Sat. Sept 26, 2009 TRIATHLON #1

We DID it!!!

My Sister and I did our first Triathlon today and it was amazing!! It was out at Woodward Reservoir in Oakdale. We did the Super-sprint distance and it was great for a first Triathlon.

We swam 200 yards, Biked for what was supposed to be 5 miles but someone who had an odometer on her bike said it was actually 6, and ran a mile.
We swam the 200 yards in a little over 11 minutes. Tamara had some issues with her bike, the chain kept falling off when she down shifted, so our bike was over 30 minutes, and our run was around 12 minutes. We finished in under an hour which was better than we both thought.

We are doing another one in three weeks! It is almost three times the distance in each sport. The Sprint Triathlon is a 500 yard swim, 16 mile bike and 5k (3.1mi.)run.

I am so thankful for my wonderful friends and family that got up EARLY to come and watch us. It really meant a lot to me and it will be something I will think about often. Thanks for the support Warren's, Gresham's, Dunn's and Dixon's!!!

It has been great training for these and even better to have finished one and see what we need to work on for the next one. I definitely need to dial in on my run.

On a related note to all the training I have lost 15lbs and over 8 inches total around my body! I still have a lot to go but it is exciting to SEE the effort in the mirror. I am on the brink of buying ALL new clothes. My clothes are super baggy now and in a couple weeks they won't fit at all!! What a great feeling!!!

Emma Lee Dixon 9-12-09

Garth took this picture of Emma while we were camping.

I love-Love-LOVE IT!!!

ME...a Triathlete???

Tamara and I decided we were going to do a triathlon. We saw there was one in Sept. and Oct. at Woodward Reservoir out in Oakdale. At first we were thinking that we would have a relay team but as we started training we deceded that we wanted to do the complete Triathlon. That way we could brag later that we were triathletes! The one in Sept. was only a super sprint. That is a 200 yard swim, 5 mile bike and mile run. No problem! As we started training we thought it would be fun to do a longer one. The one in Oct. is a 500 yard swim, 16 mile bike and 5k run. that is a little more challenging.

I have been working out every day for the past 6 weeks. Everyday I either swim, Bike or Run. I am swimming about 55 laps, biking over 10 miles and running about 2 miles. It feels so good to exercise with a purpose. I keep telling myself that I have to do it or else I will drown in the lake!

Our ward has also stared a fitness challenge that I joined. I thought it would be easy becuase I am working out so much already. The challenge is physical as well as spiritual. We get points for exercise, prayer, scripture study, service, sleep, water consumption, eating fruit and veggies and so on. We have teams that we weigh in weekly with and at the end of 8 weeks the team with the most points wins...what I don't know but it has been fun doing this with the sisters in the ward.

Annual Dixon Family Camp-out Sept 11, 12 and 13, 2009

We had our annual Dixon family camp out this past weekend. We camped at Gold Country Campground Resort in Pine Grove, CA. It is just East of Jackson. The weather was good, most of the weekend except for the thunder and lightning showers we had on Sat. for about 30 minutes. The kids were down at the water park playing in the water features and swimming in the pool when we heard the thunder. We yelled EVERYONE OUT OF THE POOL!! Gerrit wasn't happy about cutting swim time short because of the storm. We made it back to our cozy trailer just in time to beat the rain fall. I decided it would be fun to make cookies in the trailer so the kids and I hung out in the trailer playing Sorry and making Peanut Butter cookies.

After the rain stopped Gerrit went out with the boys and played basketball while Emma and I took a 3 hour nap!! It was heaven!!

One of our traditions is making tin foil dinners on Sat. night. Gerrit made one this time and actually ate it! Emma mooched some cereal off her Aunt Cheryl so she had cheerios, cheese and a yogurt...for Dinner!!??

Keith and Kaleen brought their Kareeoke machine and we projected it on a sheet we attaced to the pop up shade. we sang country songs for about an hour. I bet our fellow campers loved that! It was so cute because Gerrit and Emma knew a couple of the songs and they were singing along. Gerrit was reading the words off the sheet so he sang along with most of them.

Someone thought it would be FUN to have a marshmallow stuffing contest. We lined up in teams and saw how many mallows we could fit into our mouths. Beautiful. It was hillarious because everyone was laughing and the mallows started oozing out of our mouths. Not one of our finer moments but it was one that we will remember for a while. BTW I didn't win dispite what you all think (I apparently didn't have the biggest mouth there)

The next morning we had pancakes and packed up for the long trek home. It is always fun to camp, I just wish we had a little more time to spend with the family.

Garth got a lot of really cute pictures of the kids and cousins. I included some of our favorites. The ones of Bridget with the dogs are really cute so I had to post them as well.

Gerrit's Jog-A-Thon Thursday 9-3-09

I was so proud of Gerrit today. His school has a Jog-A-Thon every year to raise money. They get 5 minutes to see how many laps they can run and then they collect pledges from family and friends. For the past two years Gerrit only ran one lap. This year he ran 6 laps. I got there late and only got the last half of lap 6 but his teacher said that he never stopped running. He wanted to run 7 laps but I told him that he did amazing!