The Frantic Pace Returns

Well if you enjoyed the break last month, I have some bad news for you.  February found us back to our normal pace of over-scheduling.  Yeah!! First up was the long-awaited Science Fair!!  Lilly was selected as one of the 7th graders to represent her school.  This year she explored the effects of acid rain on plants.  Personally I think she needed to conduct the experiment longer, but her teacher had a fairly strict time line so we did the best we could...  She was pretty pleased with her effort but it wasn't enough to move forward to the state competition.  

The following weekend, Jim decided to take the children camping about an hour or so east of Yuma with another family.  He did this same thing last year with some other friends and they enjoyed it tremendously!  They took a RAZR to rage around in as well as some other "toys".  

Last year I got to stay at home for this Daddy camp out, but this year I signed up for a Spartan race with some friends.  Last year - sitting at home with the cat reading a great book ... this year - crawling under barbed wire and doing burpees.  Hmmm, is it strange that I enjoyed both?! Ha!

Seriously though, I was kind of nervous about the whole obstacle course race.  None of my friends had done this particular style of race before so we decided to sign up for the Sprint (3 to 5 miles) instead of the Super (6-8 miles).  The Sprint has about 27 obstacles and the Super has about 30.  So really the difference would be just the miles.  Again, not knowing what to expect, we decided to play it safe.

This is on the pickup material.  Oh Boy!

So we showed up early to watch some of the obstacles at the end of the race to see exactly what we had signed up for.  If you fail to complete any of the obstacles, the penalty is to do 30 burpees. There were a few obstacles  that I knew were going to end up with me doing burpees but the goal was to do as few sets of them as possible.  

Look how clean we look!

So we started out and the first couple of obstacles were all wall-climbing ones.  So we were feeling pretty good about ourselves.  Once you get over the horizon though, the harder ones start to show up.

Those sandbags are HEAVY! 

One of the obstacles I was particularity dreading was the water challenge.  Some Spartan races have several water challenges, but since we were in AZ it is hard to keep the water challenges filled with water.  The obstacle required you to wade into thigh-high water and duck down under a wall.  The day before the wall you ducked under forced you to duck down underwater to get under the wall.  However by the time we got to it, there was a 6 inch gap between the wall and the surface of the water.  We were still soaking wet, dripping muddy water but at least I didn't have to duck under the water to clear the wall.  Right after that we had to roll under barb wire for about 400 meters on the rocky ground.  That one went on FOREVER!!  

 The last obstacle was to jump over a fire line.  Easy peasy!  

We did it!!

We headed back to the hotel and jumped in to the hot tub!!  It felt sooo nice!!  I enjoyed this race quite a bit so much so that I think I have talked the kids into doing one next time.  They do have a kid's version but maybe I can get them to do the real one.

The next week we get a visitor - NANNY!!! We all love it when Nanny comes!!  Lots of eating out and no cooking! Yeah!! I even took her on a field trip with Lucy's class to a experimental farm down the street from our house.  They are attempting to isolate particular genetic features in wheat.  The majority of the winter wheat grown in Yuma ends up in Europe as flour for pasta.  Who knew?!

When Nanny visited last year, Wesley pretty much steered clear of her, but this year they became best friends.  Nanny is a cat person but I will say I kept catching the two of them bonding together.  She even threw the ball with him every afternoon outside.  Poor Wesley, he will be so sad when she leaves.

Oscar is not happy with the interloper

Thankfully the weather cooperated while Nanny was here.  We had cool temperatures and it wasn't overly sunny.  She probably wished it had been warmer since the east coast has had a pretty brutal winter.  Sorry about your luck!

We can't have visitors and not go see the sights.  I had been wanting to go the
"From the Farm" restaurant in the foothills so I decided to take the girls up there.  We spent the better part of the afternoon going through the barn and having lunch.  Jim and Ben decided to hike Telegraph Pass instead, but did join us in time for lunch.

Right down the street is a teeny tiny church.  Jim, Lucy, and Ben discovered it a few months ago on an excursion so we thought since we were in the neighborhood we would swing on by.  The guest book was 3/4 of the way full and it had a start date of Jan 1, 2018! That was pretty impressive.

We also felt the need to go to the Yuma Territorial Prison.  Nanny had seen it before years ago when Lilly was a baby, but we thought we were due for another visit.  Not much had changed with the actual Prison buildings, but the museum was much improved.  

Can we leave him in there?

Nanny couldn't stay forever, which is a real shame.  Time moves faster when she comes around.  I am sure she slept on the plane because we ran her pretty ragged.  

Next up is Ben's 10th birthday!!  Hard to believe our baby is 10 years old!! Double digits!  WOW!  He continues to be a sweet boy.  Quick to cuddle with anyone yet somehow remaining to be a stinky-footed sports nut.  We are so proud of him!  Since he was born on Presidents day, he usually get's the day off from school.  Not this year - can't win them all buddy!

One thing I guess he can win is the Pinewood Derby!  Over the summer we took the wooden block of pain home with us and he and Papa designed and cut the car shape.  Somehow I was able to keep track of it until January so Jim and Ben could put the finishing touches and wheels on it.  He ended up with a pretty fast car! 

While he didn't have the fastest car of the night, there was one other that beat him 3 times.  But math was in his favor because the three times Ben beat that car the time difference was greater so he ended up the winner!!  Way to go Ben!!  

So of the two trophy's you can win at this pack (Pinewood Derby and Rain Gutter Regatta) Ben has won them both in different years.  Not too shabby!!  Although, I hope next year's car isn't as skinny.  Getting all that weight on there was tricky.

The next morning we drug the kids out of bed fairly early and made them do an inflatable obstacle race.  Ben wanted to know if it looked anything like the Spartan race.  No, not at all.  Ha Ha Ha.  They were still pretty excited.  Well actually they weren't excited about it at all.  But we ignored the bickering and pressed on.  Upon completion, Ben decided it wasn't all that bad.  The girls were a hard no.  Sigh.

We did get them to smile at least for the picture

Saturday night we celebrated Ben's birthday with his friends.  He wanted to do laser tag and bowling.  I was just excited to do it anywhere other then my house!  He tried to talk us into have a sleepover on top of all of the other festivities, but that was never going to happen.

I know you are thinking that must be it right?  I mean in this weekend alone we have had three events.  You would be wrong.  The girls had their confirmation at church on Sunday morning.  

I wish we could have done it while Nanny was here, but trying to schedule this thing proved to be a challenge.  So last minute we were able to squeeze it in.  It was a very special day.