big huge weekend

Our weekend was so big that it took 3 days to get everything done and 3 more to write it up. First, I took Friday off from work so that we could meet up with the rest of Jill's family in Indy. Since rain was in the forecast, we scrapped the original plan of going to the zoo and went to the Children's Museum.

We first visited the Bob the builder room, where kids could play with toys and climb on construction looking stuff. Across the hall was a Barbie exhibit. I thought, well, it's sort of fun but I don't see the big deal. But each following room got better and better. I highly recommend a visit.

Ricky and Enoch loved the hand operated backhoe and tanbark shoveling room.

A few exhibits were designed for babies, but Clara mostly played with the family.
Best exhibit: small river with weirs, channel control, crane, boats, locks, and dams. My second favorite: the actual train engine designed to push trains up a 5.9% hill. Hugely huge!
After playing for 5 hours, the gang was just starting to wear down.
The Tour de Champaign took over the streets of C-U this weekend. On Sat, I raced the cat 3-4 criterium race with a few teammates (2 had raced the earlier 4-5 race and 2 others were fresh). I assumed that most riders were cat 4 since there was another 3 race later. The pace felt very fast for the entire race, but I assumed that was due to my limited training. I yo-yo'd between 20th and 10th position throughout the race. Once I got stuck at the front of the peloton chasing a small break. After 5 seconds, I was cooked and decided to hide. As the laps counted down, I successfully moved up a bit and took 6th in the sprint.

Two days later I found out that I was the first cat 4 finisher. Proud!
Sunday's course was supposed to be a figure 8 but due to road construction the second block was converted to a straightaway and 180 turn, as photoed well by Jill below.Very early, I realized that the back of the group was a bad place to be. As the leading riders finished the turn, they sprinted back to speed. Meanwhile, riders near the back were still slowing down. Staying with the group required digging deep into our suitcases of courage. Every lap. 35 laps? It was hot (90 degrees at least).

Eventually, teammate Jason took off on a break and I stayed in second position in the group. No one tried to come around us to pull for about 10 laps. Poor guy in front. Jason won the race, and I came just short in the bunch sprint and got 4th overall. Proud.

Mercy, it's been hot this week.

Clara's latest achievement is going from crawling position to sitting. We're working on teaching her sign-language for 'more' and 'all done', but she prefers to cry or shove the spoon/bottle away from her mouth.