Secret Life of the McEachern Family

Deanna and Doug have arrived in town and on the first day we thought we would hit them up with the 5 k race. Much to our delight we all did really well and placed in each of our respective age group categories. What a glorious morning

AGE

GROUP                         OVERALL

PLACE          NAME(AGE)        PLACE   TIME   PACE   HOMETOWN

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1  DEANNA MCEACHERN (27)        4    25:14  8:07  PLANO

2  JENNIFER MCEACHERN (30)     10    31:31 10:09  PLANO

1  DOUG IRVING (27)            17    23:55  7:42  PLANO

1  DEREK MCEACHERN (31)        11    22:36  7:16  PLANO

Here's the picture of us all basking in our post race glory, medals and all.

The other morning after working out I got out of the shower and noticed that they were playing a little different music. Now, usually they pump in one of the commercial free top 20 type stations. Well this morning they seemed to have selected the the "your back in high school" rock station.

When I stepped out of the shower they were playing Skid Row, "Youth Gone Wild". Wow, now there's a song I haven't heard in while.

After that I was shaving and The Cult, "Sweet Soul Sister" was the next song to grace my ears. Now I haven't heard this song in absolute ages.

I thought it went downhill with the next song, Poison's "Every Rose Has It's Thorn." Apparently I was in the minority opinion that day. Picture this if you will. I'm in the last stages of packing up my bag getting ready to leave when big fat naked guy, toweling off, decides that he needs to join in and sing along.....

Every rose has it's thorn
Just like every night has it's dawn
Just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song
Every rose has it's thorn

"It's easy to identify people who can't count to ten. They
are in front of you in the express lane at the supermarket."

We are all getting excited about the big visit coming this weekend. We have talking about it with Alex and he now knows that Auntie D is coming on Saturday. Yesterday when he got up from his nap and Jen was talking to him about going swimming he go really upset when he found that that Auntie D couldn't come right at this moment. (He eventually got over it and we went swimming and he had loads of fun.)

We have been trying to get the house ready too. Over the weekend we installed a ceiling fan in the blue room which is where you guys will be staying. The fan part wasn't that big a deal but the biggest problem was that the existing junction box that was there for the light wasn't strong enough to hold a fan. So I had to spend a good portion of the day on Saturday in the attic installing a new junction box, one that was firmly anchored to the rafters. Now you think it's a hot day outside when it's like 100 degrees outside just try working in the attic. I would say it was a good 120 degrees in there, it could easily put any sauna to shame.

It was so hot.

How hot was it?

It was so hot that when I brought my tools down they were all hot to the touch just from being up there.

You guys had better enjoy the cool breeze....

So I've been following the Tour De France since it started over a week ago. OLN TV has been showing every stage live in the morning and then at night they have a prime time show which is essentially the same as the live broadcast except that they use different announcers. Typically I'm not home during the day so I've been mainly watching the night broadcasts but they don't finish until 10:30. I'm getting old and wimpy and it's hard to go to bed that late and get up at 5:00 and go workout.

So yesterday I was home in the morning watching the live stage but had to leave so I set the VCR to tape the stage. So last night I sat down to watch the stage and everything was going pretty well. There were about 3 km left in the stage and Lance Armstrong was fighting it out with Ivan Basso setting things up for a very dramatic stage finish.

Let me pick it up with Phil Liggett.

"Armstrong and Basso are battling it out to the finish, this is a familiar scene here at the Tour De France, there is only 3 km left to the summit finish."....psssssssssst

The tape ran out......can you believe it, I ran out of tape.......Ahhhhhhhhhhh

It seems we've turns a corner at camp yesterday morning. Jen called me
just after dropping him off and on they way to the room he said

"Alex have fun at camp"

(He didn't even want to hold her hand, he had to walk there all by himself.)

When they got to the room he just walked right in, took a seat at the table, and then started colouring. What a relief.

It looks like all the days at the pool have started to pay off. Yesterday when Jen and Alex went to the pool, which they pretty much try and do every day now, he showed the first signs of being a swimmer! We've been practicing jumping off the side of the pool and then kicking our legs with our face in the water but then yesterday he added his arms.

I think he's getting excited about swimming too. The Plano swim team has some of its practices at the same pool that we go to and one day when Jen and Alex got there the team happened to be training. Alex was really interested in watching them swim and he told us shortly afterward that "One day Alex swim on team too."

Camp went a little better today. Alex still wasn't too impressed about having to go but by the time Jen left he was sitting at one of the tables colouring away. We are hoping that this is the way that it is going to be from now on expect at dinner tonight when I was asking him all about the fun things he did at camp he informed us that he was all done with camp.

This weekend Jen was out shopping for some stuff for the house and she was wandering around one of the antique fairs. Well she came across one of the original Sesame Street Fisher Price play houses with loads of people and cars. I remember playing with all this stuff when I was a kid. It has Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, Mr. Hooper, Maria, the Count. There is the fire engine, police car, Sesame Street garbage truck, the mail truck, it just goes on and on. I'm not sure but I just might like playing with it better then Alex does.

So we were out to eat tonight and as we were waiting for our food to come I was reading Alex The Little Train. We got done with the story and as he usually does when he likes the story he asks that we read it again.

I've been getting in the habit of asking him to read me the story the second time and he usually just makes stuff up about the pictures. If he's heard to story enough he knows the general idea and it's pretty close to what the actual story is.

Well tonight when I asked him to read the story he looked at me and said

"No, I can't read the words yet. You read the story."

Big day for Alex today. We went to the pool after eating dinner for a little swimming and to wear him out. One of the games he likes to play is jumping off the side of the pool and getting his whole face in the water. Right now "whole face in water" is still a pretty big deal.

During all of the jumping in tonight we managed to convince him to jump without either of us holding on to his hands. It took a little bit of convincing but he eventually did it. After that he was all proud of the "do it myself".

Dropping Alex off at summer camp wasn't any easier today. It was just me today as Jennifer was out of town presenting at a conference and the closer we got to the room door the slower Alex starting walking. The minute we got in the room he stopped and then grabbed onto my leg and then held on for dear life. There was lots of crying before I managed to get out of the room but when I went to pick him they said that he had a good time. I can only hope because whenever I leave him like that I can't but help feel like a horrible parent.

Alex's first day of summer camp today. He is signed up to go twice a week for a couple of hours where he gets to play with other kids his age. Dropping him of this morning went just as expected....lots of crying. We eventually managed to pry him off us so we could leave him there but he wasn't happy about it.

While he was at camp Jen and I went and worked out. That was the first time I worked out since I had to to all that shift work a couple of weeks back and I tell you I'm going to be sore tomorrow. I just have to set a goal out there of doing a race in the next couple of weeks so I have some motivation for getting up and going in the morning.

When we went to pick Alex up from camp he looked like he was having fun but he told us “Alex Mason sad at camp. I wanted Mommy and Daddy.” Ugh...just what we needed to hear. We get to try it all again on Wednesday.

Happy July 4th all...and for those other family members that I missed a couple of days back, Happy Canada Day!

Jen bought People magazine the other day, the one with the emaciated Olsen twin on the cover, and as I was going through it there was a picture of David Duchovny in it getting ready to do a triathlon. They said he finshed the 35 mile race three hours and four minutes. That got us wonding, just how long was this race..hmmmm.

So after some quick searching through the nyc itu race results I found it.

PLACE NAME           AG CITY        ST RANK  SWIM TRANS BIKE   TRANS  RUN   FINISH

===== ============== == =========== == ==== ====== ==== ====== =====  ====  ======

107 David Duchovny   43 Los Angeles CA   22 19:46  6:08 1:31:15  2:05 65:05 3:04:18

Turns out this is the same distance that Jen did just the other month at the Austin Triathlon. 1600 swim, 40k bike, and 10k run.

Place Name                 No.   City  Ag   Swim    T1      Bike    T2      Run   Final 

===== ========= ========== ==== ====== == ======= ======= ======= ======= ======= =======

  39  Jennifer  Mceachern  846 Plano   30   23:44    4:38 1:26:09    2:31 1:08:05 3:05:05 

He's got a pretty quick swim but Jen took him to school on the bike but then he had her by 3 minutes in the run.