Mt. Mama and ugly shirts

Saturday, I went out to a little town in western VA called Monterey for a bike ride called Mountain Mama. It was just another prep for IM Louisville.


I camped out the night before in the pouring rain and they delayed the start of the ride an hour to let the rain clear up. It finally did and we rolled out in a slight rain that cleared right up. Riding in the mountains is cool because you get to see all of the scenery from the top of the mountains.

One of the cool things about doing races is T-shirts. I love T-shirts as Cheri will attest. Normally the race shirt is a cool design on a regular cotton shirt or technical shirt. I like these shirts because they are fairly unique and they remind me of the race. The shirt for Mountain Mama takes the cake. This is one ugly shirt. I will still wear it though.

Ballgame!

Last Thursday, I took the afternoon off, picked Sammy up from school just before lunch, and we headed over to Harbor Park to watch the Tides play some ball. He was very excited to go to the ballgame. They have a few day games every season and there are always kids and families there. We had seats just 6 rows off the field, and it was screamin hot. I think the temp that day was 96 or so. We grabbed a couple dogs, some water and sat down to watch the game. The seats were hot! I knew that our time in this location would be limited, and it turns out we lasted 3 innings. The highlights of the game included catching a foul ball, yelling at the ump for making a bad call (Sam loved this part), and seeing Rip Tide.

Sam is terrified of Rip Tide, and at the same time, very interested. As soon as Rip came out of the dugout, Sam was keenly aware of his location at all times. Sam also had all the people around us rolling as he tried to throw back the foul ball two times.

We moved up to a shaded area for another 3 innings and then called it quits to take naps in the cold A/C. It was a good day.

Happy Birthday Cheri!

Today Cheri is 27! We are so proud of her as a mommy and my friend. She had a great day as Sam slept in until 7:15 this morning. He is usually up by 6:30 most days. Then when I told him it was her birthday he totally freaked out and ran around in circles. When he stopped, he busted out one of many "Happy Birthday" songs. We gave her our gift, which was actually a picture of a gift because the real thing was backordered...so its almost like getting two gifts. At work, she got a $10 gas card from the company and a pair of Croc flip flops from Grammie. When she got home she made us soup. Yes, she cooked on her birthday. She wanted to! Then we had cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday one more time, the evidence is below. We love her very much and somehow she gets younger each year.

I wear my sunglasses at night

This shot was taken a few nights ago. These are the fabulous Diego sunglasses that Sam loves. He wore them to bed.


What you see with Sam in bed his his pillow, the pillow is an essential part of bedtime along with Doggie and Blanket. These three things are vital at bedtime. What you cannot see in the picture are the other animals that sleep with Sam. They are: Puppy, Froggy, Tommy the Triceratops, Big Bunny, Little Bunny, Shifu (from Kung-Fu Panda), the song bear, the black bear, and a random black & tan dog. I think that covers all the things in the bed.

Today at school a clown came to entertain the kids and paint their faces. Sam had no part of the face painting. His teacher, Ms. Janice said he threw up both of his arms and said no! It is all he has talked about since coming home. Disney next year is going to be a blast. All for now, gotta get back to the Best of Elmo (thanks Grammie Re).

Donkey

The switch has been flipped. We had a 3 year old who would not spend 2 minutes watching anything on TV. Which is what you want right? Well, I think all parents dirty little secret is YES, it is ok to spend a little time in front of the tube. Well after our trip to Geneva two weeks ago and the "family entertainment system" was discovered, he has not slowed down. His favorite shows thus far are Shrek and Elmo, any Elmo. He will ask to watch TV in the morning, when we get home and after dinner. Crazy. Oh, and baseball. I flipped on ESPN and a baseball game was on. He came running into the room screaming "ballgame" and sat on the chair watching the game, I was amazed just watching him. When the commercials came on, he would yell at me to put the ballgame back on. Oh so much to learn.

The Dark Knight

One of the great things about living in this area is the history of all the 7 cities. One of those historic places is in Old Towne Portsmouth, which is just across the river from us. The Commodore theater was built in 1945 and was beautifully restored. It is on the National Register of Historic Places and the tickets to the movie are only $7. They have tables down front where you can eat dinner and have drinks, as well as a balcony for enjoying the movie on a 41 foot screen with great sound.


Grammie volunteered to have a sleep-over with Sam, and we usually do not turn those down. He was a little low on Grammie time anyway after not seeing her last weekend. After dropping him off, we shot over to Bed, Bath and Beyond because, yes, we did have time. After that, we went over to Old Towne and had dinner at Baron's Pub, which is just across the street from the theater. We sat outside and enjoyed all the people walking by and some dinner. The feature this evening was The Dark Knight. See this movie. The joker, played by Heath Ledger, stole every scene he was in and was the highlight of the movie. He had all the good lines anyway. I would give this movie 4.5 stars out of 5 and two thumbs up.

20 Hours in a car

I will not apologize for not updating this blog! Life happens.

Anyway, when purchasing the new vehicle, I opted for the "family entertainment system" for the rear passengers. The "FES" consists of a drop down LCD screen, DVD player and wireless headphones. The FES paid off this weekend when we made the trip up to Geneva, NY for yet another triathlon. Sam,the kid who will watch 2-3 minutes of anything and then ditch it, spent many many hours glued to the FES. Every so often we would hear "mommy, Elmo", or "mommy, donkey" (donkey is code for the Shrek movie), or "mommy, Diego". He looks so cute back there leaning on his hand and laughing when the donkey comes on.

The trip was pretty good. Geneva is a beautiful place and the weather was good at least on Saturday. We stayed at some townhouse dorms on the site of Hobart & Smith, which is a private college in Geneva. The dorm was sparce. There was basically 4 rooms with single beds and dressers. No couches, comfortable chairs, or electronics. The Hampton Inn, it is not.