Future aspirations...

This week Whitney brought this home from school. I asked her what the assignment was and she said they had to draw what they wanted to be when they grow up. We got a good laugh about it. We already have another Chick-Fil-A addict in the family.

Fort Worth...

This past week Jim and I spent time in Fort Worth, TX attending a Bogleheads conference and enjoying time with family. The Bogleheads is an online investing and personal finance forum that Jim frequently posts on. They focus on the ideas of Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard that promotes low-cost investing via index funds, etc. So we flew across the country to meet people that he met on the internet :) We had a great time at the conference and Jim enjoyed his mini celeb status being that he was a chapter author of the recently published book that the group put out on retirement planning and that he is a frequent poster. We met many great individuals and had some wonderful conversations.

The impetus for attending this conference was that there was family nearby to also visit. Jim's sister Michelle was gracious in letting us stay with them for the week. We enjoyed some disc golf (of course!) and they took us out wakeboarding one afternoon. Our skills are improving but we had some spectacular crashes too.

Jim's youngest sister Sue and her family also drove up for the weekend so we got to meet our newest nephew, Benson.

That night we had a blast roasting marshmallows over the fire pit in there backyard. Saturday before we flew out I enjoyed a 10 mile run with Michelle through the rolling countryside while Jim and Jon with kids in tow played some more disc golf.

Wingman triathlon....

About a week ago, Jim and I participated in the Wingman triathlon on base. It consisted of a 10K bike ride, 5K run, and 1.5K canoe. The canoe section had to be done with your wingman (team mate) so you either raced with them or waited when you got to the canoe. Jim was kind enough to stick with me. Our canoeing practice from the river trip a few weeks back really paid off. We ended up coming in 3rd out of 21 teams (the 1st co-ed team) and got some new Camelbaks as a prize along with the t-shirts, smoothie coupons, and refreshments provided. Pretty sweet for a free race! The picture above was one that appeared on the front page of the base newspaper.

Published author....

We're excited that this book went on sale this week. It is the result of a community effort with individuals authoring the separate chapters. I'm proud to announce that my smart husband is the author of Chapter 4 on Individual Retirement Accounts. The book has already garnered high acclaim from many in the finance community. Way to go, Jim!

First day of kindergarten!

Whitney was very excited to start kindergarten this week. There was no fear or worry for her about going. After I helped her find her seat she pushed me away and said see you later. It was pouring rain that morning but the whole family made the trek to school with her. We got soaked just going from the car to the school. Whitney was excited to get to wear her rain boots and coat though and then change to sandals at school. She's doing very well so far with all green lights and gives me a daily report about who is misbehaving in class. We did get a note home the first day about needing to work on not talking out in class but she says she has been better about raising her hand now. The biggest excitement so far for the week was going for the free breakfast yesterday and getting to buy lunch at school today. She already has her lunch number memorized. In fact she is so independent that she asked me today when she could start walking to school by herself. The only problem being that we live 2 miles from the school and she would have to cross many busy roads and pass by some not so nice neighborhoods, sorry kiddo but that's not happening this year. Maybe we'll bike a time or two.

Shenandoah Valley...

For our last adventure of the summer before school starts we decided to head out to the Shenandoah Valley for a canoeing and camping adventure. After arriving and setting up camp we headed to the Luray Caverns. They are quite commercialized compared to caverns we've visited out West but were spectacular none the less. The coolest view was Dream Lake were the stalagtites are perfectly reflected in the water.

A cool feature of this cave is the organ they have inside that the various sounds come from rubber mallets striking different formations. Original "rock" music at it's best! We enjoyed the evening at the city park checking out the playground and disc golf course then headed back for hotdogs and s'mores on the campfire. The next morning we headed up river to put our canoe in the water.

We spent about 4 hours paddling down 8 miles of the south fork of the Shenandoah river. We enjoyed the variety of wildlife we saw including many turtles, heron, fish, cows, and a few deer.

After reaching our campsite, we spent the afternoon relaxing and Jim biked back up the road to retrieve the truck. The next morning we packed up camp. While I dropped the truck off down the river the others headed down to the boat and played in the water waiting for me to bike back. Unfortunately I got a flat tire 2 miles into my 6 mile ride and was not prepared with any flat repair equipment. Fortunately after running another mile with my bike I was able to hitch a ride the rest of the way to camp. We paddled another 10 miles the second day which included a few easy rapids. However it was not the wilderness experience of the previous day as the last few miles of our trip we were joined by hundreds of people riding inner tubes down the river.

In fact the most exciting and difficult rapid involved not only picking the correct line through the rapid but also trying to avoid the inner tubes and the canoe that had just flipped. We enjoyed some time swimming and playing on various rope swings both days even Whitney got in on the rope swing action.

It was an enjoyable trip in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley with the perfect fall camping weather.

GO COUGARS!

I finally got a few older posts finished but I still have some catching up to do on our latest adventures but I must say that we were very excited to see the BYU football team pull off a great win against #3 Oklahoma tonight! Our kids thought we were a bit crazy with all the cheering and hollering but that's okay. We're looking forward to many more fun games this season (now if we could just get a few more broadcast out here!) GO COUGARS!