...makes my day

We were watching Mr. Poppers Penguins as a family one day when Erik busted a gut laughing at the penguin named Nimrod. It was that contagious type of laughter.....so I thought I would share!

*the penguin is a bit of a klutz and runs into everything, in this particular instance he runs right into the wall.-Erik thinks anything that crashes is hilarious, unless of course he is involved in the crash.

mind you he had already seen the clip at least 5 times when we started this recording and yes our mattress was on our living room floor, what- you dont ever have sleepovers in your front room? :)

Mum's Day

So the weekend continued into one great adventure. Right after the tri we walked back to the car and found this cool carved out stool and tree near the car. So we took the opporunity for a littl photo op.

 I love this one, I caught a perfect little giggle in action. This may be my new favorite of these two peas in a pod.

 And it would not be complete without some cuddles from mommy. Erik is becoming quite the affectionate little guy and I am trying to soak every bit of it up. He often wont let us leave without a hug AND a kiss. He randomly tells us he loves us often and his new thing is to do the competitive I love you as big as..... phrases. Funny thing is, he cant quite grasp how big or important or vast things are, and he is obsessed with airplanes, and so he thinks he can top all the phrases by saying "I love you as big as an airplane in the sky" with a tone that you cant help but giggle at your self because he sounds like that is the most ominous and precious thing. He even gets all quiet sometimes when he says it. I love his little spirit.

 Sunday we spent the day walking around Byron Bay and hiking up to the lighthouse and standing in the most easterly point of australia that you can reach by foot. Pretty cool!

The scenery was breathtaking!

Walking up to the light house was quite a walk for the Erik's little legs and we dont take the stroller with us usually anymore so to keep him going and keep the complaining down we sang "Do as I'm doing" about a dozen times and every time we got to the phrase 'if i do it fast....' we would run as far as we could.

 silly face.....Erik likes to pull that phrase out randomly for photo ops and in everyday life as well. Silly kid!

On our way walking down those stairs we had the chance to see some wild dolphins swimming along the coast line. It was pretty surreal and great. They weren't doing anything crazy just slowly and relaxingly swimming but it was so cool!

Erik recognizes the letter 'E' now and every time he sees one he says 'hey der is an e for ewik' so when we got to the most easterly point of australia's mainland and there was a giant compass he thought it was pretty sweet. By the way....those sunnies are his must have accessory....he constantly asks if I brought his sunnies and luckily he wears them and we dont have to worry about him tossing them somewhere without realizing it. He actually gets quite upset with me if I forget them.

 In this bottom one, I dont think you can see it well but someone wrote really huge in the sand "MUM" since it was Mother's day. I thought it was pretty sweet.

That morning I had woke up to a super early text message actually from some one at church and had to take care of a mini crisis. But after that I tried to rest in bed for a bit longer while Erik and Linds went and brought me breakfast in bed of a chocolate donut, chocolate milk and a sweet card and new pen that they promised they wouldnt steal from me. Then we went around the bay.

My favorite part of the day was the drive home actually. I had enjoyed such a great weekend away with my men supporting Lindsay in his big event and enjoying playing with erik without the distractions of laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc. Getting away was the perfect pick-me-up. So on the way home I asked Erik what his favorite thing was about the weekend. Then I asked Lindsay, and then I said something. Erik absolutely ate that up and so we continued to go around our family at least ten times. After about two rounds he facilitated the game and that just made my whole weekend. Good thing too because.......

Fast forward to that evening, we were home, we were all blissfully tired and I had some treats that were supposed to be just for me. It was near bedtime for Erik and he wanted me to share, we were in the middle of explaining that this treat was just for me today because it was mum's day-a special day. All hell broke loose I tell you. He had the biggest tantrum I have ever seen him throw (and luckily we havent had one since), he escalated to screaming at the top of his lungs "I don't want happy mums day, I want treat." It honestly left me speechless. I knew he was overtired and just didnt quite get it and by no means were my feelings hurt, I just couldnt believe he was that upset about chocolate. He is a complete chocolate fiend but I guess i didnt realize just how much. Anyways he eventually calmed down and Lindsay had a really good calm conversation him about it all. He came out apologized and gave me loves and then went to bed.

That was the finish of my mum's day but it was all right the whole weekend was near perfection!

Byron Bay Triathlon

So Lindsay has been wanting to do a triathlon for a while. There have been a few different hangups as he has tried to figure out when and how he would accomplish this goal. First off was trying to find one that was on a saturday. This is nearly impossible as most big sporting events-especially races are held on sundays. The second biggest hang up would be finding the time to train appropiately for a triathlon. Considering he is taking online classes, has a full time career that often takes him out of town, responsibilities in his church calling and dont forget Erik and I.

But alas he found one that was just an hour an half south of us AND on a saturday. We discussed in and decided to go for it. The biggest things about this specific tri.....it was OLYPMIC distance. Go big or go home I guess! We were botha bit nervous but excited.

Lindsay did a great job trying to balance all of his roles. I tried really hard not to complain when I felt to be dwindling because I really wanted to support Lindsay in this awesome goal and see him succeed. I may have mentioned to him a time or two though that I was ready for him to have some more time for family time.

So the triathlon fell on Mothers day weekend. We just made a weekend of it and spent the weekend in Lennox head a ten minute drive from Byron Bay where the tri was happening. It was a blast of a weekend.

The morning of.....feeling a bit jittery but excited. The whole goal for this weekend was to just finish the race. There was not really a time goal we would just be happy with a successful finish.

Cool kid waiting to go in the back seat.

 Unloading his bike and checking out others that were arriving.

 Erik wanted to help walk the bike to the start line.

 A view into the transition area. Walking up to registration was such a cool feeling. You could feel the energy and the atmosphere was just buzzing. There were all types of athletes from young and pro to young and fit to old and fit and some like Lindsay-the newbies.

Getting his number on his bike. I kept trying to take a picture of his number written on his leg, but he was too jittery to take a moment to stay still long enough to get it. Thats all right, I understood and to be honest was nervous as well, even though I wasnt going to be competing.

 After registration we went to the common area was with a few different businesses and food options. There was a big blow up slide and it was a relief for us to take the focus off the race for a short bit and great for Erik to get some much needed energy out.

A picture of the finish line with a couple of cool wood structures

 Snack time! We had stocked up pretty well for the long haul of watching the race.

 The throngs of people waiting around for the time to head to the beach to start. At this point Lindsay was worried that he would be the only one planning on using a wetsuit for the ocean swim. Another interesting point about this time was watching everyone's prep routines. Since we were first timers we didnt really know much. We saw what others were eating or not eating and how people were getting their wetsuits on (yep, turns out almost all had wetsuits on they just put them at that very last second-because they are really hot). Seems many would use a plastic bag, put it over their foot, slip their foot through their wetsuit leg and it slid up easily, as long as it didnt rip (I did see that happen with one lady).

Walking down to the start line. Erik was itching to play in the sand and surf.

 I had never see this at the beach before, there were these tiny perfectly formed balls of sand formed. I dont know how it happens and this picture doesnt do it justice but it was really cool. If I would have thought about it I would have stopped and tried to take a few different angles.

 This was he was most nervous I think. The swim was by far the most intimidating. He hadnt gotten to practice any of his swimming actually in the ocean.

Erik made sand angels while he waited for me to put his swimmers on and be allowed in the surf.

 Part of the crowd heading to the start (the flags). Lindsay's division was second to last which in the end was a bit of a drag. He signed up to be in the heavyweight division (they politely called it the clydesdale dvision) for over 90kg men. With being that late in starting and being a beginner, the course was starting to be taken down in each leg of the race for Lindsay which was a bummer. My inner cheerleader wanted to tell all the officials...KNOCK IT OFF!

 He was so excited and I know he could feel all the fun and positive energy! He was in his swimmers and ready to play and yell for Daddy!

 At the start line. He is just to the left of the guy leaning down.

 Running to the water. Silver arms with full length black wetsuit. He didnt want to rush to the water and worry about getting kicked and punched.

In they go. The swim was set up to swim 400m straight out, parallel the beach for a distance and then 400m back to beach. There were guys being rescued in that first stretch. Lindsay said that the first few waves that crashed on him made him worry that he would not make it. Inhaling the salt water and swimming against the waves was hard work!

 Finally, his time came to frolick and have a blast while daddy worked away at finishing out the swim. I was mostly watching Erik but trying to keep on eye on rescues and where they were out at the sea.

 Coming in....notice lack of others and bouys and even lifesavers (lifeguards). While there were still a few out there. I was a nervous wreck by this point. I had given myself one more minute before I was going to ask race officials how to find out if he had been rescued or how they track swimmers. But a lifesaver had walked by and I asked how many were still out there. He said two, I gave Lindsay's description and asked if he was one of them. He asked if he had an accent like mine, he said yes he was out there and he thought he would be all right but the other guy who actually came out of the water just before Lindsay was really struggling. Relief, he was accounted for and at least finished the swim! I was so proud! He said the lifesavers gave him some good tips out there and were encouraging. He had to do a part of the swim on his back but that is AOK, he finished it!

Our favorite picture of the event. He was more tired than I have ever seen him, his lips were white from the salt water and workout, he was walking slow but he was continueing on.....atta boy!

I wasnt fast enough getting Erik back up to snap any pics of him getting on and leaving for the cycling bit. But here he is on the last stretch, this was his strongest portion of the race. But like I said they had started shutting down the course a bit. Although he did pass a handful of people and of course people were dropping out all along, and technically his time was pretty good for a first timer, he got started way later so it seemed he was last.

Back in the transition dropping off his bike and getting ready to run. We learned that you should get a clip on belt for your number so you dont have to waste time in transition to pin it on. Lesson learned if/when there is another tri in our future.

The run was four laps, so that was fun because we could cheer for him each time he went around. He caught a fair amount more on this portion but still people were dropping out.

You go this love, one more lap!

Erik completely distracted me when Lindsay actually crossed the line so I missed the golden shot, Lindsay was so exhausted he didnt notice luckily but it would have been fun to have recorded. Goal accomplished! Lindsay did say that he had to walk a few times in the run, but I am so proud that he set a goal and accomplished it, he did great!

Number one....thats how Lindsay rates in our books! And yes he downed that can of pepsi max. I felt bad, I tried to get him some water for the finish but they were sold out, so he got soda, not the best. But he was so thirsty he didnt care.

Coming up.....the rest of our weekend in Byron Bay!

It's elementary my dear watson..

 So a while back when Erik and I were at the Koala sanctuary I saw this crazy bright blue beetle with red spots on it. And it was a pretty large beatle but not huge! I was really curious about it, so I snapped a couple pictures and didnt really know what I would do with that other than maybe share it here on the blog as an interesting Aussie bug.

A few weeks later I took Erik to the museum (its free and a great boredom buster!) and what do you know I was looking at the bug section and while looking I thought hey I wonder if that beatle is anywhere. Yep it was. It is some type of protective bug. I felt like Sherlock Holmes solving a mystery. It was great. Erik couldnt have cared less about my discovery but thats all right.

Budha's birthday

 So I am a bit behind of catching up with our adventures but this was a really fun event that happened in April I think. Often when there are festivals or anything culturally its down at southbank right in the city. Last year when we moved we just missed this event and came the next day when all the paper lanterns were still up but nothing else and we were bummed to have missed it. So this year we went and had a great evening.

 Lindsay helping Erik bath the statue. Honestly I dont know enough about the religion to know exactly what everything was for. I just know you werent supposed to pour the water on the head and you were to do it 3 times.

All of the south bank area was littered with lanterns and lights and it looked pretty magical. And there were lots of colors and I felt a little bit like we were in Tangled (the movie) for a bit. Really cool.

 Erik and I made a donation to write down a wish and then rub Budha's belly for good luck and to make the wish come true. I think ours had something to do with babies? But its anyone's guess :)

 And of course there was food involved. You can see all the tents behind Erik and I lined up with different foods and things. In Budhism it's my understanding that they dont eat meat so all the vendors had vegetarian menus and it was asian cuisine it seemed and look authentic. Well other than our corn on the cob we chowed down. Erik and I could have this everynight with dinner I think. As a side note when we go to south bank on the weekends when the friday night markets are going on we usually have this as our treat, yummy!

 We bought a combo type meal for the fam for dinner not really knowing what we were getting. Below is the one thing I just couldnt bring myself to try. BUt Lindsay tried it and watch his reaction, I was busting up!

Not his favorite food, I take it!

We sat on a grassy area near the "Eye of Brisbane" Ferris wheel and enjoyed the sunset.

 NOw this was technically fall weather but really the only way you can tell is because I have a light sweater on. Obviously Lindsay and Erik were still fine at this point with the temp.

 Then we found where a local music school was doing free demonstrations for kids with percussion stuff. Erik being the music fiend that he is was all for it. And I think percussion suits him as he cant seem to keep tune very well but he can move his body to the beat great.

 If the location of the school wasnt so far from our house I would probably strongly consider getting him into classes, he loved it! Looked at how intent he was at trying to do it. The demo was a bit too fast paced for him, but he wanted to keep doing it!

We ended the evening with watching the traditional show of the dragon (the one with multiple people under it walking it around) and there were these lions and then some karate demonstrations. It was a great night. They do fireworks each night of the birthday celebration as well but we went home before that. We could hear them from our house but couldnt see them.