Our CRAZY 1st Week in June!

On June 1st, while Jennie was still visiting, we packed up the car and drove 2 hours to Comlara Park, Illinois, for Kevin's 1st ever TRIATHLON!

We arrived at the TriShark Triathlon village with plenty of time to set up, say hi to ward friends who were also racing, and get good luck hugs and kisses from the girls :)

Then it was time for the race to begin, but due to a crazy amount of flooding prior to the race, the lake was filled with E-coli so they had to cancel the swim and replace it with a two mile run.

Kevin was up for the challenge though, and he easily blew past many of the racers!

Soon we saw him running back in to the transition area and we could tell he was doing quite well! It only took him 12 minutes and 46 seconds to complete the first 2 miles.

He grabbed his bike and biking gear, and was back out on the course in a record 1 minute and 4 seconds. This is where Kevin learned that most triathletes are strongest on the bike, and although he is very quick on the bike, he got to experience what it feels like, first hand, to have people blow past you even though you're peddling your guts out! (A first for Kevin.)

He still did great though and finished the 13 mile biking portion in 39 minutes and 50 seconds! Woohoo! He dismounted with ease (which is a big deal because we watched several other bikers biff it, or come off wobbling after the bike race) and was back in his running gear and on the road in 56 seconds!

Once again, Kevin started blowing past people as he finished up his 5K (3.1 miles) in 20 minutes and 27 seconds!

He finished the entire race in 1 hour 15 minutes and 7 seconds! Pretty amazing if you ask me! Here are his stats again:

Run 1:	12:46.9
T1:	01:04.8
Bike:	39:50.9
T2:	00:56.8
Run:	20:27.8
Overall:	01:15:07.2

After the race, we said good bye to our friends, who also did an amazing job, and headed back home so Kevin could pack his bags to fly to Alaska for a site inspection!

By June 3rd, Kevin was in Alaska, checking out fascinating graveyards, eating yummy food, buying souvenirs, and hiking some pretty incredible mountains!

And no. That is not why he flew there! Although he definitely took advantage of his free time!

He went to inspect a power generating facility that his office has been working on for some time now. He worked his little booty off from 9-5 each day, and then went back out to play in wild Alaska!

Kevin was gone from June 3rd until June 6th and managed to get all his work done, make some new friends, and summit several mountains!

 

On June 6th, Kevin flew home late at night and got some much needed rest before we packed up our things again and headed up to Wisconsin to volunteer for Ragnar Relay Chicago!

On June 7th, we left our kids with my sister Becca and headed to Wisconsin to protect runners from biffing it in cornfields between 10pm and 3 in the morning! We had run the Ragnar the 2 previous years with Dan Cotton (pictured above), his family, and some of our ward friends, but when we realized we couldn't afford it this year, we decided to volunteer for our team to save them some money during registration. We had so much fun (although we did miss running) and were glad to be able to spend the time together. And that about wraps up our crazy week in June!

May in Pictures

After all of our family left back to Utah, Hawaii, and Bangkok, we went back home for 2 days before driving back up to Becca's house to spend the weekend watching her kids while she and Taber ran a 1/2 Marathon together. While we were there, Kevin got to take the girls to soccer practice...followed by ICE CREAM!

That same day, Kevin left us for a short while so he could go run...and WIN... a 5K that his office helped to put on. Go Kevin Go!

The next weekend we got to travel downtown to the College of DuPage where my Halau was dancing in the College Demonthon (aka, a dance-a-thon). It was really fun to have the girls there cheering me on from the side of the stage. They are my biggest fans :)

 The next day I went solo to one of my hula sister's wedding! She had both Catholic and Muslim ceremonies before the reception where our halau had been invited to dance. It turned out to be a beautiful, fascinating, and VERY fun evening!

 A couple of days later Kevin was supposed to take the girls to a Fathers and Sons (or daughters) camp out for our ward, but he couldn't get out of work on time and when it started to rain, he decided to take the camp out into our living room. But don't worry, he didn't forget the S'mores!

 For Mutual the next week, Kevin was asked to do a laser tag game for the youth activity. As always, he rocked it and everyone had tons of fun!

On the 24th of May, we finally wrapped up our year of preschool and my friend Arielle and I held a small graduation ceremony for the girls. They were so cute in their little hats and graduation leis!

Also during the month of May, our little family teamed up to turn an old-but-free table we got from my sister into a new, awesome table for our dining room. It was really neat working on it together and it turned out GREAT!

At the end of May we got a special visit from Auntie Jennie! The girls are in paradise whenever she's around and there were plenty of snuggles to go around! All-in-all, May turned out to be a pretty awesome month!

Oportunistic Uda Family Photo Shoot!

 

Uda Invasion Part 5: Geneva and Good Bye

After we spent the day downtown, the Udas and the Hanks family all packed up to go to Geneva to stay at the Rigg Manor! That way, we could all be together in the same house!

The next day was Sunday and at 9am we went to the Rigg family's church building and the 5 of us sisters sang in sacrament together!

After church, Kevin, Liz, my dad, and me all drove back to Westmont for lunch and then we headed over to Woodridge to attend church at the Hanks' church building where Kevin spoke in Sacrament! We were surprised when Rachel, Becca, and Sarah also walked in in the middle of the meeting to support Kevin while he spoke. I have such an amazing family!

After Kevin spoke, 3 of the girls headed back to Geneva and me and Liz and Kevin drove dad to the airport :( We were sad to see him go, but so glad he made it out for the weekend!

That night we drove back to Geneva where we had an amazing international potluck dinner!! I was in charge of making Mac and Cheese for the kiddos with "sensitive" pallets :)

The next day we had a girls date to the nail salon and then out to lunch! It was so fun to get pampered with my sisters again.

We even brought the little girls to join in on the fun. As you can imagine, they thought it was the best thing that ever happened to them!

Later that night, my friend Liberty came up to take some family pictures of us since it is pretty rare to have Chris and Pae around for pictures. I will post more shots from the shoot later.

That night we said goodbye to Liz since she had to leave at 5 in the morning :( But first she unloaded a very large amount of gifts on us all and showered us with love. It was hard going to bed that night knowing that soon everyone would be gone.

The next day we had to say goodbye to Sarah and Manti. I gave Manti the biggest hug before they left but then I started to cry so I handed him off to Rachel for this picture. We hung out some more that night and watched some movies in preparation for saying goodbye to everyone else the next morning.

And then the time came... Wednesday morning rolled around and Kevin and I drove Chris and Pae to the airport and then later that day Becca drove Rachel to the airport... and then they were all gone :( It was so amazing having my siblings here with me and sharing so many neat experiences with them. I love each and every one of them, as well as my incredible parents, and can't wait until we meet again!