Colorado Visit, Triathalon, Work

Colorado Trip
We drove to Colorado with Bruce's parents to help Michelle, Bruce's sister, install a new sprinkler system and visited Garden of the Gods.

Bruce and Hailey at Garden of the Gods

Bruce, Ben, John, Rachel climbing

Hailey

Saw Lindsay's freshly painted condo in Colorado Springs.
I stayed an extra few days to visit my family before flying back to Utah with Hailey. It was her very first flight!

Eric lived in Utah for a month.




Triathlon
Bruce and I are doing an Olympic Triathlon in St. George on September 18th! The race is an open water, one mile swim followed by a 26 mile bike (with a one mile stretch which has a 6% incline.... not too sure about that), followed by a 10K run. The swim should be okay. I can swim a mile now, so I just need to train to get my time down and increase my endurance a little since open water will have more turbulence. We bought a month pass to the city pool and went swimming 3 days a week to train for the Trithalon. Hailey loved the pool!
The bike might just kill me. We've been casually looking for a second bike. We used to have 2 but one got stolen from our apartment so Bruce and I alternate who rides everyday. It works well now, but a little closer to the race we will want to train on the same bikes we will ride, plus longer rides are more fun with company. We borrowed a bike trailer from one of Bruce's relatives which I use when I ride with Hailey. She doesn't really like it because it's so roomy that when I brake, or turn she tips over and can't get back up. I saw someone else with a toddler car seat in a trailer, so I've started looking for a car seat that we could put in the trailer the help her stay upright. We'll see if it works, assuming I can find one at a price I want to pay. As for the run, I've been doing 3-4 mile runs and feel really comfortable, so the 10K distance should be okay, the real question is can I do it after a 26 mile ride and a mile swim. The race is really expensive ($90 each!), but I've enjoyed the training so far, and I think that we will really enjoy the race. In the future I think we'll look earlier in the season and try to find a cheaper on, but since we haven't been training that long and the end of race season is approaching, it was our only option.


Ernst and Young, Texas Trip
Bruce went on a trip to Texas this last weekend to visit the Ernst and Young Accounting office in Huston. He said he enjoyed the trip and he learned some good information about what they are looking for in an employee which will help him make some decisions about pursuing a Masters. He had not been accepted into the Masters program when he left for the trip, and was considering other options, but has since been admitted!

Hailey
Hailey is doing great. She is growing, and becoming a little person more and more. She has all her front teeth, can crawl very well. She walks with help and will crawl into the room where I am at just to pull herself up on my pant leg and get help walking. She can stand for a few seconds without help and can walk around tables, chairs, and anything else that looks stable. Today she was super cute- she was rolling this giant ball and every time she would roll it she would look at me for praise. I would simile, or say "yeah" and she would get this grin on her face. So cute!

The other place that Hailey has been so cute is in the pool. Because neither of us are currently BYU students we can't use BYU facilities, so we purchased a 1-month pass to the Provo Rec Center. I take Hailey in the baby side while Bruce swims laps, and then we switch while I swim. Hailey loves the pool. She has gotten pretty brave and will crawl all over the stairs by herself. I sit close so I can rescue her when she topples over, but she's pretty independent. She's really social. When she sees someone who she thinks is interesting she leans toward them and turns her head to stare. I usually let her direct where we go based on her head jerking and I think she likes it. She hates to be on her back in the water, but loves to be in a swimming position. She also love to splash and has a floating toy that she wants in and out of all the time, probably just to try my patience :)

Lawns
I've been helping with the family lawn business. I mow with Bruce on Tuesday and Wednesday, assuming that Grandma can watch Hailey, then do sprinkler repair and weed some customers lawns on other days of the week. It's nice because I can take Hailey for everything except mowing (too noisy for little ears) and it gets me outside and busy. Hailey loves to eat dirt whenever we are in a flowerbed or have a chunk of grass with the dirt side exposed. It was really cute the first time, but she does it all the time and I don't want her to get botulism, so now we fight about it. I move her a way, she crawls back and eats until I catch her again. :) Some weeks get really crazy with Bruce working at his other job 3 days a week, mowing 2 days a week, and doing sprinklers as often as we need to. In addition to all that I've been subbing at the job I had last summer doing water checks, so I work an average of 1-2 days a week. Like I said, it makes life busy, but we've enjoyed it thus far.
I tried to fix up a bike from the neighbors dumpster but it was going to cost so much in new parts it wasn't worth it. Bruce started looking online for used bikes, but demand is high in Provo so most the road bikes we were interested in were about $200. We decided to get one on Amazon that was $160. A lot of money, but hopefully we use it enough to justify the expense.