Vacation, all I ever wanted...

Bright and early Tuesday morning, the baby boys and I are headed on VACATION!!

Destination: Lake Placid NY. We are meeting up with my sister and brother in law, and eventually my parents, as well as a few friends. My amazing sister Holly will be racing her first Ironman distance race, and we are all beyond excited for her! (She is participant # 2227 if you care to track her).

I am so excited to witness first hand the spectacle that is Ironman. I have no doubt I will come out of this experience begging for swim lessons and a road bike, (although shwinderlei will have to do for a sprint tri, bikes are so flipping expensive!!) convinced I'll be on my own road to Kona. But is that really a surprise?

Depending on his mood, Rowen may even do the Ironman kids run, but that's one of those things we will decide about 5 minutes before the race starts. That's just how we roll with 2 year olds.

Besides the Ironman circus, I am just beyond thrilled to spend some time in the mountains. It's so funny, I grew up in rural Vermont. "Rural" being an understatement. We lived on the side of a mountain, on the edge of a 247 acre piece of property. Our closest neighbors were about 1/2 a mile away, the others closer to a mile. It was beautiful. But of course, back in those days, I was a feisty teenager, just DREAMING of the day I could "leave this place" and move somewhere warm and tropical. I spent every moment daydreaming of beaches and surfing.

Well, here I am now, in South Carolina. Hardly "tropical", but it's warm, we've got the ocean and random palm (well, palmetto) trees scattered about. I did the whole "drinking tropical drinks in the sand watching the sunset" thing. Heck, I still serve those drinks to tourists on a daily basis. Surfing is a hard past time with two little ones, and my board has been retired to the garage. And now, I dream of taking my boys hiking, or letting them play in huge open fields (that aren't golf courses), or playing in the woods at all without the fear of copperheads, wild boars, and alligators. I dream of trail running and mountain biking, and yes, even snowboarding and snowshoeing (I can hear my friends and family gasping at that...yes I MISS THE SNOW!!).

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what we do have down here. But it's certainly true what they say, the grass is always greener on the other side (literally, it's so much greener up there, haha!) So needless to say, I will be enjoying every second in the mountains, and I'm crossing my fingers the constant rain that's been pummeling the North East this summer will let up for the time we are there (PLEASE mother nature!) and scheming up a way to get Rich to move the family after I'm done with school. We don't need to go far, I hear there are mountainous, fun places even in the Carolinas.

Throw in the possibilities of bobsledding, tattoo's, and of course, Santa's Workshop, and this is going to be a super fun vacation. I can hardly wait! So my blog friends, I may or may not be updating from the road. I still haven't figured out how to add pictures to my blog via the crackblackberry, so I may just save the whole thing for when I get back. (and yes, I will come back, Rich can't come with us due to work, so we have to come back at least for him!)

Now, I am off to pack for a ten day trip for myself a toddler and a baby ...that is some sort of "Ironman" in itself I imagine...

Have a fantastic couple of weeks, my friends! Happy Running!