woman of steel 2011

This past weekend I did a triathlon. I feel like it's nothing all that exciting to blog about because I do a couple every year but I do like to look back on my past races to see how I did and felt and compare them. This year was more fun because I had my cousin and some friends participating. Usually I go, I do and then I leave. My time was 1:22 but in my head, I'm subtracting 3 minutes because I got a little scatter brained at the first transition and it took me almost 5 minutes! I'm allowed to do that right? So we'll say 1:19 :) I took 25th out of 165 in my age group and overall 105th out of 750. I felt great, this is a really enjoyable race and I love doing it. And lets not forget the weather was perfect after a week of raining and then rain everyday since the race, that was lucky!

so happy to see my mom, Brody and Abbey cheering me on at the end of the race!
Abbey chasing me to the finish, but I told her she couldn't cross the finish line. (then I would feel like I had to slow down so she could run with me and I'm not that type of competitor, I'm finishing with all I've got left)
Lisa and I trained together (and she beat me)

My cousin Emily and I

the kids got in trouble, went to bed early

and so now I have time to blog an update.

My kids are a little obsessed with Michael Jackson. They constantly watch you tube videos, their favorite being Smooth Criminal. Brody used to always ask if Michael will still be 50 when he is resurrected. While watching the movie This is It, there are clips of young Michael and Brody said "he used to be black?!" I caught this picture of him, dressed in his Michael best (Smooth Criminal Michael best) doing the dance moves along with the video. This just thrills Ryan beyond thrilled to see his son wanting to be like Mike.

at the end of April, Ryan and I went to Atlanta for the Portrait Society of America Conference. It was wonderful. I stayed up late, slept in, worked out, went to the mall by myself and hung out with some cool people. Ryan had to give portfolio reviews for a few hours, here he is in action.

the kids helped celebrate my moms birthday.

We got The Pass of all Passes, along with the rest of Utah County and went to the batting cages on Friday. The passes will be fun for the summer but I just have to mentally prepare for the crowds. The batting cages only had 2 machines going and there was no rules about each turn. We just had to wait in line until the person in front of us was done.

Cloe was the only kids tall enough to drive the go karts by herself and they only had ONE double car. So that meant I had to drive this thing around in circles with 3 different kids, luckily they were excited enough to be patient while waiting in a long line.
I think the "baby chicken" (we still refer to them as the babies) that is black, won't be laying eggs for me in July. I think it just might be a rooster. I really really hope not, but we don't want a rooster so we may be finding Bella a new home soon.

Baseball season has officially begun, Cloe and Brody were in the opening day parade and loved it. I am already far more impressed with this cities recreation department than I was with the last city we lived in. The parade was so fun, the fields are so much nicer and they actually have jerseys rather than t-shirts with silk screening and it's the same price.

this was the view behind Brody's field, so pretty. Such a gorgeous day.
We passed the local grocery store and they had some sort of pirate promotional set up in the parking lot and I let the kids go down the slide a few times. Pointless activity to post? yes. But I loved Charlotte's reaction to the first time going down the slide that I thought I would make it sound like this great activity that has recently happened.
and our ghetto dinner outside. We dug a hole for the fire pit and need to invest in some more lawn chairs. But the upside down laundry basket will work for now. Abbey said "it's like were camping and our house is our trailer." If my kids are convinced this is camping, then let's go camping all summer!

Happy Mom's day to me and the other wonderful woman in my life.

This year I bought all my Mother's day gifts, handed them to the kids Saturday night and told them to wrap them. Ryan hadn't mentioned Mother's day and there were things that I wanted/needed but felt guilty buying them. Until i remembered Mother's day was just around the corner, "Oh, I'll buy it as a Mother's day gift". Look at the brain on Courtney. I think it is a tradition that I will continue. It ended up being a nice relaxing day and of course my favorite gifts were the handmade cards and bookmarks. Brody was very proud that he made me teary eyed with his letter he wrote.

we do celebrate holidays

In our Easter best. We headed to Ryan's studio after church for better lighting and it made for more interesting back drop.


the lamb. I leaned how to cook and marinate it while in Italy. I was surprised at how small the lamb section was at the store, In Florence there were meat cases full of lamb this time of year. Regardless, it still turned out delicious.

Let the egg hunt begin. My mom had fun crafts and activities for the kids and special bunny masks.