Devil's Lake Tri + Dan's 72nd Birthday

 

You know we love camping - from May to October we try to plan at least one camping trip per month and most years we end up with even more.  This year we were able to combine a camping trip with Dan's 72nd birthday AND a tri race (which I think Ryan hasn't done since before Hazel was born!).  The weather is starting to cool around here and this weekend was a mix of summer and fall.  It was cool enough in the evenings and mornings to need pants and sweatshirts, but warm enough during the middle of the day to be in shorts and t-shirts.

We took everyone on one of our favorite hikes near Devil's Lake - Parfrey's Glen.  We've done this hike 3 times now and we love it every time.  It's not long, but the topography at the end is really neat at the end of the trail.  We aren't the only people that love this hike though and it tends to get VERY busy by late morning.  The parking lot totally fills up and people park up to a half mile down the side of the road just to do the hike.  In face, this time we went, we noticed the house across the street opened up a grass field for pay parking!  Luckily we arrived on the front end of the rush and had the trail mostly to ourselves and the waterfall at the end was all ours for over 30 minutes!  As we hiked out we saw big group after big group headed in and, sure enough, the cars had started to line the side of the road.  We timed it perfectly.

The kids remember this hike from our other adventures there and they love it.  There are small streams along the side of the path all the way to the glen and then the big rocks at the end are hard to resist exploring on.  It was even a great opportunity for Clem to get off the leash and get some wiggles out in the water.  She had us all cracking up with her zoomies after she got wet in the waterfall.

Saturday evening we celebrated Dan's birthday with dinner at Driftless Glen - a nice distillery in downtown Baraboo.  After dinner we made a fire and sang happy birthday with pie and homemade ice cream.  I think the kids managed to finagle in 'smores too.  

Sunday morning was race day and Ryan was up and at race check in before the girls and I were awake.  His wave was one of the last which meant we had time to whip up a quick "Go Daddy" race sign (how did I not get a picture of that?!) that morning while eating breakfast.  We joined Ryan at the race start and watched him do the swim portion and come through transition on the bike.  Since much of the race took place right within the campground at Devil's Lake we opted to wait at the camper during the bike portion of the race.  It was too hard to get out of the park with the roads being closed down, and, the run happened right within the campground.

We played a few games of Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese, Pizza while we waited for Ryan to come back through to transition to the run and I worked on starting to pack up the camper.  Because....right after the race we drove to Milwaukee for the third part of the weekend - Aunt Peggy's Memorial.

Ryan was really happy with the race and how he placed overall.  He said it felt great to be racing again and definitely wants to sign up for more races next year.  Racing was such a big part of his life before he started Fox River Millwork and before we had kids.  It's nice to see that he's carving out time for this hobby in his life again.  Plus, it's good for the kids to see us making healthy habits and it's fun to cheer the racers on along the course - but...I have exactly ZERO intentions of ever racing one myself (just so we're clear here)!

As soon as Ryan finished the race and was able to get his gear out of transition we worked to pack up the camper and started heading east towards Milwaukee.  The rest of my family was gathered at a park in Milwaukee spending a few hours of the afternoon honoring Aunt Peggy who passed away just after the 4th of July this summer.  I haven't written about it on the blog because I don't quite have the words just yet.  I want to spend some time going through photos and writing up a nice post in memory of her - give her the time and remembrance she deserves.  

Aunt Peggy's memorial was very nice and I'm so thankful for everyone who made the long journeys to be there and share memories about her.  My cousins Laura, Susie, Mike, Karen, Dylan and Lydia were all there.  I haven't seen most of them in 10+ years, shoot, maybe 20+.  It's always hard that it takes sad things to get the larger families together sometimes and that's a big part of why we put so much effort into doing the fun things, like the Ritterbusch family reunion or the holiday weekends at the lake with Ryan's family. 

We had a nice afternoon sharing stories of Aunt Peggy.  I only have two regrets:

1. That we didn't get a family picture with all of the cousins/Aunts and Uncles - that was a big miss!
2. That we couldn't have been in Milwaukee the night before to hang out and spend some FUN time with the cousins that flew in for the weekend.  If I'd have been able to do it differently we would have spent the whole weekend together making new memories.  

So - I guess we'll just have to see if we can plan a Tischendorf Cousins get together sometime soon!  The truth is, it probably just needs someone to take the lead and start suggesting dates.  If you know me well enough, you know my mind is already coming up with a plan on how to make this a reality.  We'll see if I have the time to execute on it!