Hail, hail the gang's all here!

Well, my gang arrived yesterday: Dan, Abigail, Aidan along with my good friend Karen and her daughter Reilly. They too experienced the LONG drive and were very happy to "land". Reports from the grown-ups was that the kids did awesome--they decided to leave Thursday night and drive through the night to avoid "bored kid in the car syndrome". Apparently the plan worked like a charm and everyone arrived happy---tired, but happy.

I had gone to the grocery story yesterday to stock up for their arrival. The kids explored the house and decided to test the pool. I warned them that it is not heated, and as the temperatures dip down to the low 50's at night, the water was probably cold. But, again, these are kids....do they think I know what I am talking about?!? Of course not, so in they went......and out they came! "MOM......I AM FREEZING!!!!!"
"uh-huh....imagine that...."

They ran inside and jumped in a hot shower and stayed there until they stopped shivering. I laughed...on the inside of course, I'm not cruel after all. :-)

It felt pretty chaotic yesterday and really, it was my fault. I found myself trying to wear too many hats: mom, wife, friend, athlete.....kind of crazy! And, I had my schedule messed up and thought the welcome dinner was on Saturday night. Hello? Nope, Friday night. So, ontop of the chaos, I added the last minute scramble to get to the dinner. In retrospect, life would have been WAY better yesterday if we had chucked the whole deal, but I had it in my head we HAD to go. So, scramble, scramble, scramble....we make it to the dinner, only for the food to be miserable and the girls to be bored out of their mind. And, to top off this lovely poop sundae, it was outside and we were dressed for the indoors! Nice job, mom.

I thought the presentation part of the evening would be interesting to them....wrong again! They spent the entire time playing on the hill behind where the dinner was--yeah, not so much. I figured after I invested that much time, why not keep continuing the beating...I stayed for the "mandatory" athlete meeting. Again, nothing new, more cold and somewhat of a waste of time.

Now, I feel I need to qualify the "waste of time" statement. Having been a spectator at two Ironman races, I have been to a couple of athlete meetings, which are valuable if you have never heard it before. However, the information is the same or very similar and I would have been much better served heading home and hanging out with my feet up. Oh well, next time....uh....well, sometime.

So, here we are, Saturday morning chilling. Having learned from last night's mistakes, I have opted to skip the swim this morning and take the time to relax, blog (aren't you lucky...3 blogs in 3 days, its a record for me!), pack my transition bags, get my bike ready, etc. We will head into town around nood, make posters, drop off my bike, etc. All in all....a good choice!

My friend Cairne arrives today by air--lucky sock! Her generous, x-husband (who is also a good friend) gave her enough air miles to fly in and be a part of the day. She is the ambassador for her entire family, as they are like my family, and I am thrilled she is coming. She and I use to do tri's together and I am secretly hoping she'll find some motivation and get back into the sport. Its good for all of us, right?

Okay...I need more coffee and delegate to this group of Iron-slaves that came to support me. :-) I don't want to get into a position where I run out of time and feel all stressed and panicky---just not necessary.

If I have time later today, I will blog about my dinner with the Newtonians! I got to dine with Tim, Tory, Diesel and some big wigs from Boulder. Real fun...good stories--a new kool-aid!! How's that for a cliff-hanger?!?!?