My Brother

We are so proud of you, Benny, and can't wait to have the album in hand! Check out his website.

Items of note...

...in no particular order.

1) Our floor is progressing nicely. Thanks to Jeff for all his hard work and to Renee for putting up with his long hours here while she's wishing this baby would just make his arrival yet trying to entertain little Carter!

2) Las Vegans are truly wimps! The temps dropped into the 60's (yikes!) this weekend, and I actually saw a neighbor out for a walk in the evening with a stocking cap on! No joke!

3) There is nothing cuter than two little boys playing together outside (or the Mommy of the next little boy just waiting to be born)!
4) Peek-a-boo is still a favorite game here. I love how it makes Dane really laugh!

(How can you not love a face full of mac-n-cheese?)

5) I do not recommend any close encounters with a prickly pear cactus!

Home Improvement

Sorry for a little delay in updating. I had to dig through the layers of dust throughout our house to find our computer and camera! This past weekend, we decided to tackle the project of completely retiling our house. Friday and Saturday were spent taking out our old tile and chipping away the adhesive underneath. Now we have a beautiful 750 square feet of dusty concrete floor!! Our old tile was in acceptable shape, but it was rather unattractive and showed every little bit of dirt, food, and whatever else finds its way from Dane's fingers to the floor! Plus, the grout was getting pretty disgusting. Here are some pictures of Dane attempting to help Daddy hang some drop cloths. The tile actually looks pretty nice here, but these photos are deceptive. (Dane also looks very sweet and innocent here, unlike the little toddler who frequently wages wars of will with us! Just kidding- he's really quite a sweet little boy!)

He got such a laugh out of Daddy hoisting him above the cabinets to peek over at Mommy. This picture also shows our white tile countertops. These will soon be gone as well. These also are not in real bad shape, but who ever decided to use tile for kitchen countertops? What a nightmare to keep the grout clean! I can't wait for a solid surface to wipe down easily!Here are some of our new unlaid tiles and a sample of the granite we will be using on the countertops. Both were chosen mainly on the fact that they should hide dirt well. I should be able to get away with only cleaning once a year now! (Just kidding!)
Dane and Daddy took a break from all the inside work to mow the lawn together. (Disclaimer- for any of you with safety concerns, Mike was not actually mowing here! We always keep Dane away from the operating lawnmower!)

Jabberbox

Dane's got lots to say these days!! It's so fun to watch him learn!

Playtime with Carter

Here are some more pictures of Dane and Carter playing together. They play really well together, especially now that they have spent at least 3 days a week together at the same babysitter for the past few months. You may note in these next two pictures that Dane has the toy in the first picture and Carter has the same toy in the next picture taken only a few seconds later. So far they give and take toys nicely without shouting "Mine!" at each other. We'll see how long it lasts!!

Little "drinking buddies"!!

Dane takes Carter for a spin!

Note the ball in midair here!

It's been so fun to watch Carter really take off this past month with his walking. It was pretty cute to see him trying to imitate Dane a couple times last night. In one more month, Carter's baby brother will be here, too! Hurray for little boys!

Triathlon photos

They finally finished editing the professional photos taken during the triathlon. Mike's photos. Amanda's photos. Too bad they didn't get any of Mike on his bike. You can click on each photo to enlarge.

Surfing

We made a whirlwind trip to San Diego to try our hand at surfing under the expert instruction of Deanna! We had a wonderful time! Dane really loved the beach. Spending an entire day outside is really his idea of fun. He enjoyed watching the waves come at us and saying, "Here it comes!" Of course it sounded more like "Hewe tums!" He also learned that the water was salty, or "sappy" as he would say!

D and B
Benny and Mikey head out for the first time.
It was pretty obvious that Dane was the teacher's pet!

Dane fell asleep waiting for the cars to be loaded!

I just have to share this picture. It really shows how happy Dane was to see his buddy Deanna again! He absolutely adores her!

We can't wait to hit the waves again! Thanks again, Deanna!

We made it!!

For those of you (all two of you!!) who have been checking numerous times for results of last Saturday's triathlon, here they are. We were both fairly pleased with our results. There weren't too many competitors in the intermediate length race. Most opted for the sprint distance. Mike finished 3rd in his age category. I was the second overall female to finish and first in my age category. I was also the only female in my age category!!

Friday evening we went out to Lake Las Vegas to pick up our race packets and review the course. As we went down to the swim start area, a resort employee told us the beach was closed and we weren't allowed to enter since the water was "contaminated." Very reassuring! The water was quite green, but we're both still alive and well. Don't know what that contamination was all about.

The morning of the race was very warm. I'm sure it was over 100 degrees by 11:00 am when we finished. The run was absolute torture- 6 miles up and down hills across a dirt road in the middle of the desert with no wind and the sun beating down. Never mind that we had just swam near a mile (in contaminated water!!) and biked around 26 miles on a very hilly course! It felt very good to be done!

Here we are in our spandex glory showing off our tough looking body markings (our race numbers) on our arms. FYI- don't compete in a triathlon if you don't want to share your age. They marked our ages on our right calves!

There should be some professional photos available soon, and I will try to post a link.

As a side note, they also had a category for the fastest husband/wife combined times. We didn't realize that you had to sign up separately to be included for this category, but we would have placed 1st for the intermediate length race!!