From last weekend’s bike race in Guntersville. Both kids rode and rode and rode while we cheered Brian on to his 2nd place finish.

My little speed princess!

Josiah likes to say "speed!" when he's riding. He's so funny to watch!

So concentrated!

Look at that serious face!

One of my all-time favorite photos...

Brian attacking the break ahead of the field early in the race.

Wonder where Josiah gets his concentrated look from?

Brian leading the break as it's been trimmed down to just three.

The rest of the field, a couple minutes behind Brian's lead breakaway.

Brian's teammate, Sammy, winning the field sprint for 3rd place.

A little help from sister...

I can’t even tell you how happy this sweet photo makes me.   More tomorrow, hopefully… I’ve finally made space on my laptop so I can work on photos from our snow-day (more like snow-hours!) 2 weeks ago, beautiful spring blooms, and the serious bike racers from today.  But I’m as tired as my little ones from the sun, fresh air and chasing them around, not to mention cheering Brian to a 2nd place finish.  Whew!

(Try as I might, I cannot seem to get photos centered.  They’re centered on my “edit” page, but no matter what I do, they move left when I post… sorry!)

Enjoy the glimpse of our weekend!

Playing at the playground during the bike race…

A rare, sweet moment of being siblings.  There are VERY FEW pictures like this one.  Makes my heart burst 🙂

Brian leading one of the early laps in the race.

The finish sprint.  Brian’s got the red helmet just to the right of center.   More photos and his race report on his blog.

From last week.  I just got a new short haircut, and Analise was dressed in her pink and brown rodeo attire (essentially boots and braids 🙂 ).  She didn’t get the whole self-timer photo concept.

Friday evening, Brian and I got to go out with our friends, Lennie & Kim, for yummy Mexican and a relaxing dessert evening at church.  I’m so lucky to have a good babysitter in the family 🙂  It’s a real treat to not have to deal with dinner and bedtime AND be out with adult conversation and company!

Saturday morning we had homemade waffles, and then the kids and I headed out for a walk in the lovely cooler weather (at least cooler to us… 60’s in the mid-morning!).  We walked all the way to the bridge and fed the fish, and collected acorns on the way home.  Then we hurriedly got ourselves ready for family pictures with Brian’s parents and brother.  Um, that didn’t go so well.  Analise was grumpy and she said she “couldn’t smile because she couldn’t remember how”.

We had good naps, and then we joined Brian for a quick trip to the bike shop.  Somehow, we ended up picking up ice cream before we heded home for dinner.  Hm 🙂  I had invited Brian’s parents over for spaghetti and homemade breadsticks, the usual pre-race fare.

Today, we headed to church to work in the kids’ classroom for the early service.  We headed straight from church up the Interstate to Brian’s bike race in Dalton, GA.  The 3-hour trip seemed much longer, as the kids were not entertained by anything… not food, music, coloring, movies, books or toys.  We were all very happy to arrive at the quiet downtown race course!

This was the perfect bike race setup for me with the kids.  They had a bouncy house, and Analise and Josiah were nearly the only kids bouncing, for more than an hour.  They were thrilled.  We snacked on animal crackers from the “racer hospitality tent”, as we headed over to watch the race.  The course was short, and located on a nice little park that more than entertained the kids for the whole 40 minute race. Brian did great – 4th place!  I’m sure he’ll write more on his cycling blog.

After the race, we picked up dinner for the kids and Brian, while we headed down the road to Rome, GA where I was going to meet a friend.  Darby and I had a great time catching up at a burger place.  It was a nice addition for me in a  busy day.  Not surprisingly, the kids were happy to stay in the car watching movies and resting after their bouncy-busy-play day, while Brian worked on the laptop with them.

The trip home wasn’t nearly as long, as the kids were asleep the whole way.  Whew!  We were only gone 11 hours, but it felt like the whole weekend!

We had a fabulous weekend at home.  Brian’s race on Saturday evening was just 10 minutes from our house, so we had a leisurely Saturday morning, took the kids to their bike race (see pics on Brian’s cycling blog), came back for naps, and then Brian and I headed off to the evening races by ourselves while his parents babysat.  Yipee!!  I love having my kids at the races, but I do really enjoy getting to focus on the race without the distraction of keeping my kids from dashing into the street 🙂

The evening was very fun.  Brian’s race didn’t finish quite as he’d hoped, but his team got 3rd and 4th.  He hasn’t had teammates in his race very often, so this was a big plus!  Again, the wrap-up is on his blog. We were out SUPER LATE, and then we had a hard time unwinding after the race so Sunday morning came EARLY, even though the kids slept until 7!

Pretty quiet Sunday, which was nice.  Today we’re headed to the zoo, Analise and I are going to a movie this evening, and I’ve got a meeting.  Hm.  Lots on the agenda.  Somewhere in there I should figure out what we’re going to eat for dinner…  Happy Monday!

Thanks to a surprise in Samford’s academic calendar, Brian had today off!  It’s never been a school holiday, but this year his students swore there was no class, and Brian was excited to find they were right.  There is always a big cycling race in Atlanta that he’s never been able to do… so within minutes, he was registered 🙂  His parents stayed with the kids, giving us a kid-free getaway!  Sweet!

On the trip over, we saw lots and lots of Louisiana cars heading to Atlanta, and our hotel had many LA cars in the parking lot.  We stayed in a very nice Doubletree hotel (the bed was absolutely heavenly… like sleeping on a cloud!).   Last night we were busy picking up race numbers, driving the race course, and checking in, so it was a late night.  Brian was up super early, for the 7:15am start.  Thankfully he could ride the short distance to the start, so I stayed in the cozy bed for an extra hour or so, before heading out to the race course.

There were 11 laps, and Brian made it an EXCITING RACE.  He was in a break with 2 other riders, and they had 40 seconds to 1-minute gap.  I was so excited!  This was a HUGE race, with lots of top pros, and the payout was $20,000 over 35 places.  I could hardly sit still in the 12 minutes between each 5-mile lap.  The break did eventually get pulled back to the main field, unfortunately, but Brian did win $100 in a prime while they were out front.  The sprint was downhill and crazy fast, with 100 riders jockeying for position, and spinning as fast as their legs could go… probably hitting 50-55mph into the finish.  Brian ended up 41st.  Still, it was so exciting and fun to see him be such a big part of the race.  Here’s a link to a good picture on Velonews.com, a well-known cycling news site.  (Brian was hoping the caption would have been more telling, with something like, “A look at the day’s most promising break”, as what’s written sure doesn’t capture the excitement!).  Brian’s written a detailed report on his blog.

We were able to go back to the room to shower and relax before checkout.  Of course, then we had to make our obligatory Trader Joe’s stop, since we were withint 50 miles of my favorite store 🙂  Highlights in my shopping cart…

• Gyoza Chicken Potstickers (great quick dinner tonight, and though they were good, we have been spoiled by tasting Corrie‘s homemade ones!)
• whole wheat and tabbouli salad (greek with bulgar, parsley, tomatoes, onions and cucumbers… a treat for me)
• TJ’s Mocha and Chocolate yogurt (!!!!  Can’t wait to try it!  We CANNOT like this too much, because it’s nearly impossible to bring cold stuff back with us, like if we’re at TJs in Chicago.)
• Vegetable Root Chips – very colorful, and I thought they were tasty.  Sweet potoes, parsnips, batara (?) and something else.
• Vanilla paste – I love this.  One of my favorite baking essentials.  Only at TJs.
• Freeze dried strawberries.  A favorite snack of the kids.

Then we had a nice quiet lunch at Joe’s Crab Shack (we didn’t plan the Joe-theme!).  We were home by 4pm, and it’s amazing how sweet and cute my kids are after less than 24 hours away!  What a treat to have such a nice spontaneous getaway!

Nearly 2 weeks later, I’m finally getting to share this trip!  We had such a fun time, and there are so many great pictures to prove it!

(Ok, I’ve started this post several times and lost it, so I’m giving it one last try!)
Highlights:

• The kids were AMAZING travelers.  Honestly, our kids are super-travelers, and they’re normally better than most kids would be on all the big long marathon trips we take them on.  But this trip they were great in the car, and we made awesome time on both legs of the journey.
• Staying with our friends, the Kackerts, Mike, Michele, Emma and Michael.  They were great hosts for our whirlwind weekend!
• Amazing food… Michele cooked up some good stuff!  Six Can Soup (I got the recipe from her originally! Her seasoning was so flavorful!), the requisite spaghetti before Brian’s race, homemade bread (from my recipe, but she’s tweaked it.  I’ll try it soon, and post my results), Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes (with berries they picked and topped with Trader Joe’s Maine Wild Blueberry Sauce – delicious!), huge thick-cut steaks that were perfectly grilled, baked sweet potatoes, Mushroom Orzo, and Strawberry Pretzel Cream Cheese Ice Cream (Michele snagged me an ice cream maker at her local thrift store… you’ll be seeing a post about that soon!).  Yum!
• We took a trip to a nearby Children’s Gardens where the kids had fun running around, climbing and splashing.
• Michele took me to a couple of her favorite thrift stores.  She knows how to find some good, cheap fun stuff!  That’s my kind of shopping!  Why are the trhift stores around here not-so-good??
• Of COURSE, we made a trip to my dearly loved, Trader Joe’s.  Man, I love that store!  I chattered to the cashier about how I always have my TJ’s reusable bags when I’m doing my everyday shopping at home, but we were on a trip, so I didn’t have them with me.  I gave him my usual grilling about when we’ll have a TJ’s in Alabama.  He was so sweet and gave Michele and I both newly released canvas bags.  Do I need more reasons to love Trader Joe’s??
• Brian’s races were good… the details are all on his cycling blog, under the category “Racing” and  titled “Tour of Elk Grove”.  (Several posts on various things!  Too many to link to!)
• The kids both did a kids bike race.  Josiah rode his trike while I pushed him with the handle, and Analise got to ride a big wheel, which she thoroughly enjoyed.  She’s getting to be so fast!  They were also very good for me while we watched Brian race both days.  They’re getting to be such well seasoned fans!
• The kids loved having cats to play with.  We slept in the room the cats normally call their own, and we had a hard time keeping them out.  One evening, we’d put Josiah to bed, and when Brian took Analise up to bed, he found Josiah playing with a cat through the portable crib, offering him his pacifier.

On to the pictures.  I used Michele’s Canon Digital Rebel DSLR camera most of the weekend, so some of these are hers and some are mine.  But, man, I LOVED that camera.  Maybe someday…

I love how the camera caught the splash in this photo.

Stepping stones in the frog pond… I love the reflection of my cuties, too.

Stepping on the stones progressed to jumping in…

…which progressed eventually to swimming.

More coming soon!