The boys are officially on Summer Break!! Last Friday was the last day of school and we celebrated in true summer style, a pool party with some of our besties.

Keane is jump in the pool excited for Summer Break!

Cannon Ball!

Logan’s victory jump of excitement.

Cullen and his buddies trying to get on the hammer head floaty.

With a little grown up help, they are on.

Julian, the youngest of the crew, is cautious about his pool approach.

Happy little floater.

Cullen, Henry and Ashton, living their best life.

Cullen on his hammer head is full of advice on how Henry should get on the inflatable jet ski.

Henry is on.

Brothers Luke and Logan are also are big fans of the jet ski’s.

Cullen, still chillin on his hammer head.

Keane and his friend Noah.

A lot of love for these jet ski’s.

Instead of riding the jet ski, Keane prefers to attack his friends with it.

Cullen.

Eli and his brother Donovan.

Cullen and Noah in an inflatable face off.

The water guns are out.

The best way to enjoy a popsicle.

Nothing like an adventure with your best friend. Especially when that adventure involves lots of water and lots of rocks. Cullen and his bestie, Henry spent an afternoon trolling a nearby lake for sharks. Specifically, bull sharks and wobbegong sharks. But try as they might, the only things biting that day, were tadpoles. They managed to catch about a dozen tadpoles each, but alas, no sharks. Also, we did release the captured tadpoles back to the lake, cos if nothing else we are friends to all animals and mammals.

It wasn’t suppose to take me an entire week to share our Ragnar photos, but what can I say? Life. That and the sheer volume of photos captured by my sister-in-law and I, it took me a while to comb through them all. But comb I did and here for your visual pleasure, is a collection of photos, documenting all of the run, sweat and tears of our 200 mile journey for the wonderful Avielle Fountain.

Bright and early on Day 1, my nephew James helps with the Van decoration.

Slowly, carrying their coffee’s, the rest of our Van runners begin to gather. And we all stand around watching James put the finishing touches to the Van art.

Later morning, ready to take over from the first 6 runners of our team of 12. And as you can tell, it was cold and windy.

Strutting around with our free merchandise.

Kait has some creativity she wants to add to our Van.

As does Si.

All the members of Van 2. Ready to get running and put some ticks in those boxes.

Mike & Kait.

Ashley, the first to run from our Van, trying to stay warm.

Van 2 group shot!

Wahoo! Billy and Bubba, 2 of the Van 1 runners arrive.

Ashley is way to excited about her upcoming 8 mile run.

Here comes Sunny. 6 miles run and ready to hand off to Ashley.

High-5 to send Ashley on her first of 3 runs.

Well done Sunny, 1 run down, 2 to go.

Our Van 1 teammates.

Team Avielle runners and supporters.

Team shirt pick up.

Checking in on Ashley and her energetic jump skills, to give her a little team support as she covers her 8 miles.

Cheer squad.

Almost there.

We’re all Ashley fans.

Mike in position, ready to take the wrist band and run.

The hand off.

Well done Ashley.

The first from Van 2 to complete her first run. Tick that box!

Meanwhile Mike is logging more precious miles.

Si uses the power of the orange flags to stop traffic for the next hand off.

Our next runner, Dinara, in position waiting for Mike.

Here he comes.

The hand off.

And off she goes.

Post run chats.

Mike takes a minute before we’re back in the Van, following Dinara to the next exchange.

There she is.

The hand off to Si.

And the wrist band is fumbled. But a fast recovery and Si is off and running.

A wave for the fans.

Mike ticks his first box.

As does Dinara.

Back on the road to give Si some support. Mike came with a megaphone, thats how serious he takes his supporting role.

Here comes Si.

And there he goes.

Running in for the next exchange to…….

…….Me! Finally my turn to get on the road and start logging some miles.

A clean wrist band hand off.

Me again!

Hand off to Kait.

A convoy of Vans supporting all of the Ragnar runners.

Kait final runner from our Van (Van 2) to complete her first run. Now the Van 1 runners take over, so we have a couple of hours to eat and rest before we are back on the course for the night time run.

A tick in the box for completing my first run for the team.

First tick for Kait.

A few hours later and here we are, ready to run into the night for our 2nd runs. No photos from the night time runs, cos it was dark. But trust me, we all covered our miles and handed over to Van 1 who then began their 3rd and final runs for the team.

Not a lot of sleep was had, by anyone on the team, but just after sunrise on Day 2, and here we are, waiting for Sunny, the final runner from Van 1. Billy, already finished his 3rd run for the team is celebrating with a cider for breakfast. Impressive.

Van 1 & Van 2 runners, as well as Avielle Foundation supporters.

We’re exhausted, physically and mentally, and the sleep deprivation is real, but we’re still smiling. Watching out for Sunny.

Ashely is ready to take over and run a massive 12 miles for her final run.

1 run left for all of us, so we’re pretty excited.

Here come Sunny! Her final run for the team.

Ashely ready to take over.

Well done Sunny. You made it.

As Ashley heads off on her 12 miles, Sunny and Bubba celebrate with a selfie.

My good friend Mike and I.

A photo of Mike, taking a photo of myself and Dinara.

Back in the Van and we find a good spot to cheer Ashely on. Mike with his megaphone of course.

Watching out for Ashley.

Entertaining ourselves while we wait with a little sit on your teammate game.

All of the photos over the 2 days were shot by Dinara and I. We are the memory capturers.

There she is (left), about 7 miles in, with enough energy for a cheeky photo.

5 miles later, here she comes. The end of her final run.

Passing off to yours truly.

Bear hug for the girl who just ran a beastly 12 miles.

Here I go, my 3rd and final run.

About half way through my last run and there’s my support team, and Mike with his trusty megaphone of course.

At the end of my run I handed off to Dinara for her final run. And wow was she excited.

Coming in for the final hand off.

Band passed to Si.

And he’s off on his last run.

Congratulatory high-5’s.

Ashley ticks her last box.

Well done girl.

Dinara’s final box ticked.

My final box ticked.

So happy to be done.

Mike standing amongst some athletic ladies, waiting for Si.

Here he comes.

A clean hand off.

Mike can’t believe it, he’s off on his final run for the team.

Time check.

The final runner for the team, Kait, with Avielle foundation member, Nick.

Here comes Mike.

Passing the band to Kait so she can head off on her last run.

Wahoo! Tick in the final box.

5 miles later, Kait gunning towards the finish line.

Followed by all of the Team Avielle runners.

Me in the back there, very happy to reach that finish line.

200 miles. Over 2 days. Running day and night. We did it!

Kait, Si and I with our hard earned medals.

Each teams medals, when put together, spell out something inspirational.

Ours read; “WE ARE RAGNARIANS. WE BELEIVE……TOGETHER WE CAN ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING”

We did it again! Last year you might remember myself and 11 other amazing friends, took part in the 2018 Ragnar Cape Cod Challenge. A 2 day event. A team of 12 people, covering 200 miles from Boston all the way to the tip of Cape Cod. Starting and 5am on Friday morning. Running all day, all through the night and into Saturday, to raise funds for the wonderful Avielle Foundation. Well this year we did it again. And it was just as challenging, grueling and exhausting as I remember it being last year. But it was also the most fun I’ve had in a very long time. As usual many photos were captured, and once my broken body begins to mend and the brain fog from sleep deprivation beings to lift, I will be sharing all of the magically moments from our team’s 200 mile running journey.

Without spoiling the outcome, I will let you know, WE MADE IT! From start all the way to the finish. And here to prove it is our team of amazing humans not long after crossing the finish line. (If you’re looking for me, I’m front row 2nd from left.)

When your plan to take the dog for a walk ends up being less walk the dog and more kids playing, fishing and finally rescuing an injured fish from a local lake. With these 2 boys, nothing ever goes as planned. Dexter didn’t get the exercise he thought would this particular day. But I think he still enjoyed our non-walking adventure.

There’s a trail that goes around this lake. And the plan when we left the house, was to take Dexter for his walk around said trail. But once the boys got out of the car, they headed straight for the lake and the walk never happened.

I mean, who could even think about walking when there’s sticks to be played with.

In a mad rush to get somewhere.

Jackpot! They found random boards floating in the lake.

Cullen decides to relocate the boards.

Keane, the dominant brother, likes to be the one to make the decisions and execute the plans. Cullen is having way to much fun moving the wood, so Keane decides to give himself the role of wood mover.

And so he instructs Cullen to do some low level job, while he takes over.

Whatever low level job Keane gave him, Cullen has completely forgotten and is now hypnotized by the creek.

Still dragging the wood.

Still.

And now its right where it needs to be.

Hello there Dexter.

The wood project is over and its time to fish.

Ever the big brother, Keane swoops in with fishing advice for Cullen.

And what do you know, Keane has the rod back and is fishing again.

We did manage to catch a fish. Or rather an injured fish swam up to the edge and we took advantage by scooping it up into a water bottle.

Cullen is over to investigate.

Keane finally lets Cullen take charge of something, the injured fish.

Cullen decides to give the fish some food to help it get better. Some lake grass.

Time to go and bring our injured fish friend with us.

Back home and Cullen puts the fish in a bucket so he can take care of it better.

But sadly the fish didn’t make it.

Cullen breaks the news to Keane.

They spend a lot of time investigating the dead fish.

Then Keane begins digging him a nice grave amongst the bushes.

Bye fishy!

Cullen lays him to rest.

A few stones to mark the burial spot.