Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Smokey Mountains

We went hiking in the Smokey Mountains this past weekend. We hiked the Clingman's Dome to Siler's Bald and back. It's a distance of about 10 miles total. One of our hiking books (at which I am very angry) said the hike was "easy" and the other said it was "moderate." I would call it moderate to difficult. However, it was enjoyable. Most of the trail was a portion of the Appalachian trail (AT). I will just mention that a 25 pound baby gets very heavy during a hike. Phil carried him 7 miles and I carried him 3. It's not really a fair split of distance, but man am I glad we didn't have to do a fair split.

S had a really great time though. In the parking lot he stamped his little feet and cried so we would put him in the backpack for hiking. Here's a picture of him and Phil at the AT shelter (which I thought was pretty fancy).
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And here is one of our views.
On the hike

And here's part of the trail.
More trail

Finally, here's my favorite picture from the hike. I used my zoom lens.
Bee

Friday, June 5, 2009

15 month check-up


S had the 15 month well-baby visit this morning. He had a great time playing with his robe. Here are his stats: 
31 inches long (50th percentile).
weighs 25 pounds (56th percentile)
head circumference is 48cm (74th percentile)

Perfectly normal and growing happily. When the nurse asked if he could run, he ran across the room. When she asked if he said "hi" to strangers, he said "hi." Way to go S.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Muddy Buddy

This past weekend Sarah and I competed in the Nashville Muddy Buddy. We had a great time. The race was fun. The course is divided into five sections, each just over a mile long. You and your buddy takes turns biking and running. You switch biking/running at each obstacle. So we put a camera in the bike bag and took off!

Here's us (and Heather and Kathy - our competition) before the race.
Our competitors!

Okay, I ran the first section and Sarah biked. There was a lot of big gravel but it was okay. The first obstacle was a balance beam. Then I biked the second section (and therefore Sarah ran). It was another section on gravel.

This is me going over the second obstacle.
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Okay the next section (the third) of the race was much harder. This had a steep, steep downhill grade. I'm pleased that Sarah rode the bike, I'm well-versed at running on trails, but not biking on them. She did awesome. Then, we had to go up a really steep hill. It kind of sucked, but we made it up. And now we get to the third obstacle. 

This is a picture of Sarah climbing under it.
Third obstacle

Okay, the next section was back to just normal trails (me biking, Sarah running). And the fourth obstacle was awesome. It was a 1-2 story high inflatable slide. You climbed up the back on a rope ladder and then slid down the front. I loved it. 

This is Sarah getting ready to climb, look at her snazzy socks. That was our "uniform."
Sarah!

Finally, this is the last obstacle of the race. Sarah biked off and I ran behind her to finish the last leg. When you get to the end you have to wait for your buddy and go through the mud pit together. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of us after the mud pit, I couldn't really get the camera out. But it was fun. We'll be back next year. 

The mud pit.
The mud pit