Nate's Tough Mudder

Last weekend, Nate (George's brother) participated with a couple friends in the Tough Mudder at Wintergreen. Basically, it's a 9 mile course with several obstacles you have to overcome to make it to the end. They include swimming in ice-water, running through fire and coals, climbing up a half-pipe that they've covered in vegetable oil, and crawling through live wires that WILL shock you. That's only a handful of what you encounter. You also have to run straight up a double black diamond run (this course takes place at a ski resort on the side of a mountain, so it's basically straight up the mountain). 

I stayed with the boys while George went with his family to cheer him on and take pictures. George basically ran about 6 miles of it to try and capture as much of the adventure as he could. After looking at the pictures, George and I have decided to sign up for next year's race. It looks like too much fun to miss! What do you think?

Nate before the start. George sprayed his hair orange.

People came in groups and many of them were dressed in very--unique--ways

The most unique one was a couple guys that came in only thongs, and the thongs did NOT have a backside to them, so their actual backsides were hanging out. Sounds uncomfortable...

Nate with his group of friends.

Batman and Robin right out of the starting gate--mud, mud mud.

They had to carry logs in one obstacle.

And do monkey bars that were greased across freezing water.

The girl on his team didn't make it across and had to swim.

Walking across beams...

...whoops!

Jumping into the pools of ice water.

So cold!

Nate's group

Rope ladder climb.

Supporting the bottom to make it stable for the others climbing.

Slip-n-slid into...

...a mud puddle.

Trying to make it up the muddy hill.

Black diamond run.

George had our SLR and a "Tough Mudder's" hat, so people thought he was an official photographer for the event and kept posing for him.

Running

The "mystery" event: you had to climb up two stories while getting sprayed with a fire hose...

 ...and once you got to the top, you had to jump into a black hole that dropped you about 10 feet before leveling out...

...and shooting you out the bottom.

There was a back-up at the half-pipe. Apparently, someone actually broke their leg trying to get up.

Last one before the finish line: live wires you had to run through.

Finally finished!

Good job, Nate!

So... fun, right? Actually I get giddy just thinking about doing it. Luckily our baby will be about 8 or 9 months old by the time it rolls around next year, so we should have ample time to train. That is, if we're still here at UVa after George's match for Residency. If we are, we're totally doing it!

Staying Busy

October has been a busy month with Halloween coming up and me and the boys traveling every weekend to visit George up in Northern VA. Activities have included going to the circus, night kayaking in DC, pumpkin patch fun and making Halloween costumes. We've tried to stay busy between these big events and enjoy our family time together.

We still walk a big dog named Rockne. One day it was raining during our walk time, so I loaded him up and brought him to our house to play for a few hours. Jude thought it was tons of fun!

They were playing with a little balloon. Jude would throw it and Rockne would try to get it. It was funny to watch.

Lance came home from school and was excited to have a dog greet him at the door.

We love this dog! It's a perfect arrangement, too, because we get to see him and play with him twice a week, but someone else pays the bills and does the hard work. It's a win-win!

George has been staying with my Aunt Linda and Uncle Rob up in Maryland while he does his away rotation, so when went up to see him, we'd often stay at their house.

I forgot to bring Jude's bed one time, so he had to sleep on the bed with me while George worked a night-shift.  I think this picture and the next is pretty funny. It looks like Jude is using a normal black blanket to sleep, but...

 ...it was alive! 

Those eyes belong to Kailey's cat Sylvester who apparently thought Jude was pretty cuddly. I couldn't agree more.

 We like to do crafts around this time of year and make decorations for our house. I saw a cute idea on Pinterest for painting rocks and decided it would be fun to do with the boys.

We spent one Saturday morning hunting up rocks close to our house and giving them a good bath.

A few nights later, George was in town so we broke out the paint after dinner and had a great time decorating our rocks.

Jude was excited about it and kept saying, "paint a rock?" I love that he is talking so much now.

Lance has really taken to art in school (it's his favorite subject), so he was super excited to do this project.

Jude actually did a good job keeping the paint on his plate (and a bit on his body, but we can't be too picky).

He liked mixing the colors and kept asking for specific ones. I've been trying to teach him his colors so it was gratifying when he could identify a few of them correctly.

Lance being meticulous. He kept saying he was going slow and "doing his best". He's really blossoming into a big boy.

And... Jude decided his arm was fun to paint, too.

Still working hard.

Some of our finished rocks. Most of them are Lance's, but the big ghost is George's and the cat is mine. Jude had a plateful of rocks he painted as well.

Bath time! Hooray!

It was a fun activity and not a day goes by that I don't hear Jude asking to "paint a rock" or Lance wondering if we can break out the rocks again and paint some more. Success!

And of course we've spent a lot of time with our families while visiting George. Jude and Bryce have become really good friends and whenever they're together they're running around laughing. Bryce is patient with him and it's cute to watch them play together.

So sweet!