Happy Thanksgiving!

There are so many things to be thankful for...so many great people and moments. Enjoy time with your loved ones! Wishing you all a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.

Loss of a friend....

Today is about honoring a true competitor and friend, Fran Crippen. It is a huge loss not only for the swimming community, but for the TYR family. Fran Crippen was one of the best athletes I ever had the opportunity to know and his death came way too soon!



This is the article from Swimming World:

Passages: Fran Crippen, 26 - FINA, USA Swimming, USOC Release Statements - Updated -- October 23, 2010

FUJAIRAH, United Arab Emirates, October 23. SHORTLY after the FINA Open Water 10K World Cup swim today in the UAE, United States swimmer Fran Crippen, 26, passed away after falling unconscious during the race.

With the water in the mid-to-high 80s, the competitors all finished and noticed that Crippen had not crossed the finish line. Meet management brought in deep sea divers, who found Crippen dead under the water just before the final buoy nearly two hours later. Previous reporting stated that Crippen was found unconscious, and was taken to the local hospital before dying. More information from the scene has confirmed that he had already passed away during the race.

Crippen had shown signs of slowing down during the third lap of the five-lap race. When Crippen did not immediately finish, a fact noticed by teammate Alex Meyer who screamed for help, the competing swimmers rushed back into the water to help with the search.

Information provided to Swimming World demonstrates that the water was likely too hot for the event as several swimmers, including USA's Eva Fabian and Christine Jennings, were treated for heat exhaustion at the hospital after the race.

FINA does not have a maximum temperature allowed, but does have a minimum temperature for an open water swim to take place.

Additionally, according to information received by Swimming World, there was a single boat for the referee along with up to three jet skis with one assigned to the lead group.

According to the same information, no lifeguards were on land or near the swimmers. The only other boats around the course contained media members and other spectators.

The last time Crippen was seen alive was when he passed the first feed station on the final lap, and was seen to be struggling. Upon completion of the race, according to our source, no one was keeping track of swimmers as they finished.

National Youth Team Head Coach Jack Roach is heading to the United Arab Emirates to serve as Crippen's honor transport to make sure he returns to the United States for burial and services to be announced.

This was the last open water swim of the year for Crippen, and he had planned to take a vacation to Italy.

Born in Philadelphia, Pa., Crippen was a member of the illustrious Crippen family who grew up at the Germantown Academy in Fort Washington. Crippen's top finish in the sport came at the 2009 World Championships when he finished third in the 10K swim in Rome. He also won a pair of Pan Pacific silver medals in the 10K at both the 2006 and 2010 editions. In the pool, he won two silver medals at the 2003 Pan American Games in the 400 and 1500 freestyle events. Overall, he has won six U.S. national titles with two in the 800 free, two in the 5K and two in the 10K.

After prepping at Germantown, Crippen swam for the University of Virginia and was an 11-time All-American and two-time Atlantic Coast Conference Swimmer of the Year. More recently, Crippen swam for the Mission Viejo Nadadores.

All three of his sisters have had their own success within the swimming community. Maddy was a 2000 Olympian who swam for Villanova, while Claire in an NCAA All-American for the University of Virginia. Teresa is an NCAA finalist who currently swims for the University of Florida.

Crippen's Facebook page has turned into a memorial today as friends post condolences and memories of how Crippen touched their lives.

Details

So for the last year Brent and I have been trying to figure out how to update our hallway. Every little thing has us wanting to keep the character of our home. (It's a 1929 Spanish Bungalow)I found these hand painted door knobs at World Market and had to try them out. Other then repainting the hallway, I think it's a nice, subtle, updated looks. What do you think?

Big Day in Wedding Plans....

Brent and I spent the night in San Diego. I had an account to see and it was way too long since I had seen my mom....so why not combine the two. We had a great dinner last night, some wine, and lots of talks about wedding plans. We decided to get up in the morning and see a jeweler she knew in San Diego. Brent and I hadn't put much thought into our wedding bands, so we figured why not check them out.

After spending a lot of time trying to figure out what we truly wanted, we have our rings on order!! Once we see them in person (about 2-3 weeks) I will give you more information about them. I just want to make sure we like them before I go announcing anything. Another step down!

We haven't had time to finalize the tent just yet. We are working with one of our friends here and he's been super busy. As soon as we can all find the time to meet, we will get that done.

Long Beach happenings

So a few things have been going on. The first I am very proud of! Brent installed, with the help of my dad's direction, a bathroom exhaust fan. Here are a few photos to explain the hard work. Here is the before shot...


Brent had to crawl up into a very small and HOT area to drill a hole in the side of the house....


The view from the bathroom up....


After a little wiring, we are up and running!


So the exhaust fan works and now our bathroom isn't a steam room! Big congrats to Brent for taking this on and a big thanks to my Dad for his patience :)

The other new thing in our life is this....

This purchase wasn't by choice. Yes we wanted a bigger car, but our Sentra needed a lot of work - so we had to make a decision. Thanks to the help of our buddy Tim Wong, we were well taken care of.

This weekend we booked all our flights for the wedding and honeymoon. It's getting closer!!

That's all for now :)

Plans are coming together....

We landed in Boston at 10pm Friday, September 3rd…..after putting 684 miles (yes, almost 700 MILES) on our rental car, we return it Wednesday the 8th. Let me just say that the last 12 hours the car was parked in a parking garage. Saying it was a whirlwind trip just about sums it up. I feel like every time we go back east we just run around. It’s really inevitable, because we don’t have a home base.

Here are the major things we accomplished:
- My final dress fitting until the big day, it’s perfect and I can’t wait
- Picked the food for the wedding
- Visited the wedding site and took measurements for the tent location
o We have three potential locations, so need some time to work that out
- Saw everyone in our wedding party, that lives in Boston

It was a very successful trip! We even managed to spend some quality time with our Grandmothers (very important).

More to come…..

Today is a new day

This past week has been full of a lot of holding my breath. I haven't been this stressed (the last few months) in a long time and it really put my body through a lot. The start of this past week was full of blood tests, CT scans and PET scans. Another 6 months had past. Being tired is an understatement, for sure. I was working all day (until 8 pm each night), having little sleep and no weekends to recover. The old self would have no problem handling those hours, but the new me was just trying to keep a smile on my face. Deep down I was just wondering how my body was going to react. My mind was going to extremes for sure.....everything was put to rest when all my tests came back NORMAL! It was such a relief.

I am still doing blood tests every 3 months and will still go for another round of tests in 6 months. Because I finished treatment less then 2 years ago, he still wants to be pro-active.

My goal over the next few weeks is to find myself again. I am settling into a new job and still have a lot to learn (not only in the job, but about myself). I am not a selfish person and my needs typically come last. I am working on changing that. I am eliminating people from my life who add drama and take energy from me. I am not interested in that anymore. I am interested in taking care of me and making sure I am happy. Happy Erin = Happy Brent!

Brent and I fly to Boston on Friday and we have so many fun things in store. We are looking at the wedding location, we are finalizing the food, meeting with our photographer, I have a dress fitting.....Ahhh, so exciting!! This will determine a lot for us. More to come after the trip, along with photos :)