What's in a name?

A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.
I beg to differ when it comes to a triathlete.
Mathlete, Craftlete, Sasslete
None of these names can start to compete
With the glorious moniker of Triathlete

On Saturday, August 23, Mom Covey and I competed in our first (and quite possibly last) Triathlon. It was at the Jordanelle Reservoir Park near Heber, UT. We were proud to finish. (I'm almost prouder of the poem. Almost)

We started the race by receiving our numbers to identify us from all the other triathletes. I was #208.

The S should denote Superwoman after what we accomplished (1/2 mile swim, 13 mile bike, 3 mile run) but instead denotes the type of race we participated in - a Sprint triathlon. The other leg letter option was O denoting Olympic triathlon distance which is twice everything in a sprint. The leg number denoted the triathlete's age by December 31, 2008. So, for a day, I was 28. December 14 will make it official again. It was so cool to ride past people and see whether they had brain damage or not (by committing to do an Olympic Triathlon) and how old they were. We saw a 76 year old gentleman. It was inspiring.

A pre-race picture. We were going to do the whole race holding baby Johnny above our heads while he was in his car seat, but we thought that would be distracting to other triathletes. Maybe next time, dude.

Five minutes before race time, we're ready to get in the water. These swim caps and wet suits are guaranteed to knock 30 seconds off your swim time. Talk about amazing.

We are in the water right by the red TYR floating marker. Mom Covey is adjusting her goggles and I am treading water just to the left of her with one man in blue in front of me. We were psyching ourselves up at this point, making our game plan to swim straight lines. Our heat was the last to start and we had watched plenty of people swimming way more than they should have because they didn't sight on a landmark. The best part of the swim was that I only swallowed one mouthful of lake water. It could have been much worse.

Yay for the half mile swim being over! We finished in the lower end of our heat but were very happy to finish.

Mom looking ready to ride after the transition from swim to bike. Mom was amazing. She made sure we had sleek road bikes for race day. They made such a difference. We raced the course last week to get ready on mountain bikes and the contrast from mountain to road bike is unbelievable. Shout out to Fezzari Racing Design and Karen for sponsoring us in the bike department.

This is me breaking the rules in the transition area. Typical, I know. I didn't realize no riding the bikes in the transition area, but since 900 triathletes had already gone before us (we were the last heat to start) I don't think the race official was too worried when she gave me the warning.

Our only incident was my chain popping off while switching gears going up the one climb. I'm proud to say I popped it back on without too much grief and caught back up to mom. She was a great rider, setting the perfect pace for us. After the bike ride, we dropped off our bikes to the same transition area and took off for the 3 mile run. Mom was amazingly willing to race at my pace - I'll just refer to the 3 mile run as the 1.5 mile run/1.5 mile walk. The good thing is that I was running whenever anyone was taking pictures, so my true confession can never be corroborated, but such it was - half and half. A finish line has never looked so good.

Our champion chearleaders who carried around all the gear and probably put more miles in than our run going back and forth to all of the sites to cheer us on. Thanks, family. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. The only injury of the entire event was a pulled shoulder muscle for Johnny because he was willing to cart everything around. Thanks for the sacrifice, dude.

It was such a great day. Congratulations, us! We are proud to call ourselves Triathletes!

The Moral of the Story

Is that you should do this

instead of this

when your tennis opponent hits an overhead 10 feet away from you. Sorry, dude.

Oh Bring us some Figgy Pudding

Here is our family Christmas picture. Taken now because the prints were free (typical for us, I know - Costco gave away 50 free prints to celebrate their new photo processing). Taken by the talented Katie Covey - thank you very much. Taken 3 months in advance (I'd like to say typical behavior, but it's not true).

The Olympics have been fantastic. My favorite are the swimming events and sand volleyball. It's so exciting to think of the best athletes in the world competing against each other. My Olympic event of choice would be badminton. Why didn't I start training when I was younger? I feel like I could have been a formidable international opponent. Johnny's Olympic event would be wrestling. Don't take him up on it if he offers to wrestle you without any hands. You'll just be ticked because he will still beat you. Johnny Quattro's Olympic event would be foosball. He is always practicing the wrist motion. Look for Team Covey in all of our Olympic glory - London 2012.

Wouldn't it be lovely?

Isaac, Callie, Johnny, Johnny and I are sitting in Canlas' living room getting ready to watch the Olympics in Beijing, China. We are laughing and having a good time when all of a sudden Isaac takes Callie's face in his hands.

Isaac: Mom, you are so beautiful.

Then, he whispers the next part.

Isaac: And so lovely.

You rock, Isaac.

The grass is always greener

The heat of the summer is starting to get to me. I was just thinking the other day of how I can't wait for snow to be here so that I can go skiing again. Yet if I am being very honest with myself, I know that when I am trying to drive in the snow, tires spinning and getting stuck in my own driveway (I will admit I actually did this) I will be wishing for warmer weather. I'll know I'm progressing when I learn to be happy regardless of the weather. However, you can't deny that this picture screams happiness (especially for Aunt Suzy).

Mosaic of me

Hebgen Lake 2008

The summer trip to Hebgen Lake, Montana was fantastic. We went for 3 weeks and it was tons of fun. Papa reiterated his desire for us to gather and know and love each other as an intergenerational family. This intergenerational family is incredible - 10 children, over 50 grandchildren and Lance and Johnny as 2 of the 3 great grandchildren.

We towed the boat up for it's maiden voyage in Hegben Lake's freezing cold water. The temperature actually wasn't bad - 67 to 70 degrees. We knew the exact temperature because The Black Pearl (that's the name of our 2007 Supra Launch 22SSV boat) has accurate doodads that describe the depth and temperature of the water. The Black Pearl has cruise control so that you tow your skier, surfer or wake boarder at the perfect speed. The Black Pearl has multiple coolers to stow any treats you might have packed for extra energy on the excursion. The Black Pearl even has an iPod connection so that you can blast your favorite tunes through the amazing sound system Micheal Bennett installed himself while you're on the water or even just parked in front of your house while you're cleaning the boat for an hour after practically living on it for 3 weeks.

The Black Pearl was truly our home away from home and did not disappoint. Here are quite a few pictures to document the experience.


Dad and Mom were suberb surfers. Mom's crowning achievement was surfing all by herself by the end of our trip. She rocks.



Practically my favorite part of the trip was watching Jake wakeboard. He got so much better over such a short period of time that I was almost inspired to try wake boarding myself. Almost, and then I biffed it and got the wind knocked out of me and decided to wait until we get a helmet. Nice air, Jacob.

This is me fulfilling flag duty. I was definitely meant for these duties - dead guy duty, kitchen duty, flag duty - that's me.




Johnny shaved half of his goatee to create the handlebar mustache. Besides looking like he just stepped out of the WWF, I think he looks pretty dang cute.



One fun thing about surfing was helping the little kids surf with me. They were too little to surf on their own, but big enough to hold on. James and Spencer were good at posing for the camera.

My all-time favorite picture of the millions of pictures that we took on this trip. Katie surfing into the sunset. What a babe!




The classic Hebgen Lake muscle shots.

The new classic Hebgen Lake muscle shot!

Can you tell our favorite trick with Johnny quattro? The cousins just fell all over themselves to get to play with Johnny boy. We stayed in Hebgen One with the Jones family. Anna just wanted to squeeze Johnny's face all the time and Eliza was my hero watching Johnny each morning while I got to go on the bike rides with the rest of the family. And, you might be wondering who is wearing the diaper in this shot. Let's just say both of them are.

Nana made Johnny boy this onesie in West Yellowstone summer 2007. That was before he was born, but we were so excited to think that one day Johnny would be alive and enjoying Hebgen Lake. Here's to a lifetime of fun in Montana and many more shirts from the T-shirt shop.


Johnny quattro really got to know his Nana. Every time she walked by the car seat where Johnny was trapped, he would cry out to her because he knew that she would come pick him up. Johnny boy was the best traveling baby. He did so well. While we were in Montana, his first two teeth came in on the bottom together. He also learned to scoot towards things army style.

On the last day possible, before we left to drive home, Katie and Jake pulled out the double ski from their bag of tricks. The real trick was that mom was able to take their picture, drive them and get them up on their first try.

Yankee Doodle Dandy

We celebrated the 4th of July in Park City with the Felt Family reunion. Kathleen Felt Covey is the daughter of Paul and Afton Felt, who are the parents of 12 children. When Paul asked Afton to marry him, he asked her if she was willing to have 12 children. Grandma Felt said yes, but she honestly thought Grandpa Felt would forget about it. 12 children and over 65 years later, their posterity is gathering together every year. We played tennis, went to movies, hung out at the pool, watched fireworks in the plaza, lit up sparklers with the cousins and picnicked in the park. Johnny and Katie were the star emcees of the annual talent show. The ultimate compliment to Johnny's act was that I overheard some cousins using his magic show tune when they were trying to do some magic show tricks. You'll have to request to see the magic show sometime.

Here are most of the cousins waving the stars and the stripes around.

Here is Johnny boy showing off his talent and his patriotic flare.

Here is a close up of some of the cutest Felt cousins (I just call it like I see it).