Easter Triduum

Just a recap of some of the interesting stories from Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. 

We were a little rushed getting to mass on Thursday because I had wrestling championships that night at school that we were hosting.  So Nick and the kids picked me up from school and we rushed over to church.  We got a seat in what turned out to be a very packed cry room.  It was a little crazy back there!  Mass started at 7 and we didn't get home until about 830, which made for a pretty late night for the kids.

For Good Friday, we decided to attend mass at Beaver Creek since they had 1) an earlier mass at 530 and 2) were close to Wal-Mart :)  It's always an interesting experience attending church on the mountain, where you can see the snow cats.  Cayle enjoyed that part the best I think?  Nick ended up reading a portion of The Passion since they were short a reader.  Cayle really liked the adoration of the cross.

Last year, we had to sit in the basement with the overflow crowd on Easter.  I was determined we wouldn't do that again this year.  So we left the house an hour before mass began.  And when we arrived at church and found about 3 cars already there, Nick certainly told me "I told you so...".  But were were helpful inside since I was able to finish vacuuming the cry room and hallways while folks cleaned up from the Easter Vigil the night before.  And, we had super-awesome seats for mass today :)     

Easter Brunch and Egg Hunt

We hosted the egg hunt and brunch since Tiffany hosted the egg coloring.  It was a super-fantastic weather day - 60+ and sunny, which is the best kind of day in the mountains!  Most people ate outside and the kids played outside a ton!

kitchen table with decorations

extra table i set up that wasn't needed since it was so nice outside :)

my beautiful girl

 

cayle and the dodges playing yard games

carter and cayle swinging

family photo

folks hanging out on the deck

cayle helping me make cookies for the party

they were yummy cookies!

Egg Coloring

Colored eggs at Carter's house Saturday night (which also happens to be Tiffany and Nile's house!)...Cayle was super-excited to have a party at Carter's house, especially since the boys hadn't seen each other in over a week.

Seeing the picture of Lindy coloring her first egg made me think back to whenCayle colored his first egg...

And, being the cool cat that I am, I apparently wore the same exact outfit when Cayle colored his first egg that I did when Lindy colored her first egg.  Very weird on my part...

Bike rides

Checking out the dirt in Eagle

Cayle practicing riding the cobbles for the spring classics

Cayle and Mack rode bikes to the park to play

Good group ride to the dirt on the river road

Good group ride today! Garmin jr. Pro showed up. Not everyday you see that!

 

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Random pics

Cayle got out on the dirt today for a while!

Yeti's for breakfast

New Twins shirt from Grandma B.

Heading out disc golfing with uncle Bob

Throwing rocks into the creek at Grandma and Grandpas, his favorite thing!

Our snack tray in the "big airplane" we had a few drink coupons...

 

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What did you do during your plan???

I seriously have an issue.  It's been a rough week, with getting back late Monday night, having a 730 am meeting Tuesday morning, working Tuesday night until after 7 pm, meeting before and after school on Wednesday, having to work tonight before church....on and on it goes.  So I slept in this morning and didn't get my workout in.  Lucky for me I didn't have time to take the DVD out of my computer before I left for work.  I worked really hard all morning on plans for next week, grading papers, and getting caught up.  So I decided to take my plan time today and...that's right - I worked out!  I locked my classroom door and turned off the lights to give the appearance that I wasn't in my room, then turned on Shaun T and did a little "pure cardio."  Kids only came to my room one time during my workout.  And yes, I did pause the video to answer the door and get them the info they needed.

One thing I did not consider is how much I would sweat while working out in my work clothes.  So, I may be a little sticky and smelly the rest of the day, but, I feel much better :)

Burning Prairie Grass

On our most recent trip to IL dad informed me that it was time to burn the prairie grass. He had been hoping that I was home to help with it since I have never done it before. The conditions were fairly decent (he hoped) and the grass hadn't been burned in several years. He has a bunch of acreage planted in the natural prairie grass. It's supposed to be burned every year, or at least part of it is supposed to be burned every year. Why plant the prairie grass as opposed to leasing it out for farming? There are many benefits, but the major ones are DNR pay you for acreage you have planted in the prairie grass, and it's great for birds and the natural animals. Basically it's what was there before farmers and people came along and destroyed it to plant fields of crops.

The benefits of burning are listed here.

Sometimes you have to add a little assistance...

Cayle didn't care for the fire!

Pyromaniacs

Cayle took off running back to Mommy and safety from the fire... He told me he enjoyed it, but that he got scared.

 

It was for sure a great experience! Lots of fun. I was really impressed with how difficult it actually was. Sometimes when you would be trying to get it lit, the fire would be so hot, I would just turn and take off running with my torch!!

 

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Trains

Grandpa got the train set out for Cayle to play with this weekend.  Cayle became completely mesmerized by the train.  He loved putting animals in the car to go for a ride.  He loved the lights on the engine and the caboose.  He had a tunnel (Eisenhower) for the train to go under/through and a farm set up in the middle of the tracks.  Cayle also named the train - Franky.  Franky is apparently friends with Thomas :)

Electric fix

So, back in July or so, we had an outlet in the garage that kept tripping. I was panicked because this outlet was where the deep freeze was plugged in - the deep freeze that was storing all of my precious pumped milk! We decided to kind of rig things and plugged the deep freeze into an extension cord and plug that cord in to a different outlet in the garage, with the intention of that being a temporary fix.

And then it was March...

I heard an ad on the radio for a local electrical company and decided to give them a call and get this thing taken care of. An electrician was able to come out to the house about an hour after I called and he got the problem fixed. End of story I figured.

Then yesterday, nick received a phone call from the company letting him know they had left something on our porch. See the pics below...

Two Awesome Dads

I know some pretty awesome dads...and here's a great picture of two of them with their baby girls :)

Biking Memories

Dad and I were reminiscing a couple weeks ago about some of his earliest memories from when he started riding and racing. Made me think of some of mine as well. First of all, a few pics to illustrate how much I have changed (body structure)since I started racing in 2006. Crazy, it seems I have been racing longer than 7 years, but it doesn't seem like a long time either. Kind of funny, when I started getting serious about biking, I was riding 10k+ miles a year and not really that fast (although it does take time), now I ride closer to 3k miles a year, and am tons faster than I was when I was riding much more. Now is also much more conducive to raising a family...

Maybe my 2nd ever race... I had to be close to 210 lbs...

1st or 2nd year of racing

This was October of 2011, weight is about 163 lbs...

Dad was saying how one of his major goals when he started out was wanting to maintain 20mph on a certain stretch of road. It's funny how 20 mph seems like such a big deal when you are just starting out. Seems so fast. (not so fast anymore) One of my first goals was to be able to maintain 20 mph on the trail between Springfield, IL and Chatham, IL. At the time, I was able to do like 17 ish, and I remember telling my buddy Matt at the bike shop that someday soon I was hoping to be able to do 20 mph for the length of the trail... (like 8 miles...) I think he said something encouraging, like you will be there before you know it or something... lol. At the time it seemed like a really difficult feat to accomplish!

I remember one of my first long rides. It was when I was in my 5th year at Quincy and working quite a bit at Jimmy Johns. I had a day off about a week after I bought my first bike, and decided to just head out and do a long ride... BAD IDEA... I have always had a tendency to just jump in over my head instead of being cautious... still that way today. I ended up riding like 80 or 90 miles, and bonking terribly. By the time I got back home, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and never ride my bike again (I have that feeling every once in a while...) My butt hurt so bad!

One of my first group rides was shortly after I moved to Springfield, and Matt from Wheelfast Bike shop suggested I should come do one of the group rides. They were pretty easy paced, and I would have NO trouble... I didn't really know what bikers do, or wear, or that much about riding yet. I showed up to the group road ride with my Camelbak on and ready to roll... I got dropped from the group within the first 20 minutes or so. They were flying!!! Some would have quit right there, it was in that moment that I decided I wanted to get faster so I could ride with those guys. At the time though, I thought it was unbelievable how fast those guys were! So much for a slow easy group ride...

Shortly thereafter I started riding group rides with Team Mack. In the beginning I was always one of the slowest, but eager to prove that I belonged... At one point after a pretty difficult section I was feeling pretty good, and riding alongside Andrew Lister (who I didn't realize at the time, but is the fastest rider around the area...) I saw that his rear brake was open, and thought I should be helpful and let him know... He let me know that it was supposed to be that way and he already knew... (lesson learned... keep my mouth shut) The funny thing is from that day till now, I always ride with my rear brake open, and can't tell you how many times people have told me that it's open...

I remember when I wanted to start racing, and decided to start going to the Team Mack training races in Springfield. They were unbelievably fast and aggressive, and for months I never got past 20 minutes staying with the group! I would always get dropped and catch them on the way back into town. I thought I would NEVER be able to ride fast enough to stay with them the entire time... But each time I stayed with them a little bit longer. It was a feeling of incredible satisfaction the first time I stayed with the group for an entire ride! Now I can't imagine not being able to stay with the group.... Crazy how things change.

There are many many more memories, mostly good, some not so good, these are just a few of the earliest.

Bracket time

Cayle is picking his brackets, in most cases he picks the 2nd team I say. Obviously ILL is going to take it all in his opinion!

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St. Patrick's Day

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day at Jeff and Jess's house on Saturday night with a traditional meal of corned beef and cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and rolls. And some potato and leek soup made for the vegetarian(s) in the group :)

Cayle brought books for Uncle Jeff to read to him. 

And he wanted to have a green drink, just like Uncle Jeff.

We went to church this morning and made sure we all wore green - except for Nick.  Good thing for Cayle, Lindy, and I since Fr. Bob spoke of pinching anyone who didn't wear green...

After church today, we went for a drive to look for animals...no luck :(  Then we hit Costco for a few groceries before coming home to get ready for the Selection Show Party.  Cayle passed the time by shoveling the back deck...with the smallest shovel in the entire world!

We typically go out to a bar/restaurant to get food and watch the show, but since it was also St. Patty's Day, we figured it would be best to watch the show from home so we knew we'd have access to a TV.  I think most people were pleased with their team's draws and everyone had a good time socializing.  We got a new family pic taken with Nick, Cayle and Lindy in their Fighting Illini Orange and Blue and myself in my Illinois State University sweatshirt (not like ISU made the tournament...)