My Dad is Awesome!!!

Sung to the "Everything is Awesome" song from the Lego movie. 

Anyway, he is. Back story:

In January we were driving home from Yelm, going through the town of Rainier. It reminded me if when Dad and I rode the STP the previous summer. Back story: it's a 204 mile bike ride from Seattle to Portland in two days. It's epic. 

So I thought out loud that I should figure out if I was going to ride the STP in 2014. Chuck asked if I was going to ask my dad and I reminded him that Dad told me leading up to the ride last year that it would probably be his last ride because of all the time that it takes to train for such a ride. I understood. It was my first organized ride but it definitely took a lot of time. And he'd had previous experience with organized rides of similar distance. 

February comes around, he says he will ride with me, so we sign up. We each start training. San Diego comes and goes. The call to deployment comes. Oy. What do we do?? Mom wasn't coming out because they were going on a cruise this fall with Dad's family that was using all her time off. There's quite a bit of shuttling that happens with the ride: 

-The trek up to the starting line in Seattle in the butt crack of dawn.

-The pick up at the end of day one (could be rectified with a camp out, on the ground, in a tent, etc. There's logistics.) OR trekking back to the house to stay the night (which is what we did last year) which then requires transport to the house and then back the next morning.

-The pick up at the end of day two from Portland back to the house.

Then there's the kids. What?? I've got kids????? They always throw a wrench in things... I mean that in the most loving way possible. Another wrench? My sitter, her sister and their lovely mom were ALL going to be out of town. Huge wrench.

First wrench thrown out? Mom and Dad talked with the family and put off the cruise to 2015 which meant she was able to come, transport us all over creation, and watch the kids. So one wrench fixed all the others.

Well, most of them. One of the biggest wrenches was the fact that the time it takes to train (which was mentioned before). Training takes anywhere between two to 5 or 6 hours each time you ride!! I can ride a couple hours on the trainer inside and watch a movie, but anything longer than that is just torture. And not just for me, for the kids, too. I'm there but unavailable? Unacceptable!!!! And with the sitter gone for the two to three weeks leading up to the race. OY!!!!!! The BIGGEST wrench. It was so frustrating, stressful and saddening. I just couldn't fit in the training without feeling like I was FORCING myself. Training always becomes work in the end but I was forcing it. I really don't mind spending time away from the kids. I know I need that time (and they do, too). And I need to work out. But it was practically impossible to shove in time to ride.

So we came to the sad and disappointing conclusion to forgo the race. My dad was also finding it hard to train. They were in the midst of doing some renovation on their home and he does 90% of that kind of stuff on his home without help. 

The good thing was we were able to sell out tickets to two other guys that were looking for tickets and they were going to be able to ride with a guy my dad and I probably would have ridden with.

So. The point as to why my dad is awesome. Rather than riding, we accomplished a lot of projects around the house that I came up with or that Chuck didn't get done before he had to leave.

And the pictures!!!

So leading up to Mom and dad flying in I had to run up to Seattle and pick up the riding packets at R.E.I. Afterward we had quite a bit of time so we headed up to Gasworks Park on the north side of Lake Union. I'd never been but I'd seen pictures of it and seen it from afar, so I wanted to check it out myself!!

It was cool but the kids whined the whole time...it was annoying so we left. I'll have to go back on my own.

The first morning I had to take Aaron to VBS and this is what I came home to:

Delaney needed a new bike tire so she was as helping Grandpa replace it.

My mom was a big help as well: 

Here she is cleaning off the picnic table before she restains it.

One of the larger projects I wanted done was moving the washer and dryer to another wall in the laundry room. They were along this long wall and it was frustrating because there was barely enough room to have the machines in there as well as a laundry basket let alone any clean clothes piled up. Just couldn't be done. So our job was to move it.

Which meant moving the cabinet as well.

Getting there!!

And here we are!! There's some loose ends I need to clearpn up but otherwise this is how it looks now. SO much more room!!

In the midst of all the craziness that was my house, it was 7/11!!! So we HAD to go to 7eleven. Only we don't normally go so late in the day and by this time (5:00!) the machines had had enough and were threatening to quit...

And we made many a trip to Lowe's. One of them was Saturday and they had their weekly kid thing going on and they were making Turbo so we had to join in.

Saturday was also the first day of the STP. We had our friends send us pictures with my cousins picture. She had been battling cancer for a while and wanted to train for the STP but just wasn't able. We found out she passed just before the STP but they were wonderful enough to take pictures with her anyway. This is at the beginning.

These guys are the ones who bought our tickets.

Russell, on the left, was awesome last year and came to see me and Dad at this point. So we decided it would only be appropriate to come cheer them on as well.

This is almost the beginning of the second day, the other two were unable to ride he second day because of prior church commitments so Russell had to power through on his own.

And here he is at the end!!

Anyway, I think that's it for this post. I want to post it now so Chuck can see it. I'll work on another to post tomorrow!