Wildflower!

As is probably evident from some of my posts, Kevin has become obsessed with triathlons! Last weekend we headed down to Paso Robles where he and our friend Michael Toms competed in the Wildflower Triathlon. This is one of the biggest triathlons and a super difficult course, sounds not fun to me! We headed out a little before 6:00 on Friday after Clara woke up from her nap. She was pretty happy in the car and we stopped in Kettleman City to eat dinner before resuming our drive to Paso. By the time we arrived at Meghan and Kenny's, Clara was done being in her carseat and very happy to get out and run around. The fact that Meghan and Kenny have a boxer named Dutch only added to her excitement! Clara and Dutch had a pretty fun weekend playing together. Clara signed dog and said "woof woof" about a million times and Dutch licked her and allowed her to lay on him and pull him around by his leash.

Meghan is Tia Laurie's best friend who I have known since we were little. Clara has met her before but not seen her since Tia Laurie's wedding six months ago. Clara is always friendly and not afraid of strangers but she really took to Meghan. The two of them played with Dutch and Clarita would just walk up to Meghan and hold her arms up to be picked up. She doesn't do that with very many people, so it obviously means that Meghan is super awesome. She is pregnant so maybe Clara sensed her to be motherly. Unfortunately I was a terrible photographer and failed to take a single picture of Clara with either Meghan or Dutch.

On Saturday Kevin and I took Clara to the beach in Cayucos. There just happened to be a playground on the beach so Clarita had a ton of fun swinging. She actually asked to get out of the swing, a rare occurrence, and played in the sand. She wasn't too sure about the sand at first, but loved when the water washed over her feet and legs! I thought that she would be scared of it but I should have known better. Clara then decided that sand was really cool, especially wet sand and made sure to cover her hands in it.

Later that afternoon we headed to the triathlon site with Michael and his wife Megan. Clara and I went to the Kid's Zone and she played with the plastic fruit (and managed to color all over herself with a marker within one minute of arriving) and petted the giant stuffed lion which she called a dog. Poor Megs had to stay at the top area and wait for us as there was a giant hill to walk down to get to the transition area and being eight months pregnant she didn't really want to have to walk back up it. We went to dinner afterward and poor Clarita lost it. She had not taken good naps as we were gone all day and by the time 8:00 PM rolled around she couldn't take life anymore. There was a lot of crying at dinner (luckily the place was empty) and she fell asleep on the short ride back to Meghan and Kenny's. Poor Dutch was so disappointed when we arrived with a sleeping baby. We left Clara asleep in her car seat in the middle of the room while we packed everything up and Dutch stood above her wiggling his whole body and staring longingly at her! Clarita was so tired that she didn't even wake up when I put her in her pjs and didn't even nurse (a first)!

Sunday morning we left bright and early to pick up Michael. He and Kevin headed out on shuttles to the swim area while Clara and I waited for a shuttle to take us to the spectator area. This year, due to the severe drought, the course was different as there was not enough water in the lake to swim in the normal location. As a result the athletes were bussed to a different location then had to run a little over two miles before the bike, bike 25 miles, and then finish the remainder of the 10K total run with a 4 mile run. Since there was no parking at the swim and it was a 2 mile walk on dirt roads to get there, we assumed that Clara and I would not be watching the swim. However, I met a lady with a baby a couple weeks younger than Clarita and she and her mother talked the guy in charge of the buses to take us and our strollers to the swim! I also failed at taking pictures at the triathlon because the good camera was on timer and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it and the battery on my little camera died. I got a few on my phone...We couldn't find Dada before the swim but we saw him as he left for the run. He was surprised to see us! We waited for Michael but didn't see him so I figured we missed him and headed off to walk back. He came up behind us shortly after we started and we ran with him for a little while. Clara got a lot of cheers and was told that she was the cutest runner around. Once the trail turned to dirt Michael left us in the dust and we began the terrible trek back. The trail wasn't bad until it turned to sand and weeds with hills. Even with the awesome Bob stroller I was struggling. A bunch of runners commented that I was working harder than them and I think they were right (at that point anyway)! Clara immediately fell asleep on the bumps and slept for an hour and a half so it was worth it.

We finally got back and got to see Dada come off the bike and start the run. Megs had arrived too late and was not allowed into the area so we sent lots of texts back and forth when we saw one of the guys. Then we headed to the Kid Zone to play while we waited for him to finish the run. I was timing him and was pretty spot on for when he would finish. We ran alongside him to the finish and stopped only when there were too many spectators to continue. Dada did great with a time of 2 hours 44 minutes! We got to see Michael finish too and he also did great! It was his first olympic distance triathlon and very difficult with lots of giant hills. We didn't envy them one bit!

Clarita had a fun time cheering for all the athletes and waving to people along the course. She even got to pet some dogs! It was a long exhausting day for her and as soon as we drove out of the parking lot she was asleep. Pretty soon she'll be out there doing triathlons with Dada!