Youth Triathalon

The 4 older kids did their very first Triathalon today!!!

We were able to do the Triathalon with some very good friends. I am so very proud of all of them! (This picture is right after Sara's race)

Jacob raced in the 4-6 year olds. His race was a 25 yard swim, 0.78 mile bike, and a 210 yard run.

As they crossed the finish line they got a medal.

Emily (right) and Erica (left) in line for their race. They raced in the 7-9 year olds. Their race was a 50 yard swim, 2.05 mile bike, and a 404 yard run. (Emily was actually sick with the flu yesterday. She was determined to do the race today, and did great. She felt fine and you would never have known that she was sick yesterday!)

Erica (left) and Emily (right) after their race. Manny was just as excited as the kids. He was able to be with Jacob his whole race, and Emily and Erica in their transition area.

Sara raced in the oldest group, the 10-12 year olds. Her race was a 125 yard swim, 3.71 mile bike, and a 0.47 mile run. They all finished their races and did so good. We are so proud of all 6 of them!

We had a moment to catch our breaths before Sara's race began. We had such a wonderful day and even the rain waited until almost everyone was gone. It started to rain really hard as we were driving out of the parking lot. We can't wait for next year!

While Sara was doing her race Jacob noticed the rainbow.

Happy 5th Birthday to Jacob

Jacob's 1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

4th Birthday (with the cake that he decorated all by himself)

5th Birthday On March 30th Jacob turned 5 years old. We had a really fun Pirate party for him with some of his friends. He's getting so big and so grown up.

It was really funny when I was decorating his pirate ship cake he wanted it to look like another one that I had made. I made this same cake for Rachael's son when he turned 3 years old. The problem when I made the other one is it became so heavy that it broke right in half. I ended up putting it in a large clear bowl and we just decided that it was "ship-wrecked." When I showed pictures of it to Jacob to see if he liked it for his party, he liked that it got bombed and was ship-wrecked. (he added in the bombed part) So, when I was decorating his cake I was trying to do it a little bit different so that it wouldn't fall apart. Finally the back side of the ship just fell off the rest of the cake and he got so excited. I was completely frustrated! He was so excited that his ship was also bombed. To him it was complete! I guess that's what matters, that he is happy with it.

A pirate adventure is never complete without a treasure hunt! It was a really good pinata, all of the kids got a turn at it, some of them got some really good hits in as well. Finally I decided that I was going to finish it off. Sara got a really good start at opening it up before me. If you ever need to get frustrations out or just need to get a good whack at something, get a pinata. That felt so good!

When the kids were gathering up the candy we looked over and David had found a stick and was hitting what was left of the pinata.

Our Honeymoon...12 years later

Manny and I finally got our Honeymoon. This August we will be celebrating our 12 year Anniversary! We have got away a little bit together, but I have either been pregnant or we have had a nursing baby with us. This is our first time away together with only us! We went on a cruise to Cozumel, Mexico out of Mobile, AL.

We thought this lighthouse was pretty cool out in the middle of nowhere.

Cozumel, Mexico was a lot of fun. We really wish that we had more time there. That's our little ship in the background. We were on the smallest Carnival cruise ship.

Our new summer home!

We were able to go see some ancient Mayan ruins. We really wanted to go see Tulum which is a bigger settlement of Mayan ruins, but we didn't have enough time.

We also got to go snorkeling. This was the first time for both of us. The water was crystal clear and you could see all the way to the bottom. This was our favorite part of our time in Mexico. We got to go to 3 different coral reefs. One was only about 12 feet deep and the deepest one was 75 feet deep. It was amazing how you could see all the way to the bottom at the deepest one with no problems. We got to see lots of different types of fish and all of them were so beautiful. Some of the fish that we got to see are a baracuda, a seahorse, a bullfish, an eel, and lots of gruper. Manny dove down and found a couple of conch shells, but they wouldn't let us keep them.

We really enjoyed our time together. It was very refreshing to escape reality a little bit and celebrate 12 wonderful years together. Thank you to our awesome friends who helped with the other kids while we were gone!!!