Race Complete

I have finished the Pigman triathlon and over all the race went well. I'm not sure my exact splits but I pretty much did the same times as I did last year and felt pretty good the whole day. On the bike I pressed it hard for the whole 15.5 miles and ended up going sub 45 minutes which is darn good. Then I was really surprised on the run that I was able to keep a constant good pace. I figured my day yesterday was going to take its toll during the run but it never did. I ended up running a 23 on the 5k and and overall of 1:22 which wasn't a PR but a good race nonetheless. Now Jen and I are going to grab some lunch and look at new recliners to replace the couch she sold yesterday.

Pigman Triathlon

Here i am at the Pigman Sprint triathlon which normally is the first race of my season but with St George its my second. Having already done an Ironman this year there really aren't an nerves for the race. I'm hoping to have a good race and get some triathlon confidence after my disappointment from Ironman St George. Besides all the newbies this is always a fun race that I enjoy doing so it should go well. I am a bit worried about the fact I spent yesterday playing golf and drinking beer with my friends but I feeling alright.

Garage Sale Day

This morning is the big city wide garage sale day here in Clarence. For the past few days Jen has been feverously working to get ready for the big day. We are selling a lot of stuff that we have been carrying from move to move and finally decided it was time to get rid of some of it. Hopefully we are carrying very little of this stuff back inside today.

10 Year Anniversary

Hard to believe but yesterday was Jen and my 10 year wedding anniversary. With the close proximity to the date that my dad passed away 9 years ago we have never really celebrated our anniversary properly but this year we thought it might be time to actually celebrate and do something. As many people at work told me, not many people make it to 10 years these days. After searching around the web for a couple hours in the morning Jen and I decided we would head up to Stone City to the little local pub/restaurant they have there. I cut out of work early about 4 o'clock so we can try to get there before the mad rush. It turns out we didn't actually be mad rush we ended up getting there about 530 and there were cars parked everywhere. At this point I was just about ready to throw in the towel but Jen said since we've driven this far we should go check it out. Much to our surprise when we got in the restaurant it wasn't bad at all in fact we only waited for about 10 minutes before we got a table. All in all the restaurant turn out to be really great. We got a table in the corner,food turned out to be really good and I got to spend the night with my great wife and celebrate our marriage.

Last Day Of School Party

With today being the last day of school we had to have a small party to celebrate the end of a long school year.  As you remember Clancey was done last Friday but Marshall had to go one more day.  Which really didn't make any sense at all considering all they did all day was play games and have a party.  Had he not had school today mema and papa had talked about taking them for the weekend and coming back sometime this week.  I guess having school today did give us a chance to have a party on my day off and it just isn't a party without a cake.

Marshall was the one that thought up the image for Jen to put on the cake.  While he is a genius that doesn't mean he doesn't like have a summer break.  Although the kid does have two weeks of college to go to this summer.

My contribution to the party was a bunch of burnt up brats, one even having a bite out of it from the dog.  I'm thinking it may be time to clean my grill out because I do seem to be having a bit of a problem with flames ups lately.
Once we got done with the cake and brats we finished the night off with a game of Life.  I tried to convince them to play on my Xoom so we wouldn't have to get out a bunch of pieces but no dice.  Marshall and my Ludite wife requested the real board game.  Although I will admit when you play it on the Xoom it really doesn't amount to more the spinning the spinner and making about 2 decisions the the whole game, which is rather boring.  At least when you play the real game you have to count money, keep track of rules and handle to 50 billion pieces the game has.

Last Day Of School

Today was Marshall's last day of school. After Jen, Clancey, and I all went to Davenport to run some errands we stopped by the school to pick Marshall up on the way home. In kid world today is a big day as it is the official start of summer break. As an adult you yearn to have summer break back and be able lay around all day, play video games and just have fun. Its too bad when you are young you don't understand how good you have it those few years you have a summer break and don't have to have a job.

Memorial Afternoon On The Porch

Here is a video I took when we were sitting on the porch and enjoying some relaxation while it rained.

Afternoon On The Porch

After a hard day working in the lawn and mowing that huge yard we are enjoying some time relaxing on the porch. Even makes it better when you relax in the porch and there is a nice light rain to make the air fresh and pleasant sounds, when you can hear it over the loud crazy kids. Need to get a TV out here and it would be awesome ;)

Great 5k

Marshall and I just finished the 5k and Marshall did awesome. He managed to run a 34:11 which is a personal record. This is the first race that Marshall ran the whole race and didn't walk once. There were a couple times that he wanted to but he dug deep and kept running with some encouragement from me. I'm really proud of the kid, he even managed to beat a couple grown men. Had to have been tough on the ego to see a 8 year go running by.

Clarence 5k

This morning we are all running the 5k race they are having here in Clarence. I guess Marshall and I are running the 5k and Jen and Clancey are doing the 1 mile run/walk. Its been a year since Marshall's last 5k so we will see how much he has improved. Its really impressive he can run 5k because for a little guy it is a long ways. I'll be sure to report how he does.

Fun Day At Renaissance Fair

I meant to put the blog up about this last night when we got home but we were tired so it had to wait until today. Friday afternoon Jen was searching around and happened upon the ad for it so we thought it would be a good Saturday thing to do.  I planned on getting up early to get my 3 hour ride in and then we would head down around noon.  Well I got done with my bike ride just a little before 10am and when I came upstairs Jen said that Marshall didn't want to go now so we were just going to stay home.  I was a bit bummed but figured no big deal maybe I could get the lawn mowed or something.  Well it wasn't an hour later and Marshall said he wanted to kinda go then, at this point we should have realized that Marshall was in a funk but we didn't.  Anyways it would about 11 now so then we all piled in the car to head to Amana, with a quick stop in Mt. Vernon for lunch at the DQ.  Once again I failed to use my GPS on my phone because I figured that Jen knew the way.  Turns out she didn't and we drove about 10 miles past Middle Amana before we realized we were going the wrong way.  Finally a little before 2pm we found the place parked the car and headed in.

We weren't 100 meters from the car when Marshall started to complain that his legs were tired, uh oh, Marshall was in a funk.  When Marshall is in a funk nothing on the face of the earth is fun.  Literally Santa Claus could swoop out of the sky and offer Marshall his magic bag of presents and he could car less.  Well it was too late at this point we were at the fair and Clancey was excited to funkmaster was just going to have to deal.  First up was the magic show.

It has been awhile since I've seen a magic show, probably the last time was at Adventureland when Marshall and I went a few years back, and I'm not certain that Clancey had ever seen a magic show.  The guy was quite entertaining and Clancey was laughing his head off at all the jokes, even the ones he didn't understand.  Marshall wasn't totally funked yet so he even had a good time.  With it being quite hot yesterday getting some relief from the sun wasn't bad either.  Once we were done there we kind of just strolled about for a bit.

Oh the things you see at Renaissance fairs! Although Jen and I decided that the next time we go we are going to dress up and partake in the fun.  What other time can you dress up in crazy clothes and not have people thing you are total weirdo.  After wondering around for a bit we happened upon another show that caught our interest, a sword fighting show, so we sat down to take it in.

It wasn't long before they asked for a couple volunteers to go be in the show.  Clancey always has his hand up to be in the show but he never gets picked well today it was finally that day, he got picked.  He was about as excited as a kid could be to actually get to be in the show.  As you can see they put a viking hat on him and he got to march around with all the other people.  About this time Marshall was pretty much in 100% complaining mode so he just sat there and pouted about the heat, being tired, and wanting to go home.  I think if he wouldn't have been in such a crab ass mood he probably would have had a good time.  Anyways, after Clancey got out of the show he spotted the archery range and wanted to got shoot some arrows.  

As you can see from the picture above the line for archer was long and it moved slooooow!  Clancey was a trooper though he stood there in line, in the hot sun gleefully waiting his turn to shoot some arrows.  In fact he did better then the older woman and her grandson behind us in line.  My god, this woman complained to no end about how long and slow the line was going, how she other things she wanted to see and how can a business be run this way, blah, blah, blah.  I was about ready to send her to go hang out with Marshall and they could complain together about how the world is plotting against them. ;)  It only ended up being 20-30 minutes before we finally got to the front of the line and Clancey got fitted for his bow.  

He is looking mighty good with his bow, a regular Katniss Everdeen ready to take on the Hunger Games.  They ended up giving Clancey a pretty good sized bow, it was nearly as tall as him.  The thing was that he was just so strong they had to keep giving him bigger and bigger bows.  When I told the people running the archery range he was 4 they could hardly believe it.

As it turns out shooting a bow is way harder then you would think it is, especially when you are 4.  The first shot went astray and Clancey ended up with a minor injury.  Ok to be perfectly honest I don't think that it was the arrow that caused the scratch on his leg but they were pretty concerned about it and patched him up right away.  I suppose in our lawsuit happy society you can't be too careful.

It wasn't long and they had Clancey all patched up and he was ready to shoot again.  He ended up hitting the target one time but the guy helping him was doing most of the shooting.  As long as Clancey had a good time that's all that matters.
Once we were done with the archery was headed over to the jousting, where Jen and Marshall were hanging out waiting for Clancey and I to get done.  Just as we got to the jousting area it had just ended so we didn't get to see any of it.  Funkmaster and Jen did but nothing could drag Marshall out of the funk so he was not impressed at all.  He was just hoping we could go home at that point.  While we didn't get to see the jousting we Clancey did get to pet a horse.

When Clancey finished petting the horse we figured we should start making our way towards to door.  On the way though we wandered through the tent area so check out all the stuff that the medieval vendors had.  Clancey really wanted a sword but we told him that he was probably a bit to young for a sword.  I was surprised when he agreed and it didn't turn into a fit.  I guess yesterday the boys just up and switched personalities for the day.  We were just about ready to walk out the door when a guy came running by with a flaming torch and said there was going to be a juggling show and much to Marshall's disappointment we headed back in for the show.

 I'm glad we decided to go back for the show because it turned out to be the best show of the day.  The guys were really funny and entertaining.  Clancey was laughing his head off and even Marshall snapped out of his funk for a little bit to enjoy the show a little bit.
The day turned out to be quite enjoyable and I'm glad we made the trip down.  Besides Marshall being a bit crabby I think we discovered that we like Renaissance festivals and will probably make it to more of them.  I do have to report that on the way home Marshall snapped out of his funk and by the time we got home was all better.  I guess he just wanted to spending the day relaxing at home as opposed to traveling around the state.  Hopefully next time he can enjoy it.

Clancey In The Show

Clancey always volunteers and today he finally got in the show. You can see him as the short Viking in the center. He was pretty happy to be in the show.

Renaissance Faire

We just got to the Renaissance fair and it looks to be quite the show. Everyone is all dressed up and it seems pretty neat so far. Right now we are at the magic show and then going to go check out the tents next. Should be fun.

Lunch At The DQ

This afternoon we all decided to pile in the car to head to Amana for the Renaissance festival. On the way Clancey was pretty hungry so we had to stop for some lunch and what better place then the DQ. After this we will be on our way to the Renaissance festival which should be a good time. Never been to one before so I'm betting it is going to be quite the show. Can't wait to see.

Clancey Spring Preshool Concert