Happy Bday Emery

Emery turned 9! One thing she really wanted this year was to get her hair colored. I wasn’t too eager because I was thinking it was going to be an obnoxious crazy full head of color. After much negotiation, Julie talked her into doing a peek-a-boo color fade that turned out pretty amazing.

Her passion these days is mostly gymnastics, she loves contorting her body into different shapes and flipping around the house. We are starting to get a good collection of gymnastics equipment in the basement to give her plenty of opportunities to make me cringe in pain. So it made sense that for her party we did it at the Forthill gym. Emery and her friends had a whole room to run around, jump, flip, and bounce.

Christmas 2022

Time has really been flying by the past few months! I am only now getting around to posting some Christmas pics.

For the holidays we did all of our typical activities: we hung out with family, opened tons of presents, and cursed at the -20F cold weather. We mostly hung around Naperville but did make it back to Davenport to see the Wassmer clan.

Party weekend

Emery and I stayed home this weekend while Julie and Carter went to Indy for a Soccer tournament. Carter had tons of fun hanging with his teamates all weekend and then to top it off his team got second place. I hear they played hard and it paid off!

Emery had 2 birthday parties and a Halloween party so we were busy running around on both days. One of those birthday parties was at iFly which is a skydiving simulator. I thought the thing would scare her but she got in there and flew like a champ! Video below.

 

 

Naperville Tri 2022

I didn’t PR this year but came pretty close. The Naperville Tri is always a fun race though!

2022 2021 2017 2015 2012 2010 2009
Overall Place 62 71 147 158 270 263 602
Age Group M 40-44 M 40-44 M 35-39 30-34 30-34 30-34 25-29
Group Place 11 11 26 25 44 35 48
Swim 6:08 5:51 5:25 7:02 7:40 6:58 6:18
Transition 1 2:27 2:35 2:44 3:12 2:57 2:34 3:29
Bike 35:01:00 35:29:00 37:10:00 39:33:00 38:09:00 38:58:00 46:52:00
Transition 2 1:34 1:23 1:21 1:21 2:02 1:32 1:54
Run 25:22:00 24:27:00 25:16:00 25:23:00 28:00:00 26:47:00 28:09:00
Total Time 1:10:30 1:09:43 1:11:54 1:16:28 1:18:47 1:16:47 1:26:41

Gatlinburg Family Vacation

We just got back from a great trip to Gatlinburg. We were with most of my side of the family. Unfortunately, my parents came down with covid and had to miss all the fun.

Other than a crappy Airbnb experience, we had a great time. We did all the tourist things… mountain coasters, mini-golf, white water rafting, and a bunch of exploring the area. We ended up seeing 3 bears during the stay. The very first day there was one trotting down the street right in front of our rental, another one was walking under our ski lift, and the final one I ran into while I was out for a mountain run.

Summer fun with a little surgery

We took the kids to the Dude perfect tour at the United Center. The Dudes brought their A-game and kept the kids smiling the entire time. It was the biggest venue either kid had gone to so that helped make it even more amazing.

Carter continued with his summer of surgeries by getting his tongue and upper/lower lips released. He has one more mouth surgery this year and then that will hopefully wrap it all up and completely free that tongue.

Emery wrapped up another great season of softball. The girls are getting much better, they are hitting and catching way more consistently than last year.