Hawaii Part II

John and Ann held their wedding celebration during our last two days on the Island. The rehearsal dinner was held at our hotel and the wedding at the Four Seasons. We had the kids come down for a family photo before the rehearsal dinner festivities started. As you can see, we went to great lengths to select their outfits.

The kids loved riding the tram around the huge hotel complex! Here they are ready to head over to the lagoon for a day of water fun.

The seawater lagoon was filled with fish, sea turtles, and other sea creatures... even an eel that scared Grandpa half way across the lagoon. The kids enjoyed various activities, including driving a pedal boat and kayaking. Since they are both water safe, they enjoyed the freedom of rowing all across the lagoon by themselves.

Here's Stiv on the rowing surf board. It wasn't easy to balance with the kids crawling all over!

Even Abster enjoyed swimming around the lagoon. Here she is in her full Ironman swim gear. Abby was a real trooper keeping up with everyone and was a pleasure to have on the trip... for a 2 yr old anyway.

Following several hours at the lagoon, we headed back to our room on the Gondola boat. The kids loved having the option to take the boat or tram as a taxi around the resort.

John and Ann held their sunset wedding on a private beach at the Four Seasons. It was a beautiful wedding and we are thrilled that Ann is finally an "official" member of family!

The sunset made for a spectacular end to the wedding and was a great way to close out one of the best family vacations ever!!!

Hawaii "Big Island" 2010

Aloha! The view from our wonderful suite at the Hilton Waikoloa was spectacular! We enjoyed sitting on the balcony watching birds and the surf come into the bay. The hotel is HUGE covering 62 acres! The place is so big that we had our choice of taking the tram or gondola taxi to our room. We swam in several of the massive pools with water slides, played putt putt golf, and swam in the gigantic sea lagoon that house many sea turtles to play with.

We were worried about the kid's ability to hold it together on the 9 hour plane ride, but they were extremely well behaved! Unfortunately, Catie had a sour puss sitting in front of her that kept falsely accusing her of kicking his seat... Stiv had to have some words with the fellow... They were in heaven with the built in TV's on the back headrests with unlimited movies!

Everyone was no worse for wear after the long flight and were excited to board for the quick flight to Kona.

Jax and Catie are ready to start ther "Dolphin Quest" experience. They have been looking forward to swimming with the dolphins for over a year and were so excited for it to actually become a reality.

They had a blast learning about dolphins first hand and were in the water with them for over an hour. It was amazing how long the smiles and giggles lasted. Of course, Jackson had an endless stream of questions for his trainer while Catie was passively listening and following directions.

Even dolphins like to be tickled... For some reason Catie loved the fact that she was feeding the dolphins "dead fish".

Ms. Lion riding the lion statue... another case of potential poor parenting...

Stiv and Jackson had the mother of all checker battles. After lots of smack talking and intimidation tactics, Stiv pulled out the victory on the last move possible! After a few tears, they finally shook hands after the fierce battle.

Saturday was the Ironman World Championships in Kona. We were excited to watch this event and it did not disappoint. We have not experienced anything quite like this before, it was one of most inspirational and exciting things we have witnessed. The athletes and their friends and families came from all over the world, making this a true international event. The swim started with Hawaiian drums playing a slow but steady beat in the background while thousands of spectators surrounding Kailua-Kona Bay excitedly waited, building up to the firing of the cannon to set off the 1800 swimmers powering their way through the ocean like a giant school of fish ...it gave you the chills!

Mother and daughter moments before John's big day was to start.

Jackson saw a few kids with Vuvuzela horns walking around in Kona and wanted one "real bad". So as only Jackson can, he started to investigate how to get one. After several "conversations," he discoverd the only place to get them was in a private hospitality suite sponsored by Blue Bicycles for their best customers. Once he found where the suite was located, Stiv had to follow him to it's location through a massive sea of people. Upon arrival, he proceeded to introduce himself to the "guard" at the door and explain why he was there. Two minutes later he had his Vuvuzela and we were on our way!

On a side note, never let anyone you know have a Vuvuzela... after about two minutes they become unbearably annoying!!!

The family after lunch at the Royal Kona Resort. We took a nice break from the action while the athletes were out on the 112 mile bike portion of the race.

Here we are roadside waiting for John and our Dynamo Multisport friends to come by on the run. We found a great spot where they run by twice in a 45 minute period.

Here is the eventual winner Chris "Mecca" McCormack running right by us at mile 8. He was in second at the time, but he looked great and we thought he had a good chance of winning. The lead men were running at sub 6 min/mile pace through the first part of the marathon!!!

Here is Ann's buddy Rinny ready to blow away the women's field. We were really disappointed that Chrissie Wellington did not start because of the flu, but we are big Rinny fans too!

John had a ton of pressure on him for this race and had an outstanding performance. He and Ann Hattamer are getting married Tuesday so many friends and relatives were in town. Kona is not the kind of race that allows a PR or extraordinary outcome for a first time competitor, but John had fantasic showing anyway. John battled through a tough day and fought to a very respectible 10:2o hr finish. We were so impressed with his determination and ability to push past the pain... we are extremely proud of him.

John taking advantage of the aid station about a quarter of the way into the run.

If you have not noticed by now John, is one of about two athletes out of 1800 that wore a Speedo for the race.... he claims it's cooler in the heat. We could not resist posting these for postarity.

As the sun sets on the finish line... It was so inspirational to see the joy on the faces of the competitors as they ran down the finishing shoot. These people put in extraordinary effort to be able to compete at this level and for many competing in Kona is a life long accomplishment. Witnessing the unbridled joy on there faces as they ran down the finish was truly a unique experience.

Abby was wiped out by the end of the day, but many people still had hours of racing ahead of them!

We spent a moring at the Hupona Beach State Park that is just a few miles down from our hotel. The beach was awesome and it was one the best on the Island. The sign above says "beware of falling coconuts"... our trap did not work!

Jackson loved playing in the ocean jumping waves and body surfing to shore. The perma-smile on his face was so nice to see!

Abby was kind of tentative with the beach. She was not sure if she liked the sand on her feet, but loved dumping it on Daddy's head when he was not looking!

The start of a GIANT sandcastle... what teamwork.

Just like her mom, Catie is doing her beachfront pilates.....

Nothing like a fresh water rinse after swimming in the ocean. Abby is quite the exhibitionist...

USA Triathlon Nationals

Ann is all ready to take part in the USA Triathlon Age Group National Championships in Tuscaloosa, AL on the University of Alabama campus. 1300 of the best amateurs in the country all qualified for this event. Ann, Steve and Abby headed out on Friday for the Saturday race. Abby was excited to go on a trip alone without Jax or Catie. "I am going on a trip with mommy and daddy. No Jackson. No Catie." She repeated over and over for days before we left.


Where is Waldo? Ann is making sure that Abby and Stiv can spot her seconds before the start of her swim wave. The race day conditions were hot with the high temp reaching into the 90's. The weather at the start of the swim was perfect, but the rising temperatures would have an impact on the run...

Ann is right in the middle of the melee that is the start of any good swim wave. There were some awesome swimmers in this race, so Ann did not have her usual advantage.

Peek a boo... here she is spotting toward the end of the river swim that was mostly against the current.

Abby made herself at home sitting on some stranger's transition bag waiting for mommy to finish the swim. She was a real trooper during the race and helped dad take all the photos. BTW, we had a really cute outfit picked out for her to wear, but she insisted on the Ernie shirt that of course did not match!

Ann was 10th out of the water and looked strong...

After a quick transition, she is off and running with bike in hand toward the two loop bike course.


Wow, Ann was so fast that she was only a blur as she went by on her super fast Trek TTX..."The blue streak"!

At the start of the run she was feeling strong, but the heat quickly took its toll as she continued. Not one of her better races!

It ended up being a tough day out on the hot course, but it was still a lot of fun and a good experience overall.

Abby thought she was so cool wearing mom's flip flops as we waited for Ann at the finish line.

"Jackson Schwartz, you are an IronKid!"

The Stien Mountain Triathlon team was dispatched across the country this past Sunday. Jackson, Connor and Matthew McGee participated in the IronKids triathlon in Alpharetta, GA while Ann Hattamer finished her first full Ironman in Madison, WI! Just a reminder as to what an accomplishment a full Ironman is... it is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile run!!!

Above, Jackson may look like he has his game face on before the big race, but we think he was kind of nervous...

Ann looks the picture of pain and concentration half way through the run, as John runs along side to help motivate her for the miles ahead. Ann finished in under 14 hours and we all watched her cross the finish line live on Ironman.com. What an accomplishment!!!

Look out Kona... John is competing in the Ironman world championships in three weeks (and getting married!!!). Even better, the Schwartz clan will all be in Hawaii too!

The bike is all tuned up and ready for action. Jax was talking it up with some fellow competitors on the way to setup his transition area.

Tips from the "old" pro prior to the start. Jackson was awful quiet before the race, we think he was real nervous. Ann did a nice job of easing his nerves.

Everyone chilling in the shade before the start....

Just look at the size and chaos of the transition area! Fortunately, Jackson had no trouble finding his spot during the race. The race had almost 1,200 kids participating from all over the Southeast! Some of the parents obviously take this too seriously, several of the kids had triathlon bikes with aerowheels that cost more than our bikes!

The eight year old boys are lined up and ready for the "time trial" swim start in the 50 meter pool. In typical Schwartz fashion, we did not hear the start of the race and Jax had to run to the starting line! Stiv said "it was like watching myself only he swims better than me"

There were so many parents surrounding the pool that it was extremely difficult to get a clean shot with the camera or even see your own kid! Not sure why Jackson's head is so far out of the water, it looks like he is posing for the camera.

He looks like a pro coming around the corner heading into T1!

Tic Toc Tic Toc....we thought Jax might struggle in transition trying to put on his socks with wet feet, but he was actually very efficient. Probably even more efficient than his Dad!Jackson was so fast on the bike that Stiv missed him and did not make it back to the finish line to get a action shot of him finishing the race. We had to settle for a nice posed shot.

BFFs are proud of each other's efforts and were extremely supportive of each other. They obviously are not imitating their parents because Stiv and Donovan are always out to beat each other!

Catie started Taekwondo with Master Taylor last week and loves the fact the she is wearing Jacksons old gi. It was so fun to watch her in class!