A Smattering of Duehrings

Another MS150 completed this weekend. It was a “great” ride. Yeah, and I totally killed my legs.

After a summer of watching professional cycling I had this smart idea that I could ride just as fast — without training every day, eating correctly, having a good bike, etc.

Well, come to find out, I CAN ride just as fast–but only in tiny little spurts, few and far in-between. Definitely not the entire ride! And today was absolute murder. There was a headwind, 15-25mph, the ENTIRE WAY! Needless to say, I can’t walk too well right now.

I know it’s a boring pic, but I’ll post “real” pics later. You may not be able to see them well, but I wanted to point out the three blue cards I have pinned to the top of the jersey. They have the names of the ladies I rode for this weekend: Barbara Schantz, Ashley Stubbs, and Jodi Louvier. These are moms who are suffering from MS, and I was proud to display their names on my back for both days of the ride, 184 miles. God bless you, ladies.

I love going camping in the fall. There was a nice weekend in September so we packed up and headed to Clinton lake with the Weyands for the weekend.

We loaded up all of the kids bikes and scooters in Kevin’s truck. The campground was empty so we let the kids roam free on their bikes. There was a big loop that they would bike and scoot around. Eli and Molly crashed their first time down the big hill and after that they did great.

It was cool outside, but the water was still nice enough that the kids were able to swim.  They also spent time at the shore of the lake by our camp sight. There was clay down there so they had fun getting really dirty.

The shower house was being renovated and was closed so this was the kids shower for the weekend.

There was a shower house at another campground that Rachel and I drove to when we needed to get cleaned up. We were thankful for that.

Oh yeah, the raccoons broke into our camp sight the first night and stole our food. We had put most of it in our vans, but they broke into our coolers and opened one of my tubs and took all they could get their little hands on. I guess you are doomed when you are the only ones at the campground. They couldn’t be choosy and they worked till they got what they wanted.

Also, Damon got into poison something and his eyes were swollen shut. He ended up on steroids after the weekend. He was miserable. We think it might have been when he climbed the huge tree to recover our toy that was thrown into the tree in July. He was able to rescue the toy, so it might have been worth it??

It was a super fun trip.

These are the same kids that fought over having their own bed a few weeks ago.

Since it was raining all day the kids decided to build a giant spider web IN the house. I am pretty sure my blood pressure went up a few times while trying to make my way around the house.

Play-Doh Play

Thursday night I loaded the station wagon with computer equipment and kids, and huffed it up to my Ma’s. She had some computer issues, so we made it a good excuse for a quick visit.

Rare foto of a normally nocturnal Evan in a tree.

The drive is ALWAYS eventful. Yes, eventful. We’re talking about Ranch dressing covering the entire back seat, Eli peeing in a bucket while we’re driving 81 71 m.p.h., having to stop for a pee break 5 minutes after passing a rest stop and everyone in the car saying they didn’t have to go, etc.

Kids: "Can we make a fire?" Grampa Kurt: "Okay!"

Well, I don’t let little things like that get in my way, and we made it fine. I fixed my ma’s computer, Grampa Kurt worked on the kids’ pinewood derby cars for AWANA (which I normally wait to do until the night before the race…), and the kids got to spend some quality time at gramma’s house. It was a great trip.

Molly loves picking flowers. Out of flower beds.

The kids played with Play-Doh, played with flowers, played in trees, played in leaves, played with watercolors, played at the park, and played with fire! How can you beat all that?

Me and My Ma