Plumbs

All three of us went to the grocery store last week - and, as always - I went during Charlotte Anne's lunch time. So, I start pulling snacks out of my bag to feed her as she rides around in the cart. I gave her yogurt bites and fruit chews, but she was still hungry. So, I thought I would just give her a few things to keep her entertained until we got to the car and I could pull something out of our emergency snack stash in the car. I gave CA the box of cereal to play with and that lasted a few minutes. Then, we gave her a plump because she loves ping pong balls and will play with them for 30 minutes at a time. Well, I wasn't paying attention and after a few aisles of shopping, I realized that CA was eating the plump.... not just picking at it, but really eating it. It took her about 20 minutes, but she ate the entire thing - all by herself. I feel guilty for depriving her of something she loves so much!

We left the store and I thought about giving her another plump at dinner. That is when I realized that I never did buy any. Ugh. Thankfully, my mom brought over some plumps later that night and, as you can see from the pictures, it make Charlotte Anne's day!!

Happy 1st!

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY CHARLOTTE ANNE!!

What an amazing 12 months this has been - so much joy and love in the Newell house! Luke and I can't even describe how much love our little princess - her happy demeanor, her coy play when meeting new people, her love of food, her smile each day when she sees the dogs for the first time, how she jumps in her bed when we walk in to get her, how she finds peace in a little pink bunny rabbit, and how she plays as hard as possible and then sleeps as deep as possible. She has been not only a wonderful blessing in our life, but she has been so fun - really making us laugh and enjoy just being around her. We truly praise God for such a perfect daughter for us!

Paragliding in Bariloche

After Cruce de los Andes, Luke and I went 3 hours South to one of our favorite cities in the world: Bariloche. This place is relaxing, beautiful and has one of my favorite hotels, Llao Llao. The plan was to do absolutely nothing + get a massage. However... somehow Luke talked me into going paragliding. I didn't even know what paragliding was until we went and I know that I would have said no if I realized what I was agreeing to. Thankfully, I went because it was awesome. Our legs were like jello which wasn't a good think considering you have to run to get started, but we made it work. We went hundreds, maybe even thousands, of feet in the air above the famous lake in Bariloche. The flight only lasted about 45 minutes, but it was worth it. I thought I would have been scared to death, but it was surprisingly calm and peaceful. Bucket list item #2 - check!

This probably only weighted 15 lbs, but after the race, I didn't think I could do it. I am sure the paragliding guys thought something was wrong with me because I couldn't walk straight and I kept stopping to rest. :)

Cruce de Columbia: Day 2 & 3

Days 2 and 3 were completely different than day #1. Day two was roughly 33 miles - and without a doubt the hardest. Not only were we exhausted and sore from day #1, 33ish miles is a long way to go! The first 22 miles were up hill. We joked that it was the hill that wouldn't end. I mean, every switch back we thought we had to be at the top, but no... we kept on hiking. We estimated that day #2 (before we realized that it was mostly up hill) would take about 5.5 or 6 hours. Well, I think we finished in about 7.5 hours. Whew.

Day #3 was just a 1/2 marathon and it was mostly flat, so it was a breeze (relatively speaking, of course). The best part about day #3 was crossing the Chilean and Argentine borders on foot. We literally ran into the border patrol, got our passports stamped, and ran out! There were so many people, that the border patrol agent messed up my stamp. He put that I arrived back in Argentina in 2021.

We did it! This is us at the finish line... 73.5 miles and 3ish days later!

After we finished, we took a 5 minute boat ride across the river. We were cold and hurting, but NOTHING could have put a damper on this moment. We were beyond happy - we had actually finished the race!!

Mountain Lion, Luke, post race.

Each team had their country flag on their backs. This was so fun because you could see where everyone was from. This was great for us because there were only about 4 USA flags in the race (out of 1500 people), so everyone was cheering us on.

Cruce de Columbia: Day 1

Go Team Newellicious!!!

Day 1 was definitely the most diverse day... we went 42 km or 26.2 miles. 10ish km were hiking up 1000 meters of dirty / grassy land, 10ish km were hiking through ice and snow and then hiking around an active volcano, 10ish km were getting down from the volcano in snow and rocks and the last 10ish km were running through rolling hills (thankfully, mostly down hill)!! It was our best day - finishing in the top 25% of the racers! We were hurting, but we weren't prepared for how badly we would hurt the next day when we woke up! Praise the Lord for bodies who respond when called to do it all over again for day #2!

The pictures are in reverse order because I can't figure out an easy way to fix them. So, this is after 26 miles... we had to recross a wobbly bridge to get to the finish line!

The snow was a first for both Luke and me - for running. We have both been skiing, but when you ski, you are decked out in ski gear. Trying to walk up a snowy mountain and then run for 10 km in tennis shoes was just funny. We put the walking sticks in the bag at the last minute. Thank goodness we did because there is absolutely NO WAY we could have done it without them!

I have definitely hit my "runners' high"! :)

Hello world! I wish that I could be more poetic with my posts to fully describe how beautiful it was in the Andes. We were almost to the top of the volcano here - at one of the highest points in the Andes Mountain range. The air was so crisp and the wind was moving perfectly around the mountains. Loved every second of this part of the race!

This is right as the race was beginning. We just crossed the wobbly bridge and I want headed to the start line. I can honestly say that I had no idea what I was getting myself into at this point. I am carrying about 8 lbs of stuff with me. Needless to say I didn't bother with all of the accessories on days 2 or 3.

Cruce de Columbia: Pre-Race

In July 2010, I was flying from Chile to Brazil for work. I was reading the in-flight TAM airline magazine and saw an article about a 3 day ultra race through the Andes Mountains. The article was promoting the 2011 edition, using pictures from the 2010 race. Each year the route of the race is changed to different locations - all in the Chile / Argentina border area. However, I was hooked. The problem - I was 2 months pregnant at the time and was due 1 week after the 2011 race. So, there was no way this was going to happen. However, I couldn't stop thinking about how amazing this sounded. Therefore, in June 2011, with a 4 month old at home, we applied for the 2012 race. And... we got in. It was so far off that I didn't really think much about it. I was more concerned with surviving as a working mom, recovering from a c-secion and broken rib, and living away from family with an infant. However, as the Fall came, and we moved to Birmingham, we knew it was time to start really training hard!! Thank goodness we did because we needed every ounces of muscle to complete this race!!

It was 3 days (4 including the day it took to get to the starting point) and 73.5 miles. We walked / hiked / ran / waded through rivers and lakes each day for 4-8 hours. I conquered my fear of eating those nasty little energy Gu packets because I really didn't have a choice when you are trying to make it that far with little to no food!

It was an experience of a life-time, maybe even life changing. Would we do it again?? Probably not. It would be hard to recreate what we just experienced. I think the unknown and the bits of fear, confusion and anticipation made it that much better and helped us finish!

Below are photos from our pre-race adventures.

This is my plate the night before the race started... lots of pasta and Argentine meat! It might look gross, but it tasted delicious. It was the meal every single day, so it got old pretty quickly. However, after running each day, you could have fed us anything and we would have eaten it.

We haven't even started the race at this point and it was exhausting! We carried our bags to camp 1 - on a ferry for a 1.5 hours and then to the camp. It would have been an injustice to complain about anything because he scenery was incredible. Everywhere you looked, you were surrounded by the Andes Mountains. If we ever do anything like this again, we will definitely bring 2 large backpacks. The race use to have boxes that you put everything in for your team and then the organization transported everything. However, the Chilean customs squashed that this year due to the time it took to clear customs in the past. So, I had my nice suitcase that I was dragging through the middle of a jungle. As you can see from the picture, at first, I was trying to carry it everywhere. By the end, I didn't care and was just dragging it from point A to point B! :) Oh well, lesson learned!

The race still hasn't started at this point. We jus left Argentina and crossed the Chilean border on foot. I thought it was funny because on the immigration form, we couldn't check airplane, train, bus, car... we had to check "other - on foot".

We had to wear these bracelets the entire race. We thought it was so they could keep up with us in case we disappeared into the wilderness. However, we learned that it was to make sure we didn't eat more than our share! :) They scanned the bracelets before each meal while we were in line!

We had just gotten registered and we had our race gear. The organization gave us a race shirt, long-sleeve cold gear shirt, Columbia polar fleece, neck gator, bowls / plate for food, water bottles and some other stuff. We spend hours packing our bad just right and had every single pocket full. Now, we had about 25 lbs of other things that we had to find space for in our stuff... we just started unpacking t-shirts and leaving them in the hotel before we left. Someone in San Martin de los Andes has a nice collection of KD and FIJI t-shirts. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to get rid of some of those anyway.

Happy 1st Birthday, Jake!

Charlotte Anne was invited to her 2nd birthday party (yea for cousins) - celebrating her cousin Jake's 1st birthday. He and Charlotte Anne were born about 3 weeks apart. We celebrated with a cowboy themed party at Yogurt Lab! CA hates hats, but we managed to get this cute cowgirl hat on her for the picture. Luke and I are super grateful for a cousin that is so close in age to CA - what a fun way to grow up! Happy Birthday, Jake!

Busted - Lima Beans

Anyone who knows me, knows that the only thing I refuse to eat is Lima Beans. Ugh, they are just gross. However, being the good mom I am... (or at least I dream of being)... I wasn't going to allow CA to develop some strange resistance of a little bean. I started giving them to her and she actually ate them. She eats almost anything, so I wasn't too shocked. However, the dreaded lima bean??!!??

Well, I realized that she wasn't just eating them, she was scarfing them down. I kinda puffed up and thought... yep, perfect baby... eats everything. After about 3 days of eating lima beans, I realized that Don Juan was really in tune to CA's eating schedule. When she went into the highchair, he sat at her feet. So, I gave Charlotte Anne her beans and turned around to fix the rest of her meal. She gave me a big smile and then when she thought I wasn't looking, she started hand feeding Don Juan her food - one bean at a time so it wouldn't be so obvious. NOOOOOO!!!! I was duped by an 11 1/2 month old.

Now, I sit 3 feet from her and watch her eat every last bean.

Dog Bowls

We have 2 very spoiled dogs when it comes to food. They will only eat science diet - sooo expensive - and they refuse to eat out of a dog bowl. I'm sure I am to blame since I hand fed them as puppies. I still am not sure why I did that, but at the time I thought it was a bonding thing or something like that. For the past 5 years we have been trying to get them to eat out of bowls. It will work occasionally, but Luke or I have to stand by them while they eat - not super convenient and then I have to sweep, vacuum and mop the floor each morning and night. For fear that Luke would make even more fun of me, I never complained around him. However, I was getting really sick of my dog's needy food time habits. I saw these flat things at Hollywood Feed and I knew it was the perfect solution! I think they were suppose to be like place mats for dogs. I didn't even care that the lady behind the counter must think I'm crazy for buying my dog a place mat.... if she only knew how good our dogs have it she would really think I'm nuts. I'm that person that these overpriced pet stores prey on... and it totally works. Anyway, I bought the mats and the dogs love them!!! Huge success.... only 5 years in the making! Thank goodness Osa will eat anything, from anywhere, at anytime!