No you CANNOT have my free T-shirt.

Last weekend, we loaded up the camper and made our way to beautiful Wolcottville for a camping trip with the Friends.

The kids got along tremendously (Ganon and Sophie have formed a special bond; Shawn has already warned me that I will be paying for that wedding. But I'm not worried, Shawn, because we're just going to throw up a tent and have a hog roast in your backyard after the kids get back from the courthouse, so joke's on you.)

If you've never been to Gordon's Campground in Wolcottville, well, okay. Can't say that I blame you.

I mean, don't get me wrong, it was certainly a nice time, and I would go back. But the place has got some, uh.....personality, and might take some getting used to, depending on your expectations.

For instance, they have daily activities that they announce and advertise all over the place.

On Saturday, we headed over to the Bingo Pavilion for Craft Time. 

Not a soul was in the Bingo Pavilion. We waited. We called the front desk. We waited some more. Right then a golf cart pulls up, and a woman with a ratty Gordon's T-shirt and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth gets off the golf cart and brings over some bags of beads for the kids to make into bracelets. 

Not once did she take that cigarette out of her mouth the entire time we were crafting. Tiffany and I looked at each other, both kind of indignant about this woman smoking directly at our kids, I mean, I get it, we're at a campground, we're in Wolcottville, Indiana for pete's sake, what did I expect, but come on, this was the kids' arts and crafts director, do you really have to smoke while you're doing arts and crafts for the kids???

But, cooler heads prevailed, we simply had our kids sit at a separate table and we brought the craft stuff to them instead of having Ms. Chain-Smoking Bead Lady blowing smoke in their faces the whole time. The kids made their bracelets, and all was well.

Me helping Noah

Here's Sophie modeling the finished product for you

Then there was the playground equipment.

I mean, the kids liked it, but like I told, Ben, "It's like taking our kids to 1981 to play."

There is a newer playground at the front of the campground, with updated equipment. That's what you'll see on their website. What you won't see is the rusty tractor in the playground across from our campsite. Which, of course, all five kids were instantly drawn to.

Nothin' dangerous here, ma!

Then there was the gigantic rusty tower with teensy little chains for barriers and slippery gigantic fifteen-foot tractor tires as bridges.

Don't worry about us, kids, we're just seconds away from a heart attack here watching you guys prance around on this equipment, you kids who are so used to your twenty-first century playground equipment with all those silly government playground safety rules, you have no idea it is even possible to get hurt at a playground, nevermind the image we have right now of you falling fifteen feet from that ridiculous tractor tire and breaking your neck, which means we'll miss the pie-eating contest later, and heaven knows we don't want to do that.

Look, I'm by no means a super-over-protective mom, and I'm okay if my kids do things that they might get hurt on, you know, it's a good learning tool for them.

But this stuff was terrifying. We let them play on it for ten minutes, then shook our heads, called the kids down, and steered them towards the merry-go-round for a while just to save us from collapsing from panic attacks on the spot.

Speaking of the pie-eating contest, here's some pictures. It wasn't actually pie. Just bowls of pudding.

Shawn and Ben. 

As Ben said, "My whole life has been one giant training session for this moment right here."

And of course, he was the victor.

It's possible Shawn was a bit of a sore loser.

Other pictures:

This kid's got it figured out.

Walking to the Bingo Pavilion. Ganon and Sophie had to hold hands everywhere.

On the hay ride

All five kids turned into certifiable monkeys on the jungle gym right next to our campsite. Thankfully, this thing was old, but not death-trap material. Climb away, kiddos.

(Travis, Ganon, Noah, Tanner)

And now Sophie.

Tanner really gave it his all. Sorry, dad, I think you're gonna have to pull it this time.

We got to keep the pudding tub following the contest. Sophie was pleased.

All in all, we had a great time with great company. Even if we had to steal Ben's winning T-shirt back away from Shawn at the end of the weekend.

Keep practicing, Shawn.  Maybe next time.

The one where I think I am being stalked

Last Wednesday evening, Erin and I took a run around the neighborhood. We do this fairly regularly, usually every Wednesday evening, and usually with Melissa as well, but due to a whole lot of random circumstances, it was just Erin and I.

We came to a spot on Firefox Drive where someone had written in sidewalk chalk on the sidewalk.

It wasn't your run-of-the-mill hopscotch board, or pretty, harmless little pictures like sunshine and rainbows.

No, it was a threatening message from a homeowner to whoever had let their dog leave his "marks" on the sidewalk and the yard in front of his house.

The message was something along the lines of "I'm looking for you and by golly I will find you and then I will give you a chocolate sundae. Just come knock on my door."

For clarification, "chocolate sundae" is a euphemism for what was actually written, which I would like to avoid putting in my blog in case there are impressionable young readers here.

At any rate, Erin and I kind of chuckled about it, boy that guy takes dog poop seriously, then went along our merry way.

Fast forward to tonight. We got home from a super-fun camping weekend (pictures to follow, including, if we can recover an accidentally deleted video from the FlipCam, Ben's smashing victory in the "pie" eating contest. You will not be disappointed.) and I decided to take Canada out for a run.

There was a slight, misting rain; but it was a nice night for a run.

As I turned the corner on Foxfire Drive, I noticed that Mr. Sidewalk Chalk had been busy. Anywhere a stray piece of dog poop had landed -- and there was a lot, apparently the dog in question had been busy too -- Mr. Chalk had circled each piece and written NO in giant letters next to each circle.

There were also a couple other messages like "STOP IT, bring a bag with you" and "You WILL get caught" and my personal favorite, "It's against the law to not pick it up! The fine is $75, If I catch u, you will pay a higher price"

The messages spanned about a quarter mile along the sidewalk.

Clearly, this guy meant business.

It was impossible not to notice it, but I didn't do much else other than read it and think, boy that guy is on a mission.

Fast forward to a few minutes later. I was running down one of the dead ends in our neighborhood, had come to the end, and was turning around. I noticed a sullen little boy that looked about nine years old, who seemed to be in a really bad mood, I thought perhaps it was because his parents had asked him to run some errand outside in the misting rain.

I noticed a guy on a bicycle riding really slow. I thought that was weird, most people don't ride bikes really slow, particularly if they are older than twelve. If you're riding for exercise, you obviously want to ride fast enough to get your heart rate up, and if you're riding for some other reason, especially in the rain, you probably have some kind of an end-goal, meaning you'd still probably ride with some marked purpose. This guy just seemed to be coasting.

Weird, but whatever. I kept on.

Fast forward again, to ten minutes later and the other side of the neighborhood. I had reached another dead end and was turning around again.

I spotted the same guy on the same bike riding at the same ridiculously slow speed.

I came to a realization.

This guy was following me.

My first thought was mild panic. This can't be good.

Then I thought it through and calmed down a bit. I mean, it was still broad daylight, I live in a busy subdivision, and I have a dog with me that I'm fairly certain would try to protect me in at least some mild fashion if I was in danger.

Then I thought maybe this guy was just some creep that liked to watch girls run.

I was rounding into the last loop that would lead me back home, when it dawned on me.

This was Mr. Sidewalk Chalk.

He must have seen me running by his house with my dog, and decided to follow me to see if I was the poop culprit.

That realization was at least a better alternative than Mr. Creepy Exercise Stalker and Mr. Creepy Abduction Stalker, so I'll admit I was relieved.

I finished my loop, and made my way back home. I relayed the story to Ben.

He was not pleased.

I'm gonna go find that guy and give him a chocolate sundae.


Ben, I don't think that's a very good idea. I mean, he was just following me to see if I was the one who let my dog poop all over his sidewalk. I don't think he meant to DO anything to me.


No, I think he already assumes you are that person and he was just following you to find out where you lived. Which he found out. 


Hmmm. Interesting point.


And this guy is clearly on the edge of sanity, what with all the threatening sidewalk messages, just imagine all the retaliation he might be planning. I don't want to wake up in the morning with dog poop smeared all over the front porch or anything.


After some thought, I admittedly agreed that I was a little concerned that now this guy had it in for me, seeing as how I was running past his house with a dog and without a poop-scooping bag.

To be clear, I just don't let Canada poop while we're running. If he looks like he's going to, I just yank him along. He holds it 'til we get home. Maybe that's mean, but I already hate having to strap things to my body like my iPod for music and the Droid for the MyTracks app, and I draw the line at strapping pooper-scooper bags to my person.

Anyway, back to the story. After stewing over the situation for a few minutes, I started to share Ben's fear that this guy totally had our address and was probably at that very minute working on a shrine in his basement with my picture and Canada's picture and all sorts of gruesome plans of how he was going to get back at us for allegedly defiling his yard.

Ben comes up with a plan.

I'm just gonna go talk to him.


Are you sure that's a good idea?


Well, I'm going to tell him that I don't like him following my wife around. And I'd rather face this situation head-on than wait until this guy completely loses his marbles and starts pipe-bombing our mailbox or something.


Well....okay. But I don't want you to get into trouble. Or get hurt.


To which Ben rolls his eyes at me and walks out the door.

He walked to the guy's house, which was pretty easy to identify what with all the chalk messages, particularly the one inviting the offender to come knock on the guy's door, and basically pointing to Mr. Sidewalk Chalk's front porch.

On the way, he snapped photos of the sidewalk messages. See Exhibit A, above.

He knocked on the door, and the guy answered. And said, "I'm the guy that was following your wife on my bike."

Ben said, "Yes."

Then the guy goes into this explanation that he just wanted to find out who was leaving the poop on his sidewalk and he wasn't trying to do anything threatening, and he just reacted when he saw someone with a dog run by his house. And he basically apologized and then Ben started talking to him about how to set up security cameras if he really wanted to catch this person, and they talked about the cost of cameras and where he should put them. Ben says he was really a passive guy, despite the seething anger he displayed in his sidewalk messages.

They chatted for about three minutes, and then Ben was on his way.

Disaster averted.

Good Clean Fun

This past weekend, me and eleven of my bestest co-workers participated in the 7th annual Marine Mud Run here in South Bend.

It was a 3.1 mile course full of obstacles and, of course, mud. And more mud. And did I mention the mud?

My team before the race. Look how nice and clean we all are.

That's me, on the ground. This was the last obstacle before the finish. That guy in the red "Staff" shirt was there for two purposes: a) to yell at people to get off his course and b) to rub mud on any mud-free area of clothing of the racers.

 After finishing. I told you it was muddy.

 Here we are after getting hosed off by the fire hose. Ahhh, refreshing.

 Me 'n' mah work peeps. 

We had a great time, my knee held out, and we supported the Marines' Toys for Tots program in the process.

Gettin' dirty in the name of the kids. Can you beat it?

I'm a Taker, Not a Giver

I signed up for a blood drive at my gym.

Whenever my work has had a blood drive, I've donated. It seems only right.

Here's the thing.  My blood type is AB+.

Which means? I'm a universal recipient. Yep, that's right folks, I'm one of 3% of the population that can take blood from every single one of you people out there, should I ever be in such a situation as to need it.

But that means I can only donate my blood to fellow AB+ers.

Every time I donate, I envision the lab technician running the stats on my blood, marking it as an AB+, then rolling their eyes and storing it in the rarely-used blood-storage-locker labeled "This Stuff is Practically Useless".

I suppose it's still a good thing, them having my practically-useless blood, because when one of my fellow 3% is in need of a blood transfusion, they can use mine instead of the universal donor, O-, thus saving the coveted O for the other 97% of the population.

But I still feel kind of guilty.

The Deed is Done

Sophie's hair has been trimmed.

Let the madness begin.

A Goodbye Letter

Dear Fountain Soda,

I'm sorry that it has to end this way, but it's time to go our separate ways.

It's not that I don't love you. In fact, quite the opposite. That's what makes this goodbye so heartbreaking. It's just....well, you're just not good for me anymore.

I'll always cherish the times we had together. Trust me, I will never forget how you got me through those three rough pregnancies, when there wasn't a solid food on the planet that I could keep down. I could always count on you. The Whopper Jr craving came and went, the boiled hot dogs were but a passing fancy. But you, fountain soda, were the one thing I could rely on to give me at least some mild satisfaction in an otherwise miserable existence.

I remember the time my father-in-law thought he could replace you with a plain old canned soda, that I wouldn't know the difference if he poured it in a cup with ice. Oh, how he misunderstood our connection to one another.

I remember when I cut you out a few years ago; the intense caffeine withdrawal headaches that seemed to gnaw at my conscience....how could this be the right thing to do when it feels so wrong? I don't remember exactly when I fell off that wagon, but you welcomed me back with open arms. McDonald's even started to sell giant ones of you for a dollar, making our rekindled relationship that much sweeter.

But alas, fountain soda, it is time for our affair to end. I have to admit, it's mostly because of the new fitness app I've downloaded to the iPod. I just cannot stomach telling MyFitnessPal about you. Watching my calorie deficit shrink to nothing just because I've let you infiltrate my life again -- it's just too painful to endure.

So that's why we haven't seen each other since last week. Yes, it's a bittersweet farewell. But I know in my heart it is the right thing to do.

I hope you can find someone else, and forget about me. It's really the best thing for all of us.

Fondly,

DD

I Can't Think of a Title

Sophie's taken to double-pluralizing words.

Yummmm, can I have some eggses?

Look mom, I put my shoeses on!

Momma, I can put the spoonses away!

That last one was when she was 'helping' me unload the dishwasher and proceeded to put all the forks in the knife partition and all the spoons in the aluminum foil drawer.

Thanks, Sophie.

I'm trying to figure out where she picked up this habit, but I can't think of any words that legitimately sound double-pluralized.

Except 'ellipses'.

And I'm pretty sure we don't use that word very often.

Hmmm, there's also 'cheeses'. We do talk about cheese a lot in this house. But we don't talk about cheeses. 'Cheeses' pretty much always implies you are at some swanky dinner party and you're commenting on the fine array of fancy cheeses available for your perusal.

At our house, it's more like, "should I add some cheese to this potato dish? Yes? Okay, cheese it is." and "Boy this glass of wine sure tastes great, how about some cheese and crackers too?" and "Mmmm, cheese in a can is totally awesome."

That last one is solely attributable to Ben, because while I am a cheese-lover extraordinaire, I just can't stomach cheese in a can.

I'm a little off-topic here.

And, since I can't think of a good segue, I'm just gonna jump right into how I picked Noah up from his first day of Preschool, and he was happy and excited and seemed to do a great job. He played on the slide at recess and talked to the other Noah in his class and sang a song about numbers and had pretzels at snack time. He's so cute and little and smart and I'm very proud of him.

He rockses.

PreSchoolers in da Hizzouse

Travis started school today. He's officially a first grader.

We had Preschool meet & greet for Noah this morning, so after we saw Travis on his way to his first-grade classroom, Noah and I headed for his Preschool room, to meet his new teacher and some of his classmates.

I forgot to get any pictures of that part. But above are the boys in the church before school started.

We found Noah's backpack hook, and schoolwork cubby, and the library corner and the puzzle shelf. Noah made up a placemat for snack time, he wrote his name on it in his rudimentary, fist-clutching penmanship. He also drew a picture of a fire wearing a helmet and making S'mores and explained it all to Mrs. Golubski, the teacher's helper in his class, who incidentally was the teacher's helper in Travis's Kindergarten class last year. So she knows all about Noah and remembers him from Wednesdays last year when he always made a big production out of picking Travis up from class.

Speaking of Travis's class, there are no less than 6 children in the Preschool class that are siblings of Travis's 1st-grade classmates. (Of course, that number is impacted dramatically by the triplets, whose older brother Carson has been in Travis's class for the past two years.) At any rate, there was a whole herd of us who dropped our older kids off at Room 5 and marched right down the hall to PreSchool Room 2 with younger siblings in tow.

We're like a gang.

A preschool slash 1st-grader parenting gang.

Watch out, yo. The hallways will never be the same.

Nightmarishly Genius

The other night, Travis came into our bedroom in the wee hours of the morning and said he'd had a bad dream. I asked him to elaborate, but he replied that he really didn't want to talk about it.

We cuddled for a bit, then it was time to wake up. All was fine.

Later in the day, he mentioned it again. That he'd had a bad dream last night. He volunteered a little more information:

If a meteor has a good dream, that means something bad happens.

That's what your bad dream was about?

Yes.

So, in your dream, if a meteor had a good dream, something bad was going to happen?

Yep.

Wow. That is kind of creepy.

But meteors aren't real, right?

Well...yes...meteors are real. But they can't dream. They're just like big rocks.

[giggle] Like my rock collection. And my rocks don't dream!!

Yessir.

I have to admit, I was a little impressed that his little subconscious brain was coming up with nightmares like this. Not just ordinary monsters in the closets for my little brainiac.

Sterling Silver Madness

I have this weird jewelry complex.

I can wear it all day long and not think a thing about it. The minute I get ready to take it off, it feels all constricting-like. As if they are not items of jewelry, but rather torture devices designed to slowly wear at me all day long until I just can't take it anymore.

It's like my earrings suddenly feel too heavy and dangly and itchy, and I can't get them out of my ears fast enough.

Or as if my watch is too tight around my wrist and feels all sticky and sweaty and it is making my skin crawl to even have it on.

Or as if my necklace is actually strangling me and I may very well choke to death if I don't get it off this very second and oh-my-god-the-clasp-is-sticking-and-my-fingers-are-all-fumbly-and-I-can't-get-it-unhooked-and-I-feel-like-this-thing-is-getting-tighter-around-my-throat-every-SECOND-AND-WHY-CAN'T-I-GET-THIS-DANG-NECKLACE-OFF-ME-HOLY-CRAP-I'M-GOING-TO-PASS-OUT-AND....whew.

It's quite a strange sensation. It's like a mini-panic-attack that appears for those few seconds between when I've decided to take my jewelry off and when I've actually removed said jewelry.

Then I'm back to normal.

Or, at least, back to whatever it is I am when I'm not totally crazy.

That rug really tied the room together.

Well, I've sunk to that level.

I'm about to write a blog post about potty training.

Consider yourself warned.

The thing is, I was all poised for Sophie to be a piece of cake to potty train. I mean, she had everything going for her.

She's a girl, and everyone keeps telling me girls are easier to potty train than boys.

She has two older brothers that go on the potty all the time, she's supposed to be eager to emulate them. 

She's our third kid, so we should be semi-pros at this by now.

So, I've been doing what I did with the other kids, where I spend a day with them pants-less, and regularly ask them if they need to potty, and repeatedly take them to sit on the potty even if they say they don't need to.

Sophie's response?

She pooped on the carpet.

This episode has happened TWICE.

I mean, at first she gets all excited about using the potty, and we sit, and nothing happens, and we do that about three times, and nothing is happening, and then two minutes later, while I am pouring Travis a glass of milk, she comes into the kitchen and tugs on my pants leg and says, "Momma! I pooped!" and by now I am smart enough to know this is NOT something I should be excited about, and I say in a somewhat suspicious tone, "really....show me where" and she takes my hand and leads me to the dining room and says "right here, and look, poop on the butterfly" because of course she also managed to soil whatever toys she had been playing with at the time.

And then I sigh and get to work cleaning it up, simultaneously thanking the Lord that Ben is not home right now because he just can't handle this stuff and cursing that Ben is not home right now because I am tired of always being the one on poop duty.

I refuse to be the person that spends weeks obsessing about potty training, so once I encounter a setback like this, I pretty much wash my hands of the whole thing (pun fully intended).

We're back to diapers.

I'm quite certain Sophie is insanely confused by the whole thing.

I don't much care. She's not pooping on my carpet anymore and right now, that is my primary concern.

Priorities, right?

Not screaming, but still creepy

My shins have been feeling dramatically better. (Thank you Zensah! I heart you!) My hips are all but completely rehabilitated.

Awesome, right?

Now......I've got a bum knee.

I'm not talking about just sore knees....I'm used to that and can deal with that well enough. Nope, I've got myself a Gee I think I'm just gonna totally give out in a sharp spasm of pain so you can't put any weight on me, hee hee problem knee.

I can't say for sure how it happened. The first time I was making an awkward step over a pile of clean laundry (yeah, that's right, I haven't put away my laundry from last week yet, what of it?) and felt a sharp pain and weakness in my right knee. It was gone as quickly as it appeared.

Since then, this short burst of misery has reared it's ugly head regularly, multiple times a day, and at the most inopportune times. Like when I'm relying on my knee. To support me. In standing. Or, heaven forbid, walking.

Each time, the severe pain is fleeting, and I'm left with only a lingering weakness that sort of pokes at me, like my knee is taunting me.

I could totally give out on you at any moment!! Hee hee! Are those stairs?? Hee hee, let's just see how far you make it down THOSE. Oh, the suspense is just killing me!

Today, I ran three miles on the treadmill. My knee did great. I was literally opening the locker room door after I'd showered and was heading back to work, thinking to myself, "I'm so glad my knee held out, if it can do a 3-mile run, surely it's just been some kind of flukey strain and nothing serious, hopefully it won't cause me any more troub-----"

And at that very moment, a sharp pain shot through my knee and it buckled underneath me. I had to limp/hobble my way to a table in the gym lobby, my face contorted in an awkward "I'm totally trying not to scream out in pain, I'm succeeding in that but I'm still creeping everybody out," sort of look.

Minutes later, it was back to normal with just that nagging twinge of weakness left in it's wake.

If you know me, you know I'm not likely to go to the doctor about this. I'm hoping and praying it is just some kind of ligament strain that will heal on its own.

I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, if you see me hobbling around looking deep in agonized thought and / or possibly constipated, you'll know what's going on.

Some Random Thoughts

• I'm quite pleased that my kids, thanks to the magic of Netflix on the Wii, are falling in love with old Inspector Gadget cartoons. That is quality entertainment, my friends.

• We've gotten through our month of multi-vacations, with our New York trip, and camping, and Canada. The trips were all terrific, but pre-vacation always turns me into a ball of stress. I decided that I'm pretty much the Charlie Sheen of vacationing, and by that I mean when I'm actually on my vacation, I'm pretty good at it and it all goes well, but behind the scenes and during all the prep work I'm a total loon.

• I promised the doctor at the Urban Adventure medic tent that I would go to my regular doctor to get my stitches removed, but by the time Sunday night rolled around, I decided that was a gigantic waste of time and money, and utterly unnecessary. So, I went to Wal-Mart and bought some tiny, sharp sewing scissors and snipped them myself in the bathroom mirror.

• I bought a one-thousand-piece puzzle when we were in Canada and spent the evenings and kids' nap times putting it together. With some help from Ben, Travis, Noah, Mac & Jody. I finished 998 pieces of it. The other two pieces were either not in the box (who knows what quality control is like in Canada) (just kidding, Canada! I heart you!), or Sophie dropped them down the cracks on the front deck, or fed them to the lake trout or something. I scoured the cabin from top to bottom and never found them. It was extremely frustrating.

• Sophie's going through a spitting phase. I've had to reprimand her three times this evening to not spit on the iPad, or the dog, or her dinner.

• I forgot to mention that we won the Urban Adventure Video Contest, which was announced at the awards ceremony after the race, and were able to take home a new iPod Touch and iPod Nano as our winnings. They have made themselves at home among the myriad of other Apple gadgets in our house, and are quite pleasant additions to our family.

• Speaking of Apple products, I'm very nearly fully converted to an Apple disciple. I never thought I'd say that. Certainly, I still use Windows at work, but as I type this blog from the MacBook at home, listening to my new Nano, downloading alphabet games on the Touch for Sophie, while the boys play Uno on the iPad, I consider myself pretty well won-over.

• The other day, Ben seemed genuinely surprised that I knew what an Allen wrench was. I'm no Bob Vila, but I was pretty insulted.

There. That's all the crap that's been swirling around in my brain for the last day or two. You're welcome.

We spent last week at a lovely little camp in Ontario, Canada. Ben's family has frequented this camp many times over the years, and our trip this year did not disappoint. My in-laws were there as well -- Ben's parents as well as his brother and family. The kids had a terrific time on the beach with all of Ute's cool water toys, we discovered Noah is a champion fisherman, we went hiking and boating and fishing and sunbathing, played cards and read books and put puzzles together, and were generally off the grid with little to no cell phone and internet access for the week.

Now that is a vacation.

Limberlost Lodge from above

My home for the week, Cottage #3. Mac & Jody and the boys were in the next cabin over, and Ben's parents were just up the hill.

(Above pictures courtesy of Limberlost Lodge)

Chillin' in the water

Ben and Mac on the Hydro-bikes. These things were pretty neat. And, as Mac liked to point out to me throughout the week, virtually impossible to fall off of to the point of requiring stitches.

Sophie became a baseball fan in honor of the Cubs' winning streak.

Ben and I kayaked with the kids to a tiny little beach on the other side of the lake.

Travis constantly searched for treasures.

Beach combing

Happy kids

We wore this one out daily. I would put her down for a nap each day, but she was so excited she kept getting up and out of bed to play around the cabin. I routinely found her collapsed asleep at random places. Here, on the wood floor in front of the stove. Totally normal.

On our last full day, we took the kids for a hiking trip up Rock Candy Mountain. It was about a 1,000-foot trek to the top and took us roughly two hours to go both up and down. A nice hike that the kids could do without too much difficulty, although there was a lot of Sophie-carrying involved.

Excited for the adventure

We're hiking!!

Sophie was a daddy's girl for most of the trip

View from our first stop...not quite at the top yet. We stopped here for goldfish crackers and pb&j.

For some reason the camera got a little swirly at the bottom left corner. Maybe the mountain is haunted.

Here we are at the top.

And now Ben, since he wasn't in the family picture above. We didn't mess with the timer on the camera because Sophie was running around too much and Noah was burying his head in the rocks and it wasn't worth it to me to risk one of them tumbling down the face of the mountain just to get a family photo of the five of us at once.

Naturally, we brought candy to eat at the top of the mountain. Noah had been disappointed that there wasn't candy growing on the mountain. He finally came to the conclusion that candy used to grow there years ago and that's why they named it that way.

Water break. The kids loved drinking from Dad's "magic water backpack"

Hiking is hard work, mom. Now give me some water and carry me back down.

Super Team Awesome....crossed the finish line, at least.

Third Annual Urban Adventure results are in. We finished all checkpoints despite some speed bumps, so to speak. We came in 45th out of 116 co-ed teams, but of course we really weren't competing for time.

The race started off with race officials handing out the course maps half an hour prior to start time, so strategy could be developed. The map showed you where the checkpoints were located, but did not tell you what was involved at each checkpoint. You were to bike to each checkpoint; you could complete the checkpoints in any order. One team member (me) wore a wristband, which was scanned upon completion of each checkpoint.

Here is our map, there were 23 total checkpoints located throughout downtown, Notre Dame/Holy Cross, and other surrounding areas.

We didn't get many pictures again this year, but below is a description of our race.

1. Farmer's Market: This checkpoint has been consistent in each running of the race, so we knew what to expect. We were given a list of grocery items to buy, which we then turned into the checkpoint officials. All purchased items were donated to a local charity.

2. Veteran's Memorial Park: gigantic inflatable bouncy slide.

3. Potawatomi Park Pool: Each team was given an inner tube, and teammates had to stand on opposite sides of the pool. The first team member would swim the length of the pool, the second team member would swim back. You had to have your body touching the inner tube the entire way. Yes, we had to jump in fully clothed, but it was a nice refreshing start to a hot day.

4. Howard Park: Slip 'n' Slide. More water, again, a good thing for the 90-degree temperature that was forecasted for the day.

5. East Race: Another staple of the Urban Adventure -- rafting down the river.

6. Colfax Bridge over the river: Zip line. They had four lines going this year, so in general, teams were able to go across simultaneously.

7. College Football Hall of Fame Gridiron: Pick up two large weights, run them down the gridiron to your waiting teammate, who ran them back.

8. LePeep Restaurant: Pour a pitcher of water into three glasses on a tray, carry the tray to your teammate at another table, teammate brings tray back and pours water back into pitchers.

9. Fiddler's Hearth Restaurant: Both teammates don kilts, then carry a caber (a long wooden pole....it's a Scottish thing) down the sidewalk, around the Scottish flag at the corner, and then back.

10. Morris Plaza: Teammates get their legs tied together, then kick a coconut around orange cones.

11. South Bend Civic Theatre: Act out a scene provided to you at the checkpoint, while wearing capes and velvet crowns.

This is where things went slightly awry for us. We had completed the downtown area, so were headed up north to Notre Dame. I was following Ben and was kind of distracted, not paying enough attention to the road. We hit a red light but were going pretty fast -- Ben stopped, but I hadn't noticed the red light, slammed on my brakes at the last moment and went skidding across the pavement.

I was pretty disoriented at first, hopped off from the middle of the road (thankfully didn't get hit by any cars) and went straight for the first aid kit in my bag. I was dripping blood but wasn't actually sure at that point how or where I was hurt. I thrust some band-aids at Ben and told him to get me patched up so we could keep going.

It was my chin that was banged up, and Ben was kind of unsure, trying to decide whether to take me to get stitches or not.

I'm fine, I'm sure I don't need stitches, let's just go.

Diane, we're literally right next to the hospital. Let's just go and get you cleaned up.

No, we are NOT not finishing this race, we delayed our Canada vacation for this, we've only done 11 checkpoints and this year we are GOING to get all the checkpoints done so help me God. Our race is not ending with me bleeding on the sidewalk.

I'm pretty sure you need stitches. If we wait until after the race to go to the hospital it will take forever and we'll be even later leaving for Canada.

Whatever, Ben, I have decided, we are not going to the hospital, just put this band-aid on my chin already and let's go. We'll stop by the medic tent at the finish line and maybe they can take care of me there. I probably don't need stitches anyway.

So, Ben gave in, he applied the band aid, which barely worked but at least kept my gaping wound mildly covered and appeared to stop the bleeding, and we were on our way.

12. Irish Green: Large wooden US maps were set up, with holes at various destination cities. We were to make paper airplanes and get them through one of the holes.

The funny part about this is that I was still a little dazed at this point, so much so that I could NOT figure out how to make a paper airplane. I folded the paper a bit, sure, but it looked more like a sad origami attempt at a block of wood than anything that would actually fly through the air. Ben kind of snorted at me and sadly shook his head, then took his super amazing paper flying machine and made it through the hole handily.

13. Hot Box Pizza - we had to take a pizza box and deliver it around the corner and down the street.

14. Innovation Park - we had to draw two pieces of paper from a bowl, each containing a word. Using those two words, we had to come up with a new product idea, and pitch the idea to one of the checkpoint officials. We drew "seed" and "putty", and Ben sold the idea of a grass-growing putty that you spread on your lawn which drops grass seed and then disintegrates.

15. Notre Dame Football Stadium: run a lap around the inside of the stadium. This was more my thing and I was pretty much feeling back to normal by this point. They also had a fire engine waiting at this checkpoint, spraying water for a quick cool-down.

16. St. Mary's gym: One teammate (Ben) had to bounce ping pong balls to the other teammate, who had to catch them in a little megaphone.

17. Holy Cross: Giant inflatable obstacle course. Tore up my chin a little bit again going through this one. Had to take a slight pit stop to clean up and re-apply bandages.

18. Holy Cross gym: Make a free throw. Right up Ben's alley.

19. St. Joseph's High School: Salmon toss. They had coolers of salmon that teammates had to throw back and forth to each other from 10 feet apart. They were stinky and heavy. If you dropped it you had to go back to the end of the line. Ben and I are expert fish-handlers, thankfully, and caught both on the first attempt.

20. Mystery Photo Checkpoint: Our race packet included a picture of a city landmark, the City Cemetery. The checkpoint was not shown on the map, but teams were to find the checkpoint from the photo. I suspected it was on Washington St and we got confirming directions from another team.

21. Salvation Army Kroc Center: Count the number of exterior doors on the new Kroc center building (currently under construction). I was back to being confused by this point, or maybe just tired, because I couldn't figure it out and thought the answer was 13. Ben correctly counted the 17 doors, no thanks to me.

22. United Beverage Warehouse: Unstack 12 kegs on pallets, load them onto handcarts, run them to the other side of the warehouse and re-stack them.

(They were empty kegs, by the way. We're not super-human, after all.)

23. Finish line!!

Straight to the medic tent for us, where the very nice physician there debated about whether to give me stitches or not, then decided it was necessary because of the amount of movement in that part of my chin. (Maybe she thought I talked too much.) I told her my dilemma that we intended to leave for Canada straight from the race and really didn't have time for an ER visit; she debated some more and then conceded that she could give me stitches right there on the tiny bench under the tent at Coveleski Stadium.

Not one of my finest moments.

This year, they had about 320 two-person teams among all divisions (Elite, Open, Family, and Junior). Race results can be found here.

Mark your calendars for Urban Adventure 2012, July 28th.

Click here for pictures from Urban Adventure's Facebook page.