Fireworks on the Beach

The Danville Glynn's experience their first home made fireworks display. Thanks to Gerry and Lois we are now experts and are looking forward to next year! Note to self, new lighters are better than nearly empty old ones, especially in the wind!

Jacksonville Beach

We all had a great time hanging out at Gerry and Lois's cool condo on the beach. Conner and Parker could have spent a month on the beach doing stuff. Thanks to Lois, Conner is now a foremost expert on sea shells from Florida. It was pretty amazing to see the quantity, quality, and variety of shells that would wash up every morning. Conner loved to drag Lois out every day to wander the beach.

Parker, on the other hand, loved to dig and play in the sand. We bought $5.00 worth of gear at the local Target store and make good use of the tools.

Now if the water was a little warmer, it would have been a lot more fun. Guess we'll have to come back in the summer!

Face Painting at Downtown Disney

Christmas At the Glynns

Good news! We got Santa to move Christmas, just for us. We let him know we wouldn't be home and that we were off to Florida for Disney World and Jacksonville Beach. He agreed to come early, drop off some goodies and wish us well on our adventures.

The great thing about Christmas is having someone in the family that still believes! Parker worked hard at preschool to learn a bunch of songs and took great pride in demonstrating his skills to us. Very fun indeed.

The night before Christmas, Parker presented us with some reindeer dust, to be sprinkled outside so that Santa could find our place without a problem. We sprinkled the dust on the deck, laid out some Santa and reindeer snacks and headed for bed to await the good news.

Presents were a little low key this year. Kira was hopeful for gift cards and gas funds. She was not disappointed :). She also received a new Kindle from Santa. Conner received Rock Band for the Wii, allowing the family to become rock stars with guitars, drums and vocals. Got to love the family picture below. We're so cool! Parker scored some electric drums. Amazingly, they come with head phones. How did Santa know?

Tom's New Bike Fit

I always thought I was pretty aerodynamic on my triathlon bike, but decided to have myself analyzed to see if there was any "free speed" available. A couple of tweaks here and there, and wow, I'm looking like a professional rider! Look out everyone, I'm passing on your left :)

Parker Makes the Good List

It was a little tense in the house as we wrote Santa a letter to find out if Parker was on the "Nice" or "Naughty" List. After answering a bunch of questions, Parker was cleared for the "Nice" list; not perfect, but he did rate a "B+". That'll do!

Kira's Home For the Holidays!

Kira and her friends drove back from Santa Barbara today. Exams were finished in the morning, then it was back to the dorms to pack, rest for the drive up and to say good bye to friends.

By 10:00 a.m. Conner and Parker were getting excited, with Conner almost climbing the walls. Kira was not home as of 3:00 p.m. and Conner had to call for a status update. By 7:00, he just had to call again. 9:00 was bedtime so we let him stay up a bit to wait for Kira. By 10:00, no Kira, so it was bedtime (without a status update call). He was bummed. At 11:00 he wandered upstairs complaining he couldn't sleep, and by the way, where was Kira? I tucked him back in bed.

Kira finally made it to the house about 11:30 or so. We were up talking for a while, when Conner made another appearance, well past midnight. He was thrilled to see Kira had arrived. A couple more hugs and kisses, and promises by Kira to get caught up in the morning, and Conner was off.

Bright and early Sunday morning, both the boys were up looking for big sis.

Conner's Birthday

Today was Conner's birthday party. Conner decided he wanted to have a bunch of friends over and have them meet "Python Ron". Python Ron brings a traveling showcase of spiders, snakes and many other reptiles for an up close lesson. Most everyone was fascinated. Parker not so much. Notice in the last picture that he is tucked behind Mom. Curious, but not that brave.

Everyone had fun and learned a lot. At the end, everyone has their picture taken with Ron and a very huge snake. Very Cool indeed!

After that, pizza, cake and then time to go home.

Snow in Danville?

You bet! Not a lot at the house, but a good dusting on the hills and surrounding areas. Boys loved it!

Parker

Parker out enjoying a wonderful autumn day. We know he is up to something, but not quite sure what!

Conner Gives Thanks

Conner was required to make a Thanks-giving day placemat at school.

They were asked to write what they were thankful for.

I am thankful for my friends and my family because they take care of me and comfort me. They also make me feel safe around places I am not familiar with.

Conner and Parker Sing Happy Birthday to Jaegar

From everyone at the Glynn house, we hope that Jaegar had a fantastic day!

Parker Takes Swim Lessons

Parker has been taking swim classes for a couple of months on a weekly basis. He's loving it and getting better every time. Attached are a couple of videos. The first is a swim across the pool and then the next is the last activity of the day where he dives for Super Heroes. (No Super Women, just Super Guys :) )

Conner Goes Big In His First Triathlon!

Last week an email appeared in my inbox announcing a kids triathlon. Conner was standing nearby as I read it, so I ask him if he wants in. He seemed a little freaked out by the idea so I skimmed the details and told him the swim was only 50 yards. He said "Sign me up!", so I did. The race was a 50 yard swim, 0.75 mile bike and .33 mile run.

Conner and I arrived early Saturday morning for packet pickup and to set everything up. Dianne and Parker had one errand to run and then they were going to pick up Aunt Linda, Ben and Grandma before heading over to the race.

What great race organization! We got his race numbers for shirt, bike and helmet. He stood in line for body marking and had his number drawn on his arm and leg and then they handed out chip timing bracelets for split second timing for each of the race segments. Very professional!

Race morning was a little cool, probably starting out in the low 50's, but it warmed up pretty quickly. The race was wave starts, with older kids starting the pool swim first. Conner was assigned wave 13, so we had a little waiting to do. Just before the race start they asked all the kids to head over to the pool area to hang out and wait. Conner took off his sweat pants and then he took off his shoes and socks and put them by his bike in the transition area. We started over to the pool area with Conner in his swimsuit, swim/tri shirt and sweater to keep warm. When his feet hit the cold pavement he shrieked "Dad, I can't do this, it's too cold" I ignored him and pressed onwards.

The oldest kids had to do 16 laps, so while we waited, we watched and discussed swim strategy. Most started out way too fast and faded, so Conner figured he would aim for the steady approach. It took close to 75 minutes for his wave to get called. He lined up, and when the gun when off, he dived in and powered across the pool. Six months of swim team paid off handsomely, and he was in and out pretty quickly.

Off to transition and the hardest part was getting his socks over his wet feet. Probably added two minutes to his time, but he was feeling good. Popped the bike helmet on, realized the swim goggles should have come off first, made a quick adjustment, and then was on his way.

The hardest part of the bike were all the speed bumps, but he handled them all pretty well. Near the end, Dianne and the gang caught sight of him and cheered loudly. I took a few quick pictures and then watched him blast through the bike to run transition. Much smoother, just forgot to take off the bike helmet and it took me 20 yards of hollering down the run course to get him to stop, pop it off and continue on his way. I returned the helmet to his bike and then ran down a short cut to the finish hoping to get pictures.

Conner had decided before the race that he was going to do a run/walk strategy for the 0.33 mile foot race. He hadn't decided on 10 or 20 steps of running and then walking, but would figure it out as he went. In the end he looked really strong powering along on the run. He told me after that he decided to go for it and attempt to run the whole thing, which he did.

I managed to make it to the end on time and get a couple of pictures.

His ending analysis was that it was a great race, he had a lot of fun and he wanted to do another one. In fact Ben and Parker plan to join him next year. Can't wait!

Results were posted online and he was very excited to review them.

Swim, 1:37 including run to the timing mat

T1 3:11, 2:00 for socks, the other minute or so for everything else!

Bike 5:28

T2 0:29 seconds

Run 4:20

Total 15:06, just five and a half minutes out of first, wow!

The Garage Has a New Visitor

We moved into our house over three years ago. Until today, a car had never seen the inside of our three car garage. How is that possible? Poor organization and far too much junk :)

Not sure if we will ever get three cars, let alone two, but one is a pretty good start!

(Don't tell Dianne I threw out all her stuff!)

Gerry's Annual Status Update

This is my annual email of events, so inspired am I by Tom's bloggin'. That, and I have a week of vacation coming up this week (yay!). I was just in Boston for a conference. My job was to work a booth in the expo area. The day after arriving in Boston I came down with severe, croaky, raspy laryngitis. I could barely speak. So, one day in the booth, one day sitting in my $300 a day hotel room, then home to Jacksonville. The conference was not very busy so it wasn't a big loss. Now I have a cold coming on. It's the first one in a few years so I can't complain (too much).

Yesterday afternoon the Blue Angels (US Navy acrobatic aircraft) practiced for an air show right outside our apartment. It was spectacular. At one point a jet headed straight for our building and veered away about 500 feet out. The balcony was shaking (and that was from me). For those who know our apartment, the aircraft were flying about at our balcony height and about 1500 ft out (just around where the ocean starts). We had clouds of jet fumes on our balcony. I guess that's what it's like to be part of the show. There's a giant air show this afternoon and planes have been practicing this morning as well. They are thunderous.

I have a new boss and a new job (starting last week). I'm not exactly sure what the job is but I'll figure it out when I get back from vacation. It's in the same general area I've been in for the last 2 years. Fidelity merged with another company (Metavante) in October and there's a big purge coming next week so people were basically placed in "staying" and "going" buckets with the details being worked out post purge. Good time to be on vacation I guess. My new boss is good and I get along well with her so I'm looking forward to the next adventure. I think this is the Fidelity way - merge, grow, repeat.

Training for the Jacksonville marathon (Dec 21) is coming along well too. I had a weird sort of injury coming out of my training and the marathon last year. It was one of those hard to diagnose things that was looking like a sports hernia (essentially an inflammation of the tendons that connect to the pubic bone). The injury went up and down and I ended up reducing my running by about 1/2 for the first 8 months of the year (hard to tell from Lois's emails, but true nonetheless). During the summer the injury got worse, despite lots of therapy. A sports hernia (not anything like a normal hernia) is not only hard to diagnose, but you essentially need surgery (in Philadelphia) to even get a good idea if you have a hernia. That is not only a real pain (literally) but it cooks the running season too. So, it's a last resort. The second last resort is an MRI to make sure you don't have a tear in the muscle. By the end of August the injury was creeping up in intensity just as I was getting ready to substantially increase my training for the Dec marathon. Because the pain was getting worse I decide to go for the MRI and then, if there was no tear, I would give it a week or two and call it quits for the season. Well, well. The MRI found no tear. At the same time I started core work (strengthening exercise for the hips, abdominals, glute, etc) and miraculously (to me) the pain started subiding substantially. I increased my running from 3x/week to 6x/week and almost doubled my mileage, while also increasing intensity a lot. During this time the "sports hernia" started dropping in discomfort and is now almost totally gone away (not 100% but most of the way). I have no idea exactly what turned things around, but there you go. Another running injury mystery not solved.

Lois ran 16 miles this morning. Next week it's 18 miles! She and I are both getting ready for the Outback half marathon on Thanksgiving. Her running partner (Joan) is racing against her teenage son, who prefers surfing to practicing. We'll see if youth or experience wins (Jonathan knows a thing or two about this!). One morning while surfing this summer Joan's son found a (human) body floating near the pier. Yuck!

We're also preparing for our late-to-the-party visitors from St. Catharines. Nicole, baby Coral and Julie are coming to visit the week after next. Lois has ordered an official bed, so no more sleeping on the air mattress on the floor (oh, except for Julie, because we only ordered one bed). We've just renewed our rent for another year so we decided it's time to fix up the visitor's room. Should be 100% by the time Kira arrives.

Lois has taken up crocheting and has become a stitchin' demon. Good thing it's getting cooler around here (75F is our idea of cooler). Scarves and blankets are beginning to arrive from seemingly nowhere.

We're very excited about all the visits coming up. We've kicked up our restaurant hunting ever since Andrew helped us on our best-burger quest, so there's fine Southern cookin' in store for all who venture our way. Shrimp and grits anyone?

Schnitzel is still doing great. The operation to remove some teeth has done wonders and she's much more energetic. I think she's gunning for the longest lived Bichon award. She's nearly 17 1/2 now. The record is just over 20. Treats, sleeps and 5 walks a day are the magic elixir. Or so it seems.

The airshow is about to start so I have to sign off. Next note, next year. Ciao for now!

Gerry

Kira's Latest Triathlon

From the headlines:

"Sporteve Playa Del Rey Triathlon
October 18th, 2009
Join us for the 2009 Sporteve Playa Del Rey Triathlon, a benefit for collegiate triathlon that celebrates the city’s crosstown rivalry. Set along the beautiful bluffs of Dockweiler State Beach in Playa Del Rey, the Sporteve Playa Del Rey Triathlon encourages students, alumni, and the community at large to “throw down the gauntlet”, as a portion of the proceeds are donated to the UCLA & USC Triathlon Teams. In its first year the event raised $5000 for collegiate triathlon! Competitors will swim 600 meters, bike 20K, and run 5K on one of the flattest and fastest courses in Southern California."

Well Kira did it again! She battled through an ocean swim with 5 foot swells, a windy bike course and then a flat and fast run course.

The 7:00 am start was delayed by fog for about 40 minutes, but as soon as the visibility improved, they headed out.

Kira reported after the fact that she had a great race and felt good, even hours later. Her overall time of 1:50:55 was good enough for 262nd overall, 78th female and 5th in her division. Not too shabby!

The swim, bike and run times were approximately 22 minutes, 52 minutes and 36 minutes respectively.

What's next on the calendar?

Tassajara Hills Carnival

The Pumpkin Patch

We spent a couple of hours today at the pumpkin patch in Livermore and had a blast.

First up was the corn maze. We were given a small map and then set off through eight foot high corn fields. It was a little complicated and at times I though we would be trapped for a long long time before seeing daylight again. Luckily there were clues along the way. This was truly a high tech maze as there were signs stating that you could pull out your phone and text for clues. Only in Silicon Valley!

Next up was a hot dog and corn feast. The corn was BBQ'd and tasted excellent. The hot dog was a hot dog. We decided to take our chances on the dessert and were not disappointed with the peach cobbler. Yum!

On to the "corn box" for fun. Kind of like a sand box, but it

was filled with corn kernels. The boys had a great time burying themselves and digging for treasure.

We played a while at some of the other attractions and then headed out for the all important pumpkin picking process. Both boys picked out two and loaded them on to the cart.

Before we headed out, Parker insisted on going on the cow ride, so he and I toured parts of the farm on the cow ride while Conner and Dianne loaded up the car.

All in all, a great adventure!

The Latest Models

I'm not sure how Conner and Parker talked their mother into purchasing a couple more models, but they did. Conner picked out the Star Wars lego variety with several hundred pieces and a 50 page manual. Parker was more into the Bionicle scene.

After dinner and tubs, the projects came out. Conner had his assembled in about one hour, and Parker watched and waited. Conner was gracious enough to help Parker with the building of the Bionicles model so that, in the end, they both had completed projects. The boys spent the evening flying around the house and battling the bad guys. The world is now a better place!

Saturday Night at the Glynn House

Out riding with John today. Watch the video here:

Primo's Half Marathon and 5K Walk

Every year there is a huge fund raiser for the local schools. I think every family with kids in school are pressured to sign up for the 5K walk, run or half marathon. We have done this for many years and in the past few, I have run the half marathon, leaving Dianne to handle the 5K walk with the boys. Kira and Kirk were back from Santa Barbara for the weekend so they joined in for the the walk.

The half marathon started about and hour earlier from a different location, but both ended up in the same spot, so after I finished, I walked back through the 5K looking for everyone. I spotted Ben first and congratulated him on being first in the group. Next was Kirk and Conner, determined to stay ahead of the rest. A little further back Linda, Dianne, Kira and Parker were looking good. Parker was very refreshed, because Kira was carrying him. We switched and Parker quickly decided that sitting on my shoulders for the last mile was a good thing. He let me know I could put him down after the finish, and by the way, we needed to finish ahead of everyone in the family.

When we crossed the finish line, everyone looked great. The kids were all in good spirits and proud of their accomplishment.

By the time we got back to the finish, they had started to post the results from the half marathon. We wandered over to the wall and looked down the list. We saw my name on the list and noticed I was 18th. Kira said that was pretty good to finish 18th in my age group, and I said, "No, I think I was 18th overall". We looked again and then over a few more columns. Yup, 18th overall and 1st in my age group of 40 to 49 year olds. As usual, after every race Parker inquires if I won. For the first time, I guess I can say yes.

No cash, but a medal that Parker wore for a while.

All in all, a fun day.

In With the New

Three months of thinking, looking, and agonizing for Dianne came to an end on Saturday. She has been considering an upgrade to her 2005 Honda Accord for a while, and now she can ride around in style. Kira wants the car when she graduates from college, Conner wants it when he turns 16. Somehow I think Dianne will run it in to the ground.

Saturday's weather cooperated and we made good use of the retractable roof. Think I'm going to need a hat. When the kids get in the back (I'm sure that will be a rare occasion!) they will need lots of hair gel and a pair of sun glasses.

Dianne spent Sunday like a person possessed looking for dirt, scratches, marks and other "issues" with the car.

Lexus has a washing service whereby you can bring your car in every week and they will clean it for free for you. I think Dianne plans to set up a weekly recurring appointment.

No sure if I'm allowed to drive it, but it sure is fun being a passenger :)