Y Not Tri 2010

This is a story about the coolest kids I know. This was our 3rd annual Y Not Tri Triathlon. Brady is missing from this picture, but he did it too!

Paige is the one in the yellow cap....JK! She is in black shorts and blue suit climbing into the water by her friend.

Paige and two friends in the water before the start of a 1/4 mile swim.

These next few pics are blury but I loved how they showed motion and how fast they were trying to go. Paige and our neighbor Erica.

Paige in the transition area. It's hard to get dressed when you are all wet!

Paige starting on the 6 mile bike.

Justin had a girl from our ward do the swim for him, then he biked and ran.

Brady at the end of the 1 mile run.

Paige and our neighbor friends came in 1 sec. apart! It was 100 degrees that day!

My three heros! They did it!

Paigey girl

The cutest picture of Brady.

Paige took 3rd in her division.

Brady took 2nd in his division.

Justin and Kristen took first but they mixed up the ages and times.....so no ribbon for them.


This has become a summer tradition, and I am so proud of them!

• packing for Whiteclouds trip
• measuring
• weighing
• sitting
• talking
• jumping with ankle weights
• jumping without ankle weights
• lying on floor
• laying out clothes
• loading dishwasher
• reading
• jumping down stairs
• ballet
• cuddling
• dealing with blisters
• planning
• comparing weight of packs - what do you have in there?
• "Hey mom, have you seen me do the worm?"
• checking out sunset due to fire
• rechecking sunset
• collecting goatheads for goathead jar
• more jumping
• too much jumping
• stepping over messes
• eating pears
• testing recipes for ash cakes
• folding
• listening
• pep talks
• hoping
• praying
• smiling
• hugging
• lying side by side listening to teenage reflections of a river trip

This is what we are doing today. Ordinary, everyday living. It's what makes a life. Our life. A good life. It's during days like this that I sometimes mentally remove myself and look at these people and wonder how I got so lucky to be here with them. It's during these ordinary times of daily living that I most often feel I am standing in holy places. A place where work is being done, lessons learned, lives formed. Important work done in seemingly unimportant events.

Yet, if you would have called me today and asked me what we were doing I would have replied, "Nothing."

I have a friend who wants to write the great American novel and title it Courage to Live an Ordinary Life. I think everyone would buy it, because they could all relate.

Daddy Daughter Date

Paige has been begging us to take her backpacking all summer. The boys are always going with their scout troops and she wants to go too!

She was soooooo excited!

They went up Wahlstrom Hollow in the South Hills. They took MRE's for dinner, but was mad to find that Justin had taken all of the "goodies" out of hers! You know, the goodies, tabasco sauce, salt and pepper, brownie, hot chocolate.

Apparently I don't feed my kids enough and they have to raid MRE's for food....

Darren's nephew flew in from a mission in Indonesia 5 days ago. He came along. Talk about a culture shock!

One Summer Morn

A few weeks ago Brady and Paige said they wanted to go to Dierke's Lake to swim with me in the morning.

Brady got right out of bed, put his suit on then went straight to "his" chair!

Paige did the same....




Darren went out on his bike that morning (too wimpy for the water)

We had a great swim. I met two of my friends and we did our mile loop out to the back on the lake and back. The kids swam inside the docks and practiced for their triathlon.
I love that they want to get up early and come with me!

Lower Salmon to Snake River

Beware. There are a billion pictures to follow. I could post a billion more. How do you choose which ones to post? We had two photographers with us and I took video. This was a well documented trip.

Every summer we head to a river to spend a week with family and friends. This year we tried somewhere none of us had been before. We put on the Salmon below Riggins and floated until the Salmon joined the Snake. It is really cool to put it all together in our minds - we have been on many sections of both of those rivers. Then to see them converge is amazing - talk about A LOT of water. Darren and I agreed that in watching it flow after the confluence reminded us of how the Colorado moved. It gave both of us the creeps, you know that heeby jeeby feeling of just knowing HOW MUCH POWER is there. Awe and respect. That is how I feel about rivers.

Justin about to jump. These logs washed up in high water a few years ago and made the world's best diving board.

River Girl.

We brought the stand up board at the last minute. So glad we did, such a blast!

This is totally her element. Such a river rat.

I seem to be concentrating a little hard. They all convinced me to run the upcoming rapid on it, (I dropped to my knees as soon as I saw the waves) promising it looked like "nothing." HA! I fell off, recovered, fell off again and lost the board! There were some big waves and I was so relieved to see Morgan paddling toward me in a kayak to rescue me! I was the calmest I have been to this point while swimming a rapid, but I was definitely out of breath by the time he got to me.

I didn't feel too bad about my inability to stay on the board when one of our rafts flipped in this rapid right after me! Formerly "Lorna's lulu" we renamed this rapid "Ellis' lulu". Raft, kayak, standup board, paddles, 5 people, all recovered. An umbrella was broken, but the chocolate covered cinnamon bears Jenny promised me if I would run the rapid on the stand up board, remained intact and dry through the flip!

Brady and Riley horsing around.

My guys and a river staple - squeeze cheese.

Paige flying.

Justin flying.

Group run and jump shot. Hours of fun. Do kids ever tire of sand and water? Do adults for that matter?

Brady flying.

Darren going snorkeling.

Justin lived on the stand up board.

Kayakers.

We are quite production going down the river- 27 of us. That's me taking a little break on the "lie down" board.

I just like all the boats lined up down the river in this picture. You might have to enlarge it to see it.

Our boat is always the party boat. It might have something to do with candy.

A cool jumping spot.

What it looked like from above.

Paige and Gillian getting ready....

My daughter can fly.

I am very impressed with her form.

At the confluence

I divided the kids into groups and gave them each a bag of props. They had 10 min. to come up with an informercial for why you should float the Lower Salmon River. We laughed so hard!

The funniest part was in the hour heading up to this everyone kept asking me if I had seen certain items , the strainer, a snorkeling bag, someone's lifejacket, booties, the lemon pepper, etc. - it was always something I had taken and put in the prop bag! Sheesh! Does everyone keep track of their stuff that well!!!!

The stage. Also a great promo for Frontierplay.com! Dry Boxes anyone?

One of our two jet boats that took us UP the Snake to Pittsburgh landing.

Darren and Pete enjoying the ride. Just by default, there only ended up being 7 of us on the smaller, faster jet boat! NO KIDS! Our driver blasted reggae music and cruised through the rapids. It was so fun!

I love being with my family on the river. I have posted in the past about our trips and it is always the same. Back to Basics. I love the feeling on not knowing the time. Living by the light and darkness. Food, shelter, safety. What else matters? Everything is real. Finding shelter is a real concern on the river. What color the walls of my shelter at home are is not so important. REAL stuff. Does that make sense to anyone else. Only having to worry about REAL stuff is what I like about the river.

Every year I try to bring it home with me. Still need a few more river trips, I think. But I'm getting closer.