Viva Las

Cal & Ella's first try at gambling, fun at Circus circus, log ride with Grandpa Smoot.

 

We love cousins camp!

"Swiming is Awesome"

Day 1, day 2, and 1/2 of day 3 looked like this...(but much, much louder and with no mercy on my part.)

Day 4-8 went a little more like this...

We swam the summer away.  I view swimming as a right of passage- you learn to crawl, walk, run...and then swim!  You've got to be able to do it in Arizona, and fast. 

Cal got the nick name 'Nemo' not from his favorite new swim suit, but from his awesome 1 arm stroke.

They ended every class with a cheer, "Swimming is awesome."  I hear that line about 10 times every day now.

Love love love the beach!

The perfect Packard family vacation!

I love that the beach tradition still carries on. 

Something about the sound of the waves, the smell, the wind, the warm sand never get old- vacation after vacation. 

Plus the company cannot be beat!  

Dear Daddy

Thank you for letting us have a wonderful summer in Arizona.   We've had a lot of fun...can you tell?

You may not recognize me because now I have 2 teeth, can sit up all by myself and am in love with any orange or green vegetable that is blended up.

But after 6 weeks in Arizona with  trips to California and Nevada, we are now ready to come home to Texas.   

We love you so much! We'll be home soon!

Love, Cal and Rhtett

ps.  Mom says to make sure the house it nice and clean or she may be extending the trip a little longer....

40 years ago

These two fell madly in love.  And I am really glad they did.   

I am so glad I made it to Arizona in time for the celebration.  It was the perfect night!

#123

I love to sing.  Is that new information to anyone out there? Certainly not to my family who can still sing along to "Sunlight! Come together with starlight! And together we'll shine, in the great, great big sky."

 Yeah, that was just a song I made up when I was five.

Somehow out of all the numbers out there I was lucky enough to get the race # 123 tattooed all over my arm, legs, on my helmet, shirt, and on my bike. 

Singing songs in my mind has always been my favorite race trick.  Just think of the possibilities the numbers 123 gave me to sing! But somehow one little line from a children's song literally pushed me through the last 2 miles of the race.  Over and over and over and over I sang,

"Some people are quick and have a fast pace, but slow and steady wins the race."  

I didn't win the race but we did swim a 1/2 mile, bike 18.9 miles, and run 5 miles.  For some reason that feels just as cool.

And now, I will stop blogging about this.  :)

1st a mother, 2nd a triathalete

I love being a mother.  I have found so much joy and fulfillment in who I am from my two boys.

But I also enjoy wearing other hats (or swim caps or helmets if you will) at times. 

So I jumped on the Packard Family triathlon bandwagon.  Everyone else was doing it, why couldn't I?  It was the perfect motivator through my pregnancy.  I learned to lap swim for the first time.  My spin class loved watching my belly grow. 

After Rhett was born, I naively found a race, convinced a few friends to sign up with me and we started training.  My kids were champs. Rhett was the smallest baby I have seen in a jogging stroller- but he loved it.  I fell in love with my bike (thank you Doug!) and my spandex shorts (thank you Mom!)  I looked forward to my daily Paola and Kim exercise/play time.  The "Night Riders," as we named ourselves, was born. 

We nicknamed each other. We doorbell ditched friends.  We have told hundreds of hilarious stories about high school, our dating lives, courting our spouses, and our marriage highs and lows.  We  have cried our way through sad stories and testimonies.  Training was so wonderful.

The race was pretty fun too:

Because of a breast pump malfunction, this is literally what I was doing up until 30 seconds before my race started.  Luckily we were in the 3rd heat to race and Doug got there just in time.  Baby Rhett saved the day!

Here is the 10 second count down...I think we were supposed to be ready by now, but we were all about having fun.

After the horn went off, we were still putting on our goggles and walking into the water. No need to fight the crowds and drown within the first minute!  I love my little cheerleader Cal watching me go.

I 'll post more about what happened during the 2 hours, 34 minutes, and 1 second later. 

Little Rhett didn't really catch the memo that I was pretty important and busy at the moment.

2 minutes post race:

My triathlon red carpet award speach would be something along the lines of:

"A huge thanks to my producer Doug for really making it possible for me to be here today.

Thanks to Cal and Rhett for being wonderful exrtas in the cast.

Thanks to my brother Zach and sisters Ali and Aimee for being my inspiration.
Thanks to my wonderful trainer, Tricia.

And lastly, thank you to the amazing cast members Paola and Kim- together we did it!"