Summer Begins!

The little princess chilling.

We spent the morning at Mary Alice Beach on Lake Lanier over Memorial Day weekend. Mom and Dad got to do an open water swim, and the kids had a blast playing in the sand and lake.

Good buddies!

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Jackson and Stiv had another serious battle playing our new bean bag toss game! As usual the battle had tears and cheers from both participants as they waged a fierce bean bag war!

Catie and Grandpa wait patiently to pull the string!

Grandma and Grandpa Stien visited for the week to watch the kids. They ran the kids to all their activities and kept them busy in the afternoons... no easy task! Grandpa had another one of his "great ideas" and helped Catie make a trap for the naughty squirrels. She loved trying to catch them in the box.

The trap is all ready!

Steve heading back to T2 on the bike.

The Stien Mountain triathlon team headed down to Macon for our annual trip to the Coliseum Rock and Rollman triathlon. This year Ann, John and Ann Stien participated in the sprint and Steve did the half ironman. As usual, the heat was stifling for the race. In fact, it has been so hot, the lake water temperature was 86 degrees! We had a great showing as John took 2nd in masters, Ann Stien 3rd in her age group, and Ann battled through food poisoning and still took third in masters!

Almost done!

Do you ever think you have a good idea to do something and when the time comes you wonder what you were thinking? Stiv decided to do the half ironman on four weeks of training and a "taper" week. Normally he would have put in about 12 weeks to prep for a race this long. With a history of trouble in the heat you can probably guess how the day went. After a long day of suffering, he was able to finish with a smile on his face and a big dose of reality! 

Ann and John's new wheels.

While Stiv was out on the race course all day. John, Ann and Ann got to chill out in the plush interior of the new motor home. After checking it out, the kids thought it was so cool because it has more TV's than our house! We hope it's comfortable on the road, because Grandma and Grandpa got a nice 16 hour ride home in it! We are sure that the ride felt like a vacation after watching the kids all week!