Recently, Rachel has learned to open doors. We have lever handles in this new house and we have not figured out how to baby-proof them... so Rachel has unexpected passage into any part of the house. She can also unzip most zippers and undo many lids and some screw top lids. She can, for example, enter our bedroom, go into the bathroom, and turn on the bath tub faucet. (This faucet is also a lever handle that we cannot figure out how to baby proof!)
It's proving to be an interesting challenge...
Tues night 6:30pm
Meggan arrives home from a long day at work and enters the house to smell dinner cooking. Then she hears 'Help! Upstairs!" from Jason.
Dash upstairs and ... at the top of the stairs I see Nunu and his friend Iceberg (Jason's old bear friend from college) covered in vaseline, sitting next to an open vaseline jar.
Enter bathroom... Jason is holding a near naked Rachel who is covered in vaseline. It's in her hair, on her face, on her chest, all over her hands, and all over her arms. Jason is somewhat frantic, and trying to figure out how to challenge the next immediate task: a diaper blowout.
It's hard to see just how much Vaseline is on Rachel's hands, shirt, face, hair...
Apparently Jason was making dinner downstairs and heard Rachel calmly say "Daddy - help?". Jason went upstairs to investigate and saw the vaseline mess.
Rachel: "I all covered in cream."
Jason: "Time to have a bath!"
Rachel: "and I have a big poop."
Rachel and Jason bath and clean Rachel up. Meggan turns off the stove, cleans up the carpet, finds the lid to the vaseline, and puts Nunu and Iceberg in the washing machine.
Nunu was unavailable for bedtime again because he was busy getting clean and dry in the laundry... so again Rachel had to go to bed without Nunu...
Wed morning, Rachel says: "Good morning Nunu! You are all clean. You are not covered in cream!"
For anyone who might not have been with Rachel in the last 10 months, 'Nunu' is her little while blanket/bear that goes with her everywhere. It's her best friend, and is with her all the time. She shows Nunu everything, feeds Nunu, changes Nunu, and snuggles with Nunu.
Friday evening we decided to head to Denver to do some furniture shopping at all the big furniture warehouse stores. We went in to the first store, played around for a while looking for book shelves, and then left. We were in the second store for a long time, and ended up buying a bedroom set. We finally left the store at 9pm, just in time for them to close, and returned to the car. We put Rachel in her pajamas and hoped she would fall asleep on the car ride home.
Rachel: "I want Nunu"
Jason: "Where is Nunu? I don't see him in the car?"
Rachel: "Nunu is in a drawer" (in the furniture store.)
So we politely re-enter the closing furniture store and run around looking in every drawer for 15 minutes, without finding Nunu. Rachel was not happy but did manage to get to sleep when we came back home without Nunu. We do have other friends at home to snuggle with: monkey blanket (thanks Andi), Stripes (the towel - thanks Karen), Polka-dot blanket (thanks Alicia), Elephant (thanks Tom Lord and family), Pig, Bear, Duck, Monkey Towel (thanks Grandma) and Baby (thanks Maureen).
But still Sat morning when Rachel woke up...
Rachel "I want Nunu."
Meggan "Well, Nunu is not here. We hope we can find Nunu today."
Rachel "Nunu is in a drawer. He is having a nice time at the furniture store."
Sat morning: we drive to IKEA, spend 3 hours there and have lunch. On the way back, Rachel fell asleep in the car and we park at the first furniture store. After several conversations with the staff, and rug burns on my knees from crawling around the store moving from drawer to drawer... Nunu was found! A sales person found it and had it.
Rachel woke up from her nap at home with Nunu in her arms, and said:
"Hi Nunu. I'm glad you had a super time at the furniture store."
A couple of months ago I started the Boulder Stroke and Stride Events and published a handful of goals on this blog. I have so far accomplished several: hiking 3 "14ers", backpacking with Rachel, and, this past weekend, completed an Olympic Distance triathlon.
But before that - unpacking with Rachel... bubble wrap fun!
We took off to Steamboat Springs on Saturday at lunch, arrived in time for package pick up, had dinner, checked into our hotel, and went to sleep. I fell asleep with some excitement and some nervousness. All summer I feel like I have trained for this swim. I have consistently been in the water 2-3 times per week. I have only completed the distance of 1500m once in the lake and that's it, and it was long and hard for me. But I have been much more comfortable in the open water, swimming with people around me, and in my wetsuit. I was not particularly concerned about the bike or the run, although I did not know what to expect for how hard or easy or fast or slow these might be.
SUNDAY MORNING - wake up at 5:45am, get ready, eat something, put Rachel in the car, drive 10 min to the start. Temperature = 36 degrees F or 2 degrees C. A great temperature to put on a wetsuit that was not completely dry and get in a mucky lake.
Rachel feels her Mamma's wetsuit
1500m SWIM - my wave started 18 min after the first start, but I was determined to have a good warm up so I spent 25 min doing lengths in between saying hi to Jason and Rachel while I shivered. I told Jason I expected my swim to be somewhere between 30-35 minutes long. The water temperature was 68 degrees, which was fine. Green algae and goose poop floated all around me and weeds and mud crawled up my legs. The course was one big loop split into 3 * 500m lengths, and I was nervous about being so far away from shore as I'd never done a 1 loop course before.
I was really happy with my swim, with no major issues and no panic. The end became a little crowded as people all worked hard to get to the shore. I exited the water and checked my watch: 29:35!!! Yay! I walked over to the wetsuit strippers and felt a little dizzy so it took a little bit to get oriented. I took a slow transition and made sure to eat, drink, and wear my helmet. I was so much faster than I thought that Jason and Rachel actually missed me getting out of the water.
40km / 25mile BIKE - I had no expectations about the bike. All I hoped for was no rain (I've never ridden my road bike in the rain and didn't want to start) and no flat tires / mechanical issues. I knew my recent sprint bike was 46 min when I was working really hard, so I expected this bike ride twice the distance to take at least twice as long. I was surprised how alone I felt on the ride - most people seemed to be way ahead of me and this was a little bit of a blow to my confidence. After 40 min I realized a few things: 1) I would be way more comfortable if I could relieve my bladder 2) I was not confident enough to reach down and drink from my water bottle without falling off my bike and 3) I was almost at the turn around. So at the turn around I pulled over, ate a gel, drank some water, and used the restroom. Apparently most triathletes don't stop on the bike on a course this short, so people around me thought I was really in bad shape. Anyway, on the way home I tried to go a bit faster since the way to the turnaround was really quite comfortable. I finished the bike in 1:27, which I thought was fast but apparently on this flatter course was actually rather slow.
10km / 6.2 mile RUN - the last 10km road run I had done was on Dec 31st 2011 at sea level and was not able to beat an hour. So I hoped I would be an hour but wasn't sure what it felt like to run after a bike ride. For the first mile I had no legs, but then felt better and better and was passing people like crazy! I started getting more confident as I went, and must have passed 20 people without getting passed by anyone else. I've never been a confident runner before and for the first time in my life I felt like I was better than some other athletes around me. I started to realize that I might be able to beat 3 hours, so I really started pushing it. At the 6 mile mark I was sad to remember that the run is actually 6.2 miles, and I wouldn't quite beat 3 hrs. My run was 56 min, which I was totally okay with. I finished in 3:00:50, and hugged Rachel and Jason at the finish.
After we finished, Jason went for a run and then we drove home through Hwy 14 to check out the recent fire destruction along Poudre Canyon. It took us at least 5 hrs to get home and we were really tired. We did our best to keep the car ride fun for Rachel.
Sorry it's been a while since our last post... we've been a bit busy moving house from our rental in Boulder to our brand new house in Lafayette, CO.
Last time we wrote, Grandma was still here and she was packing up boxes to help us out. Pictures at that time will show Rachel playing, reading, and helping pack. Grandma and Rachel spent 2 nights together while Jason and I took the weekend off. We took the bus downtown to Denver and relaxed in a hotel. We biked along the river, went shopping, did some running, and watched a Colorado Rockies game. I'd never been to a live baseball game before and it was fun.
We had a great hike with our friends Julie and Mike to nearby Blue Lake the weekend before we owned our new house.
On Wed August 8, we dropped Rachel off at daycare early and presented ourselves in Denver for an immigration interview. It took 8 minutes long and it was approved almost right away. I received my green card in the mail today and am so glad to be done all of that process!
On Wed August 8th in the afternoon, we closed on our new house. We spent Thurs night there. Fri we had movers take our furniture to the new house. Sat we had friends take shuttles of boxes and small things. Sunday we cleaned out the old house. Tuesday our fridge, washer, dryer and ceiling lights/fans were delivered. Friday the blinds will be installed. Fri night we hope to install our ceiling fans/lights before we leave town for the weekend.
I have been working a lot and Jason has been busy getting prepared for school. He taught his first day of classes today and has to deal with all the craziness of the start of school.
It already feels like Autumn is rolling in as our mornings are cooler, our days are finally below 90 degrees, the sun is setting sooner, and school is in full swing.
We love our new house and are excited to unpack boxes and get organized. We're looking forward to having visitors!
Rachel has done really well with the transition to the new house. She has adjusted beautifully over the summer to going to daycare in Lafayette at a place we love. She attends Mon-Thurs and has Fridays off with Mommy. She has also transitioned out of her crib as we have removed the front railing to convert it to a day bed. I'm scared to write that she has pretty consistently been sleeping now from 8pm-6am. She genuinely seems happy to help us unpack boxes, put together furniture, use tools, and have many of her stuffed animals and blankets join in on the fun.
