Kennedy's new hair

I guess it was time for a change. After years and years of long hair, Kennedy decided to go short for a while. My friend Amy cut her hair while she was here visiting. We all think Kennedy looks very "sassy". She loves her new hair and is enjoying how easy it is. I guess my little girl is growing up.

A little Swing Dancing with Kinsey (video)

The youth in our ward have recently been learning to dance. A young couple taught them how to swing dance at an activity, and so these kids get together and dance quite often. Kinsey and her friend Clay really got into the "swing" of things, and they ended up being good partners. What a fun thing for all these kids to be learning.

Amy and Amy

Just over a week ago, one of my very best friends came to visit me all the way from Utah. Amy Stevens and I have been friends since our junior year in high school and have stayed close ever since. I get to see her and her family each summer for a month, and so even our kids our close friends. Our oldest daughters, Kinsey and Mia are very best friends and e-mail constantly and spend endless time together in the summer. Amy was able to come and visit me for six days...and she even got to come ALL ALONE. Her five kids and husband sent her off to have a fun week with me. WE HAD such a great time. John pretty much took over everything with the kids and sent us off to play. What a great husband. Amy and I spent a day at Universal (how fun to go to an amusement park without kids...we felt young again), we went shopping, and out to lunch, went to the pool, had a movie night out, had a movie night in...and even got to spend a whole day at the beach alone. As much as I love going to the beach with my kids, I have to say that it was fun to be there without hauling 100 pounds of chairs, towels and beach toys with us. Two beach chairs, two diet cokes, two salads...and that was plenty to keep us occupied all day on the beach. We had absolutely perfect weather and it was so fun to talk and talk and enjoy one of my favorite places ever. I loved having Amy in Florida and showing her around, introducing her to my friends, and letting her be a part of my life. We talked non-stop for most of the time she was visiting. We laughed and laughed about our past escapades together, and about the crazy things our kids do, and just about life in general. I feel rejuvenated as a mom. Every woman can use a good dose of BFF time.

Halloween Hoopla!

What a great Halloween we had this year. We had a Halloween party at church on the 30th, and that was fun for the kids to get to see their church friends and parade around a bit. Halloween night is always amazing in our neighborhood. Here in Florida, or at least in our area, the Halloween decorations are so elaborate. You would think it was Christmas with a spooky twist. I guess it is because we have such great weather right now, so it is easy to get out and make your yard look great. All the houses in our neighborhood have these great covered front porches, so most people sit out and pass out candy. Spooky music can be heard, and even some sound effects from certain houses. It feels like a giant Halloween party in our neighborhood. Very fun for the kids. This year I stayed home with Cooper (he went around for a few houses) and the kids went with John (and Kinsey went to a fun "teen" party with some friends from church). I think the kids got enough candy to feed a small country. Fun was had by all. Kinsey decided to be Minnie mouse this year. It is actually the very same costume that she wore when she was 18 months old. Just fits a little differently.
Kennedy was a "Flapper" from the 20's

The cutest blond vampire I have ever seen. When we got to the Halloween party, everyone kept walking by Carver and saying, "Hey Dracula", or "What a cool Vampire". Carver looked up at me with total surprise and said, " Hey mom, how does everyone know that I'm a Vampire"?

The Vampire tried to bite the Flapper a couple of times. We had to keep an eye on them.

Cooper was a tiger this year. I figured he needed a "tiger mommy", so I dressed up too.

Cooper was all about the lollipops. As he was eating one, he had a look on his face like, "You have been holding out on me mom...all this time you have just been giving me a tasteless binki".

My Triathlon

I DID IT! I competed in my first Sprint Triathlon. It went so well, I beat all my best times, and had a blast with my 8 friends that competed with me. What an amazing feeling to accomplish a goal like this. I have never done anything like this before, never considered myself much of a competitor, and the word "triathlon" has always scared me. I can think of many words to describe this process. First...It was scary (the mere thought of it...in the beginning), and challenging (learning so many new things and getting stronger and stronger), exhilarating (always a great feeling after doing a really hard work-out), and exhausting (I can't tell you how many miles I swam, biked and ran in the past four months. Some mornings my body didn't want to function), and bonding (I grew so close to the girls that I was training with. I trained alone most days, but it was so fun to get together and talk about it and then train on Saturday together), and empowering (the first time we did a tri run-through and I knew I could do all three events together, it was an amazing feeling...felt like I could accomplish anything). If you want to read more about my "journey" to the triathlon, and more about the race, I have written a far too detailed account in my previous post (the long version).

My results:
race time: 1.18.58 ...including transitions(I was hoping to do it in just over 1.30, so I was thrilled)
split times: swim (750 meters) 12.22 min. bike (12.7 miles) 37.52 min.
run (2.75miles) 23.53


Rankings:
4th in Novice division (all the first timers)
4th in overall age division (35-39)
25th overall (out of about 200 competitors)


Me and Sara Rose,( one of my best friends), got to the race bright and early (well, not so bright) to set up our transition area.











All my cute "triathlon pals". L to R - Stephenie Dowdy, Jessica Martinez, Me, Andrea Rediski, Beckie Lowe, Marie Winchester, Traci Bosch, Sara Rose, Larell Lockhart.








And the race begins. Can you see me? I am the one in the orange swim cap.











Only 12.7 miles to go.

I can see the finish line. Yea!!!!!!

All of us "post triathlon" with a few kids and friends. Every one of us finished the race, improved our times, and accomplished a big goal. Yea!

My Triathlon journey..I really did it! (Long version)

Yesterday I competed in my first ever sprint Triathlon (1/2 mile swim, 12.7 miles bike, 2.75 mile run). It was an all women's event. I'm happy to say...I DID IT! I'M ALIVE! IT WAS SO FUN! I can't believe I am saying the words..."it was so fun", but it really was. It is so amazing to be able to achieve a goal like this. Doing something that I never pictured myself doing. I have been exercising my whole adult life, five days a week, and have competed in 5k's here and there, did my first 10K this summer, but a triathlon just seemed like too much. But somehow, me and 8 of my friends were inspired by a friend to do this triathlon. Many of the girls had to learn to swim, a few hadn't been on a bike since they were kids, most didn't like to run, and 4 of us had had babies in the last year. So a group of "athletes" we were not. But motivated we became. Though I mostly trained on my own (except for Saturday's) we supported each other and talked "triathlon" at playgroups, bookclub, church, and through e-mail. I became so close to these woman and loved sharing this experience with them.

I have been training six days a week since mid August (though before then I was running every day), and I really enjoyed the variety of the three different events. I had not biked since I first got married, but I borrowed a road bike from my neighbor (now I want my own) and learned to bike. Though I had some battles with the toe-clips for about a week...we soon bonded. I biked 12 miles pretty much every other day. Soon I added running onto my biking day. The other three days a week I would swim (in our neighborhood pool...advantage of living in Florida...year round swimming) and also run or bike. I trained from 7:30 to 8:30/9:00 every morning after I got the middle two kids to school, but John and Kinsey were still home with Cooper (middle school starts late in Florida). On Saturday's I would sometimes train with friends, and we even did a few mock triathlons to make sure we could do the whole thing. By the time I did the triathlon, I really did feel ready. Nervous about things out of my control...but ready.

The race went so well. The weather was overcast and around 75 or 80 degrees (better than our recent temp of 96..only a few days ago). John and the kids were there to cheer me on, me and my friends had been there all morning getting ready. There was excitement in the air. The race began and I felt confident in every event, and though it was hard and very challenging, it was what I had expected. Swimming in the lake went great (my friends and I had done a practice run the week before) and I actually felt very comfortable out there with almost 200 other women. Me and my friends were in the second wave (We decided to do the Novice category...for first timers) and we started 3 minutes later. We had orange swim caps, and the first wave had pink. As we got into the water and I swam past the first marker, I noticed that I started to pass quite a few pink swim caps, and that was very motivating for me knowing that they had started three minutes before me. My friend Sara Rose and I hopped out of the water ahead of a lot of the "oranges" and started our run to the transition area (1/4 mile barefoot and in a swimsuit). Sara was ahead of me and I was determined to catch up to her. Sara and I are the most evenly matched in the race and so she and I are always neck and neck and have a little friendly competition going on. She happens to be one of my closest friends, and so it was fun to have her near me in the race. If anyone was going to beat me, I wanted it to be her. We got to the transition area and had to put our shoes, shirts and shorts, helmet, and glasses on. Sara was on her bike before me and about 30 seconds ahead. I felt good as I got on my bike and I was determined to catch Sara. I had to pass 25 people, but I caught her around mile 3 ( much to her chagrin), and got ahead a bit. I think both Sara and I pushed ourselves harder because we were competing against each other. The biking was hard, but it felt good and went smoothly. I passed a lot of people and no one ever passed me. I saw a lot of my friends as I looped back and it was so fun to yell out to each other. The transition from the bike to the run is logistically easy because all you have to do is put your bike on the rack, throw off your helmet, and start running. But it is physically the hardest transition. LEGS FEEL LIKE BRICKS. My legs seriously didn't feel like they started to work for almost a mile. Even though I have most experience with running, the run was hard. I think I kept a pretty good pace, but it just seemed so long. The end of the race was a beautiful thing and the feeling of running over the finish line was AMAZING! It was fun to have so many people from our ward there since so many of us were competing. I loved seeing John and the kids at each transition cheering me along. They were the best support. I had hoped to do the race in about an hour and a half. In practice I was a little over that, but I figured I would do a bit better on race day. Well, I surprised myself. I finished in 1.18.58. Just shy of an hour and 19 minutes. I couldn't believe it. Sara was two minutes behind me, my friend Jessica was four minutes later, and then our other friends soon after that. We all finished and everyone did such a great job. Another girl in our ward ended up winning the whole event. She did not train with us and we were not aware of her "abilities", so it was really neat to see how well she did. 1st place over all. Wow. Way to go Laurell. I did end up being 4th place in the "novice" category (probably about 60 to 70 people in that category), and I was 4th place in my age division over all...and would have come in 2nd place in the 20-25 division (okay, so I am 37, but it felt good to know I beat some of those young whipper snappers). And I was 25th out of the whole 200 competetors. My swim time for 750 meters was 12.22 minutes, my bike time for 12.7 miles was 37 minutes, and my running time was 23.45 minutes. Much improved times from my practices. I am just so thrilled with the way the whole race turned out. What an amazing experience. I have never felt like an athlete, but now...maybe a little bit! I am addicted and can't wait for my next triathlon.

Our volleyball player

On Thursday of this past week, Kinsey found out that she made the Avalon middle school Volleyball team. WE ARE SO PROUD OF HER. She had try-outs for 4 days, and she worked so hard. She tried out for the past two years and got so close to making the team, but it didn't quite happen. The school only has one team (opposed to a team for each grade), so there are very limited spots. We are proud of Kinsey for being persistent and never giving up. She is looking forward to the hard work of this season. She has an amazing coach that has played volleyball in college, and even coached a pro-team and Olympic athletes. She wanted to give back to her community by coaching middle school, and Kinsey will benefit.

What's up with those Lopez kids

Kinsey is 13 and in 8th grade (going to high school next year...help). She is an excellent student, and avid reader (rarely do I catch her without a book fused to her hand), and a great help to me (my life changed the minute I had my very own "built-in babysitter", though I do share her). She loves volleyball, church youth activities, and goofing around with her friends. Every day she tells me that Cooper is the cutest baby in the whole world. She is really a great kid and a fun teenager (if those things actually go together).



Kennedy is nine and is in 3rd grade. She is also a hard working and wonderful student. I think Kennedy's teacher would be lost without her as she seems to be the " rememberer " of all details. Kennedy wants to know the mysteries of the universe and will keep asking questions until she finds them. She keeps me on my toes and certainly lets me know what the clock says any time we are running late (like I want to know). Kennedy loves to dance, loves to talk, loves playing with Cooper, and loves to play tennis (she just started lessons), and loves going on vacation to Utah to be with cousins.


Carver turned five this year. He is in Kindergarten now and he is loving it. Carver loves to run, jump, wrestle, climb, pound, and stomp (usually on my furniture). He is playing his second season of soccer and really enjoys it. He loves his baby brother Cooper and is the only one that can get him into a good long belly laugh (which usually includes some of that running, jumping, wrestling and climbing). Carv loves the beach and can't get enough of boogie boarding. He is all boy, but still has time to give me a hug and a smooch and to tell me how much he loves my hair. Gotta love it.


Cooper is almost nine months old. His interests include slobbering, playing with toys, slobbering on toys, eating snacks in his highchair, slobbering on his highchair...and eating some more. He is the joy of our home and he makes everybody smile...no matter what mood they are in. We know that he is brilliant and possibly gifted by the way he says, "A Da Da Da". He is a wonderfully happy and easy baby that loves everyone and gives a ready smile and a little bit of flirting to anyone who pays attention. He is a good sport as he follows his siblings from one activity to another. He loves the pool and started swimming a little on his own by the end of this past summer. Life is fun with Coop and we are so glad he is part of our family.