The McGrath Family is EXPANDING!!!!

I can't believe Ryan and I have kept it a secret this long; mum's the word around our house lately!  But, we want to officially announce to the world (and Facebook) that our small little family is officially expanding. 

We couldn't wait one second longer to introduce you all to the newest member of our family.  Sorry Mom, we aren't expecting a small little baby right now, instead, we've added a CAMPER!!  I know, I know, a mean little trick right?  I've got to use some sort of hook line to get you guys interested and reading after posting like 80 million times during Ironman. 

Are you pumped?  We are!!!

We'd like to take you on a little tour of our new little house:

See, Ryan and Staley can't wait to show you around!  So come on in ya'll, the weather's fine!  Ok, that's a total lie.  It's hot and sticky outside but we are super excited about our purchase so I'm blogging from inside the camper and dang it, if I'm out here in the heat, then you are too!

So, first I'd like to start by showing you the kitchen.  Isn't she cute?  Check out that little baby fridge down there.  For the most part we don't know that we will use the fridge much (since it is in fact still camping right?) but we will probably use it to keep the important things cold like meat, milk and of course CHEESE!  If you don't know that cheese is a daily staple for us then well, you just don't know Ryan very well.

After the kitchen I'd like to direct your attention to the far left of the above picture.  That is the guest bedroom.  Can't you just picture yourself there?  Lauren, Brian, Betsy, Pat, Lindsay, Nate, Sue and anyone else I'm forgetting, we will be starting a guest sign up sheet so come early and come often to make sure you've got the best bed around!!

Up next on the official tour is the Master bedroom.  Ohhh....ahhh!  Feel free to wipe the slobber off your chin ladies and gents because we are moving up in the world.  No more 1 inch sleeping pads, we've got a queen sized bed!  Not that we will completely give up the "real" camping (Jamie and Zach, we need to plan that backpacking trip for next spring ASAP) but for the weekends that we feel like being "car campers" we've upgraded ourselves big time.  Really, to be honest, we finally decided on a camper because of all of Ryan's races.  Now, instead of renting hotel rooms all over the Midwest we can pull this puppy along with us and enjoy all of the comforts of a real bed at the low low rate of a campground.

Finally, I'd like to direct your attention to the living room/entertaining space:

Actually, that bench doubles as a bed too!!  So, I guess we will have 3 short straws and the rest long when we are camping with friends and we can't decide who gets the deeelux accommodations. 

We do already have a few changes/mods we want to do to it so let me give you the run down on those:

1. Add a hitch to the backside of the camper so we can add a bike rack/cooler rack etc to it thereby adding additional storage and functionality.
2. Scrape off the old logo/stripes and repaint the outside.  It's looking a little shabby on the outside but I've been all about DIY lately (I blame my favorite blog), so I'm sure I can google a paint/primer situation that will do the trick
3. Remove the porta-potty because well, it's just gross.  There is no drainage system hooked up in the camper so its sort of like peeing in a can (sorry for that mental picture) so we are going to remove the potty.  We are both grown adults that can walk to the bathroom if we need to go (or help water nature if we are feeling lazy). 
4. Add storage drawers where the potty was.  This will allow us some extra space to store things like silverware, plates and all those things that our wussie friends(yep, I replaced a letter there) won't camp without.  I suppose those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.  We did just buy a camper.
5. Fix a few of the exterior things like light blubs, caulk etc.
6. I'm sure there are more mods rolling around in Ryan's head that he hasn't figured out a sales pitch for but for now, that's all (I think!)

So yeah, she ain't huge and she ain't new, but she is OURS!!  We will probably upgrade someday as our family really does grow but for now this little pop-up is perfect for us and we can't wait to give her a whirl.  Which, we are thinking will be on our 1 year anniversary.  Red neck right?  But hey, it was my idea and you know what, I'm excited about it!!

One last Louisville post....promise!

So, I was feeling really lazy on Saturday afternoon and opted for nap instead of blogging so now I've got to go back in time just a little bit and share our Saturday adventures with you.

We started the day by going to the Falls of Ohio State Park.  You might be sort of confused, because I will be the first to admit I was.  First off, the park is located in Clarksville, Indiana (where our hotel was located) NOT Ohio State.  Then, you might imagine that we actually saw "falls"...like waterfalls....right??  Nope!  Here is an aerial view of the park:

Confusing right??  Apparently, by "falls" they meant that before that dam was built (along the top of the picture) the water rushed through this area sort of like a waterfall?  I don't know, you've got me.  When we were there on Saturday the water was far more receded and you could walk pretty far out on that limestone.  Embedded in the rock floor there are fossils (if you knew what to look for).  In any case, it was an excuse to get out and walk around for awhile instead of sitting in the hotel.  I managed to forget my camera in the car so maybe if Ellyn sends me a few pictures from this part of our day I can updated it later.  In short, I'm not sure that I would go back, but, for the $2 we paid to visit the park it wasn't a bad activity at all.

After the Falls we went to a Louisville MUST!  I've give you one picture and see if you can guess where we found ourselves Saturday afternoon.

Did you guess it?  That's right, we hit up the Louisville Slugger Factory located right in the heart of downtown Louisville.  We took a tour of the inside of the factory and learned all about how they make bats.  Ryan and Dan were pretty impressed with the factory and we all thought it smelled just like our garage and Gazebo Junction (where Dan used to work). 

Did you know they make over 1.8 million bats per year at this little factory?  And, that they build all of the bats for the major leagues?  We learned that each major league player gets around 100 bats personalized (make/color/measurements/engraving etc) EACH YEAR?  That just seems crazy!! 

Inside the factory we saw big shelving unit with some of the biggest names in baseball....each player had a cubbie hole of sorts with his personalized bats inside in all stages of the process.  Some where in the very first stages (still in long cylinders of wood called billets ) and some were almost ready to go out.  It was pretty dang cool to imagine that someday soon some of the most famous men in baseball would be holding those bats.  We even saw the bats for Magglio Ordonez and Paulie Konerko (I promise you I have no idea who those guys are...but Ryan said it was a big deal).

Hehehe...I know this is a family site, but I just couldn't resist this one.  It was a wax sculpture and I couldn't believe how real the skin on his face felt.  Anyways.....at least Ryan was able to take a nice mature picture :O)

All in all it was a great day!  We even got some cute little mini-bats that came in VERY handy for those cute little signs Ellyn made for race day. 

Ironman Louisville 2011....FINISHER!!!

I promise to keep this one short because well, I'm sleepy, Ryan's sleepy and you all are probably really tired of all the millions of Facebook updates and blog posts I've bombarded you with.  I hope that you've enjoyed them at least and that maybe, just maybe, your sort of felt like you were right here with us cheering Ryan along.

First off, I want to send a huge Thank You out to all of you that have been supporting via Facebook, texts and calls.  We've enjoyed your "company" throughout the day and Ryan will enjoy reading them all tomorrow when he is finally rested.

Now to the good stuff!!

I didn't get a great "crossing the finish line" pic of Ryan mostly because the great tracker app we've been following all day failed me in his last moments, and because well, there are just alot of things to be doing when you finally see him.  So, you'll have to make do with a great finisher photo.

Here are the official details:
Swim time : 1:08:49 - 89th in his division and 570 overall
Bike time:  6:08:40 - 121st in his division and 749 overall
Run time:  4:37:00 - 108th in his division and 649 overall

Total race time (que the theatrical music....dun...dun dun....): 12:07:25!!!!

Oh so close to his personal goal of sub-twelve hours but all things considered far better than he had realistically hoped to accomplish. 

And, for that, every Ironman deserves a post-race beer.

Finally, if you aren't sick of reading yet, check back tomorrow to see about all the things we did on the Saturday before the race.  I didn't get a chance to blog it, mostly because I took a nap instead, so I plan to post one more time about our adventures here in Louisville. 

Ironman Louisville 2011 (Run update)

Alright, once again I will start with the important stuff and then go from there. 

That's right.  Although there is an Ironman going on in Louisville right now, and many consider the race impossible....part of a bucket list, or maybe just crazy, somehow this guy and his crazy African Tortoise won the first picture of this blog post.  Nope, I'm not kidding....this guys was literally walking his 8 year old turtle down the street in downtown Louisville.  That's right folks, walking his turtle.  When I saw it I just knew we had to pull over and the get story.  This turtle will live between 80-90 years and is just over 8 years old.  Somehow, this man seemed to think it was totally normal to be walking his turtle on a Sunday afternoon.

Ok, now for the stuff you guys really came here to read about.  We saw Ryan at 3pm, right on schedule.  He came through transition and although he seemed to have a little bike malfunction right as he came into transition he seemed to be in good spirits and rode his bike in.  I'm not sure what happened but I'm sure he will tell us about it in another 4ish hours.  At this rate we expect him to be done around 7:30 which puts him really really close to his personal goal of a sub-12 hour race.  Things seem to be going exactly to schedule and he's doing a great job!!

We've been having a great time with those heads on a stick!!  Here Lindsay and I scored the best seats in the house to watch him come in from the bike.  We were able to see above everyone and give the rest of our cheering section a heads up that he was coming though.

See...pretty happy right??  At least he's doing a good job of pretending for the camera!! 

I just checked my athlete tracker app and it looks like he is around mile 13 (half way done!!).  He's ranking 749 overall and 127 in his age group.  Those numbers fluctuate a little as other racers that may have started after him come through but he is doing a great job and we are super excited that in just a few short hours we will be cheering for him as he crosses the finish line and they announce "Ryan McGrath, you ARE an Ironman!"  Man, I can't wait to hear those words.  I'm sure Ry can't either :O)

Stay tuned for one final post from me with the final race details.

Ironman Louisville 2011 (Bike update)

After a refreshing breakfast back at the hotel and a few minutes of Blogging we decided to see if we could find Ryan out on the bike course.  We checked out the race route map and drove about 30 minutes to a small town outside of Louisville.  The bike course looped through the town twice so we figured we had a good chance of catching him there.  After arriving we figured out that it was roughly mile 38 and 68.  My app said that he had just passed mile 40 so we barely missed him on his first lap, but we knew we would be able to catch him on the second.

So, we camped out, got some ice cream and spent the next hour and a half cheering on the racers.  Lindsay defiantly gets the "best cheer squad" award....she did great.  She was all about ringing that cow bell and cheering for each and every racer that past.  If I ever race, I want her on my cheering squad for sure!!!

Ryan made plenty of "paper" appearances and 1 real life appearance.  We saw him about 1.5 hours after we arrived and he was looking pretty good.  So, he's just over 1/2 done with the race and coming in at almost exactly the timing I expected.  His pace has slowed just slightly during the bike (from 19.5 miles per hour at first to just under 18 at the last check in point), but that is exactly what we expected.  Two years ago in Madison Ryan was feeling great on the bike and then had a hard time with the run as he had sort of used up all his energy.  So, as a learning from that we knew that he'd hopefully be pacing himself throughout the bike.

We expect that he will be coming through transition at around 2:30 so we are headed back out to see if we can find him there. 

Keep it up, Love....1/2 way there!!!

Ironman Louisville 2011

I suppose I will start with the part you guys really care about.....

Ryan got in the water this morning around 7:35.  It wasn't a mass start, like Wisconsin, but instead you were able to "self-seed" yourself the morning of the race.  Basically, when you arrived, you jumped in a REALLY REALLY REALLY long line of other swimmers....if you came early, you went in the water early, if you were on the later side, you started later.  The race started at 7 am and Ryan was probably about 2/3 of the way through the race pack.  We weren't able to actually see him hit the water, but we did get a chance to grab this great pic before he went though the start line.

Here we are just before the race start.  Ryan was less than excited about taking this picture but hey...us spectators don't have much else to do all day while he races.  We left the hotel around 5:45 this morning and were at the race by 6am.  It was about a mile walk from transition to the swim start so we started our day with a little bit of exercise (good for us non-racers!).

So, we were able to see him just before he hit the water but we estimated when he would be into the bike transition based on when we saw him last and headed that direction to see if we could find him.

Here is a far away shot of the swim start....

Another "not so excited to have a pre-race picture" picture..... Oh Ry...

Check out our awesome cheering section and those super fun signs that Ellyn made.  These signs have been quite the hit with the other spectators....do they look familiar?  They are just like the ones that Ellyn made for our wedding, of the people that weren't able to make it!!

Luckily, a fellow watcher mentioned an athlete trackers so I asked him about it.  I'd been googling all weekend to see if we could find one, and so I was super pumped to find out in was an IPhone App.  So quickly downloaded it (for $2.99....which is crazy especially after what we paid for this race, but hey, they got $3 outta me this morning).  Anyways, the app is great because there are tons of checkpoints on it (1 for the swim, 4 for the bike and 7 for the run) so we will be able to track him all day.  And, it seems pretty quick to update.  About a minute after we saw him come through the swim-to-bike transition it updated with all his data.  So, fingers crossed, I should be able to have some good updates for you all.

He finished the swim portion in just over 1 hour 5 minutes and was in transition for just under 6 minutes.  Which means that he is right on schedule.  Although we ALWAYS find him when we try, getting pictures from this point on is pretty hit or miss.  It's alot like a live version of "Where's Waldo", but here is one of the best pictures we got of him in transition. 

The next track point is mile 23 of the bike and I estimate that he will be crossing that here in the next ten minutes.  So, with that said, I'm going to get off this computer and head back out to see if we can find our athlete.  I plan to blog and update facebook throughout the day so keep checking back if you are interested in tracking him has he completes this major accomplishment!!  I am so proud of him and so excited to see him cross that finish line tonight....in alot of ways, he is my hero.

Good luck babe!

Louisville bound!

Whelp, we've arrived!  We got to Louisville around 1:30 local time (12:30 Chicago) and Ryan is all registered.  Tonight he's got a mandatory meeting where he will hear all the rules/times etc but, until Sunday morning, it's smooth sailing now. 

There isn't much to report just yet, except that we did find out that racers are allowed to "self-seed" themselves for the start time, meaning if he wants to start at 7 am all he needs to do is get there early and get in the front of the group.  From everything we've read all of the races will be through the start line around 7:30 on Sunday morning. 

For now we plan to hang out and just enjoy Louisville for the weekend.

More to come later!!

Teaser....because I can :O)

Sunday is a big day in the McGrath household.  For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, it's IRONMAN!!!!

We leave tomorrow morning for Louisville, KY.  The race is on Sunday and I do, solemnly vow, to post updates throughout the weekend and during the race.  Check back right here if you are interested in hearing about his progress.

Grandpa turns 80!

This weekend was full of celebrations and fun!  Friday night Betsy threw a great "Re-birth" party for Lo as she is officially off blood thinners!!  We are all so excited to welcome her back to the land of the drinkers and were pumped to Par-Tay with her.  Once again, Betsy hosted another amazing party at her house complete with a drinking themed menu.  We had Beer-Can Chicken, Beer Bread and I'm sure a few other "drink" infused items :O) At some point we decided that playing some games (girls against boys) would be fun.  It was...alot!  But, I think we all learned something on Friday night: don't pay boys vs girls....it just spells T.R.O.U.B.L.E.  Do you guys know that song??  I grew up with country music so that statement always makes me laugh just a little and now I want to start singing it, hold please. 

Ok, back...sorry.  Man, I'm a dork.  Oh well.

Anyways, on top of our Friday evening celebrations, this week is also Ryan's grandpa's 80th birthday!  I think the official day is actually Wednesday the 24th, but we celebrated it the whole weekend.  Saturday morning we packed up and drove out to the lake.  It was pouring down rain for most of the afternoon but it did eventually clear up in the evening and we were able to enjoy a few cruises around the lake. 

For dinner we had ribs (yum!!) and I made two cheesecakes for us to celebrate with.  After dinner the "kids" spent the evening in the gazebo entertaining the lake with our signing abilities.  Hahaha!  I have a feeling if you asked them, they'd have a different impression of our singing skills but man did we enjoy ourselves.  Imagine Row, Row, Row, You Boat, 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, and the Song that Never Ends...all being sung at the same time, in round.  Ha!!  We had a great time!!!

Sunday the celebrating continued.  We spent the morning and early afternoon hanging around the house/cruising the lake.  And then headed to one of grandpa's favorite restaurants for a late lunch with the rest of the family.  Tiebel's is known for its Perch which, being a fish lover, I totally ordered.  In a word, it was YUMMY!!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!  Hope you enjoyed EVERY minute of it!!

Hanging Lake

Yesterday we walked to the Hanging Lakes.  We've done alot of exploring on this vacation and have seen alot of cool things but personally I've got to say that Hanging Lakes was my second favorite adventure of the whole trip.  My first would be the crazy Whitewater Rafting trip, but a very close second would have to be our hike up to Hanging Lakes.  A fellow hiker mentioned that National Geographic voted this trail one of the top ten hiking trails in the whole country.  We couldn't verify that on Google, but I'd put down money that it is certainly among the top trails.  We certainly had to work at it, but I've got to say, for views like this, it's hard to complain about the walk up.

The trail is just under 1.5 miles up and signs warn that it is a very difficult climb, and to bring plenty of water.  Ryan and I were skeptics, but the trail certainly proved us wrong.  It took us about an hour to climb to the very tippy top of the trail but it was soooo worth it.  Trust me guys, this was the kind of hike that would make you want to quit your jobs and move to Colorado just to be able to experience this type of scenery every single day (if not weekend for those of us that have to work to pay the bills).

Here is a picture to give you an idea of the terrain that we climbed to get to the Hanging Lakes.  Behind Ryan and I you will see a steep rocky slope, we basically climbed stuff like that for 1.5 miles all the way to the top.

The hike was tough, but it was totally totally worth it when you got to the top.  Once you reached the summit, you had two choices: go to Hanging Lakes, or climb just a tiny bit farther to Spouting Rocks.  Ryan and I were on a mission (what else is new) so we accented to the Spouting Rocks and let me just say, we were not disappointed!!!

It is very hard to describe or even capture the true awesomeness of these falls, it was truly breathtaking.  Mom said that when they came up here four years earlier the larger of the two falls wasn't even flowing.  I felt very fortunate to get to experience the awesomeness of nature that was displayed here.  Seriously guys, if I haven't conveyed it, this was one of the most awesome hikes I've ever done.  If you are ever in the area you've got to make the trip out to see this trail!!!

Above is a great picture of the actual Hanging Lake.  So, to give you some perspective, the waterfalls that I posted above were just about this area where Joey and Andy are standing.  Then, you can see that there is a second waterfall that comes into the Hanging Lake.  This lake is cool for two reasons, the first is that it is truly suspended here on top of the mountain and then flows down in smaller rivers down the side of the mountain (where we hiked).  The second is the color of the lake. The picture above does a pretty good job of showing the aqua marine color of the water, but basically there is some mineral in the water that turns it this awesome greeny blue color.  It seriously looks like it could be right in the middle of the Caribbean.

For more professional pictures of the Hanging Lakes check out this website.

We had a great time on this adventure, and as I've said, it was one of my favorite from our trip out here.  Here are a few final pictures to cap her off.  Enjoy!!

P.S.  Ryan and I are moving here and never coming back!!!  Visit us!!!

Breck and Biking...two days and two adventures

Tuesday:
Yesterday we decided to take it easy after our exciting rafting trip on Monday and headed into Breckenridge.  We have had the most amazing weather all this week and the last two days haven't been an exception.  It was around 80 degrees and sunny, so we spent a few hours exploring around downtown Breckenridge.

We had lunch and a few beers at the Breckenridge Brewing Company.  We split up for awhile and did some shopping and had a little fun at a hat store.

Wednesday:
Then, today (Wednesday), we biked down the Vail pass.  Well, some of us biked down, others biked up as well. Ryan left around 7am to bike up the summit (10,550 ft), then down the other side, then back up again, and finally down with us towards Vail.  Andy left about 45 minutes later and he planned to bike to the top of the summit and meet us there then go back down with the group.  From our condo here in Vail the bike ride is about 20 miles, all up hill, with about a 2,000 foot climb.  Cousin Karen and Joe came up from Denver and met us to do the bike ride as well, so we had a total of 8 of us heading down the hill.  The smart ones of the group (ie: everyone but Ryan and Andy) took 4 wheels (ie: cars) to get to the top and just rode down.  Again, the weather was beautiful, nothing crazy happened, and we had an overall great time!!

Now, it's dinner time!!!  We are having tacos courtesy of Joey and Andy.  Tomorrow.....we will be doing some hiking so stay tuned for that.