More Pictures at Clear Lake

This summer we decided to do something different to motivate me to work out : ). I had some friends who had done a triathlon and really loved it. I was excited to do something besides running so we did a triathlon. I was done for the summer, or so I thought. Jaron, Nate's friend, wanted to do another a month later. I was hesitant, but thought we might as well. His parents were off on a Mediterranean cruise : ).

I really enjoyed the variety of the workouts, especially when working out in the extremely HOT and humid Houston summers.

The breeze on a bike is much better than a run! The swimming was nice, although by the end of August the pool water was around 80 degrees. . . yuck!

All of us did better than the race before. I'm not very fast, but enjoyed myself.

During the swimming portion I felt like I was going to drown! I had really worked hard on improving my swimming, but when you are swimming and you can feel people by you and bumping into you, it was a little rattling! After the swim was over the rest of it was fun! Of course Nathan loved the swimming portion too.

Right before the triathlon, as we walked out of the transition area we could see people entering the water right by this sign. They were "warming up" before the race began. Nathan and Jaron waiting for their heat to begin.

After the race Jaron and Nathan show their flexibility. . . or lack therof : ) Good thing that wasn't part of the race!

August - Clear Lake Triathlon

Nathan and Jaron in the transition area after the race.
Cameron being a great sport cheering for us : )

Nathan won third in his age group. He was very happy. . .

Scout Camp - Rappeling

First Day of School

Each morning at 5:50 am, Jaron picks up Nathan & Dallas for seminary. He is always right on time like clockwork! I really appreciate not having to drive Nate down the street to seminary each morning : ) and then to school after that.

Nathan LOVES seminary! He says it is the best class of the day.

As you can see, Cameron goes just a little bit later than Nate. There are so many middle schoolers at his bus stop that they had to add an additional bus to pick all of the kids.

Megan with her good friend. . . Megan : ).

White Water Canoeing

I have told Doug that he has the best calling in the church! He is the Varsity Coach/High Adventure leader. He gets to help the boys plan and carry out high adventure activities every few months. This time the boys chose white water canoeing. The following pictures are of their "training". They were with a BSA officially trained man who was teaching them the tips and safety. This was an all day event. The "real" white water canoeing trip is coming up soon. This was a very large spider they found along the way.
This activity took quite a bit of coordinating. Doug spent many hours arranging everything, getting CPR trained, rounding up a certified BSA instructor, finding dates that would work and rounding up and getting the canoes. As you can see, it was well worth it!

Cameron and Jason

Jaron, Nate and Jason

Sophie

Here is our Dog Sophi. She is really sweet and so much fun for our family. Here she is licking her chops, hoping to get a bite from off of the plates going into the dishwasher.

Megan had fun dressing her up in her blouse. Sophie liked that for about 2 minutes.

We have really loved having her around. . . except for the fact that she has torn up my oriental rug!!! Oh well. . .

Canoeing

We took a day off before school started to go canoeing! It was great fun.
Here are the kids "pretending" they capsized. The funny part was watching them try to turn it over and scoop all of the water out. They ended up taking it to the rivers edge to get the water out.

Cameron