18th Annual Desert Grande Triathlon

Andrea and I participated in a sprint distance triathlon last weekend with a lot of people from our ward. It was a blast and I rediscovered how much I love racing.

I participated in a triathlon with my friend Nick Trujillo a few years ago at Pine View reservoir that ended up being a duathlon (run-bike-run) when it snowed the night before and made the reservoir swim too cold. I also did a team triathlon at Utah State in '07 but I only did the swim leg so this was the first complete individual triathlon Andrea and I had ever done. The distances were perfect for us: 400 meter swim, a 10.3 mile bike, and a 3.0 mile run.

Since the race I have had several strange dreams about triathlons and many urges to buy expensive tri gear (some of which I have acted upon). I definitely think I have found my new hobby. Here are some of the pictures of the blessed event:


This is us and Julie and Sam Mills at the finish line after the race. I was so proud of Andrea for doing so well. She was using a mountain bike with road tires and it weighed at least 5 times as much as the bike I was on. But she never complained and was all smiles the whole day.


There's the mountain bike I told you about. I started earlier in the race because I have a fast swim time so I finished early and got to take lots of pictures. Look at that smile!! I guarantee you I wasn't smiling like that getting off the bike!!


This is Andrea's sister Julie. They were nearby each other for the whole triathlon but Julie beat Andrea by a few seconds because she started the swim 10 seconds earlier. It makes distance races much less lonely to have some company.


Here they are starting out on the run. The running path was not paved and it seemed to cut right through a bunch of farm land which I didn't love. The dirt was soft and uneven and made me feel like I'd somehow stumbled into a cross country race when I wanted a good old fashioned track race. But the weather was perfect.


I made the very rookie mistake of drinking too much water during the biking portion of the race which gave me a little side ache during the run and also made me really nauseous when I got done so I threw up by that flag pole in front of at least 100 people. It was mildly embarrassing but I figure they must understand.

Results: I finished the course in 1 hour 10 minutes and 40 seconds (101 out of 445 people). Since my swim time was a 6:40 (16 out of 445) and my bike and run times were mediocre I know where to focus my energies for the next race.

The Thrill of the Chase

Maci loves to be chased by people. She always stops periodically to make sure the person is still chasing her. Once she sees her pursuer she screams and crawls even faster. See for yourself.

One Precious Individual

Here are a few pictures we have taken of our "small fry" (Maci) with commentary.

Maci was terrified of balloons when she first encountered them. Something about how big they are and how fast they move just didn't sit right with her. I'm happy to report she's now over this fear.


Andrea took these pictures this afternoon in our back yard after church. They showcase both our cute baby girl and our lush winter grass whose seed I (Eric) sowed a few weeks ago. Rye grass is soft and reminds us of Utah grass so we spend more time in the yard now.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. I think every year I get more and more excited. Maci got to carve her first pumpkin. She really had a good time and liked to look at the big orange pumpkins. We carved Einstein and Sponge Bob. Sponge Bob got a lot of comments, I don't think the Trick or Treaters even knew who Einstein was. We also got to have Adam, Eric's little brother with us this year. He came down for a couple of days and we had a pretty fun weekend.




While Adam was here, they also went on a 40 mile bike ride on Halloween morning. Sam and Zane joined them for the ride. Lots of good exercise!


Now the real fun began Halloween evening. I had been working on our costumes for a couple of weeks and knowing that Adam was coming to visit, we made sure he fit right in with our theme. The star of the show was Maci! We borrowed her costume from my sister and so we made them theme around her costume.



Our Little Mermaid, Ariel. She didn't even mind wearing the wig. She didn't even pull at it. She looks like a little Cabbage Patch Doll.


I was Ursula the Sea Witch, Eric was Sebastian the Crab, and Adam was King Triton. At the ward party, I couldn't believe the attention Adam got as King Triton. All the little girls knew who he was and kept coming up to him and wanting to talk to him. It was like he was Cinderella at Disneyland.

Brittny and Zane joined us as a witch and and the witch's broom. Quite clever! Julie and Sam and their girls also joined us for the evening party at our house. Sam was a black spiderman with an afro and Julie was a beautiful lady with crazy hair! I didn't catch the girls costumes on film before they changed, but we had a real fun time. We had all the food you could imagine, Halloween games, and ping pong. Thanks to Mo and D for the great Christmas present, the ping pong table has gotten a lot of use this weekend.

Blast from the Past!

Here is a little glimpse of Eric and Andrea throughout the ages!
ENJOY!

GUESS WHO'S CRAWLING??



BEFORE

This is Andrea, being home with Maci is so much fun and I was able to trick her into crawling for the camera. Maci is six and a half months now and has decided she would like to crawl. She hasn't crawled a lot but if there is something she wants bad enough, she definitely can move to get it. ( I don't know what is wrong with our camera, it videos in black and white and accents any yellow that is in the picture.)

AFTER

I GOT IT!!!























Maci loves playing with her toys now. She is easily entertained.
She loves them so much she sometimes lays right down in the toy box.

Alaska Trip

This year my Mom's side of the family decided to do a "Guy's Week" trip to Ketchikan Alaska. My cousin Jeremy generously funded the most expensive parts of the trip (i.e. transportation, lodging, fishing charters etc) and my uncle Dale, who goes to Alaska every year, planned and coordinated the activities. So this was really the opportunity of a lifetime for me.

This is me, my brother, bro-in-laws, uncle and dad before getting on my cousins Cheyene at the SLC executive airport. Notice they rolled out the red carpet for us. No security barrier, no baggage check, that's the way to fly.

This is my bro-in-law Rich and uncle Scott (bro-in-law Nick is back there too).

We had to stop in Seattle to pick up some fuel. Here I am stretching my legs.

This is Ketchikan as seen from the airplane. It's just a bunch of awesome little islands.

Southeast Alaska has a climate unlike any I have ever visited and I had a hard time categorizing it. On the one hand it rained all the time so it was humid and there was lots of jungle-like foliage, but the temperature was lower (about 65 degrees almost year round) so you also had large evergreens and pine trees. Quite the place.

My brother called this little gem the "Shrieking Shack". It's just a creepy old abandoned house a few miles outside of town. Those are 2 bald eagles perched on top of it.

We did fly fishing in the river the first day. This is everyone in dawning their fishing gear.

Bro-in-law Nick, Myself, and bro-in-laws Josh next to Ward Creek. For someone who likes to fly fish this place was an absolute dream come true. Fly fishing will likely never be the same for me again.

This was one of my first catches. It occurred to me later that I hide half of the fish with my hands when I hold them like that. Oh well, you get the idea.

Out of everyone in our group I think my dad was the least excited about the fly fishing initially, but I also think he ended up having the most fun. He camped out at this same spot the whole 5 hours and made a killing. My brother downstream estimated he caught 40+ fish there. Every time I looked over there he had one on his line.

Me Nick and Josh followed a bear trail upstream to this hole just below the falls. The density of fish in the stop was incredible. You could see them everywhere.

Nick caught the biggest fish I saw that day. I am guessing this fish was 7-8 pounds and took Nick about 30 minutes to bring in. It took him so long we gave the fish a name (Frank).

Nick's fish "Frank" could have eaten most of the fish I caught. But there is no question these were the biggest fish I've ever caught with a fly rod. It was a life changing good time.

Most of the time we were "spot fishing". This means we could see the fish we wanted to catch and cast our lines just in front of him, then just as the fish bit the fly you could raise your rod and set the hook. This is by far the funnest kind of fishing in my opinion.

We weren't the only ones fishing for salmon. Luckily we never had any real close encounters with these guys. That's a black bear with a salmon in its mouth in case you can't tell.

My bro Adam and dad at Chico's Mexican restaurant. This place was funny, they served Mexican food (of course) and quite a few types of pizza (Italian), hamburgers (American) and I believe they had a few Asian dishes. So everyone can probably find something they like there. We ate there 2 of the 3 nights we were in Ketchikan.

This is my uncle Dale who organized the event. He and his boys did the deep sea charter the same day as us (his vessel is in the background). Our boat looked very similar to the one you see here. The weather was awful so I got really sick and lost my breakfast over the side 3 time, so did my brother Adam. The fishing wasn't great either but we landed some decent sized Halibut.

Here is the day's catch. This is much less than a crew of 6 usually gets in 9 hours fishing out there. Especially the Salmon. But I have tasted these Halibut and they are delicious.

On the way home I got to ride in the cockpit of the Cheyene. How awesome am I? HA!

This is mount Rainier, an active volcano near Seattle.

This is Mount Saint Helens. It definitely used to be an active volcano. Very active. I Hope it's not any more.