The Murrays' Musings: June 2009

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Aaron and Darcy

Aaron and Darcy
Originally uploaded by Pierpont Photography

Here is one of Aaron and Darcy's engagement photos.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

We went to Chicago this weekend for a wedding and a friend of ours was watching Bella for us. He called on our drive home tonight and said she had gotten a cute on her paw and he was going to bring her back to our house so she was here when we got home. When we arrived poor little Bella was limping around on 3 legs instead of 4 and when I got a good look at her cut, realized it was pretty deep. Jamie called the after hours vet clinic and the lady on the phone said it might be a good idea to bring her in to prevent infection. So at about 8:00 we drove across town and took her in to the emergency 24 hour vet clinic. We waited a little bit and finally saw the veterinarian and she said she probably needed stitches. They took her back and we waited in the waiting room for about 45 minutes. They brought her back out to us pretty groggy and out of it (they had to sedate her) with a big cone on her head and a little doggy cast on her little leg! She looked so sad and pathetic! She has to take an antibiotic and they gave her some pain medication and no running, jumping, or playing with other dogs (sorry J.J. no playing this weekend!) until she gets her sutures out (10-14 days). Here are a few pictures of our poor little girl!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Colbie Caillat Concert

Last night we saw Colbie Caillat in concert in Des Moines. She was playing at the Simon Estes Ampitheater downtown which is an outdoor theater right down by the river. There was a threat of rain and we were a little worried it would just start pouring in the middle of the show, but the rain held off til later in the evening. A guy named Jason Reeves opened for her and he was pretty decent. Apparently is from Iowa City but very good friends with Colbie Caillat. I had stopped at Palmer's Deli on the way home from work to grab some dinner to eat at the concert. We had an amusing time people watching as we waited for the show to start. There were many teenage girls there and after Jason Reeves played they all wanted his autograph. It was kind of a hilarious time. Colbie put on a great show and we had a really good time. The venue was perfect for her and her type of music too.

Copper Creek Triathlon

Colin and my mom came to town over the weekend for the 2nd 1st annual (it got rained out last year) Copper Creek Triathlon. I had told Col about it a few months ago and wasn't sure if he'd be interested because the big HyVee Triathlon is in a couple weeks and he was already planning on do that one in Des Moines, but he decided to sign up for it. The total prize purse was pretty enticing...about $5000 divided among the top 3 men and women. So he had a goal: top 3. But we had no idea what the competition would be like. This was a sprint triathlon so it was a shorter distance than some (not an Olympic lenght or a half Ironman like he's done a few of recently): 750m swim, 20k bike, and 5k run.

The race started at 8am so we headed over to Pleasant Hill around 6:30am so he could get his bike set up and warm up a little. There ended up being a lot of fog that morning so they delayed the race by about 15-20 minutes. Colin was in the first heat of athletes to start so we watched them start the swim then walked over to near where they would exit the water so we could see what place he was out of the water (you can't tell who is who in the water anyhow because there are so many of them). He ended up being 8th out of the water and we ran over to the transition area to see him get on his bike. I guess he passed a couple people in transition but ended up being passed while biking so came back 8th to start the run. The funny thing was the first guy in on his bike was ahead of all the other athletes by a good 4 minutes. We were wondering where everyone else was? After Colin left transition to go run, we walked over to the lake where the finish line was and were looking for him across the lake. They had to run up a road into the neighborhood and then back down again and then go around the lake to finish. The guy who had the lead still had the lead and won with a time of 56:05. We kept watching for Colin (usually we can tell which one he is by his stride and his outfit but this time we couldn't). We finally saw him come up the home stretch in 6th place! He had passed 2 people on the run which was really good. We stayed around awhile after that for the awards ceremony at 11:00 and he ended up finishing first in his age group (20-24) although technically he was second since one of the guys who finished top 3 was 24 yo. But he got to stand on the podium stand so that was pretty cool! Colin's time ended up being 1:00:55 and we had found out later that the guy who won who was ahead of everyone else was also a professional triathlete so that made a little more sense. Maybe next year!