September

My childhood friend Tracy and her family were driving from Montana to Chicago this summer, so we went up to Wyoming to catch them during a rest stop on their journey. It had been 6 years since we'd seen each other, and there were 3 new babies to meet! I love seeing my kids befriending my childhood friends' kids.

Ama, Logan, Izzy, and Crosby

Me  & Tracy

My mom stopped in Denver on her way back to Florida from her high school reunion in Washington. We got to celebrate her birthday with her.  

Happy birthday Grandma Z!

Tiger feeding horses. This is a 12 mo. size tiger costume, but that doesn't prevent Amelie from squeezing into it at every opportunity

Ama talking to baby Zimmy

Mark Singer turned 40! They did a costume pedal hopper brewery tour.  Mark is the Big Lebowski guy on the left.  I heard it was awesome...

Mark Singer's 40th birthday pedal hopper

But I missed the birthday party because I was at the Tough Mudder race out in Snowmass. I did the race with Logan's teacher Kristin. I'm not sure I'd do it again, but it was fun to do once.  I didn't train much for this race, and the week before I started watching videos of all the obstacles and psyching myself out.  To make up for lack of training, I started buying gear... wicking clothes, new sticky hiking shoes, knee pads, gloves.  It turned into a pretty expensive race! In the end it was easier than I thought. The hardest part was getting back to my car at the end.  The shuttle buses stopped running and after a 10 mile race I had an extra 2 mile walk to the car :(.

There was quite a bit of boo-ya'ing at the start and a drill sergeant type person psyching everyone up.  Yes, we were doing this voluntarily...

Funky Monkey obstacle-- monkey bars over a water pit. This was the one I was most afraid of, but my gloves did the trick and I made it across.

On top of the Everest obstacle

On this one, you float on your back under the fence, and pull yourself through with just a few inches of air between you and the fence. 

Low crawl through mud

More mud

Electroshock therapy.  All those wires dangling shock you as you run through. This is the last obstacle and the shocks hurt!

At the finish!

Receiving our Tough Mudder headbands