New York City: Days 1 & 2

Rob and I just got back from our trip to NYC for our 10th anniversary. It's not actually until the 27th but with school starting and all, we had to get it in before it never happened! We flew out Monday morning and got into JFK around 3:00. We took the subway from the airport to our hotel...and got out of the subway to find Trump International Hotel and Tower greeting us to NYC...
For dinner we found a "hole in the wall" pizza place that was so good, we both ended up ordering another piece! YUM! Then we walked around Central Park for awhile until it got dark...

(The Sheep Meadow in Central Park...it is an area reserved for quiet enjoyment)

Rob by a fountain by the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

A view of the city skyline from Central Park

This was the view from our hotel...Day Two started with a bagel and cream cheese from a street vendor (pretty much how every day started!) Then we hit the streets of New York, first stopping by the Late Show with David Letterman....

We didn't get to see a taping since they weren't taping that week. We kept on walking to Radio City Music Hall...

(This was taken the night before we left on our way to Times Square)

then the Rockefeller Center (we didn't make it early enough to see the Today Show outside, but did peek into the window of one of the buildings and saw Kathy Lee Gifford doing her show)...

then to the New York Public Library...

then the Empire State Building...

(I love this picture from the Empire State Building showing Central Park among all the skyscrapers)

Next it was off to Grand Central Station (where it's grand and it's central...movie, Marcy??) to take the subway up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art...

The night ended with an awesome Yankees game...

In the seventh inning, the Yankees were down by one and I turned to Rob and said, "The Yankees better win, and I better see a homerun." Have no fear, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada are here! Bottom of the 8th, they hit back to back homeruns! Melky Cabrera and Johnny Damon added RBI singles to extend the lead to 7-4. Then they brought out Mariano Rivera in the 9th to finish off the Blue Jays ...okay so they hit a homerun off him first thing, but then he finished them off :). Yeah, it was awesome! They ended up winning 7-5.

The wait for the subway ride back to the hotel was miserably hot, sweaty and crowded...but hey, what better way to experience NYC, right?

Kovacs/Hatch Reunions July 22-25, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, we had the Kovacs and Hatch Family Reunions. The first reunion was July 22-23 with the Kovacs side of the family (my parents and siblings plus my dad's brother's family). My dad's brother, my Uncle Mike, has 13 kids (8 of which were either there with their families or some of their kids were there).

On Wednesday, July 22nd, we started the reunion with many of us going to the Oquirrh Mountain LDS Temple open house (some hadn't made it to Utah yet). Here are a few of us afterwards in front of the temple...

Then we went to Ogden Valley around Liberty and camped there for a couple of days.

Activities included hiking to a waterfall...

discovering a rope swing over the river...

tying a quilt...

and getting really dirty...

On Friday morning, we headed to the Heber Valley Camp for the big FIVE generation Hatch Family Reunion. This is my dad's mom's side of the family. My Grandma Moore is one of ten children (they call them the Ten Tribes). Each tribe is assigned a color of shirt to wear so we can all distinguish who is from which family.

We took family pictures...

Big group shot of all Kovacs that were there

My immediate family...minus my brother, Jeremy, who is in Korea

and my brother-in-law, Jake, who is in Iraq
I have mentioned before that all of my siblings and I had kids within a 15 month period. Here they are with their moms (we didn't ever get one with just my siblings). They are in order from right to left according to age.

From right to left are Clytie (Jeremy) and Lindsey, me and Trevor, Amy and Emily, Mary Anne and Sadie, Allyson and Brock, Heather (Tim) and Gavin and Noel (David) and Kieran.

Other activities included coloring posters for the "I Have A Family Tree" song...



mischief with cousins (Emily and Trevor...SHE did it!)...

Ten Tribe Concentration with yours truly as Vanna...

dancing the Virginia Reel and Macarena...

a Lasso or "Redneck" Golf tournament (sadly I was knocked out in the first round)...

and a Pioneer Day parade, ending with songs by the little ones...

Each of the ten tribes was supposed to make a quilt for everyone at the reunion to sign. A few of my cousins and Mary Anne and Clytie came up to my house before the reunion and we sewed together the blocks. Then we tied it at the Kovacs reunion and had people sign it at the Hatch reunion...

Just Tri It!

Yesterday Rob and I competed in the Cache Valley Super Sprint Triathlon. My sister, Mary Anne, and her husband, Dusty, came up from Provo to do it with us. It was everyone's first triathlon, except Dusty...he's pretty much a pro now :) We had a great time!

Here's me and Dusty checking out the competition in the transition area before the race. The photo was taken Mary Anne, hence the focus on Dusty...hehehe!

Getting marked!

Me and Rob before the race...

Check out that babe on the right...is my sister hot or what?! And then there's me in my "Urkle" spandex! My sisters and I started a weight loss blog in January to motivate each other. Just to brag a little about her, she has lost over 30 lbs. Me...I've lost just over 10 lbs. Unfortunately, most of it happened in the chest area :0) ....

Dusty smoked us all and finished in 1:08 so he was the official photographer after he finished. Here we are coming in after the bike...

Heading for the finish line...

Someone should remind me to smile so I at least look like I'm enjoying myself! It was so blazing hot out there...all I cared about was crossing that finish line!

Dusty, Mary Anne, Me and Rob....WE DID IT!!

For the record, here are the official results:

Rob:
Overall- 1:34:48
Swim (500 meters)- 12:48
Transition 1- 3:58
Bike (12.5 mile)- 42:07
Transition 2- 1:23
Run (5k)- 34:30

He finished 96/105 in the men's overall and 23/24 his men's age group. Not bad for starting training only a few weeks before!

Kirsten:
Overall- 1:39:40
Swim- 16:54
T1- 3:03
Bike- 46:49
T2- 1:13
Run- 31:39

I finished 88/116 in the women's overall and 23/29 my women's age group. When adding up my training times, I figured it would take me about 1:50 to finish (not including transitions since I had no clue how long those would take and maybe even longer since I wasn't sure if I could do it all together at the same pace as each individual time). I had been training for the bike on my 40 lb. Huffy "Kmart special" mountain bike that we bought about 10 years ago. Rob and I biked the route about 3 weeks ago and it took us just over an hour (he could have gone ALOT faster but hung back with me). My knee would kill every time I biked so I was a little worried about that portion of the race. I rented a road bike and had it properly adjusted and learned that my seat was way too low on my own bike, which is why my knee was killing.

As for my thoughts on the race, I felt like I really struggled through the swim. I only swam 4 times during my 8 weeks of training and I actually finished in my exact training time but other swimmers kept passing me so I felt like I was going really slow. Also, I trained in a 25 meter pool and the race was in a 50 meter pool so it just seemed like it took forever to do one length of the pool. I also psyched myself out because at one end, I looked across the lanes and thought I only had 150 meters left and just kept telling myself "only 3 more to go" but I really had 250 meters (5 left)! Yeah, that sucked! But once I got on the bike and ate a Snickers bar, I was feeling GREAT! I did the bike about 15 minutes faster than I had planned (thanks to a nice road bike that was properly adjusted) without knee pain and I felt good the whole way! My run was right on as well, about a 10 minute mile, which is what I've been training at. I am really happy with the whole thing. Would I do it again...maybe if someone wants to volunteer to swim for me :o)

Thanks, Mary Anne, for inviting us to do it with you. You can check out her blog, too, for more pics of her and Dusty.

4th of July at the Cabin

We were able to make a quick but enjoyable trip up to the cabin this weekend. We got there Friday afternoon and the kids played with cousins (didn't get any pics but you can check out Rob's brother's blog for some cute ones).

Friday night Rob took the girls "into town" (Oakley) to see the fireworks after the rodeo. Ashlee was very disappointed that we would be missing parades and fireworks back in Logan (luckily there's always July 24th in Utah) so we had to make sure she at least saw some fireworks...even if they only lasted a couple of minutes. Rob has an obsession with taking pictures of fireworks and the moon. Seriously, you should see how many of those types of pictures we have on the computer from over the years :)

On Saturday we picnicked by the lake and took pictures on the famous stump. Trevor had fallen asleep on the way over to the lake so I couldn't get the picture I wanted of him. I brought the same shirt that Landon is wearing in the picture from 2006. Some people say that Trevor is a "little Landon" but I don't really see it so I wanted to get a picture in the same shirt and same spot at about the same age (Landon is 15 months in the picture), but oh well. We'll just have to get one when we're down there in August.

And 3 years before...

We headed back home on Saturday after dinner, making a quick stop at Smith's for some fireworks, and enjoyed the rest of the 4th with neighbors, sparklers, and a mini fireworks display ala Rob (again, no pictures).

Happy 4th, everyone. I am grateful to live in a free land and enjoy the beautiful area I live in. I started reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns" (a book about the lives of women in Afghanistan) last week and it has reinforced to me how blessed we are to live here. I am grateful for the sacrifices of brave men and women who have served and fought and in many cases, given their lives, in order for us to enjoy those freedoms.

One Half Plus One

A few tidbits about our 18 month old boy...

He is one cool dude (don't you love the Cinderella glasses)...
Stubborn, but finally starting to give walking a try...
Still loves his thumb and cuddling with mom or dad...

Has 16 teeth that he loves to floss (his Aunt Amy would be proud)...

Swim Lesson Rules

Lando had his first swim lesson this morning. He's a bit scared of the water, but he lucks out that no one else signed up for his class, so he gets private lessons for the regular group lesson price.

I asked him what he learned, and these are the rules he recited to me:

Rule number one is always listen to the teacher.

Rule number two is no peeing in the pool.

Rule number three is always get wet in the shower before getting in the pool.