Emily and Lynn are here!

We have been having a lot of fun with Emily and Lynn
and wanted to show you some pictures.

Visitors from Germany always means lots of presents for the boys.
They are loving their new clothes/toys.
Thank you so much!
They have been especially enjoying their new books by Jeanette + Dieter
who recently returned from a 6-month trip to Australia
and made an animal book for Max and
a road train book for Noah.
They are the best!

We love Lynn. She is one cute little bug.
And usually very happy ...

... unless Max is bugging her
which is 90% of the time.

We have been doing the usual:

going to the park

hiking in the mud

hanging out at races

Emily and Lynn are great cheerleaders.
I am glad they put up with my usual outfit:
compression socks, comfy pants, random shirt.
Yes, this is how I run around even if I am not racing.
Embarrassing, I know!

Thanks for being here and making everything more fun!

It is for real...

We are moving!

I mean, I knew that. You knew that.

But it seems more real now.

We have a place to live in Flagstaff.

Just a 2-bedroom apartment.

But it will do.

Our house is officially for sale.

The first potential buyer is coming to look at it tomorrow.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Just in case.

I am not getting my hopes up.

We have started to get rid of stuff.

This is my most and least favorite part

at the same time.

Time to move on.

Change is good.

At least that is what I am trying to tell myself.

Happy Thursday!

Cherry Chub Reunion

I know this post is long overdue since the reunion took place in February, but better late than never, right?

I still can't believe that we really had 10 Cherry Chubs all coming to Vegas to hang out and play. What an incredibly fun weekend! Noah already told you about all the fun we had here.

The kids were really good just playing by themselves while the Chubs did what they do best:

hang out in the kitchen while preparing delicious food

having great conversations while eating delicacies such as these:

We don't call ourselves Chubs for no reason!

I was very impressed with how much everyone genuinely cared about our kids. Thank you for making an effort to get to know them and spend time with them. Here we are playing Noah's favorite game: animal charades.



Thank you, Courtney, for spending your birthday weekend with us! We love you and wish we could have you around more often.


One of the reasons I am excited to move to Flagstaff is that I will be close to Los Alamos, NM - place of our next reunion. I can't wait!

PS: A huge thank you goes to Melissa and Melanie for hosting all this fun and craziness!

Craziness and New Blog

Things are kind of crazy around here these days. Here is what has been going on:

1. My sister is here! We love having Emily and Lynn at our house!

Max and Lynn enjoying their bath together

2. I signed up for about 8 races this past week. 5 of those are within the next 5 weeks. So what does my sister get to do while she is in Utah? Go to (at least) one race every weekend. I tried to warn her...

3. Emily, Lynn, and I went to St. George last Friday, crossed one race off the list, drove to Vegas, and had a party!

Unfortunately, we did not go to Paris.

4. Karl is finally (almost) injury free which means he has a lot of catching up to do in his running mileage in order to be ready for the Squaw Peak 50-miler on June 5.

5. Max and Noah are definitely not slowing down. They are sharing a room these days which means later nights and earlier mornings. I love watching them grow closer and enjoy brotherhood.

6. We are moving in 3 months! Sounds like a long time but when I think about all the things that need to get done before August, I get nervous.

7. I have a new blog. Another one. My own one. I know. Who needs two blogs?????? Well, I do, I guess. I used to think it was silly to have more than 1 blog and vowed never to start a second. Here is why I changed my mind:

• I have a new sponsor! PowerTri! They asked me to blog about triathlon. How could I possibly say no? I love to talk triathlon.
• I feel like I am polluting our family blog with all this tri talk already. So no more of that!

Here is the new address and link:

http://sarahborstjarvis.blogspot.com/

We will see how it goes. I have imported all the triathlon-related posts from the family blog, one new one, and there are lots of race reports to follow... I am inviting y'all to join me on my triathlon training and racing journey this season!

I like this kind of craziness, I guess. I enjoy being busy. But right now I feel like I can't quite embrace all this wonderful life has to offer because I am always running from one thing to the other. I need to do more yoga!

Our favorite Mothers

Noah and Max

want to express their deep appreciation for

the wonderful mothers in their life.

Mama

Oma

We are sad we don't get to see you very much but love to visit you in Germany. Hopefully you can come play with us in Arizona soon! We love you!

Grandma

We love to come to your house and visit you. Thank you for playing with us! We are also grateful for your sewing skills. What would we do without you?

Jenny

We definitely think of you as our mother as well! Thank you for spending so much time with us and treating us like one of your own. We will miss you soooooooooo much.

I am so happy to be a mother!

I love being the mom of these two boys!

It's definitely a challenge

but I would not want it any other way!

Thank you,

Max and Noah,

for loving, trusting, and supporting me.

I am really grateful

we can help each other grow

and become our best!

Happy Mother's Day

Ironman St. George Weekend

No way was I going to miss the Ironman coming to Utah!

Just in case there is still any confusion:

I was not racing. Never planned on it. Never had a desire to do so. Almost.

Why?

I like to have a life besides triathlon. I've been there, done that. Too early in the season. No desire to train hard through the winter.

But I was still dying to go down there, be part of the excitement, support my friends, and have a blast! So when my friend, Lynda Wallenfels, invited my family to stay at her house, we packed up the car and headed south. Part of me wanted to go down there by myself, so I could spend all of race day out there being the kind of cheerleader I like to be. The other part of me was excited to go on a fun family adventure and squeeze all of my favorite activities into one short weekend:

Early morning trail run, beautiful bike rides, lots of family fun, cheering here and there, good food. What more could I ask for?

Congratulations to all of my friends who finished such a tough Ironman!

Especially to B.J. Christenson who finished as the 3rd age grouper!

And to my good fried, Leslie Howlett, who had an amazing race!

On Sunday after church, Lynda and her friend Dave took me on a mountain bike ride in one of my favorite places. I was so happy to see the Bear Claw Poppies as they are only in bloom 3 weeks each year.

I thought this was going to be a nice little ride but I should have known better. After all, I was riding with the 24-hour Solo National Champion! I tried to explain to her that I am NOT a mountain biker but she was not listening. A few miles into the ride, I said: "When I told you I can't mountain bike, I actually meant it." Dave's reply: "We did not believe you." Yeah, well, they figured that one out fast.

Lynda is one tough chick!

Personally, I thought I was doing pretty well. I kinda felt bad I was slowing them down so much. But mostly, I was so happy to be out there on the trails and having a blast!

Someday I am gonna be good at this!

While we were enjoying ourselves, Karl had the pleasure of watching all 4 kids. He took them to the St. George Crack and the seem to be have had lots of fun climbing and digging in the red dirt.

What a great weekend!

PS: Noah likes his new friend, Wesley, so much, that he insists on me calling him "Wesley". Funny kid.

Toccer Bame

Max loves Noah's soccer games at least as much as Noah does.

He loves to wear his soccer outfit.

Then he runs around all day saying:

Toccer Bame! Toccer Bame!

It is very hard to try and keep him off the field.

He really wants to be part of the action.

He's got pretty good skills already.

Others still need some work ...

Unfortunately, spring soccer season is already over.

So sad. We all miss it.

Noah did, however, score his very first goal in the last game.

Way to go, Noah!