Camping at Rough River, KY

Last week we went camping with Audrey's family down in Rough River, KY, which is about a 3 hour drive from Indianapolis.  It was a nice long weekend, something we were all ready for, even Blake!  This was Blake's first camping trip, and he was a trooper.

We left Thursday morning, July 29th, and headed down to the lake for a nice 4 day vacation.  We got there around lunch time and Audrey's parents, Phyllis and Leroy were already waiting.  I think they wanted to see Blake more than they wanted to see us, which is understandable!  We had a good lunch and relaxed for a bit before Audrey, Leroy and I took the two jet skis out for a spin on the lake, while Grandma stayed back to babysit the little guy.  Rough River was made by a dam, but instead of being one big open lake, it stretches out like a snake with plenty of coves to jump in and swim.  It also makes for some good jet skiing, as the water is just like glass with hardly any waves.  We got the jet skis up to about 52mph in some spots while catching some rays and taking a break to swim in the lake that was as warm as bath water.  Once we got back from jet skiing, we did a little cliff jumping and jumped off a 20-25 foot cliff!  It looked twice as high to me.  After our adrenaline died down, we relaxed for a bit and finished getting the big 44 foot camper situated, as our campsite was now available, before hitting up Little Dave's, a local restaurant for dinner.  We turned in early, as we knew we had a long weekend ahead of us.  Having the a/c cranked up definitely helped, as roughing it that weekend in 90 degree heat would not have been fun.

Friday morning came before we knew it, as Blake likes to get up early, and with it came some more swimming and floating in the lake.  The weather Friday was perfect, about 85 degrees with a lot less humidity.  Audrey's brother Travis came that afternoon to camp with us, and they went out on a little jet ski ride while we played with Blake.  That night Audrey's sister Ashley and her husband Ryan arrived with their new boat, so we knew we would have a full house in the camper.  We took Blake down to the lake to let him float in his new float.  He seemed to like it, but all of the kicking really wore him out, so he didn't last too long, and was ready for a nap.  For dinner we made "pudgies", which really is just a sandwich made with pizza ingredients on the campfire.  Not sure how the Oedings came up with the name, but they were delicious, followed by s'mores.  After that, the 8 of us hit the sack, as we were all worn out.

It stormed Friday night, and with it came more heat and humidity on Saturday morning.  We started the day with a nice long boat ride on Ryan and Ashley's new boat.  We did some cliff diving and some tubing on our way back to the campsite.  Ryan did a good job of whipping us around on that tube, I was sore for a couple days after!  We floated in the lake and relaxed some more.  The camper was great to have, and definitely was a good break from the heat.  That evening we took Blake out on his first boat ride.  The little guy was all decked out in his hat and life jacket.  It was hard to tell if he liked the ride or not.  He looked a little confused most of the time, and I think he just wanted out of that life jacket.  We had a great time out on the lake that night, and after some more floating in the lake, we cooked some burgers and chicken sausage before hitting the hay.

By Sunday morning, we were all pretty worn out.  We packed things up, which is the worst part of camping, before having some lunch and getting on the road.  We had a great weekend at the lake, and we're already looking forward to our next trip!

Amazing Adventure Race

On Sunday 7/18/10, my friend Joe and I competed in our 2nd Amazing Adventure race.  For those of you who don't know what that is, teams of 2-3 people compete in a race that involves running/trekking, mountain biking and canoeing.  It also involves orienteering, or reading a map to find checkpoints and complete challenges along the route.

This year's race was much longer than the race we did last year.  There were about 50 teams in this race, and it was expected to be about a 3 hour race in the lovely 90 degree heat and humidity of central Indiana. To start the race, everyone had to take off their shoes and put them in the middle of an outdoor basketball court.  When they said "go", it was a mad dash to find your shoes and start the race.  Once we had our shoes in hand, we had to find a representative who gave us our first map and clue sheet for the first section of the course.  Joe was in charge of the map and orienteering, and I handled the clue sheet and our passport which we needed at each checkpoint.

For us, the first section of the race was running.  The grounds of the church also have a hilly cross country course, which made for a tough start to the race.  We found our first few checkpoints and then made our way to our first challenge.  I then had to put on some glasses that made everything blurry and shoot a free throw while a volunteer sprayed me with a garden hose.  It only took me 3 shots to make it, and we were on our way.  There was a short line at the next challenge, so we decided to bypass it and come back because the team we were waiting on was moving in slow motion.  We then had to high-tail it to a Starbucks down the road where we had to give the barista a quarter to get a gumball we would need for one of the next challenges. We completed the next 2 challenges where we had to drop a clothespin from our nose into a glass jar, and move the gumball down the strings of a tennis racket without it falling off.  After that, we made our way back to the last checkpoint in section one which involved getting up a board propped against a set of stairs that was covered in shaving cream.  Joe pulled himself up the board first, then was able to help pull me up and we were on our way to the transition area.  The first section took us about 45 minutes to complete, and we were the first team from our group to the TA.

The second section of the race was a mountain biking section.  We got our new map and clue sheet and made our way out onto the streets of Carmel, IN and headed toward our first clues.  A storm was rolling in about this time, and the wind started to pickup.  Just south of the race, thunder and lightning started, and we wondered if they would call the race if it rolled through.  The first few clues took us into neighborhoods where we had to find out things like, what type of security system does the house at 14271 have?  ADT.  How many silver bolts are on the top of the yellow object at the end of the street?  6 silver bolts on the top of the fire hydrant (2 were still painted yellow).  It was about halfway through this section that I started to feel the heat and the effects of a short bike ride the day before.  I started to feel dehydrated and began cramping in my calves and quads.  We had been racing for about an hour and 20 minutes at this point, and I knew it was going to be a rough ending.  One of the main challenges in this section was at a small water park.  We had to put a small bucket on our heads and fill it by standing under a waterfall, then run it back to fill a large bucket as fast as we could by taking turns.  We finished this pretty quick, and the water felt great and helped us get a little energy back.  Another challenge we had was to take a shoe off and flip it onto a card table 10 feet away with our foot.  This isn't as easy as it sounds, and was probably the longest challenge we were at all day.  We hit a few more checkpoints then made our way back to the transition area for the next section of the race.  The second leg took us about 45 minutes to complete as well.

Section 3 took us back out on our mountain bikes with our new map and clue sheet to a few checkpoints down the road on our way to the canoeing part of the race.  Joe was feeling great, and I was just ready to get off my feet for a few minutes and use my upper body.  The canoes we had to use were inflatable, and not the easiest thing to maneuver.  As I stepped into the front of it, I lost my balance and almost fell right into the lake!  I steadied myself awkwardly thinking I had broken my ankle!  My foot had turned at a weird angle and was stuck that way, I couldn't put any pressure on it for some reason.  I took my shoe off and then was able to slowly straighten it, and it quickly loosened up.  We were lucky to still be racing.   I hopped in the front of the boat Joe jumped in back, and we were off paddling across the lake to the first of three checkpoints across the lake. Our paddling went well and we were able to pass a team we had been even with for most of the race.  We got back to our mountain bikes and realized the map had gotten wet and was quickly disintegrating.  Somehow we found one on the ground and were able to see where we needed to go as there were only 2 checkpoints left.  We made our way down the road and into a park where I had to paint Joe's fingernails with nail polish, and he had to put eye black on under my eyes.  We quickly did that and made our way down the road and into a neighborhood to a house where we had to chug a snow cone as fast as we could.  After that, it was back to the transition area for our final challenge.  We ended up riding about 13.3 miles on our mountain bikes in hilly and windy conditions, which definitely took it out of me.

Once we got back to the transition area, we dropped off our bikes and had to make our way to the zip line.  Once they got the harnesses on us, we went down the zip line for a few hundred feet and then had to hike back up the hill to the finish.  The finish was a giant slip and slide, which was a fun and refreshing way to finish.  We crossed the line in 3rd place out of about 50 teams, which we were very proud of.  It was a long hard day, but we completed the race in 2 hours and 23 minutes.  We had great support at the race from Audrey and Blake, and Joe's wife Lindsey and their baby Reese.  They were real troopers and hung out all day in the heat to watch us come and go a few times every 45 minutes.

Sitting here the day after the race, thinking about the quick decisions we had to make and the physical effort, I think we did a great job for only our second race.  This is the most sore I have been in a long time, and I'm hoping my legs heal quickly so I can start getting ready for our next race, as it was definitely an Amazing Adventure.  http://www.planetadventurerace.com/

Dinner Time

Blake decided to join us for dinner tonight.  He enjoyed staring at us from his bumbo, while Drew and I ate some delicious Pizza Hut.  Gotta love the any pizza for $10.

Tour de France

It's Tour time again, so there is finally something good to watch on tv.  It's only been on for two days, and I think I've watched both stages at least 3 times each, not to mention all the pre-race hoopla and other Lance coverage.  I think this will be one of the closest Tours we have seen and might even come down to the final individual time trial at the end of the race.  Of course, I am pulling for Lance to win his 8th title and stick it to Alberto Contador.  I'm also pulling for Andy Shleck to have a good race, as well as Ivan Basso and team Liquigas.  These next few weeks will definitely get me more motivated to ride, so hopefully I will get some good miles in.  I plan on teaching Blake all about the Tour, but it might be a few more years before he understands what a domestique is or a musette.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July everyone.  We had a pretty uneventful day.  Just spent most of it relaxing.  I'm pretty sure Drew enjoyed his nap on the couch with Blake for about an hour and half!   Blake got to go swimming this evening.  It's one of his favorite pastimes.  It was a little crowded at the pool and the water was kinda chilly so we didn't stay too long.  Officially starting the countdown to Ashley's wedding.  6 more days. Cant wait!  Well I hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday.  We will be enjoying one more day off tomorrow.  Woohoo:)

Our New Blog!

Welcome to our new blog! Getting started a little late, but we're hoping to keep our family and friends updated to everything going on in our lives. Our lives were changed a little over 4 months with the arrival of Blake and we couldn't be happier with our little addition. He's getting big and changing every day, so hopefully we can keep up the posts about the little guy!