Winter Color

Maggie and Cate put in the winter color this past weekend.
As with everything, Cate had to get her hands dirty. Literally.

Cate Takes Time for Herself

Reminds me of my dad... It's even a book about golf!

The P-O Garden, Day One

We have a NEW PROJECT!

We have a small garden on the east side of our house. It measures 5' x 20'. Today we decided to ACT! We are doing our part to reduce our carbon footprint. I am not sure how this reduces it, but they say it reduces it. We made 3 trips to the store, rented a gas-powered tiller, added a bunch of chemicals to the groundwater and bought a big plastic wheelbarrow thing. By my calculation, we will need to produce enough vegetables to feed 1/3 of Phoenix for six months to offset the imprint we left preparing this garden.

And we still have to successfully grow edible plants.

Here is Maggie doing her part. Manual labor! She really (seriously, really) worked HARD all day. We had to remove about 2 metric tons of rocks from this little plot of land. Maggie had the hard part. She had to dig through the dirt and pick out the rocks. The girls helped at first... But then Cate needed babysitting or something, and that was over. But they did help. Really.

And here I am, doing MY part. I believe this is the part where we get a little behind in the carbon footprint calculations. I ran this thing for about two hours. You see, I had to did way down to get the rocks that Maggie and girls had to pick out of the dirt. It looks easy, but let me tell you... it was a lot of fun!!!

This is what it looked like before the final tilling. We used the tiller to mix all of this together. We added about 25 c.f. of soil amendment, plus some chemicals to counter the HIGHLY acidic soils we have in Arizona. The soil itself has a lot of clay in it, so the amendment is primarily for drainage purposes.

We look forward to showing you pictures of green things in about a month. We can't plant for a week.

We are taking orders for carrots, lettuce(s), turnips (Maggie says so), and other things I haven't been told about yet.

One 70.3 Ironman down...

This is a quick post to let everyone on the Penman list know that Maggie completed her very first 70.3 Ironman in flying colors. She made it look easy, as she usually does. At every point in the race where we could see her (the start, after the swim, in the middle of the bike portion, and at the very end of her race), she looked absolutely relaxed. She looked like she was just out for a fun-run.

Her time was right where she wanted it to be (a few minutes over 6 hours). The run course was a lot hillier than she expected, so that made it more challenging, but it only slowed her down a little - She still posted a great time!!!

I'll have pictures and more details on the next post (probably tomorrow or maybe after we get home).

We are staying up here until Tuesday morning. It's SOOOO great to get out of the heat! We couldn't... I mean, Maggie couldn't have picked a better place to compete in her first Ironman!!!

Vineman 70.3

One week until Maggie's first long-distance triathlon. She is racing in the Vineman 70.3 Triathlon up in Sonoma, CA on Sunday, July 20th.

I think Maggie is VERY well prepared for this race, and will finish it easily. My guess is that Maggie will really like this distance. For those of you that don't know, it consists of a 1.2 mile swim, followed by a 56 mile bike leg, and then a 13.1 mile run (half-marathon).

Finishing will of course be all that she is really hoping for, as this is her first race like this. If she can do it in under six hours, it will definitely be considered a big success for her.

This is a hilly race, so you never know what can happen. It might be really hot, too! It's been over 100 degrees up there lately!

But I am confident that Maggie will do well. She has prepared herself beautifully.

One of the really cool things is that the bike race will go right by the house we are renting! We are on the bike course! We will of course be selling lemonade to all of the bikers as they go by. If they are in front of Maggie, they get the lemonade with laxative in it. Those that are behind her will get the good stuff. We don't want to be unfair to everyone.

GOOD LUCK MAGGIE!!! WE KNOW YOU'LL DO GREAT!

Love, Bruce and Kids

2008 Tempe International Triathlon

Maggie raced in the 2008 Tempe International Triathlon this past Sunday (May 18th) and did GREAT. She not only took 2nd in her class, but also made MAJOR strides in her swim, and even her run.

As a witness, I can tell you that she was so well prepared for this race that she was waving and smiling every time she ran by my camera. She really did make it look too easy!

Here are her splits, for those that watch such things.

She took some major time off her swim from last year, and this is while still doing mostly swim drills for her preparation for the 70.3 Vineman Ironman later this summer. She also had a really good run, with a pace of 8:18 per mile. Her bike (according to Maggie) wasn't that great, but only one girl was faster in her group.

Swim: 10:02.0
Transition #1: 1:03.5
Bike: 41:27.3
Transition #2: 1:32.0
Run: 25:49.5
Total Time: 1:19:54.5


A year ago, Maggie looked like she was ready to stop after the swim. As you can see in this picture alone, she is ready to go. I wish Blogger would let me post more pics so you could get a better feel for how strong she looked this time.

I didn't get many good pictures of Maggie starting the cycling leg of the race. Camera user malfuntion. But here she is jumping (literally) on her bike at the start of the bike ride.

This is Maggie coming out of the transition area after the 14 mile bike leg. Does she look like she has been in a race in this picture?

And here is Maggie sprinting to the finish. She looked so strong and so fast even as she made the mad dash to the finish line.

GREAT JOB, MAGGIE!!!!

It's Jigsaw Puzzle Time!!!

Create your own puzzles at PuzzleBee.com!

Easter 2008 - The Slideshow

Hike to the Petroglyphs

Maggie and I took Cate on a little walk over to the petroglyphs at the base of Telegraph Pass. For those of you that don't know the area, it's about a 20 minute walk from the house. Well, maybe a 30 minute walk with Cate. Cate was starting to feel better, so we decided to get her out of the house by taking her on a little nature hike. It wasn't the GREATEST idea ever, but it was a really beautiful day, so it was worth the effort. Maggie and I had to carry little Cate most of the time because every time we put Cate down to walk she would immediately sit down and start removing her Crocs. In retrospect, we probably should have given her more appropriate shoes to wear on a rocky/sandy trail. Live and learn.










We have had a good amount of rain recently, so the hills around our house are nice and GREEN. It's nice when it happens (about 3 months, every other year or so).

"Wait here... We'll be back REAL SOON!!!"

Not a big news day out here...

I golfed at Talking Stick Golf Club in Scottsdale today.

This little guy (gal?) wasn't shy at all. In fact, I have never been this close to a roadrunner before.

Like I said, Not a big news day.

Michael Haggerty Sr Is Another Year Oder

We went west to celebrate a birthday last week. Boy was it ever fun! Senior Haggerty is 67 now, which I think means he has been retired for 20 years. Jealous? Me?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Megan is not shy. Period.

I am sad to announce that there is a new favorite child in the family...

A new superhero: Photogenic-Boy