So I married a triathlete

Congrats to Sue, who finished mid-pack in last month's Woodridge Mini Triathlon. And if it wasn't for a displaced bike chain, combined with her utter terror at swimming long distances (hello, Hylands, any suggestions here?), she'd have finished even higher.

But believe it or not, her eldest two children (Jillian and Jason, perhaps you've heard of them) followed up with triathlons of their own. Rock on! I am so proud of them, but for different reasons. For Jillian, the race was difficult and uncomfortable, and she wanted to quit halfway through. After some water and encouragement from mom, she want out and ran her third leg, and finished strong. Jason, I am proud of him for his enthusiasm and spirit. On the way home, he told us he wanted to do that again. Which reminds me, I need to see if there are any other events upcoming...


The mom / triathlete, and part of her Pit Crew. The sharpie number stays on your arm for a few days, and it looks really cool.


Jason kicks off his race.


Jillian finishing leg 2 of hers, a 5k bike (on a bike that is really not built for this sort of thing). Jillian was very unhappy at this point it time, I later came to learn...


... but she felt better at this point.


Not to long after, here came the World's Largest 2nd Grader.


The Three Triathletes and the Rest of their pit crew.



- Aw2pp, Official Family Couch Potato

10 Amazing and Stunning Piano Pieces

10 Amazing and Stunning Piano Pieces

No recital piece this time

For the first time in, I guess, a year and half, I won't be submitting an ABF Quarterly Recital piece. The Kuhlau Sonatina just isn't there (it's hard, did I mention that?) and I just can't bring myself to submit Hava Nagila from Alfred's. Partly because it's a somewhat fun but mostly annoying piece of music, and partly because I am simply not playing it very well. I am sure if I played it better it would be more fun than annoying, but for as long as I have been working on it, I'd have thought I would have reached that point by now.

I'm not happy about this, I must say.



In other (and related) news, we spent most of the last week in Tennessee, helping Gramma MA spend some of her timeshare points in Gatlinburg. Brief synopsis: first part of the trip was hot, crowded, touristy, and quite a bit of fun, but probably not enough fun to return for. Second half was spent in the Smoky Mountains National Park, and... wow. Words fail me (as they often do). Amazing, outstanding, even more fun than Dollywood, if'n you can believe that. (Which is really saying something... Dollywood had the added bonus of continuous ragtime being piped through the park, coming at you from all directions.) Lots of spontaneous fun that we didn't plan for, and didn't see coming.

- Aw2pp, who is considering wearing a coonskin cap at all times, henceforth.