s blogs. Ha! This is what I have found so far. A few people are going to be giving me cd’s with pictures so if I find any winner pics of Damon I will share them later.

The racin’ Neir girls

Rachel and me in what was going to be our last race of the season. We will see about that.

Jenny(my runner) and me

The fog had lifted by this time we got these pictures taken so you can’t see how bad it really was. Also, let me explain why I am holding my number in each photo. Well, they gave me a paper copy of my teammates number. You can imagine what happens when you are all sweaty and riding in dense fog. Within the first mile my paper number was soaked and had come off of me and was whipping behind me by one pin. I finally had to stick it into my pants to keep from losing it. It was crumpled into a little wad of paper by the end of the race.

This was our last scheduled race for this year. We (a group of girls from church) are now thinking about doing an all women’s triathlon in September. We only have 7 weeks to train so it should be interesting. I haven’t been swimming any distance since I was a lifeguard in college. (like at least 15 years ago) so it will be a bit of a challenge for me. We will see.

Somehow Eli’s bubble gum got from his mouth, onto the couch, and then into his hair. Well, according to Eli it just fell into his hair. Thanks to Google I found a quick fix. Olive oil worked great with a bit of screaming from Eli, but no hair loss.

When we got home from the zoo we ordered a bunch of pizza’s to fill the kid’s bellies. They were very hungry and cleaned up the 8 pizza’s pretty fast.

Then we went on a little trip to fulfill a tradition. There is a bridge that goes over the highway that you can walk over. I have memories of walking across it as a child as we lived just down the road from it then. Well, now we can’t enter Hutchinson without my kids begging to go to the bridge. I have been telling them each time we visit that we will do it during camp gramma.

So, as tired as we were we loaded up the vans AGAIN and headed to the bridge. The kids stood up there and tried to get as many semis as they could to blow their horns at them. We had quite a few cars honking also. Then we walked to the end and quickly got a picture up under the train track before another train came. The kids loved it.

Then we headed home for the evening camp fire. (That was lovely in 100 degree heat.) The kids didn’t seem to mind. We sang some songs and then some of the kids gave their testimonies of when they accepted Jesus into their lives. Then the kids roasted marshmallows.

When we finished we let the kids get back into the pool even though it was getting dark so they could cool down before going to bed. So, they got to do a little night swimming, trampoline jumping, zip lining, and playing in the dark before they finally settled down for the last night in the tents.

After breakfast Thursday morning it was time to pack up everything. Can you imagine going out into 3 tents that housed 17 kids for 3 days and trying to find your kids stuff. Yeah, it was fun. I think we all managed to get home with most of our stuff. Amazing!

Caleb spent an hour giving kids rides behind the mower to keep them occupied while we packed. My parents were extremely patient with the huge mess in and outside of their house. With that many kids in and out of the swimming pool, in and out of the tents, in and out of the house to use the bathroom…well you get the idea. It can be quite messy.

My kids have been talking to me about my childhood memories lately. They are very interested in what I remember as a child. They love to hear my stories. It is amazing what you don’t remember, though. I am almost positive this is going to be one of their memories that they don’t forget when they get older.

Thanks, mommy and daddy, for making these memories for all of our kids.

On Wednesday morning we loaded up 5 vehicles and headed to the Wichita Zoo. It was a really hot day but the kids were excited to go see the animals.

The most fought for spot of the day was on the wagon which carried the ice box with the kids canteens. There was room for about 4 kids on it and it was always full with a line waiting to get on. Eli (shirtless on the back) had a map of the zoo all day and kept track of where we were going. (ha!)

Probably my favorite part of the day was watching the kids with the chimpanzees. Eli loved them and I think they liked him. (I wonder why?) Check out his faces. Molly was scared of them and covered her eyes when she saw them.

When we had enough heat to where no one cared if they saw another animal and all the babies were crabby we headed for home.

(to be continued)

I am home now with my extremely over tired, crabby children. We are all in much need of sleep. I am also fighting a bad cold or something. Tomorrow is the Prairie Punisher Duathlon. Like always it will be like 100 degrees with 100% humidity outside for the race. Yay!

I will get back to the 2nd half of Camp Gramma just as soon as I get a few uninterrupted minutes.