Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Summertime fun!

I know I am backtracking a little bit now, but I wanted to do a post on my triathlon and Hannah's swim lessons.  I did my first triathlon in July and I have to say I really enjoyed it.  I had a great time training for it and the event was a ton of fun.  The idea of me doing a triathlon was first born last year in December at Megan's wedding, but then I didn't get serious about it until Hannah's birthday in June and I finally signed up for it and started training.  I did the U of Okoboji triathlon in Iowa, which is close to Scott's parents house.  My parents were here to visit and Scott's sisters Megan and Allison came up to support me as well.  Thank you everybody for cheering me on. Originally my goal was just to finish, but as soon as they said "Go" my competitiveness kicked in and I wanted to do well :)  I was very pleased with my results and look forward to doing another triathlon.  The distances were: 0.6 mile swim (19 min), 18 mile bike (55 min), 5.5 mile run (45min). 
Here are a few pictures of this early morning.  Hannah was very intrigued by the bright orange swim cap.
At the finish line.

Next up for us were swim lessons.  I found this neat place in Fayetteville called the Swim Ranch.  This older couple has been running it for over 30 years.  They used to teach swimming up at KState and he was a coach at Arkansas after that.  They did a great job and Hannah really enjoyed it.  I think we have a little fish on our hands.  We practiced climbing out of the pool every day.  I never thought about it, but it totally makes sense to teach them early how to climb out or at least hold on to the edge for a few seconds.  A child is never going to fall into the middle of the pool, they are always going to be close to the edge when they fall in and if they can hold on or climb out that could save a life!
Here are a few pictures of our week at the Swim Ranch.
The kick board was her favorite.
I love this chunky monkey!
We are getting ready to leave for Boston tomorrow and then on to Maine on Thursday.  We are going to our good friends Matt and Casey's wedding and we are so excited!  My brother is coming from Germany and meeting us in Boston.  I look forward to spending some time with him. I hope Earl is not going to dump a lot of bad weather on us over the weekend.
Here is a picture of my two favorite people from last night.

Have a great week.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Not a picky eater.....

As most of you know our daughter loves to eat. I am still surprised by all the things she eats. We made asparagus for dinner the other night and she ate it.....she likes Tilapia, tomatoes, red peppers etc, but I can't get her to drink milk. I have tried milk in all kinds of variations: cold milk, warm milk, chocolate milk, mixed with Pediasure, mixed with drinkable yoghurt, out of a sippy cup, mug, glass, but no luck! I guess we will just stick with yoghurt and cheese for now.
She loves corn on the cobb and won't let go of it after she is done eating, so we take the corn with us to go play outside :)


She also likes unlce Barry's ribs (I had to crop my silly face out of the picture).
I do know where she gets her love for food from. Scott and I are pretty big eaters too. In fact we recently had to cut our ice cream consumption from every day to every other day since it was starting to hurt the waistline (but it is so good) . We won 40 coupons for half gallons of ice cream at an auction this summer and they expire at the end of the year.  So we have had to eat a lot of ice cream!
On another note......we received these stickers in the mail the other day and they have been Hannah's favorite "toy".  She thinks it is really funny to put them on her face :)




I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend.  It has finally cooled down a little bit here in Arkansas and it has been beautiful!  We can now spend some time outside again.  We took the boat out this morning and we enjoyed a little swim.  Hannah likes her swing on the boat.

Have a great week!

Friday, August 27, 2010

It's me......Katrin!

Hello friends and family!
I have decided to start a blog, so that everybody can keep up with our lives. This is a great way for my family across the pond to stay in touch as well.  I am not sure how often I will get to update. I guess it depends on how interesting our lives get. 
Here is a recap of 2010 so far: As most of you know I resigned from my job back in January to stay home with our now almost 15 months old daughter Hannah.  I am truly thankful for this oportunity and I enjoy spending every day with  my favorite girl!  We were fortunate to spend January-March in Germany with my family.  It was a really cold winter, but we had a great time and enjoyed having family close.  Let me tell you it is hard to have a little one with no family close.  It is hard on the family (especially the grandmas) and the parents.  I may still be a little parnoid, but I don't trust a lot of people with my baby!  I would prefer grandmas or aunts and uncles (probably more the aunts than uncles) to watch our baby girl.  Since our return from Germany we have been busy going to playgroups, visiting the library, reading books, playing, learning new things every day, celebrating the first birthday, training for a triathlon, visiting family, going to the gym, taking the boat out and going to the park.  Life with a toddler never gets boring.  We had a great visit from my parents in July and Scott and I were able to go to Mexico to our friends wedding while Hannah stayed with "Oma" and "Opa".

Now we are ready for Fall and some cooler weather and football season to start (I know Scott is).

 I leave you with a picture of our little family!