Tough Mudder 2012 Diable Grande, Patterson

This was our third year in a row of completing the Tough Mudder challenge course.  This time we convinced Joy's sister, Alecia, and our friends Kara and Danny to join us for the adventure that was not far from home.  Some of the obstacles were the same, but some were new and the course is always a good test of our level of strength and endurance.  There were 25 obstacles and 12 miles of hills (up and down pretty much constantly).  It is always fun to see the camraderie with other Mudders and the teamwork that is inherent to get everyone through the obstacles.  This year the electricity was real...barely felt anything last year.  This year, Joy and Alecia both got dropped by electricity on the final obstacle.  Brett had earlier had his right shoulder knocked out of comission on the eel crawl resulting in a faceplant into the water and mud.  Yes, this is what we pay to do for fun.

 

Yes, Daddy's shirt looks a lot cleaner than Mommy's, but that's only because Mommy got dropped by electricity right before the end and there had been an underwater obstacle that had "cleaned" Daddy off just prior.

Team Philabusters:  Alecia, Joy, Brett, Kara, Danny

Alecia conquered her first Tough Mudder event, are you coming back next year?

The clean team just prior to the start.

Are we ready for a great day?

Fun With Aunt Alecia

 

Aunt Alecia flew out to join us for the few days prior to the Tough Mudder event.  This gave us opportunities to go rock climbing, race car driving, and apple orchard visiting.  We went to our local rock climbing venue and received some instructions to help us remember what we had learned some 10 years prior.  Fortunately we had Aunt Alecia with us at all times to answer any questions and help us keep our kids and ourselves safe.    While Joy was otherwise occupied, Alecia and I took the kids to Funworks where we drove them around the race track, played video games, and hit in the batting cages.  Then it was off to Cover's Apple Orchard for a visit with the animals there and some tasty treats both for the then and later the next two days (chicken pot pie and apple pie).

Hanging in the shade on a hot day.

Okay, I've gone as far as I want to this time, I am ready to repel down.

Is someone going to move the cone so we can get started here?

Daddy, stop waving and get back to driving, we've got a race to win!

I'm not sure I can see over the steering wheel, so I'm glad you are driving Dad.

I know you're taking it a little easy on me, Daddy, but I am 3, so drive faster.

Aunt Alecia helped me get up this wall.

Daddy repeling down after he reached the top.

Mommy at the top!

I think my brothers are either tired or spaced out, you pick?

Bryce coming down and Aunt Alecia going up.

Aunt Alecia goes for the hard parts of the wall that start to go upside down.

Aunt Alecia is doing a great job of belaying for Mommy on her journey up.

Look how high up Mommy has gotten, and she will only go higher.

I agree that climbing is a little overrated, I don't mind just dangling here.

Can I just dangle here?  This looks fun.

How do we put these climbing harnesses on?

We took a rest with Aunt Alecia and Daddy while Mommy tried to get us ready for our next event.

I didn't know we were the feeding time at the zoo...

There is a little pile-up at the bottom of the slide.

September School Activities

School projects have centered around birds/insects and Ancient Egypt.  We released the five butterflies we had watched grow and they enjoyed their freedom into the larger world.  Fortunately for us, they enjoyed hanging around in our backyard for a little while before they took off.  Then there was the building of a ziggurat and looking for broken artifacts in the sand.

We opened the top and let them out.

One of our butterflies decided to hang out on our Japanese Maple tree.

They really like some slices of our grapefruit.

Come on, won't you climb onto my hand?



Feel how soft their crysallis shells are.

He landed on my hand!

Our latest Venn Diagram with Daddy's old GI Joe guys.

We've got our Egyptian pyramids on.

We're creating artifacts to bury in the sand.

I love painting stuff...

Oh yeah, I want to paint some more stuff.

Surely they did some ritual dances like this back in Ancient Egypt.

Now we get to try and put our broken pottery pieces back together like we were real archaeologists.

These pieces go together, I'm pretty sure.

If I look really hard, I think I will find more broken pottery pieces, then we can put them together.

This is the base of the ziggeraut, just wait til we get the rest of it.

I'm working on the next layer of the ziggurat.

Painting around the table with Timmy and Hannah.

I'm painting a wooden spoon...why I don't know?

Run & Ride

We signed up for the Run and Ride on the Saturday after the A's Fireworks Nights (which as you may have already read, got us home around 1:30am).  We had another factor conspiring against us, the soccer schedule turned out to give us 2 early games during the run and ride which we had planned to have Garrett and Bryce join us for the 2 mile fun run.  They had been training on our treadmill for over a month and had both been able to get up to 2 miles in their training.  Griffin, of course, wanted to train also, and had gotten as far as 1 mile on the treadmill.  So the end result, was the boys went to their soccer games, we skipped the run portion, but we did complete the bike portion.  Joy and Brett finished in the top 3 for the 12 mile bike race--we were in it to win it from the start.

 

Mom, I'm having a hard time seeing Little Einsteins on the TV...

I just set a new standard of a sub-30 minute 2 mile run for the boys.

Can you believe that I can run at 9.0 for quick bursts?  Never thought my little legs could move so fast.

I didn't let Bryce hold the record for too long.  He hasn't been able to beat my latest time which is under 27 minutes.

Second and third place respectively, but who's out here to win?