We {Heart} Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A is awesome. We have a Chick-fil-A less than a mile from our house and two more that are within 8 minutes of our house. The one closest to us is the greatest, though, because they put on the best activities every Tuesday evening for kids' night. I love kids' night because we get free kid's meals for the boys with the purchase of our combo meals. Who doesn't love a good deal and a night of no dishes?

Tyler has made so many little crafts: a fan, a doorknob hanger, a pirate necklace, a handkerchief, and the list goes on. On special nights they have a clown who does face painting and one night earlier this summer they had a fire truck, a police car, and an ambulance that the kids could climb in.

Tyler in the fire truckNathan claps for his chicken nuggets

In July Chick-fil-A has Cow Day. Anyone who dresses as a cow gets a free combo meal and even just having one part of an outfit (a shirt, a hat, etc.) earns a free menu item. The Tuesday before Cow Day, the kids' night activity was decorating a white hat with black spots. So, when Cow Day came around, Tyler wore his newly spotted hat, Nathan wore a cow costume that Tyler fit 2 years ago, and we got a great deal on our breakfast that morning!

Collecting Hardware

Tim competed at the Whirlpool Ironman 70.3 triathlon in Benton Harbor, Michigan at the beginning of this month. (Ironman 70.3 means a half-Ironman distance race). He did amazingly well, considering that he had only been training for about 2.5 months. He earned 11th place overall, but he was the first amateur to finish the 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike and 13.1-mile run with a time of 4 hours and 12 minutes. His placing qualified him for the Ironman 70.3 World Championship in Florida this November, so we're definitely looking forward to that.

Although the boys and I didn't attend the race, we were able to follow the live results online. As soon as we learned that Tim had finished first in his age group (30-34), which is typically the toughest of all the age groups, Tyler clapped his hands and said, "Yay! Daddy won his age group! I so happy, I so happy!"

We got to talk with Tim on the phone just minutes after his race, and one of the first things out of Tyler's mouth was, "Daddy, did you get me a trophy?"

One of the perks of being the son of a fairly successful endurance athlete is the hardware--medals, trophies, plaques, etc. Tyler has come to expect such things after Tim's races because he knows that Daddy almost always performs well enough to earn them. He doesn't realize, however, that for most of the long races (marathons, half-marathons, Ironman and half-Ironman triathlons) everyone who completes the distance gets a finisher's medal. Tyler just knows that Daddy comes home with a lot of cool stuff after a race.

It's a good thing Tim does well at these races because he now has two boys who enjoy the hardware. At this particular race, he received a finisher's medal, a first-place medal and a plaque for winning his age group. Nathan doesn't really care about the trophies and plaques yet, but he does appreciate a medal around his neck, so thankfully Tim brought home one for each of his boys.

Showing off their new medals, the new plaque, and a trophy from Tim's previous race (see below)

Lately when I take Nate's picture, he blinks his eyes over and over. I think it's because of the flash. I have to take 5 photos to get just one of him with his eyes open. Silly boy.

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Tim did a sprint triathlon the week before his Ironman 70.3, and since it was within driving distance, I took the boys and my dad. I had to wake up Tyler and Nathan so we could leave our house by 6:30 am (never an easy task), but since we don't get to see too many of Tim's triathlons, I didn't want them to miss it.

This was Tim's third consecutive year competing in the Buckner Mission Man Triathlon. I like this particular event because: 1) we can drive to it, 2) it's spectator friendly, and 3) the proceeds go toward missions.

Of course Tyler was excited about the race because, as previously established, he loves everything to do with triathlons. He loves watching all the bikes as the athletes head out on the road. Nathan liked watching all the athletes, too, but he was also just happy to have his Papa Rudy there to play with him.

Tim had a good race, especially considering that the sprint distance isn't really his thing. He finished third overall and one of his Raleigh Running Outfitters teammates finished second, so it was a good day for the team.

Tim hops on his bike

Tyler waits for Daddy to run by

Running Gear

Last week we went to one of Tyler's favorite places--Raleigh Running Outfitters, a.k.a. "the running store". RRO is Tim's primary racing sponsor and Jim, the owner, is one of the nicest guys around. Tyler loves going to the running store because there are toys to play with (Jim has two little ones of his own that are often at the store) and Jim always gives him something. Sometimes it's a sticker or a snack, but this time Jim gave Tyler and Nathan some Saucony sweatbands and Tyler even got a Saucony drawstring bag.

Tim told Tyler that he could use the bag for his running shoes, so as soon as we got home, Tyler took off his New Balances and stuck them in his bag. Then, he and Nathan both wanted to wear their headbands as they ran laps around our main floor. Tyler loves anything to do with running (he actually asked to watch "tack and field" today) and Nathan loves to do anything that Tyler is doing, so there's a chance we'll have two little runners someday.

Here are some photos I took one morning when they were sporting their new gear. Nathan, in particular, looks like such a bruiser with his headband.

You wanna piece of this?

Beach Day

My husband, bless his heart, thought it would be fun to take a spontaneous trip to the beach with the boys for a couple days and stay overnight. Note to self: the work that goes into a one-night stay is rarely worth it. So much stuff needs to be packed for the boys and Nathan just isn't at a very good age for traveling. For example, he didn't fall asleep in the pack'n'play until after 10 on Sunday evening, which means Tyler and I didn't fall asleep until after 10 either. Tim, on the other hand, can fall asleep anywhere at anytime (a talent I often envy), so he was the first to doze.

While it was an exhausting and at times stressful 24 hours, we did some fun things. When we got to the coast, we went straight to the acquarium where we saw an albino alligator, one of only about 50 in the world, and lots of sharks, stingrays, and fish. We ate on the waterfront for dinner and had a few minutes to swim in the hotel pool before bedtime. If we'd known bedtime would be so late, we could've swam for longer!

Luna the albino alligator

The next morning we spent about 2 hours at the beach, which was lots of fun. Neither of the boys were crazy about the ocean at first. The waves were fairly big, a lingering result of Hurricane Bill. I'm sure the ocean looked and sounded pretty scary from the perspective of our boys. Tyler had a blast playing in the sand. It wasn't until the last half hour that he would finally brave the incoming tide. Once he gave the water a chance, he thought it was great fun. After the trip he said his favorite part of the trip were the waves. This is quite an improvement over his last visit to the beach 2 years ago when he would cry if we just started walking toward the water.


Nathan proved to be a sand-lover as well, but he was also perfectly content to sit on my lap and let the tidewater wash around us. A couple times the tide came in when he was walking around and not paying attention, so he would run toward me so I could swoop him up.

Nathan managed to get sand on his hat all by himself.

I didn't get many pictures at the beach because Nathan wanted me to hold him most of the time. I'm not sure if he's teething, or if he's just getting more opinionated, but lately he is such a momma's boy. I couldn't even venture into the water by myself without him throwing a little fit in Tim's arms.

After getting all sandy at the beach, we cleaned up at the hotel and headed to dowtown Wilmington for lunch. We ate at a restaurant right on the river called Elijah's. It was a nice treat to have waterfront views everywhere this weekend.

Even though we were only away for a little over a day, Tim and I were so happy to get back home. While we made some fun memories in our short whirlwind of a trip, I think it will be at least a few more months before try to do anything like that again.

Bikes

Tyler LOVES bikes. When I say he loves bikes, I mean he is obsessed with them. He knows the difference between a road bike and a time trial bike by looking at the handlebars and the wheels. He knows that time trial bikes have aero bars and racing wheels. I didn't even know the difference until a few months ago.

Anytime Tim is working on his bike, Tyler is right there helping by holding tools and telling Nathan to stay back. ("No, Nathan. You can't touch Daddy's bike!")

He constantly talks about how Daddy's going to give him his time trial bike when he gets bigger. For Christmas he wants "a big boy 3-year-old's bike".

Last week I heard him singing, "I want to ride my time trial bike, I want to ride my time trial bike!" The actual lyrics to Queen's song titled "Bicycle Race" are, "I want to ride my bicycle..." I guess Tyler felt the need to change the song to reflect the fact that TT bikes are cooler than plain old bicycles.

During the Tour de France in July, he preferred to watch Lance Armstrong ("Yance Ahmstont"), rather than his regular rotation of Nick Jr. shows. One night during dinner he said, "Yet's call Yance Ahmstont." We explained that 1) Lance was pretty busy at the moment racing in the Tour, and 2) we don't have his phone number.

We often find him thumbing through one of Tim's triathlon magazines, studying all the different racing wheels, helmets, and of course, bikes. If he happens across a picture of Tim's bike or his Zipp wheels, Tyler is quick to point them out.

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A couple weeks ago I heard Tyler talking in his room as I was getting ready.

Tyler: Bikes are reedy awesome. I yike bikes and I three-years-old. I not four and I not ten yet.

Me: Tyler, who are you talking to? Are you talking to yourself?

Tyler (lookin a little shy): Yeah, I talking to myself.

Me: Okay.

Tyler: No. I talking to Jesus. (Pause) I yike bikes, Jesus.

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Here are some post-race photos at a local sprint triathlon that Tim won at the end of June.

Tyler loves wearing Daddy's helmet ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tim was changing one of his tires a couple weeks ago, so Tyler thought his trike needed fixing, too.

Nathan assisted as Tyler pretended to air up his tires.

Tyler flipped his bike upside-down just like Daddy did so he could do some more fixing.

When Nathan wasn't helping fix everyone's bikes, he was busy eating sidewalk chalk. He disappeared behind the garage for about 30 seconds, and when I caught up to him, he had turquoise chalk smeared all around his mouth. Tyler immediately said, "Mommy, Nathan wooks yike the master of disguise!" (yet another Backyardigans reference) I wiped off a little of the chalk before I ran inside to get the camera.

After all that chalk-eating and bike fixing, Nathan was so tired he kept lying on the ground.

Our Saipan Family

I'm still playing catch-up with my photos from earlier this summer, so bear with me.

In June my Uncle Ray, Auntie Elaine and my cousins Christine and Colleen stayed at Mom and Dad's house for a few days. They came all the way from Saipan (a tiny Pacific island somewhat near Guam and even smaller than Guam) were in NC to visit their son Dan and his family, who live in Fayetteville. We usually get to see Uncle Ray at least 2 or 3 times a year because he does a lot of traveling for conferences and seminars, but it had been 4 years since we'd seen Auntie Elaine and the girls. As always, we had a lot of fun spending time just talking, laughing and eating lots of yummy Chamorro food!

Group photo (minus Uncle Ray) Group photo (minus Dad) Uncle Ray and his professional-grade Nikon. I think I take a lot of photos, but I've got nothing on Uncle Ray. I could learn a lot from him if he lived closer! See the resemblence?

Gabe got a little tired after all the photos

Tyler, Cooper and Devin worked hard to get the belt on the treadmill to move. (It wasn't on.)