Well, it's Sunday. Kurt is at work and won't be home until well after I'm asleep. Micaela has packed all her clothes for CA, done all her chores, and is chilling out downstairs with the music we just uploaded onto her iTouch. Jon has played, ridden a train at a sort-of nearby park, watched some Dora, got a haircut (used Kurt's clippers), and is now splashing in the bath. I have made sure all of the above happened, done all the laundry, done a few household chores, and I actually have a few minutes of free-time (as long as Jon keeps playing nicely in the bath). I've decided to spend this free-time blogging since I've been so negligent lately.
Now, I should be telling you all the cute and funny things the kids have been doing lately, but if I don't write them down right away, I just forget. Jon's a hoot though, and Micaela is just plain good and helpful. If Jon does something funny in the next few minutes I'll be sure to capture it.
Okay, back to the purpose of this blog - our summer vacation to Lake Placid. Kurt and his friend Todd came up with this crazy idea to do the Lake Placid Ironman Triathalon. I think it was Todd's idea, I'm not quite sure how he convinced Kurt to do it seeing as how Kurt has never done a triathalon.. but Kurt's determined and has been working hard. We had to go to Lake Placid during this year's Ironman so that the guys could volunteer and get early registration for next year. That part of the vacation was kind of exhausting because the race starts at 7am and finishes at midnight and then there was the early registration. The rest of the vacation was nice though. The town of Lake Placid is very cute and reminds me a lot of Mammoth (one main street with one grocery store, one fast food restaurant, and a lot of little shops). We spend one day being the typical tourists and we got an Olympic Passport that gave us access to all the key sites. We only had time to visit the hockey rink, the downhill skiing mountain, and the ski jump area - but they were all great and we got some good pictures. I'm just going to post a bunch of my favorite pictures to give you a better idea.
This is the view from a coffee shop we found while visiting the local shops - this is Mirror Lake, where they do the Ironman swim. Lake Placid (the lake) isn't actually all that close to the town.
Now, I should be telling you all the cute and funny things the kids have been doing lately, but if I don't write them down right away, I just forget. Jon's a hoot though, and Micaela is just plain good and helpful. If Jon does something funny in the next few minutes I'll be sure to capture it.
Okay, back to the purpose of this blog - our summer vacation to Lake Placid. Kurt and his friend Todd came up with this crazy idea to do the Lake Placid Ironman Triathalon. I think it was Todd's idea, I'm not quite sure how he convinced Kurt to do it seeing as how Kurt has never done a triathalon.. but Kurt's determined and has been working hard. We had to go to Lake Placid during this year's Ironman so that the guys could volunteer and get early registration for next year. That part of the vacation was kind of exhausting because the race starts at 7am and finishes at midnight and then there was the early registration. The rest of the vacation was nice though. The town of Lake Placid is very cute and reminds me a lot of Mammoth (one main street with one grocery store, one fast food restaurant, and a lot of little shops). We spend one day being the typical tourists and we got an Olympic Passport that gave us access to all the key sites. We only had time to visit the hockey rink, the downhill skiing mountain, and the ski jump area - but they were all great and we got some good pictures. I'm just going to post a bunch of my favorite pictures to give you a better idea.
Our Cabin (45 min from Lake Placid, middle of nowhere)
The screened in porch was awesome, Jon and Will did pretty well playing together
There was a small pond with a playground not too far from the cabin
Micaela invited her friend Livy to come (which made the trip a lot more fun)
This looks kind of scary... not sure what we were thinking
The Volunteers
The finishline, just before the midnight cutoff
What you do the night after the "midnight finishline party"
Inside the Lake Placid Olympic Museum
Where the Miracle on Ice took place (I didn't really know about this until this vacation, perhaps I should watch more movies)
Shopping on Main Street
This is the view from a coffee shop we found while visiting the local shops - this is Mirror Lake, where they do the Ironman swim. Lake Placid (the lake) isn't actually all that close to the town.
That same day we also happened upon a community band concert. The oboe player was incredible.
It's not a Weaver, Estes, Pedrick vacation without a game of wiffleball
The kids played in the woods while the guys played wiffleball and the ladies napped
They even found some wild blueberries that were really good
Picnic at Mirror Lake before touring the Olympic facilities
This is where they practice their freestyle jumps/flips, they land in a big swimming pool
Ski Jumpers are CRAZY
See comment above
This is the view from the top of the Gondola on Whiteface Mountain
That's Lake Placid in the background, and this was the only time we ever saw the lake
Possibly my favorite part of the trip. It was a pretty tiring vacation, so this visit to the pub near the end was well timed.
