Happy Holidays!

As we enjoy the holiday season here in NH, I am grateful for many things!  For the second time in two years, our entire family was able to gather together in Bend, Oregon for Thanksgiving!  It's a rare treat in our family when this happens, as we are spread all over the country, and all have very different lifestyles (translated: we pretty much all work different shifts!)

We gather in Bend for several reasons.  Bobby, our son, is a brewer at 10 Barrel Brewing Company located there! He's been there for a couple of years now, and we all love the area, the beautiful trails for walking/running/biking, and the proximity to some great skiing, both Xcountry and down hill!  The girls, being on the west coast, have a fairly easy time of getting there, and we do the leg work and fly cross country!  We are also able to spend time with our great friends, Tina, Peter and Marley Leavitt!  When we arrived, Bobby's new brew- Rye'm or Treason was just being bottled!  It was fun to see the first bottle come through the bottling machine!  We had a great tour of the brewery with our favorite brewer, and got to sample some of his new brew!

 

ALI AND BOBBY

 

We also had the opportunity to meet Bobby's new girlfriend, Ali!  It was really fun getting to meet both her and her family!  We had a really fun time all going out to the Tumalo Feed Company for a great dinner event!

 

We also had some basic fun and frolicking while hanging out...the Jackson household, when in full swing, is simply never a dull place!

More shenanigans at the Brewery!

Scout and Marley having a boxing match down by the Deschutes River! 

An after Thanksgiving Dinner walk down by the river....

And of course, no Jackson event would be complete without:  I can do this better than you!  Watch this! 

It was a great holiday!  And now as Christmas is upon us, I would like to simply say to all reading, have a fun, family filled holiday!  Enjoy your time together.  I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!
d

It's been a great week in the Jackson household!  Both Chris and I were named to the 2013 Wattie Ink Elite Team!  We are very excited to have been chosen as part of this dynamic, and innovative team!  We are equally excited to have been joined by Dave D'Abrosca on the Wattie Squad!  He's a good friend, and we're already excited about finding some local hills to repeat, and swims to conquer together!

A huge shout out to the other 100+ chosen team mates!  We met a number of them last year during our travels, and are very excited about being able to hook up with many of them over the course of next season!

On the home front, training has gone well this week.  The indoor trainer rides have been a bit challenging, but last weekend's long run up the Rail Trail from Epping to Raymond and back was terrific!  It was a really nice day to be out and about! 

We're starting to put together our race program for next season.  We're hoping to get in some great destination races!  First on our docket is going to be Oceanside 70.3!  Really looking forward to some nice weather at the end of March!

Gearing up for the holidays!  Hope everyone's are family and fun filled!
d

Rain this morning, wind, then sun, warm and fifty and now down in to the teens!  Training in New England weather, always an interesting event!  Got a solid run in this afternoon before the wind and cold hit!  Today's run included a segment of running drills.  I went down to the local track so I would have a flat surface to work on...strictly to help me not trip over my own feet (or a bump in the road) and embarass myself with a face plant!  Can I just say, I was really glad there was no one else out this afternoon, because I'm pretty sure that was the most uncoordinated performance of high knees, butt kicks and karoake steps on the planet!  Clearly, my drills need some help!  Good times out there!
: )
d

Look at this....I'm blogging!  I've been co-teaching for about a year now with our techie at school.  She has inspired me to attempt new and innovative things on the computer!  So here's my latest project!  I hope to record my journey through the 2013 triathlon race season in this blog! 

It's December 2, 2012, and the weather in New England is already putting a bit of a dent in outdoor training!  We've had a bit of snow, but it has melted away.  It was a pretty snow as we (my husband, Chris) rode 3 hours on our trainers on the second floor of our house, yesterday.  Most people have garages, or man-caves, we do not.  Our second story living room is our workout space.  So to get to all the bedrooms one has to dodge bikes, trainers and "stuff."  But it works for us!  When our son moved away, he didn't have room for his amazing sound system, so that also graces our workout room!  Great tunes, and high school loud!  Running outside is still on the agenda, so that has been helpful. 

Our first race of the 2013 season will be Oceanside 70.3!  We love that race as we get to visit our daughter, as well as having great weather for spring!  It's still cold here, so heading out there for the SoCal weather is a real treat! 

Currently we're enjoying visiting with friends and family for the holidays. We spent Thanksgiving in Bend with all the kids and their significant others.  It was a blast!  We're looking forward to having the girls home between now and Christmas!

It's Sunday night, so time to prep for school tomorrow. Time to TRI and get organzed for tomorrow!
d