Alex and Leah Dance at Talents Night

Kellen Tells Jokes at Talents Night

Tags: TCS
Categories: Family
No Comments »

Ran my first triathlon race yesterday - the Kirkland Triathlon.  I was pretty sore and tired afterwards, but very happy and proud that I completed it.  It’s hard to believe that a year ago I was 25 pounds heavier, wasn’t active at the gym, and hadn’t rode a bike or swam a lap in years.  It was last Halloween that I made the decision to get active again, and only the end of June when I decided to enter this triathlon.  Not too bad…

I had a fun time, and learned a lot (about racing in a tri, and about myself).  I learned that it’s important to have the right size wetsuit (mine was a size too small [imho], and I think that prevented me from using all my aerobic capacity during the swim, which carried over to hurting lungs on the bike and the run), that it’s important to bike the course before the race (so you can see where the hills are), and that having bike shoes (instead of running shoes) on the bike will save your feet from “hot spots” (the pressure points where your feet press against the pedals — my feet were NUMB after the bike portion).

I’m looking forward to running it again next year, and may try another tri also (maybe the Seafair Tri).  I might also sign up for some more 5K’s.  It’s good to have goals…

Anyway, for the sake of posterity, here are my results (against the #1 overall [Rusty], and against the #1 in my age group [Ryker -- who was also #4 overall]). 

                                                                     BIKE                    RUN    OVERALL
                                    OVERALL    DIV     SWIM   SWIM   TRAN   BIKE      BIKE   TRAN   PL AFTER   RUN    RUN
     NAME           RACE # AGE SEX   TIME     PLACE    TIME   PLACE  TIME   TIME      PLACE  TIME    BIKE     TIME    PLACE CITY & STATE
 1. Rusty Pruden           25   M   1:04:38      1    0:11:48    9   1:27   0:33:34     3    1:03      6     0:16:46    4   Kirkland, WA
 1. Ryker Lammers     5    40   M   1:07:50      1    0:12:48   49   1:27   0:35:01     6    1:12     11     0:17:22    6   Kirkland, WA
64. Noah Van Loen   304    40   M   1:41:59     64    0:19:31  627   4:28   0:48:50   562    1:33    576     0:27:37  685   Seattle, WA

Alex also ran in the Kid’s Tri on Saturday, and had a pretty good showing, He was also hampered by an “equipment malfunction” — I brought the wrong helmet for him and we wasted at least a couple of minutes trying to get it fit on his head.  Again, room for improvement next time.  Alex and I both had a blast!

  	  	  	  	  	  	                        CHIP 	CHIP 	AGE 	PLACE 	SEX
NO. 	NAME 	                CITY, STATE 	RACE # 	SEX 	AGE 	TIME 	PACE 	DIV 	OVERALL OVERALL
1. 	Scott Hesmondhalgh 	Woodinville, WA 2395 	M 	9 	0:06:17 7:29 	1/26 	1/150 	1/76
109. 	Taryn Gustafson      	Woodinville, WA 2400 	F 	10 	0:10:57 13:02 	16/26   109/150 47/74
111. 	Mallory Gustafson  	Woodinville, WA 2401 	F 	7 	0:11:03 13:09 	9/21 	111/150 49/74
114. 	Alexander Van Loen 	Seattle, WA 	2432 	M 	8 	0:11:07 13:14 	25/36   114/150 63/76

Categories: Family, Seattle, Sports
No Comments »

I was the coach in the “coach pitch” part of Alex’s baseball game yesterday. Berne (the head coach) was traveling, and asked me to pitch the game. Never having done anything like that, of course I said yes.

I only hit 2 kids.

I also managed to “strike out” 3 or 4 kids, including Alex. I say “strike out” since the rules in Alex’s Pony league (North Seattle Baseball League) is that each kid gets 6 pitches to hit, and that’s it (they can keep alive on a foul ball for #6). This puts a little pressure on the pitcher, since I’ve only got 6 chances to make a good pitch to the kid.

Bottom line is that I don’t think we won, but I did get better as the game went on, our team didn’t need to go to the bullpen in relief, and that all of our kids got hits. Plus, it was a wonderfully sunny day, Anne and Leah came over to watch, and we all had a great time. I sure am proud of Alex.

Categories: Family, Sports
No Comments »

Got a flyer in the mail inviting me to a meeting about a new “Ballard Park“. When we looked at where the location was, Anne and I noticed that the address seemed like it was right around the corner from us. When I pulled it up on the map, it definately will be close enough to walk (kinda on the way to Salmon Bay Park). Now with the 6th Ave Pocket Park right up the street, we are going to have some great park options!

Categories: Family
No Comments »

Just got back from a great week in Whistler. We had a blast, got some great skiing/boarding in, and it snowed pretty much every day we were there. Alex and Leah (and Gabby and Andrew) had a fantastic time in ski camp and learned a ton — Leah has overcome any reservations she had about skiing and is now beating us all down the mountain (she just needs to learn how to stop), and Alex is looking for the next jump and black diamond.  Sharon came up for a couple of days and enjoyed the powder too!

Kris and Anna were great to travel/hang out with, and Doug and Julie were up there as well. We all enjoyed ourselves, and are looking forward to the next trip (just as soon as we recover from this one…)

Pictures are here — http://anvl.org/blog/v/Whistler2008/slideshow.html

Categories: Family
1 Comment »

So, what else is going on? We’ve said goodbye to Tilly got a new puppy (hi Zillah!), ripped off the deck on the back of the house (it was pretty rotted out), tore a big hole in the side of the house (and put a new door in), flew back and forth to DC, had a great Thanksgiving, and now it’s December already, and we only have a couple of weeks before Bob and Judy come out to visit for the holidays. Good times…good times.

Pictures are here.

Categories: Family
No Comments »

We’re in DC this week, spending Thanksgiving with the Goodwin’s. We got a bit crazy this morning and participated in a 5K run/walk (I ran [25mins] and Anne and the kids walked). Lot’s of people, a lot of fun, and we had great weather (it’s 70 degrees here - same as yesterday). Tonight it’s turkey dinner at Aunt Pat’s, and then off to Ice Mountain this weekend. Back to Seattle on Tuesday, when we can see all the work that John has done on the deck and the back room.

ANNNDDD — we’re back. We made it back on Tuesday (with not one, but two airplane trips that started out with missing pilots and almost ended with us stuck in Denver for the night). However, we made it, and it’s great to be home. Now that I have 2 seconds, I wanted to post the pictures that we took on the trip. Here you go!

Categories: Family
No Comments »

We lost Tilly on Wednesday. She woke up really out of sorts, and when Anne took her into the emergency room they found a cancerous lump on her heart. It had been there for a while, and must have recently ruptured. That put a lot of pressure on her heart, and there was nothing we could do. Anne and I were with her when she died. She was a very good dog.

Anyway, we will raise a glass to Tilly, and would love it if you would do the same. Anne is hanging in there, but it’s been tough. The kids (not surprisingly I guess) adapted and accepted the news
quite well. Circle of Life - they can relate to that concept (thanks Lion King…)
(Tilly is the one on the right)

Categories: Family
1 Comment »

Yes, it’s been a while, and lot’s has happened.  The sand in the camera from the Kalaloch accident never got fixed, so a new camera was procured (prices really are going down — I found a great deal here).  We managed to spend a week at Rehoboth Beach without damaging the new camera, so that was an accomplishment.  Pictures from the trip are here.

Today is the first day of school for Alex and Leah - Alex is in 2nd grade and Leah starts Kindergarten!  They will both be together at Thornton Creek, actually across the hall from each other.  Leah is looking forward to class with Todd, and Alex is looking forward to showing Leah around, and playing on the playground with his friends again.  We haven’t found out what this years expedition is yet, but it should be fun/interesting as usual.

On personal notes, Noah is still consulting and just finished a project at Nordstrom IT, and Anne is looking forward to having more of her days available (now that school has started) to focus on the things that she wants/needs to.  Also, we bought a hot tub the other day (our first ever!), and are working with John to design/build a new deck out back to host it.  Should be a fun project…!

Other than that, we still have 2 dogs (sometimes 3 when Zoe Goodwin comes to visit), we got together with Emily and John and Mom VL for a bbq over the weekend, we’re planning on a yard sale soon (to get rid of all of our valuable junk), might squeeze in time for another camping trip this year, are looking forward to seeing the East Coast family over Thanksgiving, etc etc.  I promise to keep this more updated - not really for you, but for us - there’s so much that happens in life that keeping track of it is a fun exercise for the future.  Take care!

Categories: Family, Update
No Comments »

It’s been a busy past couple of weeks.  We’ve been camping twice (South Whidbey and Kalaloch), Kris and I went to a M’s game, and we had the 4th of July in the middle.  It’s been a lot of fun, but it was nice to have a quiet weekend at home this past weekend.  I posted some pictures to the gallery here.  Unfortunately, I got sand into our primary digital camera during some frisbee games on the beach at Kalaloch, so most of these pix are from my phone.  Not too bad, but hopefully getting the sand out of the camera won’t take too long (or cost too much…

Categories: Family, Play
1 Comment »