Can you believe that this girl is 11? She was excited so she woke up before I could awake her with the birthday song. Then she read on the couch until school started online.
We brought the gifts to the restaurant. She opened them while we waited. She got cards and gifts from grandparents, parents and siblings. She got new Ken dolls, Barbie clothes, a teddy bear (from Eva) and funny cards.
And Red Robin employees sang to her and gave her a free sundae.
Jason here.
For some reason I decided to go back to the affectionately named Hell Hole Swamp for the winter edition. Amazingly I managed to talk Garrett and Heather Wood into running with me again. The summer race was… interesting with all the frogs, bugs, heat, and snakes. This time though we wouldn't be starting at dusk, so we had that going for us.
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It did rain all day though. I ditched my 250 dollar high end rain gear for a gas station disposable poncho and it worked like a champ.
The Frozen H3 was 6 laps with a 30 hour cut off. 5 or so miles of this race was through a swamp. 3 or 4 miles was through something I call “The Green Mile” literally a straightway through the pine forest that you goes straight as far as the eye can see. The race director accommodated our request for a Friday start, but that came with the drawback that there wouldnt be minimal support- ie no aid stations. Most races have aid stations 5-8 miles apart. Our aid station was our cars.
Fine with me, I had my Jetboil and soup, which was amazing.
Poor Garrett though. He struggled with… GI tract issues… a lot. He had to make pit stops every 20 minutes or so. Heather and I waited and chatted while Big G did his thing. It was literally 20 stops and at that rate, we ran a serious risk of missing cut offs. Garrett felt bad for his GI issues and that he might cause us to miss cut offs. Heather felt bad for Garrett. I felt bad for talking them into the race. At the end of lap 4, Garrett and Heather stayed in the car to talk things over while I went on. I figured I wouldnt see them on the course again.
5 miles later Garrett came barreling up (he is WAY faster than I am and caught up to me). He found some meds and decided to give it a go. Heather tapped and stayed in the car to get some sleep. She joined us on lap 6 and helped bring us home.
Garrett is one tough hombre.
We finished with about 30 minutes left to spare.
These girls are so creative. And SO funny. They called me downstairs to see what they had made. They set up a vignette of Barbies being blown away by the fan. It cracked me up!
I told you that the Barbie bus was a hit.
Jason has used this vacation as one of productivity. He said he didn't want to waste his time with screens this time. So he used a lot of his time to make things. He made me a shelf with hooks to hang aprons.
He also made me a tiered spice shelf.
He made a shed for the lawn equipment in the backyard. It is wonderful! Now I don't have to store the lawnmower in the garage and I can do yard work much quicker.
Brendan was ordained a Priest today by his father. What a special day! It's crazy how time flies. Jason will bless the sacrament with him next week. I'll probably shed a tear or two.
Paige had a hard time choosing something that she wanted to make with Dad. In the end, she decided on a bus for her Barbies. It took some creative planning but they did it. This thing is huge! They play with it all the time.
Jason continued his woodworking class with each girl. He asked them what they wanted to build and then they planned it out. Next, they went to Lowe's for the supplies. He let them use the tools (within reason) as well. Darby chose to make a dog house for one of her stuffed anumals. It came out pretty cute.
Jason sent me a text with this picture on it.
He said, "I went into CVS to use the bathroom before my run and came out to this." I bet she's not a great driver. ;)
