Summer won her first triathlon in dominating fashion.  She beat all of the 3rd and 4th grade girls at the kids triathlon that consisted of swimming 50yds, biking 1.6 miles, and running 1/2 mile.  I'm sure it's the first of many medals!


Speaking of total domination......Savannah scored 4 goals at her soccer game.  That's right, FOUR!  You can tell who's running the show just by looking at the determination in her eyes in the photo above.

We also recently got an update that they both crushed their first swim meet of the year.  Congrats!!

This week we were at the beach until Tuesday with Melissa's family.  They headed home on Thursday and that evening Jen's parents arrived and stayed until Sunday.  Claire enjoyed having all of the visitors!


Tony, Ben, Holly, and Melissa enjoying the beach.  It was great to catch up with them and we're glad they decided to come down our way for their vacation.


Claire took a liking to Ben and Holly.


The vodka gimlets at the beach in the evening were quite refreshing.


On Wednesday we went to Discovery Place Kids.  Claire got up and briefly danced with the rest of the kids.


Nice photo of Tony and Holly at the beach.


We were looking for Ben's shovel and a crab popped up next to my foot.  It eventually made its way into the ocean but not before having to deal with me.


1. Tony and Ben; 2. Claire getting dressed up at Discovery Place Kids; 3. Holly at the beach; 4. Senior Crab staring me down before running away.


1. Holly walking into the ocean; 2. Me taking a photo of Melissa while she's taking a photo of me; 3. The kids during their easter egg hunt; 4. Ben and Melissa.


1. Ben getting buried in the sand; 2. Claire and me in the ocean; 3. Tony and Holly in the ocean; 4. Claire and Holly hanging out.


On Saturday we headed to Olivia's birthday party (Claire's 2 year old classmate) at the Lazy Five Farm.  I thought this place was more fun than Animal Kingdom at Disney and it's only 40 minutes away.


Jen's parents left on Sunday and Claire was disappointed to see them go as usual.


FAMILY UPDATE:
Our neice, Summer, tried out for percussion in her band this week and she got the gig.  They only have two percussionists per grade and they had to have high music test scores and score well on the rhythm test.  They were also supposed to have had piano lessons previously but they waived this requirement for her.  Congrats!

My younger sister, Melissa, and her family (Tony, Ben, Holly) came to visit us on Thursday and we headed to the beach on Friday.  Here are some funny faces that Claire made while blowing bubbles on the beach.


Ben was pulling out all of the moves to attract the ladies.


It was great to see Holly again now that she's a little older.  She has quite the bubbly personality.


Jen is enjoying her new job as an IT recruiter.  She's doing well and learning a lot.


I'm fond of photos of other people taking a photo of you.  Here's Melissa taking a photo of me.  It was great to catch up and spend some quality time with family.


Tony crushed me with his P90X workouts in the morning.  After the kids were asleep we sat out on the balcony and had a few beverages.


The kids buried me in the sand and then Claire let me bury her up to her neck.


Claire Bear definitely warmed up to the beach this time around.  The last couple of times we were at the beach she didn't really like the sand or the water (which covers nearly everything about the beach).  Claire has a funny vocabulary these days.  One funny thing that she says when we ask her if she wants to do something she'll say "Yeah, OK, sure".


We made an ice cream stop at the local shop.  Claire asked for the "purple" ice cream flavor.


Ice cream photos continued and a nice shot of Benny running through the puddles.


I've still be really busy at work lately and I don't see it letting up until the end of the year.  I haven't been able to exercise much at all but have started riding my bike once or twice a week.  I need to get in shape for Watty's mountain training camp in early June.

On Tuesday we spend an action packed day at the US National Whitewater Center.


I was proud of how brave our neices are.  They challenged themselves on the rock climbing walls, adventure courses, and zip lines.


Here they are conquering the WWC.


Zip lines and climbing walls.


Claire was a trooper all day and got in some obsticle courses of her own.  I could tell that she wanted to do everything that we were doing but was too little.  Thanks to Sarah for watching her and taking photos all day.

On the way from Asheville to Charlotte we stopped off to hike Crowders Mountain.  Summer was itching to climb another mountain since the last time she came to visit so we thought this would do the trick.  All of the girls did great!


The Ackers at the top of Crowders.


Our girls were troopers even though it took longer than expected.  We encountered a copperhead snake on the way up and they thought it was cool.


Claire's job was to point out all of the orange trail signs along the route.  She served as a great trail guide.


Summer found a lizard on the trail and he took a ride down with her on the second half of the hike.


Claire found a walking stick late in the hike.

My sister (Sarah) and her family (Kevin, Summer, and Savannah) came to visit us this week.  We met them up in Asheville and stayed there for a few days and then spent a couple of days in Charlotte.  Here they are at Chimney Rock.


We went to the Biltmore Estate which is the largest privately-owned home in the US.  It is over 135K square feet and has 250 rooms.  Here's Claire running around and in the process of taking her shirt off.


Family photo at the Biltmore.


Claire called the Biltmore "the big house".  It was great spending time with family.


Claire decided to get up and move all of her blankets and stuffed animals into the hotel closet and slept there.  When we went to bed I moved her back to her bed and she got upset so we let her sleep in the closet all night.


1. Summer and Savannah at Chimney Rock.  2. Franks at Biltmore. 3. Ackers at Biltmore.  4. Summer and Savannah near the flower garden.


1. Summer and Savannah in front of the tulips.  2. Kevin and Claire Bear.  3. With our neices at Chimney Rock.  4. Jen and Claire.

All of the kids in the family.  Summer (10), Savannah (6), Claire (~2), Ben (2.5), and Holly (~1).


Family photo for xmas 2011.


Claire loved playing with her cousins.  Summer dancing, Savannah running, Ben biking, and Holly standing.


It was action packed.  Frogs on heads, gymnastics, eating at big kid tables, and playing the piano.


Coloring, being pushed in cars, and dancing.


Playing with her new frog, sea horse, and nemo toys.  Summer by the fire.  Summer dancing.  Savannah running.

We headed to the Midwest to visit family and friends and Friday.  Our first stop was Chicago to visit with Jen's family.  On Sunday we had breakfast with Beth and Mike and then made our way to the Madison area to visit my family.


Claire loves her PlayDoh.  She calls it "Play Bup".


Our nephew Vincent is now 6 years old.  His name for Claire was "Cutie Claire".


I think Claire thought that Grandpa Jim was Santa because of his beard.  She kept on making references to Santa around him.


Claire got the hang of opening presents pretty quickly. 


Here she is opening her stocking from Santa. 

Claire started "school" on Thursday at Dilworth Child Development Center.  It's a top notch center and it's a half mile away from our house.  Claire didn't want to leave the first two days that she's been there because she loves playing with all of the kids.


She headed right for the slide when she got there and slid down with her cast on.


This is the last week that my parents are in town.  This month has flown by.  Nice shot of Claire with her Grandma.


Grandpa and Claire playing around. 

Figuring out how to use her fork with her left arm. 


Claire points out all flying objects in the sky before anyone else.  She can hear them and see them faster than us.  I think her favorite is now the helicopter ("cop") but she still has a place in her heart for the airplane.


This is Claire's excited face.  Most of the time it's accompanied by her running.


Universal sign for "I want up" is reaching out the arms.  She usually says "up" too.


The many faces of Claire part one.


The many faces of Claire part two.


Dad and I worked on the fence again this weekend and got two of the three sides up before he left on Sunday.  It was nice working on a project with him.  I think it is turning out looking very nice.


On Thursday Jen and I were invited to join Patty in her box at the Britney Spears concert and had a great time.  I may have had one too many cocktails though.

ANNIVERSARY
Jen and I celebrated our 11 year anniversary on Saturday by going out to dinner at the Custom Shop.  I ordered the rabbit since I've never had it before and thought it tasted very similar to chicken.  After dinner we stopped off at the ice cream shop next door and went for a walk.

Claire broke my record for earliest broken bone in our family.  I broke my arm when I was four years old and she smashed my record with a fractured wrist at 18 months.  Claire doesn't really cry very often when she falls so we don't know exactly when it happened.  The doctor said that any fall could have caused it.  We think it may have been when she fell down from the bottom stair but she acted like she was fine afterwards.  We could tell that something was really wrong later in the evening when we were putting on her jammies and she started to cry.  Here's a shot of her hot pink cast. 


The cast doesn't seem to slow her down much.  She's had to adjust to using her left hand for everything but picked it up pretty quickly.


Claire has found great enjoyment out of stacking her cups on Grampy's water bottle.


Laying around with Grampy.


Claire just delivered the KO punch to Grampy.  The cast helped.


Dad and I started putting up the fence posts this weekend.

I started riding my bike again a couple of weeks ago and this week was the first Saturday Morning Shootout since April.  It wasn't a huge turnout since I sent the email at noon on Friday but it was still very challenging and quite a bit of fun.  I've been pretty lucky with only crashing once or twice before but today I wasn't paying attention and hit the pavement after rubbing Andrew's wheel.  It was completely my fault.  I only came away with some road rash and a sore hip and was able to finish the last couple hours of the ride without too much discomfort.