Big days in Zane's life

We had some fun times and momentous occasions this past week in our family and in the life of Zane our oldest dude. On Saturday 10/25/2008 Zane turned 8 and was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We had good times that day, a baptism, confirmation, a huge family and friend party with great food and tons of fun, and a special dinner just with Zane and one friend at Black Angus cuz he wanted steak. I can't say much more than it was such a blessing to be reminded of the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives, the wonderful and very simple plan of our Father in Heaven to make it possible to live with him eternally and be with our families forever. We felt the presense of the Holy Ghost during the baptismal proceedings and were reminded how important it is to live so that we can have it's constant companionship. One funny thing happened, we had some sort of accident during the immersion and when Zane got out of the water he noticed his nose was bleeding, I guess I made dang sure that he got completely immersed and in so doing squashed his nose :-)

Here are some pictures:

A very cool cake, the black frosting contributed to the mess below

Scouting Here We Come!

All right, we've finally got a boy in Cub Scouts (after more than 6 years of being in scout callings without a scout to call my own). Zane put his whole heart into memorizing the Scout Promise, Law of the Pack, Motto, Meaning of "WeBeLoS", Sign, Salute, and Handshake. He really did an awesome job and passed off his Bobcat badge, it was fortunate that the pack meeting was delayed (only fortunate in this aspect, otherwise it was a giant HASSLE for other reasons) and he was able to attend and get his Bobcat just days after starting. The Cubmaster, Brother Walton, asked if I could do the presentation of the award since I had been the previous cubmaster so I put on my cheesiest faces and tried to act as hammy as ever(although it comes pretty naturally). I gave Zane a harder time than any other new bobcat and grilled him on all of the above items he had to learn, he rocked it all, didn't miss a heartbeat. I think we have the makings of a real boy scout here!

Rattling off the Cub Scout Promise

Brother Walton the Cubmaster with full beard, the ultimate Scout Stud!

Zane doing the color guard on his first night

Baby # 5 Update (Omegaman?)

Ok, I only joke about Omegaman(meaning last man) because we expect the baby to be a boy (that way if it's a girl we're surprised and we're not let down if it ends up being a boy).  Can you tell we have some odd preference for another girl?  Enough of that.  Here's some alien pictures we caught on the ultrasound on Tuesday, pretty exciting to know that it's healthy. 

3D Image - Much cooler looking than the alien ones

Alien Face Above

Sucking on it's thumb?  Or Waving?

Aaron's First Triathlon - Rocky Point Sandy Beach Sprint Triathlon

NOTE - Don't forget to read the first post below this one, it's much more important

We all went down to Rocky Point, Mexico this past weekend on October 2 through the 4th to experience Aaron's first triathlon. Sadly Alicia could not participate in it with him like they had originally planned so instead we made a nice family vacation out of it. This was supposed to be the first Annual Asquared Triathlon BUT we'll wait for next year when Alicia's not toting a little kid around in her tummy.

How did we get to this tragic point?

Aaron saw a shadow under one of his "pecks", when that happens you realize that "the bro" or "manzier" is not the answer, rather a major man mastectomy OR better yet get fit and lose that flab. Alicia and Aaron decided to do a triathlon in order to set a goal that would be more challenging than just losing weight and something we could look forward to. Why the heck did we pick Mexico? Well, we figured it would be fun and we might actually enjoy the trip.

How'd it go?

The Triathlon was a "Sprint" triathlon, it was a 400 meter swim in the ocean, 12.8 Mile bike ride, and 2 mile run. In Aaron's case it was more like, 400 meter flounder, 12.8 Mile barf fest, and 2 mile walk / run. He loved every minute of it and learned a lot, not only that but he saw some cool stuff along the way:

• At least 2 dudes that were bigger than himself participating(see red circles)
  
• A chick blow a farmer john while riding her bike(depress one or the other nostril, not both, and blow firmly to dislodge mucus, try to miss your arm and shoulder
  
• A dude barf twice on his bike without stopping, oh wait, that was Aaron - awesome. It was actually pretty funny, I couldn't believe I did that since I had been so careful with what I ate and drank. It was probably a mixture of the salt water I ingested while swimming and the fact I hadn't eaten for 3 hours. Next time I'll take the 30 seconds to suck down an energy gel pack during the ride AND bring 2 water bottles or a camelback.

As you can see, Aaron has a weak stomach, here's a synopsis of all the sports he's enjoyed tasting his last meal again on:

• Deep sea fishing when he was 9, yeah mexican twinkies and sunny D- not really the breakfast of champions
  
• 4 out of 6 snow ski trips, it took a long time to be able to eat skittles again, that was some rainbow colored bial!
  
• Aaron rode his bike to work twice in his life, both times
  
• Papago park got to taste his last meal once on a bike ride
  
• Once after a particularly fun spinning class - he should have eaten something before going

Lesson learned - drink more water, eat something not too early and not to close to excercising.

Would you do it again?
Heck yeah, it was really fun to spend time with the kids, they were yelling and rooting me on, Zane is actually excited enough that he and I are both doing a triathlon on Thanksgiving morning, this time I won't be sucking in saltwater since it's in a 50 meter heated pool. Having a goal like this was so much better than just dieting, I've still eaten good foods while focusing on being more active. I've lost over 10 pounds in 2 months and am still excercising between 3 and 4 hours a week.

If you decide to sign up for one I highly recommend Eric Harr's book "Triathlon Training in 4 hours a Week", it was a truly inspirational book with just the right kind of plan for someone like me who has never been an athlete. Whether your goal is increasing your rank or just finishing he's got the right plan for you, I've already calendared my next 8 weeks of training using his plans.

Pictures

The dark stains on the shirt are remnants of Aaron's reverse paristalsis

Yes, extra water, I'm eyeing Zane's water bottle and subsequently take it, but I gave him a hug in return

Aidan worked up a real sweat those last few hundred meters

The kids and Alicia were there at every transition and it was awesome to hear them rooting for me.

Asquared - Aaron & Alicia and Kids(4 current, ONE on the way)

Aarrgh - we've tried to avoid the blogging frenzy but since most of our family members are blog nuts it appears to be a decent method of sharing our joyous and fun filled tidbits of family life with those we care about. That said, what's more incredibly fantastic to share than that we're going to have a BABY! Yep, that's baby numero CINCO, 5, or as Aaron like's to say "Omega"(see Wikipedia: Omega (the last letter of the Greek alphabet) is often used to denote the last, the end, or the ultimate limit of a set)

Alicia in front of 5 dozen roses

We told the kids and Alicia's Parents a couple of weeks ago on her Mom's Birthday, we gave her mom a charm for the April Birthday we expected the baby to have and she wasn't quite sure what we meant by it. The kids were dumbstruck, it was fun to have such a huge surprise although we don't recommend getting pregnant just to have something to surprise people with unless it's in the plans already and then by all means freak people out.

The baby should be born on April 28, 2009 (Alicia's brother Eric's birthday) or a day later on her dad's, we gave her mom a boy charm so having a 4th boy will certainly seal the deal on it being the last of the "set", if it's a Girl we'll quit while we're ahead.