The Rest of Saturday

You didn't think that after doing the race on Saturday that I went home and relaxed for the rest of the day, did you? Yeah, right.

After lunch with Pat, I took Frankie to agility practice. It was just practice so he was awesome!! An agility super-star!! Don't believe me? My friend Sheryl was there. She is my witness! He was also quite amazing at class last Thursday, too. There were at least 6 people there who could vouch for this! I'm telling you, he really is good at agility! REALLY! If I could only pinpoint the disconnect between practice and trials...

Weaving...get it, get it, get it...
All of a sudden Frankie loves to weave! Where he used to fly right by the weaves without even seeing them, now he rarely misses an entrance. Look at that smile on his face!
I think Frankie's paw-touching jumping style is adorable.
He always jumps this way.
Mo got to come to practice, too. Last week I took her to Jim to see what he thought of her agility possibility. We worked on jumps (4" only) and, as expected, she was very slow to do it and very slow to warm up to Jim. But by the end of the session, her tail was raised a bit and she was going willingly through the stanchions. On Saturday she was really happy to be there. She was running around the yard with her tail high and wagging. She did her jump series very nicely. I think she was starting to figure out what I was asking her to do.

We haven't tried her on the contacts yet. Jim wants to test her 3-legged balance first. He noticed that her right front foot is flattening out and is turning sideways to accommodate the weight shift. He is worried that might affect her ability to do contacts and even tunnels. We'll see. However, she was quite curious about the A-frame. This might have been because I was sitting on it. :)
After agility, I took Mo home and picked up Georgie and I took the tan dogs hiking. We left a little later in the afternoon than I wanted to and there was a storm blowing in. We barely made it back before full dark. I probably shouldn't have stopped to pose the pups for pictures, but they just looked so cute!! And my knee was starting to hurt, so the break was welcomed. This is the only shot I got where they were both looking at me. Georgie looks cute, but Frankie looks a little scary, like maybe he really IS a coyote. Or some sort of wild animal who wants to tear into you and rip you apart. RRRrrrr...
Ok, after all that, I did rest on Saturday night. My NFBF, aka the nicest guy in the world, dropped off some pizza for me (mmm, Spinato's) even though I turned him down for a hockey date. I spent the evening reading my book club book. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't finish it. 600+ page books are just too much for me, I think!

Anthem Adventure Race

Storming the Castle participated in the Anthem Adventure Race on Saturday. And by participated, I mean we ROCKED the Anthem Adventure Race. This time, Storming the Castle was me, Irene and our new recruit, Christy.I wouldn't actually call this race an "adventure race" - it was more like the Urban Dare that I did a few months ago with Laura than the other adventure races Irene and I do. It was billed as an urban challenge similar to the Amazing Race. It included 10 challenges, running and biking.

Challenge 1- run around the community park. This was probably about a mile and a half. We got off to a rather slow start here. Irene has been a little busy lately and hasn't had much opportunity for running. A very, very energetic toddler can do that to a person. At the end of the run, we were in second to last place out of 28 teams.

Challenge 2- ride our bikes to the spot on the map designated for the math challenge. Irene earned her way back into super-star status by being the best map-reader ever! At no point during this race did we get lost. However, now it was Christy's turn to slow us down. Apparently a Huffy bike, sized for a 10 year old, with two tires very low on air may not be the best choice of bike for competitive racing. But Christy muscled through and when we arrived at the challenge almost half the teams were still there. The math was a long division and a multiplication problem. The long division was 1,117,285 divided by 13. The multiplication was 756,458 x 26. Irene attacked the division. Christy and I did the multiplication. A very few seconds later our correct answers moved us into the top half of the field. Challenge 3 - Knot challenge. We had to ride to the other end of the park to get a rope which had five knots to untie. Christy and I rocked that one - and passed a few teams in the process - while Irene studied the map for the fastest route back to the transition area.

Challenge 4 - We had to make 3 baskets from various points and no team member could take all 3 shots. Christy made the free throw. I lucked out the jump shot and the lay up. Challenge 5 - Any good Amazing Race knock-off would have a "needle in the haystack" task. This one was to find one penny each hidden in the sand volleyball court. Easier done than said.
Challenge 6 - Locate the spot on the map where you turn in your old map for a new one. This one was a trick. They hid the clipboards of new maps and the bucket for old maps in the scrub brush and they didn't staff the checkpoint, so there was nothing to direct you to the spot...other than faith in your map. There were about six teams milling around the spot where the checkpoint was supposed to be - all of us crossing paths with each other. Finally we read the fine print in our directions that stated that this checkpoint was not manned and when we stopped looking for AAR staff, we immediately found the bucket. And now it was my turn to slow us down. My chain had come off/stopped working/or something bad that caused my pedals to stop moving. Irene to the rescue...she fixed it pretty quickly, but we still lost ground to a few teams.

Challenge 7 - SOCCER! Yay! Perfect for us. We each had to make a goal, shooting up a hill into a tiny net. Christy didn't make her first shot and for this we mocked her. This is a girl who plays soccer 10-12 times a week! Her initial mistake was that she wasn't really looking at the goal - she just shot quickly. Funny - I used the exact same tactic to make my first shot! Irene made her shot in two and we again passed a few teams.

Challenge 8 - We took our bikes back to the transition area and ran across the park to the Plank Ski. They gave us two planks and we had to use them as balance beams to move from point A to B. When you got on one plank, you had to pick up the previous one, move it to the front and everyone has to walk onto that one without falling off. There was a lot of cheating going on by the other teams so we didn't take this very seriously.

Challenge 9 - We ran a short distance to the golf ball challenge. There were about 40 different golf balls in a bucket (Titlest, Nike, Pinnacle, etc) and a stack of papers. You had to choose a paper and then find the golf ball that matched it. We were looking for a Nike 4. Christy had luck on her side - Nike 4 was the first ball she picked up.

And we were off to the last challenge - a puzzle! YAY!! It was a 100 piece puzzle. If you look closely, you will see that ours happened to be a dog puzzle. :)We may be nerds, but all the puzzling we've done lately really came in handy! We finished that puzzle so fast that someone asked us if ours was half put together when we started. :) Another person thought we started early on the puzzle while we sent one person to do checkpoint 9. Brian, who was our cheering section, said that we did the puzzle twice as fast as any other team. And that is how Storming the Castle went from 27th of 28th to take 5th place overall!! We got 3rd for our division (3 person team) which earned us a prize...a 4 Peaks Racing bobblehead!

Woo Hoo! A successful Storming the Castle:
Yes, the head of Irene's bobblehead bobbled right off. As did its arm. :)

WHEE!!

Happy Birthday, Jamie!


Don't quit on me!! You're a super-star!! WHEE!!

What Are You Wearing?

What are you wearing to work today?

Due to my complete mind-control over you, chances are it's the same thing as me.

Wednesday of last week:
The very next day:
In December:And at book club...

Top 5 Birthday Countdown

Today is Laura's half-birthday. In honor of this almost-momentous occasion, I bring to you the Top 5 Birthday Celebrations. You already know about the MOST FUN BIRTHDAY ever and about Laura's actual birthday trip to Slide Rock so I won't count those, even though they'd definitely make the list. Nothing could beat out a Trapeze Birthday!!

Number 5 - Hockey Birthday
You know you have good friends when you can get a large group of people to play roller hockey for your birthday. You know you have a great group of friends when you can get them to do it outside in Phoenix. In the afternoon. In AUGUST. We rented out an outdoor roller hockey facility and played for a couple hours. By the end of the session, everyone was so hot that we all got naked. (Not really, but it sounds good and the picture on the right supports the idea...)
Number 4 -Steven's (aka Crime Fighter's) 40th Fighting For Birthday Justice
The text of the evite stated:
Mild-mannered computer geek by day, daring superhero by night. You too can be a crime fighter like our favorite forty year old. Come strategize against your arch-nemesis while learning how to dodge a bullet. What more could you ask for on a Sunday afternoon? If you are able to join us (in the name of birthday justice) we'll provide the party, equipment, and pizza. You provide the fun.

My NFBF and I came to the paintball party dressed in our super-hero best, ready to fight for birthday justice and to provide the fun.
T-shirts made for the occasion:
Nothin' hotter than a girl with a gun...

Number 3 - Pat's White Trash Birthday
This wasn't exactly planned, but it was executed well. It started out innocently with me taking Pat to breakfast at Waffle House. It escalated from there. By dinner time we had compiled a large group of white trash friends for a traditional white trash birthday dinner - in costume, of course - at Old Country Buffet. Sadly, I don't think anyone at the restaurant thought our attire was unusual. Hopefully someone there at least looked condescendingly upon Molly's hair. Could someone get that child a brush? I'm pretty sure she was barefoot, too. Aw, hell yeah!! Ripped jeans, tank tops with bra straps showing, cut off t-shirts, ratty hair, trucker hats, many dirty children, flannel...we got it covered. Well, not the beer belly in the too-tight t-shirt. That wasn't covered.
Number 2 -Troy's Rollerskating Birthday
It wasn't a costume party, but for me...well, you know. Just give me a theme and I'll give you a costume. You say roller skating, we say Xanadu! And if we say Xanadu, we really mean it. We didn't buy Troy a gift, but we gave him the best present ever:


Pat is such a good sport. If I make the costume, he'll wear it with no argument. Even when it includes short shorts and a rainbow shirt.
And the Number 1 Birthday Celebration is....(well, it will be...)
Pat's 40th Cruisin' Birthday! Pat turns 40 in March and Travel Troupe plus a few more will be joining Pat in his favorite activity - relaxing on a cruise ship. Well, Pat will be relaxing. Those of us who don't relax so well (primarily the girl-half of Travel Troupe) will be playing lots of games in the vicinity of Pat's relaxation. Will there be t-shirts made for the occasion? Will there be dance routines? Of course there will!!!! Duh.