First day of school! First day of school!

Monday was Skyler's first day of Kindergarten! She's been so excited all summer to start. She really feels all grown up now. Going into a new school, a new class, new teacher, and all new kids I would have been a ball of anxiety...not her! She was excited to get in there and meet a bunch of new friends. God bless her!

I swear she's not throwing gang signs already. Does this look like a "k" for Kindergarten??!

She'll probably be the tallest in her class for a while :)

Welcome to your new school!

After school (her first day she only went for 90 minutes), we met up with all of our friends, who were also starting Kindergarten that day, for lunch. The boy to her left she's known since the day they were born and all but one of the others she's known since she was about one. Can you tell they're saying "KINDERGARTEN!"?

It was over 100 degrees and they had all been playing on the playground (and running through the sprinklers) at the restaurant, which explains the red faces.

She, and I, made it through her first week. We've already had talks about not teasing people about their names ("Why would anyone name their kid after a clown fish?" If you need more of an explanation let me know), being gracious when someone else succeeds ("I'm mad at them that they were chosen to be the teacher's helper. I wanted to be the teacher's helper."), and trying to pull inappropriate or "disgusting" jokes out of her ("Why did the lady kiss the toilet?" We don't know the answer and neither does she but this is a joke that someone told her at school.). I can't wait to see what the next 9 months bring us!

Training Update

I'm finally coming out of the fog that is the Olympics. I was totally sucked in and found it hard to do much of anything else, except train for my own personal Olympics.

My triathlon training is coming along well (that's me on the left, my friend Carrie on the right). Only 5 more weeks to go! AGHHH!! Things are really ramping up too. The times that I need to train each week have taken a significant increase over the past week. Riding my bike for 70-80 minutes at a time, swimming for 35-40 minutes, and running for 35-40 minutes. All of that twice a week. You'd think right about now, after 11 or 12 weeks of vigorous training that I would have lost some weight? Right? NOPE! Actually, I take that back. I've lost 1 pound. ONE POUND!

Yah, Yah, muscle weighs more than fat, I've heard it over and over. I'm not that strong, there's no way I have THAT much muscle. I need to start losing some weight in order for me to see a change and start getting motivated. People have told me that I look different but I really don't feel different. The only thing I've noticed change is the fact that my endurance has increased. When I first started I had a hard time doing anything but I've definitely seen a change in that. That's good I suppose.

Oh, and apparently this is what I look like when I swim. I'm in the background.

The Olympics are here!

The Olympics are here! As I’ve said before I am a HUGE fan of the Olympics. From as far back as I can remember I’ve been following along. I even won a car during one of the past Olympics!

At tonight’s Opening Ceremonies we will see the Parade of Athletes as over 10,000 athletes from around the world file into the stadium. Greece will lead the way with China coming in last. During the festivities watch out for 5 year old pianist Li Muzi who has been playing since she was 4!

The games start tomorrow morning and will run through August 24th. The event I’m most looking forward to? Swimming! This is who I’ll be watching:


Michael Phelps – At 23, Michael, a Baltimore native, won all 5 of his Olympic Trial races, broke 2 World Records during those trials and holds 4 World Records in the 5 events he’s participating in. Is he good? I’d say so! Can he be beat? Absolutely! It’s going to be some great swimming. (And he's not bad to look at either!) And watch their new suits too. Laser seams, absolutely streamlined.














Katie Hoff – Katie could be called the female version of Michael Phelps. She’s 19 and also from Maryland. At the Olympic Trials she won all 5 of her events breaking one World Record and 2 American Records!





Natalie Coughlin – I root for Natalie mostly because she’s from the Bay Area (where I live) but also because she’s darn good. She swims 100 meters (2 lengths of a normal pool) backstroke (not the fastest stroke) in under 1 minute! You go girl!

Dara Torres

– At 41 Dara is the oldest woman to qualify for an Olympic Swimming competition. This will be her 5th Olympic games! She won both of her events at Trials and set an American Record but she will be dropping one of her events in order to concentrate on her 50 freestyle (one lap of the pool, a race from one end to the other).

(by the way, swimmers from other countries might be fast but we don’t want them to win so why even talk about them.)

Go USA!

new hair cut

This is what happened when I was cleaning the guest room getting ready for an out of town friend. It was her first self-cut and hopefully her last. What was she thinking! She said she didn't want bangs. That's what we were growing them out for! UGH!!

Notice the longer bangs she cut for herself and then the ones that are right at the scalp. Oh yeah, that'll take a while to grow back.

Inspiration

We went to the fair back in June and I took some pictures but just never posted them. Then on two seperate blogs today I read about carnivals, fairs, and ferris wheels. I figured it was a nudge to post so here is my inspiration for today.