Champaign livin

Well Champaign has moved to the 3rd longest time I've lived somewhere. #1 being North Bend, #2 being Lincoln. Now Wayne could be thrown in there, but I never lived there more than a school year. I had 2 school years but always moved home in the summer. I lived in Lincoln for 5 years and North Bend for 19 years. Anyway, I have now been in Champaign for 9 months and let me tell you, it feels like a month. I can't believe how well I've adjusted here. I really like living here. Its a nice town, a nice state, and I'm fitting in rather well. After 9 months in DC I had kissed that place goodbye and was headed down the road with nothing but dust in the rear view. Since I've been here in Champaign I haven't really had the desire to leave. Anyway, things are going great. Tonight I'm headed out with the softball team to the Taste of Champaign. Which is a festival with bands and food. Oh and I'm pretty sure I've lost my mind, yesterday I signed up for the Chicago Half Marathon on September 14th. I'm insane.

On a more serious note, my best friend Melissa's sister was in a horrific car accident. She was life flighted to Creighton last Saturday and still is in a coma. So if everyone could just give a shout out in their prayers for her that she comes out of the coma and pray the internal injuries aren't too bad. Thanks!

Fishing!

So I went fishing today. I had been wanting to go for awhile but I didn't have my stuff. Well today I went to the store, got all my goodies and headed out. I first went to The Lake of the Woods in Mahomet which is about 10 miles west of here. I lasted all of 45 mins until I got bored. It wasn't going well. Then I go to another little lake the dude at the store told me about. I spent like 20 there. The skies were getting dark, I had a decent head ache so I called it a day. I came home and not even a half block from me is a little lake. Its pretty small, I decided oh what the heck, its close I'll give it a try. My 2nd cast in I catch a nice bass! YIPPY! And that was the first and last fish I caught. But it was worth it! I came back just in time before a rather odd dust storm hit. There was a line of storms to the west and it kicked up TONS of dust. Hopefully you can see the brown color in the pics.

My fishie! The weapon of choice in the background.

Well I tried to take a pic of me and the fishie but I wasn't too fond of holding it that close to my face so this will have to do.

The dust front

Ick!

Mom's visit

Mom came to visit me this weekend, my 2nd visitor! We had a really good time, it was good to show her where I work and where I live. She kept me on the go! I swear I needed a vacation from her vacation. Saturday we obviously went to my tri, and then Sunday she watched my softball game. In the meantime I showed her around and shopped. Here are some pictures she took. Hopefully she visits again soon...and maybe bring dad along! ;)

My new Husker quilt!

My new pretty flowers

I look really interested in the game

Heck ya, look at me go!

Thanks for visiting mom!

My first Tri....Dualathalon!

Ok so first of all, the race weather gods hate me in 2008. We (my mom is here this weekend, more about that later) woke up to rain...big surprise! All my races in 2008 have not been good at all for wx conditions. I've gone through rain/mist, wind, extreme cold, sleet, and whatever else can be thrown at me. Well today it poured! We get the race site, its thunder like crazy. They ended up canceling the swim part due to all the run off and that being unhealthy and then the fact it was lightning and thundering like crazy. So it was now a 1 mile run, 10 mile bike, 3.1 mile run.

Not making excuses here, but the weather thinned out the less serious and sane athletes! Only the crazy and hardcore ones were left. I fall into the crazy category. The race began, about 50 of us, and I promptly found my place in last...where I comfortable stayed all race. :) The mile run is not my cup of tea, I can't run fast and I hate short distances, but oh well, not my choice. I did decent on the bike but the 3.1 miles left was really really hard. I had to walk/run it but oh well I did finish in 1:20! So that was fine by me. It was a really good time. All in all I am proud I did my first multi sport race and I'm crazy enough do attempt another one! At least the rain quit enough for the race and then started up again during the awards part.

The drive back to Champaign was interesting because I-57 had water running over it! So state patrol was letting cars go through one by one. It's a swamp around here and probably won't get much better.

Enjoy the pics!

On the way to the race..pretty shelf cloud!

Ooooooooohhh

The transition zone

Me just starting, not totally spent yet.

Coming back from the mile run

Mom's camera has an operator issue :) so she missed me on my bike., this was after the bike. I'm totally spent by this time.

DONE!

Me and my cool bike with a kick stand...heck yes.

Really?

Feel bad for those guys!