Maybury Time Trial, BCE Picnic, and Swimming Pool

This week was a very busy week for us. We had activities planned for almost everyday except Thursday, which had to be rescheduled to next week. Today was a major recovery day from the fun of the week, spent attending church and relaxing at home enjoying the completion of the Olympics. Keira got pita chip crumbs/seasoning all over her church dress, and enjoyed twirling in her satin bloomers once we removed it. Check out that long hair!
The highlight of the week was definitely the Maybury Chapter Benefit Time Trial. Ryan has competed in this race every year, and for the past two years had entered the beginning category and won his age group. This year, with the time trial format, he felt comfortable moving up a category into Sport. The official results have not yet been posted online as of this post, but Ryan placed 5th in his age group from viewing the unofficial results at the race. It was an extremely hot day for a race, and Ryan was given the start time of 1:08:30, which was probably about the hottest part of the day. The nice thing about the afternoon start was that the whole family was able to come out to watch. Both of our parents were in attendance, and helped with Keira so that I could go run/bike around to see Ryan on the course. I used my mom's camera on the course, so I don't have those pictures available. Unfortunately, I should have brought her with me to take the pictures, because I did have a slight issue on my part with the camera, and missed the best shot, but did get a couple others that I think will be better than my practice shots. Here is Ryan at the start. Each rider was spaced 30 seconds apart, with larger breaks between the age group and category divisions to keep everyone apart somewhat.

Here is Ryan heading down the finish chute. My mom got a great shot of him from the front going across the finish line. I will have to add that to this post or as a new one once I get the photos.
This is probably the best picture of Keira during the wait. She was such a trooper, and it helped that there was a playground and swings nearby the finish. The slides were too hot to use, so she couldn't do as much as she wanted.
After the race, Kris, Linda, Bob, Miriam, Ryan, Keira and I ate at a Northville restaurant called The Deadwood. This is a popular place with the Northville Road Runners, so I guess we should not have been surprised that as we were leaving, the parking lot was filling with other racers from the Maybury race. It is apparently popular with runners and mountain bikers alike. Then we split up to do some shopping with my parents to pick out Ryan's upcoming birthday present from them. We randomly all met back up at REI, where they were having a great sale, and all traveled to Kris and Linda's for dessert. This was the scene at Kris and Linda's when we got there- 8 ducks on their roof! After a great dessert, Ryan, Keira and I went home, while my parents enjoyed the spacious accommodations for the night at Kris and Linda's before heading to Ohio.
On Friday, Ryan had his department picnic at Parr Park on Hines Drive. It was very very hot, and Keira did not nap prior to going to the picnic, so needless to say, she was a bit crabby. She only wanted to play on the playground or eat the m&ms off of cookies that were there. I eventually brought her home early while Ryan finished up socializing with his coworkers.
I had brought a fabulous dessert that was super easy to make. It came from Gina E from our ward, but it is very similar to a dessert that I saw on Minde's blog. I used 1 pack of oreos, put in a food processor, combined with 1 pack of cream cheese, and just formed them into balls, froze, and dipped them in chocolate. I didn't do any of the fancy decorating, but I believe that this recipe would work just as well to form into the cute cupcakes. It was pretty fast and easy to make, and I am sure they tasted just the same as if they had been decorated fancy.
After Keira got her nap, we went to Maybury so Ryan could get one final peek at the changes to the course specific to the race. He practiced the start and the finish, however, there was an additional section that he was not aware of until the race day. He handled it well, though.

Thursday was spent running a few errands in preparation for the picnic, including making the above mentioned dessert. We were originally going to meet up with a friend at the mall for lunch, but that fell through, so I did end up taking Keira over there to play for a bit. Here is a slightly blurry action shot of her jumping off of the lollipop, one of her favorite activities. My camera is just not set up for indoor/low light action shots.

We also went to the pool. Since we only have another week or so of it being open, we tried to take advantage of it this week.
Wednesday was a really busy morning. First, we had our second (and possibly final) gymnastics class at FGC. Keira really enjoyed it again, and I do hope to put her in a class this fall, but may investigate less expensive gym. Immediately following, we went over to Rebecca's house where we were expecting several others, but it was only us that made it. Rebecca had gone all out and brought out all of her fun outdoor toys, including a roller coaster from Step 2. I should have taken some pictures of Keira on it. She wasn't sure after her first ride, but after a second turn, couldn't get enough. We will be trying again next week or so to get the group together at her home, so maybe we will have some photos of it later on. We also hit the pool again.
On Tuesday, we started out the day with a Kindermusik class, that was very well attended by Keira's little friends (and my friends). I had a dr's appt immediately following, so we didn't have much time to corral everyone for a group shot. Valerie made it with Katie and Luke. Here is Katie giving Keira a big hug.
Here are Keira and Dominic. We tried to get Genevieve in the picture too, so she got her own shot.

The dr's appt went well, and we were able to meet up with Ryan for lunch at Chipotle. It was at this lunch that he received some odd work news- the reorg meeting that he had missed earlier in the morning had him going to Mexico (and not a good area where the rest of the family could come too), and his coworker wanted to go in his place! This created a flurry of confusion, and it is looking very very likely that this will not be happening. We are still waiting for the "official" word that he will have a different and safer assignment. After work, we went to Maybury so that I could practice more shots, and they still were not good, even playing with the settings on the camera. Here is a cute on of Keira playing with the infant carrier attachment strap that we never took off of the stroller.
Monday was a day that I had thought I had all carefully planned out, but it didn't work out entirely as I planned, but it was just as well. The Mazda had not been sounding right since we had some work done on it in April, in fact, it sounded worse after they worked on it, and we had been told that it was normal, but when the battery episode happened, the mechanics at the dealership confirmed our suspicions, and wanted us to bring it back once the battery was fixed. The noise was loudest and longest when it was hot and the car had been driven for a while, so I couldn't just take it straight there from our home. I was waiting for a day when we had a borrowed car from Kris and Linda that Ryan could use for going to work, leaving me with both our vehicles in case I couldn't get a rental right away. So, Monday was the day. We were going to go out to Kindermusik in the morning first, then Home Depot, then the dealership. We were worried about having enough time to do everything before lunchtime, and thought we would possibly do Home Depot later, after naptime. We didn't check the time for the kindermusik, and ended up getting there at the end and missing the majority of it. This was a new one to the calendar, with a new location. Fortunately, it was in the same shopping center as a different Home Depot than I had originally thought of, so we used the time we thought we would be at the class to go there, and then drove to the dealership. I waited until I had a large group of workers gathered around before turning the car off to have them listen to the noise, and they were horrified that I had been told by the same dealership that it was normal. They fixed it on the spot within a few minutes, and it was covered entirely under the warranty for the work done in April. We should have never waited this long. We didn't even need the spare car!

Also, I fixed our downstairs toilet. The handle had broken on Sunday (of course, and we had just been to Home Depot on Sat for a new garden hose), and it had to be flushed by removing the cover from the tank and pulling on the chain. It was a good day for inexpensive repairs! The part for the toilet was less than $5, and it only took a few minutes to fix. Go Me! My answer to plumbing issues is usually, "Call a plumber".

This is just a picture of Keira from Monday. It isn't really relevant to anything in the post, but I didn't think a picture of the toilet was necessary (as proud of it as I was). Then, we went to Maybury for more training and photo practice for me. This is probably the best shot I got all week. It is a bit grainy, though, because I had been messing with the manual settings.
That is pretty much our week. I hope this long post wasn't too boring for everyone. We are looking forward to a much more laid back week. There are no dr's appts and very few events with set start times, so hopefully it will be an easy week for us. Being the last week before Labor Day, it almost feels like the last week of summer, so we may try to get a lot of swimming in. Please vote on our newest poll! We have only had 1 voter so far, and will be leaving this poll open until the baby's due date or birth, whichever is needed. Hopefully we will get some better race shots posted shortly, and maybe an update with the "official" results.