Anthem Triathlon! Results

So... a little late, but here are the results from the Anthem Triathlon 3 weeks ago...



My friend did this triathlon last year, and that was my only goal: I wanted to beat his time. I am proud to say I smoked him! We were just about even on everything but the run, where I made up almost 5 minutes. That was kind of weird to me, because I hate running!

I convinced my dad to do it with me, and he did really well. He got first place! ... in his weight & age group...




This is me and dear ol' dad right before the race started, freezing our butts off.


Neither of us realized the swim was going to be outdoors! They did heat the pool, but waiting outside with a swimming suit and a swim cap was not fun.




7 minutes later and still smiling ...




Heading down the finish line!


Apparently they assign race numbers alphabetically, because my dad and I had consecutive numbers. Every where we went, people thought they were so clever... "hey you guys know each other? Huhuhu..." Yeah we know each other; aside from the fact that our numbers are right next to each other, we just happen to look like each other. Good job, smart guy.


My aunt and uncle live in Anthem, they came to cheer me across the finish line. Their (super cute) kids made me signs "Go Big D!" Turns out it worked for my dad (Danny) too!





My dad crossing the finish line. The run was pretty tough for him, not because he didn't train for it, but because halfway through it, he managed to get a giant straight pin stuck through the bottom of his shoe that poked him every time he took a step!

Anthem Triathlon!

This Saturday I am competing in the Anthem Holiday Classic Triathlon! It's a Sprint level, which means it won't be quite as long as the Bear Lake tri. It's a 400m swim, 12 mile bike ride, and a 3.1 mile run through Anthem.


The best part is that I convinced my dad to run it with me, so he'll be out there too! We'll take lots of pictures (hopefully they'll turn out this time), and I'll try to keep track of my goggles!

It starts at 9:00 at the Anthem Community Center (41130 N. Freedom Way), hope to see you there!

Anna Jo Christensen

Christy had her baby last thurday, November 12!! She was 7lbs 3oz, 20inches long!















I told my mom I would post these pictures of Anna on my blog!!

Isn't she so adorable!!

Natalie started another rotation up in Show Low, which means I have to figure out what to do with myself for a month until she gets back. This rotation is going to be a lot tougher than the last; over the summer I could go up to Show Low and hang out all week, so we got to see each other a lot. I have classes I can't miss this time around, so we might get to see each other on weekends, but Natalie is supposed to be studying for her mid-year exams, and I'm going on a few more trips for work, so we're not really sure how much time we'll get to spend together.

A lot of people have been asking me how my classes are going, and the only thing I can think of to tell them is that they're "ok..." There's really not a whole lot to report: chances are you wouldn't understand it if I tried to explain it (not only because it usually involves scary-complicated math, but because a lot of the time I'm not sure I understand it myself). So suffice it to say school is going ok.

I work as a TA for one of the undergraduate bioengineering courses, and the lab instructor might take me on as a grad student in his research lab. He works on MRI, specifically making different contrast agents to highlight specific structures in the body. I am seriously toying with the idea of getting a doctorate, but I'm still a ways off in actually making that decision. I have to find a project I can get excited about, and since my lab instructor has been out with the swine flu, things have been on hold until I'm confident he's not contagious (in a slightly unrelated note, one of the things we're doing in my math class is calculating the conditions necessary for a contagion to become an epidemic. Stay tuned for details).

Other than that life has been pretty mellow.

Thank You!!

Sorry this won't be very long...it's really hard to type with one hand!!

I thought breaking my right wrist would be about the same as breaking my left wrist. I was wrong. I'm right handed. It takes me longer to do everything and I just plain can't do other things.

For instance, I cannot open a water bottle :(
The funniest thing is watching people figure out how to shake my hand. I put my left hand out and people grab it like they are going to hold my hand and then they kinda shake it. It's really funny!


Thankfully I have the most wonderful husband(sorry, but it's true), and he helps me do everything. Wednesday morning Dallas got called into work and I had to get ready on my own.
I ended up having to go to my rotation late, without breakfast or lunch, my favorite glasses broke, and my hair was awful. It was not a good morning:(
Every other morning I've been clean, dressed, hair done, make-up on, well fed with lunch, and with sunglasses:)

He's so wonderful, I couldn't do it without him!

I get my new (removable) splint next tuesday!! I cannot wait, I'm so tempted to take this one off so I can clean my arm! Maybe I'll "accidentally" get it wet....jk


This is what it looked like on Wednesday (2 days after the break and before the surgery).

Quick update

Natalie's surgery on Friday went really well. It actually took a lot less time than either of us thought it would. We checked in at about noon, and we were on our way home by a little after 4:00. The doctor said the prognosis is good, he fixed everything he wanted to fix, and so now we get to go through recovery. Yeay.

It was an open reduction; they had to make an incision to put in a plate and screws. Natalie's hurting, but getting through it.

Thanks to every one who called or stopped by. We really appreciate the support.

Life has been rather interesting of late. On Labor Day, Natalie decided it would be fun to go on a bike ride. We went cruising around Anthem the night before looking for small roads with big bike lanes, and to see, just for fun, if there was a way we could get to Anthem without taking the freeway. Turns out Anthem is much too far away to ride a bike, but that's ok, we figured we'd go part way on some side roads and turn around and come back.

We were on out way back from 15 miles of uneventful (but really really hot) riding. We were literally less than a block away from our house. Natalie went up onto the sidewalk, and was looking back to make sure I wasn't going to run into her, when her bike went off the sidewalk. Her bike fell over, and I practically landed on top of her. She fell pretty hard on her right hand onto the concrete sidewalk, and after a visit to the ER and some x-rays, turns out she broke her wrist. After a consult with an Ortho doctor, turns out she needs surgery to put everything back into place.

So to make her feel better, we went out and bought a new (to us) car! It's a 2000 Lexus RX300, and the lady selling it literally cried when Natalie drove off in it. We've actually been looking for quite a while, and this just happened to work out really well, because it turns out that driving a car with a manual transmission with only your left hand is pretty tough. We'll post pictures soon.

Natalie's surgery is on Friday afternoon, and she's hoping to be able to go back to her rotation on Monday.

Dallas's Olympic Triathlon (Bear Lake Classic)

HE DID IT!!!
Dallas finished his first triathlon and did awesome.



The coolest part is that he did really well!
He was 6th in his age/gender division!
And 43rd out of 70 overall!

Dallas's sister Cherise convinced him to do a triathlon with her a couple of months ago. Well she also convinced him to do the Olympic level rather than a Sprint.
-Sprint triathlon consists of an 1/2 mile swim, 12mile bike ride, and 3mile run.
-Olympic triathlon consists of a mile swim, 25mile bike ride, and 6mile run.

They both finished and did an awesome job!!

It started off a little shaky, with Dallas forgetting his cap and losing his goggles right before the swim started. In fact we were still looking for goggles when the gun went off and the swimmers took off. He borrowed Cherise's second pair and then forgot to take off his gym shorts as he was running into the lake.

In all the commotion my camera got on this really weird setting...so I don't have very many good pictures:(

If you look closely you can see everyone (but Dallas) with wetsuits on, due to the fact that the water was freezing cold. This is Dallas taking off his gym shorts as everyone is running through the water.



This is Dallas's finishing his mile swim (33.5min) and running to go start his bike ride.
(Again he is the one with only legs..because he isn't wearing a wetsuit)

This is him finishing the 25mile bike ride (1hr18min)...he has a smile on his face!!

And this is us after his 6mile run (54min46sec).. Finish!!!

Total time 2hr 50min 37sec!!

First day of school!

Caution: complaints, whining, and boo-hooing below. Read at your own risk, leaving snarky comments of "oh suck it up you big cry baby" to yourself. Thanks.

I had a real whiz-bang first day of school today. It started with an alarm clock that didn't go off when it should have (so in reality I wasn't thinking straight when I set it, but it should know better, dang it!). A part I ordered for my truck finally came in, so I wanted to get ready, drive down to the dealership when they opened, fix my truck, and be on my merry way. Well that didn't happen. I stumbled out of bed, put on my broken glasses and the only clean t-shirt I have left, and hobbled down to the dealership. I fixed myself a bagel (very handy for eating in the car when you're 20 minutes late), but I left it on top of my car, so it went kersplat on the driveway. Traffic was awesome, as usual, so by the time I got to ASU I was almost going to be on time, but I forgot one very important little detail: there are almost 60,000 people that go to ASU's Tempe campus, and about 95% of the parking spots are gone by 6:30 in the morning. I wandered around for almost 20 minutes looking for a place to park my truck (the one that's still broken) before I sort of double parked in the light rail Park-and-Ride lot (if anyone asks, I took the light rail to school today).

I finally made it to my first class almost a half hour late. It was fine, I missed some of the "how do you do's," nothing major. I met with my professor which went really well, and it seemed like everything was looking up in the world... until I read my schedule wrong and showed up at the wrong classroom for my math class. I've been going to ASU for 6 and a half years, and suddenly I'm 0 for 2 in showing up on time.

And I'm hungry, because my breakfast is somewhere on 35th Avenue.

So now I've got one last chance to redeem myself: my last class is at 4:30, and I've already been there once today, so I know exactly where it is!

It's the story of my summer..but I miss my hubby:(

Road trip up the Pacific Coast Highway

Natalie had a few days off over the 4th of July so we took off Friday for California! We took our bikes with us to get a little exercise and see the sights a little slower. Of course, the first thing that happened is we got a flat tire. 2 of them. This is the second, on the side of the road on our way back to the hotel. We were in scenic Port Hueneme ("you-n-me" cute, huh?), there were tons of green fields and cute little fruit stands all along this road.

There were tons of these types of trees that all looked like giant bonzai trees getting blown over. It made the whole town look slightly tipsy.
In addition to the drunken trees, there was the most random sign on the road out of town.
Pirate Staffing? Seriously? What do you need them for? Do you go to those guys if you have a pirate ship you need staffed, or is it for placing buccaneers in corporate offices?

We drove through some really pretty wine country... on accident. We made a wrong turn on our way to Santa Barbara for the 4th, and wound up cruising through some really pretty farms. We played "Name that Agricultural Product" as we drove. We got pretty good at recognizing strawberries and grapes, and that's about it. If it wasn't for the sign, we never would have guessed those fern-looking things were artichokes (of course, we didn't take a picture, but that's ok).

We stopped in Santa Barbara on the 4th, there were SO many people!!! This is us taking a break from the madness.US-1: Pacific Coast Highway. It was so gorgeous the whole way up. As you can see, it's a windy little 2 lane highway that hugs the coast as much as possible. A couple of places were pretty scary but the ocean was breathtaking.

Natalie thought these trees looked funny, so we have about 15 pictures of these and others just like them.

Stopped along a little turnout somewhere up the coast, I think this is near Carmel.

Why is Dallas making this funny face, you might ask?

That's why.

We made it all the way to San Francisco and rode our bikes over the Golden Gate Bridge.

The thing about taking a vacation with just the two of us, it's hard to get good pictures of us together. Maybe if I was a little more adept at Photoshop I could do more than just put my picture close to Natalie's picture, but that's ok.

More to follow...

miss you

it's funny the things that i have stopped caring about this last year. it's not only that my priorities have changed...but i have started to just not care!
i don't seem to care what the background on my blog is, in fact for a while I wanted it to be the most boring plain jane background i could find. funny how that made me feel better.

on the other hand i've started to really care (or obsess) about the time i spend with dallas. nothing else can make me feel as calm and in control as when i'm talking to my love. life with him is my baseline. it isn't cheesy, it's true. the time we get to spend together just makes me feel inspired. a lot of that time seems to be just chatting on the phone rather than physically being together.


i was thinking the other day about all the "what if's" in my life. it seems there are an endless number of them. as my imagination wondered through each possibility i realized that the ones that made me happy included dallas. the life possibilities that brought sad tears to my eyes were the ones where dallas had been left out of my life.

the truth of the matter is...DALLAS YOU ARE THE HAPPINESS IN MY LIFE!!

It's official: Rotations have begun

This post is a little out of order, so bear with us...

Natalie has officially finished her first year of PA school, which is why we were able to go with her family to San Diego. It was so much fun! We spent 3 days lounging on La Jolla beach. The weather was less than perfect for everyone but me: it was cloudy and windy with a high temp of about 65. Everybody was pretty cold for most of it, but wierdo me was absolutely loving it! :)While we were there we took the time to go to the San Diego temple with Natalie's parents and her sisters. It was a nice break from the giant kegger party that is Southern California in the summertime.

Natalie's first two rotations are up in Show Low, so we spent last weekend moving her and her friend up to Show Low. She's working in a Family Practice doctor's office and so far it has been pretty uneventful. She mostly just follows the doctor around as he sees all his patients. It has been kind of weird having Natalie gone, the house feels really empty without her! I (still) haven't received a schedule from my work for this month, so it looks like I'll be able to spend a lot of time up there hanging out with her little brothers while she's at work!

I updated our slideshow with some of the pictures we took in San Diego, and one thing I've noticed is that we really like to take pictures of ourselves in goofy sunglasses. The pictures are randomized, and while I was watching it there were 4 pictures in a row of Natalie and me in weird weird sunglasses.

San Diego Trip

I got a chance to use my camera in San Diego last week!!

Kyson was adorable...he liked the water but he loved the sand.
He could have played in it all day!

Zack the Strong!

Kyson was having a lot of fun playing in the little waves that came on the shore...until a big wave came and knocked him over :( This is a picture right after the wave hit him...so sad!!

After the wave got Kyson, he was happy to lay in a blanket on Grandma.

Kyson back to playing in the sand.
I insisted on being in the middle of it all and knocking down the wall Andrea, Jared, and everyone else built!
He looks pretty excited about it!

Caleb and Me...He was trying to smile...
I guess he was just cold and he couldn't figure out how to get the sand off his hands.

Tuesday it was really windy! If you look in the background of this picture you can see our beach neighbors:) Their umbrella turned inside out!

Kyson decided that my mom needed to be covered in sand.
The funny part was she just sat there and let him!

Me, at the campsite

This is typical Kyson. He's giggling!!

We had a crazy ride over to Coronado Island.
We stopped at a park and had dinner!

This is Katie and Jason playing "King of the Hill"

Christy and Zack

Caleb got left in the swing...all by himself.
He didn't complain that much but he sure looks miserable:)

More pictures to come.....

Our Herb Garden

The only part of our garden that is actually growing....

Rosemary

Basil

Peppermint

Lavender