Triathlon madness!

View of the harbor as the athletes will see it on Sunday. 

 It's that time of year again.  The roads are getting paved, the bush is getting wacked from the sides of the road, and there are orange spray painted marking on the asphalt.  It's time for the St. Croix 70.3 Half Ironman!!!

Pre race talk.

This is such a great, fun event for everyone - sporty and not.  We get tons of people visiting the island from all over the world in the hopes of securing a spot in a full ironman, there are people at the restaurants, people running and cycling on the roads, and a festive quality to downtown.

When I was younger - high school aged and before, I would volunteer to help in the transition area. in those days, the transition area was held in the old fort parking lot that took up much of the waterfront. We had to report to "work" the day or two before the triathlon to sweep the parking lot, set up the bike racks, set up the barricades, and gawk at all the hot bodies. It was a teenager's dream come true. Actually, some of the older women were in heaven too.  I haven't been able to volunteer since I graduated from high school because I was in college, or once back and married -preferred to stay snuggled in bed with S, but now that A is old enough, and sleeping in is 6 am, I figured we needed to start giving back and doing our part.  That said, if you need water when leaving the transition area, we are your people :)

Pollito - all the triathletes know him
by name thanks to C!

Yesterday was part 2 of the warm up swim, and A and I swam it while C waited on shore with my Mom and his new found friend Pollito(a slowly dying baby chick that we found on the roadside).  THANKS Mom!

We hoped to not only make it around the 750m course in less than 30 minutes, but to also get to rub goggles with Lance Armstrong. Yes, you heard me - Lance Armstrong.  The man himself is here.  I remember seeing him win the "Beauty and the Beast" triathlon when I was in high school. Now he is back and we are wishing him well.  If he does win, and I hope he does, it will bring a boost to our little island next year as more competitors will come.  Right now we average about 300 athletes, but in the beginning we sometimes had upwards of 800! Can you imagine that?

What I saw most of the swim

Anyway, it was fun and it stopped raining long enough for us to want to jump into that cold harbor water.  Yeah, it's still cold for us. I know, I hear the tiny violins playing in the background.  Anyway, I haven't swum in the harbor for YEARS.  The last time I was there it was pretty barren, but yesterday we saw starfish, 2 juvenile French Angel fish, Sargent Majors, Blue Tang, Sea Urchins the size of my head, and many other fish.  It was cool.  We had to swim through seaweed though - and I HATE that.  A did well on the swim despite wanting to turn back at one point, and I did well despite running her over constantly! Once we got out, A said it fine and she'd do it again! Good girl!

Sadly, we didn't see Lance.  I heard he had done a private swim and was biking the island. Maybe we'll go hunt him down?

Hot body for my friend Anna,
who is missing the race this year.

I’m the Biggest thing in the Ocean toddler activity

The other day, we went down to the public library for our bi monthly library run.  It seems like every time we go to the library, we stumble across a new book or two. This time, not olnly did A find some new books, but I found a GREAT new book for C called “I’m the Biggest thing in the Ocean” by  Kevin Sherry. 

C LOVES this book, he especially loves then end where the squid gets eaten by the whale.  Personally, I think he loves it because I give the squid a surf guy voice. Since he loves this book so much, I decided to make him some play items to go with the book. 

I photocopied the characters – not all of them mind you, but the key ones, laminated them and then glued magnets to the back so he could play with them on the fridge.  At least, that was the idea.... the copies laminated well, but the magnetic tape just doesn't stick. I KNEW I should have sprung for the actual magnets.  When you laminate something twice, home use non heat sealed laminate doesn't work so well.  It is worth the hassle to have it professionally done.  All in all, the whole play set has been fun.  C likes to play with the magnets and have the squid say “I’m the biggest...”. 

I learned a few things by making these magnetics. 

1. My Xyron 900, does a good job laminating as long as you don't double laminate
2. The rolls of magnetic tape don't stick to plastic laminate or anything else, buy the actual magnets
3. Hot glue doesn't stick to laminate either
4. Pay for the laminate job at Office Max - it's worth it
5. Invest in a roll of laminate with magnetic backing from Xyron

 I did happen to see the same idea but in felt - I think it's time for another project soon - a felt story board. The possibilities for A to act out books for C, for A to do little project based plays with it, and for C to learn things like colors, letters, and counting are endless.  That would of course mean creating all the felt stuff to go with the board, but a few well placed Etsy buys might make my life easier and let me get it done faster too.

Check out the book(if we ever return it). Your toddler is sure to love it.