Our Elle

One of the many pleasures of being a mom is watching our kids grow into their own unique and fun personalities. It's been so much fun watching Gabrielle grow so much this past year and I am continually impressed and proud of the caring, loving, considerate and fun girl that she is. I think these pictures downloaded from her iPhone from the past couple of months show of bit of her great personality. Love you my sweet Elle (and thank you for letting me share these)!

Elle is seriously amazing with her little sister!!!

Silliness with Jorja

Walking around the dairy with cousin Meleesa :)

With school friends

Love her pretty hair

 

Fun with soccer friends

 

 These three cousins always have a great time together

 

 

With Jorja and Kyndsi

Had to include this shot she took of Cade making fun of pictures girls post on Instagram :)

More soccer friends

!

 Silliness from her brothers

Pretty girls :)

 Cousin Selene gets in on some pictures with Meleesa, Athena and Elle

 And finally a silly shot she got of her coach on his final day coaching the team

Hikes and Dairy Walks

The early summer weather we've been having has been great for so many reasons including lots of Pisgah hikes and dairy walks these past four weeks. Here are some snapshots of our adventures...

 

 Loved hiking with Chad at Pisgah this Saturday morning in April before Willem's soccer game

Pisgah is so pretty!

Bouquet of flowers Nev picked on a dairy walk

Nev loves to join us on our dairy walks and she often runs most of the way

 

  

Nev took this pic of us :)

 Always entertaining and posing (it's even better with her dirty face, legs and shirt)!

Nev and Cade joined us for a Sunday afternoon hike up Pisgah

 

 

 

 

 

Nev's 1st Soccer Practice Plus Nia Playdate

Genevieve had her first soccer practice of her life last week through the Mini-Metro program at EMFC. She was VERY excited for the practice getting herself all the way dressed herself including socks and shoes. When she arrived she was super excited to see her best friend from school, Libby. They looked pretty adorable together! Genevieve was really into the practice for the first 30 minutes or so but then started to loose focus and even picked some flowers near the end. After the practice she said it wasn't as fun as she expected and that she wanted to play a real game like her brothers and sister. She didn't quite understand that it didn't quite work that way. She may be a little young for this but it sure was fun seeing her out there. She has five 1 hour long sessions total and I'm hoping she'll be excited for the rest of them.

Had to add this picture of Nev and Nia from last week. Nev had so much fun playing with Nia while I took Elle and Will to soccer games in Portland. These two are so cute together and got along really well (according to Amber :)! Looking forward to many more playdates together!

Braces for Gabrielle

Gabrielle got braces this past week. She will hopefully only need them on for 14-16 months and the way she has been so particular and careful taking care of them (so opposite of her brother at first!), I think she'll have them off in no time. The braces hurt quite a bit the first four days but are feeling better now. Elle does not lie them at all but I think she's getting used to them and I think she looks great!

Before

After!

2013 CrossFit Games Open Competition

Over a five week period in March and April I competed in my third annual CrossFit Open competition finishing 13th out of 420 participants in the Northwest 40-44 age division and 192nd overall for women in the Northwest out of about 3,300 participants. Though competing each week was pretty nerve-wracking for me with my competitive nature :), it motivated me a ton to keep improving and pushing myself. And, I love the feeling I get after each workout. Plus cheering everyone else on in the gym/box was so much fun. I was hoping to finish top three out of the women in my box (aside from Cheryl who competes individually) which would qualify me for competing on our team at the Regional Games in Seattle (which I did the past two years). But, I finished fourth in our box which qualifies me as the alternate for the team. It was a little disappointing to likely not be able to compete at Regionals this year but it was also motivating. Since the Open finished, I've accomplished several goals I'd set for myself such as getting ring and bar muscle-ups as well as setting several PR's in my lifts and on 'Benchmark' WOD's. I'm looking forward to cheering on my friends and teammates at Regionals and hope that next year I can earn myself a spot to compete again.

 My rankings in the NW for masters and the NW overall; the 3rd place women finisher at my box who was gunning for a spot on the team was Annie Search who, as you can see, finished just 6 spots ahead of me. 2 or 3 more reps on a couple of the 5 Open workouts and I would've place ahead of her. It really is good having someone so close to me to really push me. On another note...to qualify for the World Games as a masters individual I would've had to place top 20 in the world in my age group of over 51,000 women age 40-44. I finished 121st...lots of amazing women my age out there!

 

Competing in Open workout 13.4

Chest-to-bar pull-ups in workout 13.5

I loved having Chad and Elle cheer me on in the workouts. This was me completely exhausted after my second attempt at 13.5 (improved by 5 reps :)

I love that Elle enjoys coming to CrossFit. Here she is cheering me on in 13.1. She'll be competing one of these years!

Rachel came to cheer Lindsey and me on for some of the competition workouts

My niece, Athena, competed and did so awesome placing 5th out of the 32 thirteen and fourteen year old who were brave enough to compete worldwide

Lindsey and me all smiles after both getting our first muscle-up about a month ago!

My first muscle-up caught on camera!

Some pictures of my ring muscle-up

Pics of my first bar muscle-up

More muscle-up pics!

So much fun swinging on the rings and bars!