I am the Wife of an Ironman

Being the wife of an Ironman means that for the last 7 months I have sacrificed our family time for my husband's training schedule. I have spent extra time and money grocery shopping to feed Christopher his 5000 calories a day making sure nothing had high fructose corn syrup or enriched flour in it. I have spent many an evening watching Christopher fall asleep on the couch within minutes of getting home because he has spent everything he had on training and work.
I have also never been more proud of someone. I have never experienced the level of joy and pride while watching an athletic event as I did on Saturday, as Christopher completed his Ironman! The smile on his face and knowing how much went into being able to do this brought me to tears. Then I looked around at the 2,000 other athletes who had given up so much to accomplish so much and the tears flowed harder. You could see the pain, the story, the joy, the commitment in each person's eyes as they ran by.
From the man with one leg hopping through the sand to start the second lap of his swim, to the woman who missed the swim cut off by less than a minute and was forced to quit. There were stories upon stories out there that day. I loved every minute of it.
I made a sign that I held up during the Marathon that said "You are Strong". I don't know if anyone got encouragement from it, I hope so, but I know many people looked and read it and one guy passed and jokingly said "it should say "You are Tired"!"
Another older man running by slowed down and asked "Do these shorts make my butt look big?"
One of other wives and I assured him that he looked "hot" with big smiles on our faces. It was great to see so many people leaning on their sense of humor to make the run more bearable.
One of the best things about the race bibs at Ironman is that the athletes name is printed on the front making it easy for spectators to cheer and encourage by name. It is a personal way to make people feel special and that someone else cares about their race along with them. Cheering at the Ironman is an experience all its own. Your heart breaks at the hurt and your heart flies with the successes. Watching athletes come down the last bit to the finish and seeing the look of relief and pride on their faces was so rewarding. Knowing they completed the 2.4mile swim, the 112mile bike and the 26.2mile run and they were about to join the elite group and be called an Ironman.
And then I saw him. The love of my life running towards the finish with a huge smile on his face. My favorite part was hearing the announcer over the loudspeaker say. Christopher McClintock....You are an Ironman!
It was all worth it.

Sometimes you just gotta laugh to keep from crying

Today Jessica has been throwing up. Poor thing, but other than that she is doing ok. No fever or anything else. So after multiple baths and lots of laundry I decided that we would go for a walk. She loves riding in the stroller and I needed to get out too.

We get down to the end of the street and it starts to downpour out of nowhere. My street has never seemed so long as when you are running with an baby in an umbrella stroller (which work NOTHING like an umbrella) in the pouring rain. Then when we finally make it to our driveway I push the stroller up over the curb on the drive and all of the sudden the stupid stroller lives up to its name and collapses like an umbrella with my child still buckled into it. AAAARGH! So now I have a crying, wet, sick baby and am dragging the stroller behind me through the yard into the house.
As soon as we get inside, the rain completely stops and the sun comes out, Of Course!

That is when I toss my hands up into the air and shake my head and laugh. A little bit of crazy keeps us all able to relate to one another a little better ;) We all have silly frustrating days that remind us of how human we are. (Some people unfortunately more than others) On those days we must remind ourselves of of how blessed we truly are despite the crazy moments of life.

Oh No! Did I really just hear what I think I did?.......Off to clean up more puke ;)

The Joys of Fall Break

The Fall is a beautiful time of year. The colors and changing temperatures are a sign of the changes in life and how things appear to be gloriously preparing for a restful winter. It is a time to oooh and aaaah at the trees and crunch in the leaves and complete the harvest.
Ristow had Fall break this past week and I took advantage of it by taking the kids on a road trip. We visited families, loved on new babies, shared times of refreshing with friends allowing our children to play and to know one another. It was a great week. The kids traveled well and slept even better. I was able to share with Ristow some of my favorite childhood fall experiences and memories.
Here are a few pictures of our trip. We wished we would have had another week as there were many other dear ones we would have loved to see.

A Place of Refuge (for Hermit Crabs that is)

Yesterday I get a call from my friend Melanie. She had been on a trip to the beach this past weekend to be with family and said that they had collected shells on Saturday. Now, one of those shells was crawling around her car! Yes, a hermit crab. She asked if she could bring it over (because I am such an expert now on hermit crabs hehe)

Mel and the crab arrived and I had a salt water soak all set up for him, after all, he had been in a ziploc bag in her car since Saturday. He came out after a few minutes and was very cool looking. He has striped legs and is bigger than any of my land crabs.
Mel leaves only to return a few minutes later with the ziploc bag of shells. One of the other shells is grabbing the bag! Another Crab!

I prepare another bowl for the second crab. Luckily I had a spare cage from my past Hermit Crab fiascoes. So now I have my three in their regular cage and two more in another. Well the striped crabs from the ocean really need special care, online it said you have to create a subtropical environment for them, yeah right. I call Mel and then she calls the Aquatic store down the street, who (thank goodness) is going to take the ocean crabs and care for them.

So last night was the first night we had to turn on the heat. The poor crabs need the warm temperature and I didn't have a heat lamp for them. So I put them in the bathroom by our bedroom where it is warmer by the vents. All night I heard those crazy crabs!
The crabs are leaving today, so I will have a vacant cage again. And seeing as how I am such the expert now, I am happy to accommodate any future displaced crabs. ;)

I tried to take a picture of the Striped Crabs but it seems they are a bit camera shy. Here is a pic I found online of what they look like.

Not Quite Ready for Mobility

Over the course of the last 3 weeks, Jessica has perfected the creep and the crawl. She crawls everywhere on all fours and creeps along furniture standing up. Today I learned that she has also perfected the climb. I left her playing in the living room to get her a bottle and when I came back she was halfway up the stairs. AAAAAGh! I am so not ready for this. Looks like a new gate goes up today. I am also very aware of the need for baby proofing all of a sudden. Cupboards are emptied in a flash and things pulled off table before you can blink. She is fast like lightening and super strong.
She is growing and developing so fast. I had always heard that the second one picks things up faster but oh my goodness. She is 9 1/2 months and all this has come about in just a few weeks. She has also popped out 3 new teeth in the last 2 weeks, totaling 7.
I am so excited for her and her development, I just don't think I was prepared for it all so fast. We are having lots of fun. Even Ristow is a fan of her new abilities. Except he thinks that because she can crawl over and climb on him that now she is his new wrestling partner. We still have to work on that one ;)

Karate Lessons

Last night Ristow had his first Karate class! He had a private lesson with the instructor last week and yesterday he was testing to get his first belt (white). Christopher was able to take him and got to watch. Ristow really seemed to like it and do well.

So the 3 things that Ristow had to work on over the last week besides his punches, kicks and blocks were....
1. Respect skill - looking people in the eye when they are talking to you
2. Discipline skill - standing still when spoken to and saying "yes, Sir"
3. Black Belt Timing - Doing things when needed, obeying the first time you are asked

Seriously? This is awesome. I have been trying to get Ristow to do these things for a long time and now all we have to do is give them ninja type names and all of sudden he wants to do them ;)Super!

He goes again on Thursday and is really excited to go back. I am so glad that we have found something that he can be a part of and enjoy.

Appliance Obituary

I got back last night from a wonderful weekend away with friends to find this lovely Obituary written and posted on our Dishwasher. My husband is SO creative..........

HotPoint
1983-2010
August of 2010 HotPoint went to be with the Lord after some drainage complications and an encounter with an angry repair man. Living well past his years, he was a very reliable and dependable dishwasher who made his mark in the early nineties cleaning the lasagna encrusted dishes that lead his former owners to open a very successful Italian Restaurant.
He was later put out to pasture to live the rest of his days with a family that didn't require as much from him except the occasional Protein caked blender and some sippy cups.

He is survived by the Whirlpool Refrigerator of 7 years and GE Stove and Oven of 2 years. He will be missed.

Funeral and Extraction Services will be held Thursday, September 9th at 632 Monte Carlo Dr. And filling the hole in the counter (but not in our hearts) will be a 2010 Maytag JetClean that the owner got an amazing deal on. Services rendered by the Home Depot.

This is how I found out that Christopher bought us a new dishwasher over the weekend. ;)