I’ll get back to weaving and sheep pretty soon, but I want to finish the story of our April 1 family event. I wrote the first post about this almost a week ago. [I also wonder if I should go back to my old Wordpress blog for this family stuff and keep the one here for sheep and weaving. My life is so wrapped up with what I do for a living that it usually all fits together. Besides I barely have time for one blog, let alone two. Hmmm.]

This weekend was all about the family coming together and the three guys completing the half-Ironman as a relay team. However, one of the highlights for Matt was renting a Tesla. He showed off all the bells and whistles…including the option of having your car make fart sounds. Really?

I will admit that the car had a lot of other and more useful attributes.

This was the line for checking in.

My two daughters-in-law and daughter. What a lovely trio!

We walked around the Ironman village and saw the maps of the following day’s event. This was the planned course for the swim. That was Matt’s part of the course. By the next morning the course had changed due to the unexpected cold ocean temperature.

The bike route, 56 miles. Usually we try to find places along the course where we can watch and cheer on our athlete. But that wasn’t going to happen on this one, since much of the course was in the military base.

The 13.1 mile (half-marathon) run course through the beachfront part of Oceanside.

The bikes have to be taken to the transition area the day before the event. Dan discovered a problem that would have made his bike unrideable. We split up. Matt and Kaleena and I wandered around the swim venue and beyond. Dan and the others went to deal with the bike. Problem solved! Now just needing last minor adjustments.

Dan had to figure out what tools he could do without so he didn’t need to pack a large bag with him. Family lore—Dan’s Dad used to ride the Davis Double Century (200 miles) with his sandals strapped to a rack on the bike. You don’t see too many bikes with racks at these events now.

We delivered the bike to the staging area. By the next morning all those racks were completely full of bikes.

We had dinner out and then spent some time at the beach. We’re missing one spouse (and their kids) here to make this picture complete. Katie’s husband and kids had to stay in Texas.

Me with my three kids! Southern California is supposed to be warm, but the weather wasn’t much different than we’d been having at home.