Count your many blessings

After a dissapointing election night last night I have woken up with a renewed attitude of life is good! So today I'm counting my many blessings.
*I have the right to vote for elected leaders.
*I enjoy good health and can run and do the things I love.
*I have a wonderful family.
*I have a daughter getting married in the temple.
*I have enough money to pay my taxes.
*I have a warm house that keeps the rain off my back.
*I have the freedom to speak my mind.
*I live in a beautiful state (even though we love to tax ourselves).
*My state didn't vote to legalize marajuana or casinos.
*I have the gospel in my life.
*Most important: Jesus Christ is my Savior!

I'm back! (I think)

You can thank Mckenzie for this post. She has inspired me and cajoled me into writing on my blog. Many big and exciting things are happening in the Dixon home. Mckenzie has 6 more weeks of the single life as she prepares to marry a wonderful guy. Taylor and Mckenzie are getting married Dec. 15 in the Draper LDS temple. We look forward to spending many happy years with them.

Aren't they cute together!

Half Ironman

I did it!!! I set out to finish a half ironman and it was held last weekend in Sunriver, Oregon. I'd like to say it was so much fun and part of it was but it was sooo hard. I was nervous about the weather being cold in the morning and hot in the afternoon and I was nervous about swimming in a mountain lake when there is still much snow on the mountains.

The temp of the lake was 61 degrees. Better than I thought it would be. with a wetsuit and thermal cap definetly doable. Seeing how far the turn buoys were was intimidating. Our wave started at 9:15. I had a bad start. I was having trouble getting my watch started and leaking goggles. It took almost until the first buoy to get in a rhythm and be comfortable breathing. But once I was in that rhythm everything went well. I finished the swim in 42:12. Had a really long, bad transition of 6 minutes and was on the bike. The bike was a gorgeous 57 miles climbing through the pine trees and babbling brooks and pristine mountain lakes. There was some tough climbing and the altitude wasn't helping. We got to the top of Mt. Bachelor and it was a fast downhill/flat 20 miles to the run transition. Bike time was 3:35:29. The second transistion was better 2:54 (still not great but oh well.) My feet were hurting from the very get go on the run and it was just plodding along to get through 13 miles. I walked through all of the water stations and wiggled my toes to try and get some relief. I was disappointed with my run time of 2:09:54 again I think the altitude and the heat all contributed. I would have been happy if I could have done 2 hours but maybe next time. My total time was 6:36:29.

Sorry no pictures. Didn't take my camera and besides I'm the camera man. Brent hardly ever takes pictures.

Where has the time gone

I just had my 42rd birthday and my daughter graduating all in the same week? Wow! I remember my mom that age and she was old.
She has had a lot of fun over the last few weeks with all the senior festivities happening all culminating in the Senior all night party held the night of graduation.

We are very proud of Mckenzie and her accomplishments thus far in her life and wish her well as she prepares to go off to BYU Idaho in the fall. Congrats!

Yes, We are still alive

I've had many people ask if I was going to continue on with my blog. Well, this is a start. We will see how long this can continue. I don't know if anyone still is getting on here with six months gone and past.

We get asked all the time if we miss Spain. This past week the answer would be a definite yes. We have had a lot of rain and in Valencia right now they are heavy into fallas. If you recall this is the big festival in Valencia where they build the giant sculptures to burn on the ultimate day. The mascleta's started on the first of the month and continue every day until the end. (the mascleta is the daytime firework display every day at 2pm)

Everyone has adjusted to being back. The kids all love being back with their friends and being back to American school. For spring Cassie and Riley have just started the lacrosse season. Dayna is going to play spring soccer and Mckenzie just got a new job working at a tanning salon. She is excited to earn commissions. Cade just finished playing basketball and just had his 7th birthday.

Gettin' Ready

It's been a while since I've written. I guess I've lost the motivation to keep up on the blog because I'm so anxious to go home. Over the last couple of weeks we've just been laying low. We did take a day trip up by Barcelona to a monastery up in the mountains. Montserrat is in a beautiful setting. We enjoyed hiking and the beautiful peaks in the mountain. We've been invited to a few family home evenings and get togethers to say goodbye to friends.
Last night the girls invited some teenagers from the stake to go hang out to the beach. They all had a great time. We are about half packed and just about counting the hours down till we leave.

Parties

As our year here in Spain is drawing to a close we have been invited to a lot of farewell parties. Why so soon? The other American family is also going back and they are leaving on Tuesday. Actually, Dan is staying for his military assignment but the rest of their family is going back to the states because the schools are so bad here. Anyway, we were invited to their house on Friday night because a family in the ward offered to make them paella.
Paella is the famous dish of Spain. People rave about it. I find it highly overrated. It's just a rice dish with meat. Valencia is famous for their paella. The typical paella is Valenciana paella which contains chicken and rabbit. Although when I'm around town and see people eating paella I usually see them eating it with whole sea creatures sitting in it. We are talking about shrimp with their eyes and antenna's attached. You see whole snails with their shells in it. Pretty disgusting to me.
Josue and Christina made Valencian paella over a wood barbeque. We had a nice time. The kids swam in the pool while we visited with the families.
On Saturday the YW president Olympia and one of her counselors, Alexandra invited our families to a park for a bbq. Here in Spain you can't bbq in your back yard. You have to go to certain public parks that have community bbq's. They have bbq police there as well to make sure that your doing it right. Well we got in trouble bbq-ing with charcoal. Apparently you can only do it with wood. So several hours later and after the Strodes were lost for about that same time we were finally gathered for some great chicken, ribs, and chorizo.