MIA

Sorry for not updating the blog regularly anymore...basically the twins are zapping our remaining free time and putting together week events and pictures has been a struggle...:)

We regularly update Facebook quite a bit since it's easier to upload a few photos at a time rather than grouping them all together in Picasa to share.

For the foreseeable future we'll probably suspend the blog for a bit and just update everyone on Facebook.  If you don't have a Facebook account, we'll gladly e-mail pictures to whoever wants them, just drop us a call or e-mail.

My Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/Michael.Syring.

Rohan Goes Rogue

Rohan’s First Mud Run This last weekend we had a HUGE number of people sign up for a race called the Rogue Runner. It was tons of obstacles over ~6.2mi (10K) through the gorgeous mountain desert. But it wasn’t about our giant team that day. It was about Rohan. He had been asking to do a “Tough Mudder” since we ran our first one 15 months ago. Since they can’t electrocute 3 & 4 year olds we had to wait until a race came along with a kid’s mud course. Finally during this year’s Tough Mudder a plane flew overhead advertising the Rogue Runner, and Rohan was signed up as soon as we got home.

Rohan has been training by climbing, running, and doing anything crazy just to say it was “training”. He was so excited. The race was supposed to be 200 yards long, and when we saw the course, it was a joke. This kid could do this in his sleep. But Rohan was still VERY excited. Rohan waited VERY patiently with Mara and the twins while our group of 32 people did the adult race. Rohan sat and played in the mud for close to 3 hours before his race…:)

Turned out they didn't have very many 4-8 year olds sign up so they just grouped them in with the 9-12 year olds. That meant a ½ run with some real obstacles, not the kiddie ones. I was able to run with him and film a lot of it. The kid blew me away. He was fast, excited, and out for blood when challenged. Even as hyped and jacked up as he was, he still waited patiently at the obstacles and was (fairly) courteous to other racers…aside from the fat kid he tackled at the bottom of the water slide. Nothing malicious; just jumped farther than I thought he could and landed falling forward…:)

After the race he got his medal, and was gleaming ear to ear. You could tell this was the highlight of his life to date.  It was great having such a HUGE support team with friends cheering Rohan on, getting tons of pictures and congratulating him at the end.  It meant the world to him.  He capped it off by impressing EVERYONE by doing 2 chin-ups on an ox yolk that we won for largest team (totally random prize).

 Our friend Shannon put together a great compilation of his race. Enjoy!

Great weekend!

This last week, Mara's parents came out to see the twins.  I think they were pretty excited to see them...the break from the snow was an added bonus though...:)  Rohan had a blast showing off his sisters, and G&G were along for the ride to parks, space centers, and more parks.  G&G even got to see Rohan's TBall practice.
Saturday I went to a car show while Mara, Rohan and the twins ran errands.  Afterwards we made some awesome beer bread, coconut shrimp, asparagus, and scallops with Shannon & Angelika.  We topped the night off with S'mores and a fire in the pit.
Sunday we started off with Matador and then met Shannon & Jeremy in the McDowells for some climbing.  We found an awesome boulder and Rohan was able to do his FIRST official outdoor route, which he has named "Avengers Assemble"...:)
A great week & weekend!

Here is a little video of Rohan's climb set to his favorite song..."Sail" by AWOLnation:

All our kids are home!!!

So we are finally getting settled in with our giant family of 5…:)  Actually it hasn't been that much of a struggle.  The girls are on a pretty solid, regular schedule already so we can plan things pretty easily without too much trouble.  To be honest, they could be nightmares and we’d still love having them home rather than the trips to the NICU!

Rohan has been an AWESOME helper and loves to snuggle his sisters.  We've been venturing out as much as possible so we don’t get stuck in any ruts staying at home…we like to stay moving around so we train our kids to do the same. J  We took the family to a spring training game last weekend (Brewers of course!) and have done several walks, trips to Matador, and out to see friends.  Next stop will be taking them to the climbing gym to start them early!

We've just finally also cleaned out our camera from the Tough Mudder and some of Rohan’s soccer games.  Soccer is finally done, so we can jump back into TBall! Yeah!
Enjoy the pics...there will be more to come once everything settles down...which might be never...:)

TOUGH MUDDER 2013!

Mara and I were fortunate enough to have another AWESOME team to run the Tough Mudder with. This year we had ~14 people (9 last year) and all but Mara and I were first time runners. The course was just as brutal as last year. Everyone had a lot of fun, and I really mean that. We were laughing, joking, and being our goofy selves the entire course...the pictures & videos prove it.  I took our waterproof (& mud/shock proof) camera long and documented the majority of the fun run...:)

It was absolutely awesome to have Jen, Michelle & Chris, & Allison share the fun with us (another post for their whole visit). We wish the twins would have incubated a lot longer, but because they came early they all got to meet the newest Syrings, plus Mara (being awesome) was able to train enough to run as well!

This was another awesome experience, and we'll let the pictures (from us and others) and video (courtesy of Shannon) tell the story.

Shannon's video can be found here: http://goo.gl/yxfqq

My individual ones are in a playlist here: http://goo.gl/hL75c