Happy Monday!

These images make this mom happy!

Power Hang-Gliding

While Kent and I were in Lake Tahoe a few weeks ago, we were able to go power hang gliding!  We each rode in our own "trike" attached to a glider with a licensed pilot to drive each of us.  Kent's trike had a camera mounted to the wing so you can see some of the terrain we flew over. It was beautiful, exciting and so much fun to do this together!

Can you see me in the background?

Ethan the Triathlete!!

Wow!  I am one proud mom this morning!  Yes, my 9 year old did a triathlon, yes he swam in the cold, open water of the Columbia River, then went biking 4.5 miles, followed up with a one mile run.  Yes he did all of these things but the reason for my pride is the character I witnessed in my son.  Overall Ethan is a pretty good kid.  I've been noticing though that he teases more than I wished, gets the attitude of entitlement more than I hope he would and talks back more than I expected him to.  Maybe it's the end of summer mentality and we need to get back to structure and routine.  We just learned about the triathlon registration last week so it didn't give Ethan much time to train.  Luckily he'd been swimming twice a day at Grandma's house in Utah, he rides his bike around the neighborhood with friends, and he does plenty of running 4 nights a week for football so it's like he had been unofficially training anyway.     Kent and I have had the idea that since the kids grow so much each year, we would just buy them the cheapest bikes and replace them each year.  Ethan's chain was off his bike when we registered him for the race so we went out and fixed it so he could start tracking his time on the bike length.  Last night his chain was off again so we made sure it was fixed and tightened up for his big race this morning.  We arrived early at sign in and mapped out the course, talked through the procedures and took pictures- everything was going well.  The swimming was energetic, crazy, exciting and nerve wracking. I don't know if Ethan was as nervous as I was just watching him!  I ran down to the transition point from swimming to biking and yelled the appropriate encouragements (maybe more than necessary- who's counting?) and took lots of pictures as they mounted up on their bikes.  When I met up down the track a little bit with Kent, he told me Ethan's chain came off.  My heart sank.  Kent said he fixed it for him and  down the path he saw it come off again but didn't know what happened because Ethan was soon out of sight.  I tell you- we were on pins and needles!  Kent and I both wanted this first experience for Ethan to be a successful one and a good one to encourage him to continue things like this.  As time went by we started talking about scenarios that could be happening, "Do you think someone will help him if the chain comes off again?", "Do you think he is on the side of the path, defeated?", "Should we go check on him?", "How much time do we wait before we start to worry?"  As we realized that not many kids from his group had come back for the next transition, we talked ourselves into relaxing (a little) and see what happens.  My heart about burst out of my chest when I saw Ethan turn the corner- still on his bike with the chain dragging on the path.  He was sitting on his seat, scooting his legs on the sidewalk as fast as he could get his bike to coast.  He looked at me and gave a look that said, "My chain isn't going to work so I will!" He placed almost in the middle of his age group and I could not have been more proud than if he had come in first place!!  I was so impressed by him and thankful that his first triathlon experience was a success!!!

Here is Kent helping Ethan get his goggles and his swim cap on.

Ethan and his best friend, Ethan.

Ethan and Reid trying to get used to the cold water before they horn blows.

Transition from swim to bikes. 

 Ethan is getting rid of his swim gear as he runs to his bike.

Ethan is making good time and heading out for the bike portion.

You can see Ethan's chain is hanging down and he is just scooting his feet along the sidewalk to make his bike go as fast as it can without the use of pedals.
The last two seconds of the triathlon-- finishing strong!!

The lesson I learned from this experience was that children truly are here for us to learn from them.  Not only did Ethan set a great example for me to roll up my sleeves and work with what I am given, but he gave me a glimpse of the love our Heavenly Father has for us. (Spoiler Alert!!-  I'm about to spew a bunch of jargin about my beliefs).  I helped Ethan prepare before the race and gave him the encouragement I felt would help him compete to the best of his ability. I sent him on his way and watched as he worked so hard to accomplish his goal.  He got kicked in the face while swimming, had issues with his chain when biking and had a side ache during his run but he finished and was in good spirits.  I know that our Heavenly Father prepares us and encourages us all along the way.  When we hit a challenge or a trial in our life we have the right to make our own choice about how will we respond.  Ethan could have gone either way with the challenge of his bike chain.  I am thankful that he decided for himself to make the most of it and work with what he had going for him.  There are lots of other analogies that I learned but this one stuck out to me the strongest and didn't want to pass up the chance to acknowledge how thankful I am that even though I think I am teaching my children how to become better people, they are truly teaching me.

Ella's Horse Vaulting Camp

At the end of another busy week!  Ella had a week long horse camp.  7 AM to noon every day.  The camp is an hour away from our home so she had to get up very early.  I would make her a bed in the back seat and we'd stop at Maverick on the way out of town for a breakfast sandwich and juice- it's now "our thing".  She was so excited to go that she never once complained that she was in the car before sunrise.  Today was the last day of camp so they did a demonstration for families.  I had a chance to talk to the director before the show began and she was telling me how impressed she was with Ella's skills. She was surprised to hear that Ella had not been to horse camp before.  In this first picture you see Ella is on a smaller horse, which Ethan saw as a perfect opportunity to tease her that she didn't get to ride a big horse. The director heard Ethan and told him that this horse is very fast and grumpy so only advanced riders can ride him.  I was happy to hear that Ella has the confidence to be able to handle more difficult horses.  

 You can see here that Prince is trying to do his own thing and Ella is firmly pulling him back in line.

 The is the boys kind of vaulting.

 Ella's friends came with me to show their support!  She was delighted to see them!

Ella took us down to the stables to say "hi" to Suds, the vaulting horse, before the vault show.

  This horse is HUGE! 

 It was fun to see all the different tricks the girls worked on this week.

They say that horse vaulting is one of the safest horse activities because you learn to graciously "fall" off the horse without getting hurt.  This is Ella's counselor here that is on the local horse vaulting team.  

BYU Sports Camp

 Driving back and forth twice a day from Alpine to Provo in order to get Ethan to sports camp was totally worth it.  He was lucky enough to have his cousin from Texas, his first best friend from Florida and his best friends from Sunnyside at the camp too.  I was so excited that it worked out that Heidi and I would finally be able to meet up. Heidi was one of my dearest friends from our time in Florida during Kent's dental school.  Life has not made it easy for us to meet up.  It had been five years since we last saw each other and we picked up like we hadn't missed a beat. I love that girl and it was good for my soul to catch up on all the details of our lives.

 Last year the football camp day was held on the field across the street from the stadium so the boys were super excited they got to play in the stadium this year!

The first day of sports camp, Heidi had a connection to the BYU football players so they pulled Ethan and Lincoln out of the training facility to run a few drills and play on the practice field.  I told the players about Cannon and asked if I could get a few pictures of them with him.  The players took it a step further and played a quick game with Cannon.  This is Justin Sorensen, the BYU kicker. He held our little Bubba- ran him down the field, caught the ball, helped Cannon make a few tackles and then threw the ball.  It was a tender moment to see my little guy playing football under the "Y" on the mountain with the BYU football players.  A day Ethan and I won't soon forget. Thank you to those young men that took the time to spend a morning creating a memory of a lifetime. 

 Even though you can't see Ethan's face here, you can still see how big he is smiling right then.