Triathlon

About a year after starting my professional career, I realized that I was spending most of my time sitting at a desk and that I needed to become more physically active. So I got a gym membership and started working out during my lunch breaks. I soon realized that I really enjoy my workouts and I especially enjoy going for a run, swim, bike, hike etc. outside.

Three years ago I was approached by some friends Gary and Bridgett Saunders who asked if I would be interested in participating in a sprint triathlon they were putting together. I was a little nervious, but decided to give it a shot. Thus, I was part of the second running of the Inaugeral Saunder's Triathlon in 2007 (they did the triathlon twice in 2007 because everyone wasn't available for the first triathlon date). It was a great experience and I was surprised and pleased with how well I did (second place).

Anyway, in 2008 I did it again and this time Annie participated as well. I did great again and Annie had a pretty good experience, although she got lost on the bike portion of the route and lost some time. So we decided to do it again this year.

The triathlon consists of a 1/2 mile swim, 12.5 mile bike and 3 mile run. This year it was held on July 18th and ended up being a rainy and relatively cool day.



Here's the group just before the start of the race.

The swim was a little longer this year. It is an open water swim along the shore of Brewer Lake in Orrington, Maine.

Here we are beginning the swim.



Middle of the swim.



And finally coming out of the water. This is always my favorite time because I think the swim is the hardest part.




Here's Annie finishing the swim.




From the swim we go to the bike. Annie did a lot better this year! It really helps to not get lost! I was a little disappointed in my bike time this year which was about a minute slower than my time last year (same route).




Here's Annie finishing the bike.



Annie during the transition to the run.




And finally the run. Which for some reason seemed especially long to me this year. I just felt I didn't have any kind of kick left. So I guess there's room for improvement next year.



The finish!





I finished fourth overall with a final time of 1:36.31.

Annie finished ninth overall (third among women) with a final time of 1:51.17

Sam's Baptism

Yesterday was a very exciting day for the Peterson Family. Sam was baptized! We are very excited for him. Grandma and Grandpa Peterson came up from Massachusetts and Aunt Barbara and Uncle Larry and Garrett, Corey, Justin and Spencer came over from New Hampshire to be with us to celebrate Sam's special day.



Sam was very excited. He has been preparing for a long time to make these covenants with the Lord.



In addition to family, our home teacher Brother Mike Savage came along with many of Sam's friends from the ward including, the Frosts, Elwoods, Hymas, Phanthays, Betsy Rand, Pat Rand, Dick Elliot and Bill Meier. We're thankful for all of our friends who came and shared Sam's special day.

Sam put together the program himself with a few suggestions from dad.



Special thanks to Natalie, Caroline, Garrett, Grandma Peterson, Grandpa Peterson and Mom for being a part of Sam's program.





Sam felt clean and warm during and after the baptism. He wrote in his journal that he always wants to feel this way.



Sam asked for cookies as a treat. Mom made a bunch of chocolate chip, peanut butter and rice crispy treat cookies. Grandma Peterson also brought some cookies with her.



It was an amazing experience for me to be able to be a part of Sam's baptism. Especially since as Bishop I had the chance to interview him and talk to him about baptism. He really impressed me with his knowledge about this big step that he was making and his strong desire to do what his Heavenly Father wants him to do.



Congratulations Sam! You are setting a great example for your brothers and younger cousins to follow.

February

Ok, so I'm not doing such a great job of keeping up with the once a month post I promised when I started this thing. I'll try to do better. There has been a lot going on the past month. However, I'll warn you right now that there aren't a lot of pictures.

Surgery

I started out the month by having my gall bladder removed. I had a gall bladder attack on New Years Eve that landed me in the hospital, but for the month of January, I was fine. I worked hard to keep a low fat diet and that seemed to have solved the problem. However, on the evening of the 30th, I had some of the same symptoms that landed me in the hospital on New Years Eve. This time though, it wasn't that bad. It felt like a minor case of indigestion. Anyway, since it wasn't that bad, I ignored it and just thought it would go away after a while like the first time. This was a very bad idea. As I started the third day of symptoms without any change, I decided I probably needed to see the doctor.

One advantage of being a professional in a small town is that you know people. So I called one of my partners who's married to a surgeon. He called his wife, who called me back 5 minutes later and 5 minutes after that I was headed to the hospital. The big wait was that apparently you can't have surgery within 8 hours of when you last ate. Since I'd had breakfast, we couldn't do the surgery until early afternoon.

It is a very strange feeling to be lying on a hospital bed talking to the anesthesiologist and then to simply wake up and find that the surgery is over. The surgeon says the surgery was really difficult. The gall bladder was very inflamed and I guess some of my internal wiring is somewhat abnormal. Annie said the doctor looked very glad the surgery was over. The doctor told me she cursed a lot :)

The recovery took a lot longer than I thought it would. Since it was arthroscopic surgery, I expected to be up and about the next day. It was actually three or four days before I could really do much and a good week before I really felt like I could function properly. However the good news is that it's been a month and I'm now back to normal. I've even started back at the gym this week.

J. Reuben Clark Law Society Conference - Harvard Law School

Toward the middle of the month Annie and I attended the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Conference at Harvard Law School. It was great to have the chance to meet and interact with a huge number of LDS attorneys. I think for both Annie and I, the opening keynote address by Clayton Christiansen, a Area Authority Seventy and professor at the Harvard Business School was one of the highlights of the trip. He talked about asking the right questions, professionally, personally, and religiously. Other conference highlights included a meeting at the Old North Church where we heard from a Harvard History Professor (and church member) about the history of the Old North Church and also from Dean Kenneth Starr (former special prosecutor and current Dean of the Pepperdine Law School). He is doing the argument on behalf of Prop. 8 in front of the California Supreme Court. I'll admit that his address was a little hard for me to follow because he made lots of references to Constitutional Jurisprudence that I was not familiar with (it's been a long time since my constitutional law class). It was great to have a couple of days with Annie all to myself. Special thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Peterson for watching the kids even while they were getting ready to put their house on the market! Annie and I ended the conference with a session at the Boston Temple and dinner out on Valentines Day. Annie's the best, I'm so glad she decided to marry me!


Annie in front of Pooh's House - Harvard Law School


Wisconsin Dells

From Boston, we headed west for Wisconsin. We are very grateful for the great weather we had for our trip and the great behavior of our kids in the van for the long trip. We celebrated Sam's 8th birthday in a hotel room just inside of Indiana after driving all day from Massachusetts. For his birthday dinner and cake he got Pizza Hut pizza and a store bought cake. We'll make it up to him next year.

Sam with his presents in the hotel.

Our destination was the Wilderness Waterpark Resort in the Wisconsin Dells. You can check out their webpage here http://www.wildernessresort.com/ This was an amazing place. They have three indoor water parks complete with wave pools, lazy river, tube slides, body slides, raft rides and the hurricane and the black hole which are difficult to describe and simply need to be experienced. They also have a dry park with air-powered guns that shoot foam balls. And a play land that would put any McDonalds to shame. We did an absolutely terrible job at taking pictures though! I think we were having so much fun we just didn't stop and record any of it. We did get a few shots of everyone relaxing at the Condo. That will have to do. We'll try to do better next time :(


Sam, Levi & Soren relaxing in front of the TV.


Caroline, Logan and Troy enjoying breakfast


Sam gets to wrestle with someone his own size!


Paper airplane flying from the loft was a popular pastime

We also visited a place in the Dells called "Wizard Quest". To be honest, I wasn't expecting much, but it turned out to be really fun. Essentially its a large warehouse that's been turned into a maze and decorated along various themes (air, earth, forest, and water). Hidden within the maze are a number of clues. You need to find the answers to questions using the clues this gives you points. Then you need to find the trapped "Wizards" within the maze and use the points to free them. There is a limited amount of time (90 minutes) to do this. Only two of our four groups were able to complete the tasks (Annie and I are happy to say that our group finished!)


Wizards Quest in the Dells


Sam in "Air"


Caroline in "Earth"


Corey, Caroline, Sam, Levi & Soren in the Library


Caroline resting in the "Forest"

Anyway it was great fun. The Dells is really an amazing tourist trap. Here are a few other attractions which Annie photographed on our way to the Quest.


Top Secret - Outside looks cool, I've heard the actual attraction isn't so great.


Mount Olympus - Closed for the Winter


All this driving around made Levi see stars!

Anyway we had a great time at the Dells. It was especially fun to see Joe, Chris, Heather, Burke, Logan, Wade and Troy who we don't get to see that often.

Road Trip to Virginia

Our schools give the kids the whole week of school, so we decided Thanksgiving would be a good time for a road trip. Our trip was calculated to avoid as much traffic as possible during the busy Thanksgiving Holiday along the Atlantic I-95 corridor. We left right after church and traveled to Attleboro, MA and spend the evening with Grandpa Peterson and Uncle Jake. The kids enjoyed playing with Uncle Jake's exercise machines and watching Jake's collection of dvd's.

Monday morning we left bright and early for New York and the Statue of Liberty. We had great traffic and made wonderful time. We visited Ellis Island and Liberty Island. Annie checked out some books on the Statue of Liberty before our trip so the kids read a little about it and seemed to really enjoy the visit. We had great weather (for November), and everyone enjoyed the boat ride and going inside the statute of liberty.




After visiting Ellis Island, I think we were all grateful to have been born in the good old USA.

After four or five hours it was on to Vienna, Virginia. Heather & Kent were wonderful hosts. Thanksgiving was great! We had plenty of pie and lots of games. I played in the annual "Turkey Bowl" (it was a tie, and I'm still sore). On Friday we went into Washington DC and went to the National Museum of Natural History. Popular stops were the dinosaurs, Africa, the sea, and minerals and gems. We even got to see the Hope Diamond and cause a minor earthquake. The museums in DC are really amazing. Special thanks to all of the Stevensons for putting up with us for a week!

Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. Generally, the kids have two opportunities for candy. Once at church with the Trunk or Treat, and then again on Halloween itself Trick or Treating. This year we had a relatively simple Trunk or Treat at the church, but I continue to ask why we need to give our children two opportunities to rot their teeth and achieve a sugar high. I think next year we'll try to do something other than Trunk or Treat. Anyway here are some pictures from the Trunk or Treat on Tuesday night.




Dracula and the Spider Woman (aka Sam and the Primary President)

Cowgirls & Indians

Lobsters like Powder Sugar Donuts, who knew?

Sweet Success Bobbing for Apples!

Dracula successfully bites a powdered donut.

Two little lions.

For Halloween itself, we were lucky to have Grandma & Grandpa Peterson so up along with Uncle Jake, and Jake's girlfriend Michelle. It was great to be able to spend some time with everyone. Here's a picture of all those who dressed up before leaving for trick or treating.

Left to Right, Back to Front

Outlaw (uncle Jake); Renaissance Princess (Michelle)

Dracula (Sam); Queen Susan -Narnia (Natalie); Cowgirl (Annie); Lion (Soren)

Tiger (Levi); Indian Princess (Caroline)

They had a great time. We hope you all had a wonderful Halloween as well.