The very watered down version of the past 5 months...

I have intentionally not blogged in a long while, but it’s time to get back to it. Things have been interesting to say the least.  Basically our life since July 31^st has been consumed by Ryan’s career, or lack thereof.  Ryan left Cellar Rat in July. The short version of a VERY, VERY long story begins with Ryan trying to buy his business partner out.  He had been trying to do that for almost 3 years, and they could never come to an agreement on price.  John (business partner) was asking way too much.  John also would tell Ryan to put together a proposal, Ryan would, and then John would take 3 months to get back to him (John lives in Hawaii).  Repeat this scenario for 3 years.  So earlier this spring, Ryan took a really hard look at the numbers and realized that the business would have to change a lot in order to actually make money.  They were making money, but not very much.  Overhead was pretty high.  The space was very large and they needed extra staff to run it.  John had also been pretty shady about several things, like many promises made to Ryan about getting more of a stake in the business and some other things I won’t name here.  When it was set up, Ryan didn't get an attorney (major problem #1) and he didn’t ask a lot of questions.  John forked over all the money and Ryan got a 5% stake in the business with promises of more when he built it up.  Well, Ryan built the business from the ground up, putting ridiculous hours of blood, sweat, and tears into it.  He has made Cellar Rat into what it is today, yet he never got more than 5%.  Ryan was fed up and he and John had some interesting discussions where Ryan told John he was going to walk away.  Then John came up with someone to buy the business.  I have a ton more to say here….but I can’t.  Just in case someone Google’s this and reads what I say, we could get in some sort of trouble.  What I can say is that Ryan totally got screwed.  The deal was supposed to close back in July…then August…then September…then October, etc… you get my drift.  Well, the sale supposedly (finally) closed this week, although we still haven’t received confirmation!  It only took them 5 months to get their crap together.  So frustrating because it has limited what Ryan has been able to do since he is/was still a shareholder in Cellar Rat.  He couldn’t do anything that ‘competed’ with the business. 

We are not sure what will happen now… Ryan is exploring a bunch of options.  Once again, I have a ton to say and I waited to write everything out until now, but now I’m realizing that I can’t write most of it out.  Or I probably could, but I can’t risk getting Ryan in some sort of trouble because we really can’t afford to be sued!  Ryan has been pretty hush-hush about the whole thing.  He is a genuinely good person and hasn’t told many people how badly he was treated, which angers me because I want to shout from the rooftops how terrible/heartless/gutless his former business partner and this new guy who bought Cellar Rat are….so I guess that is my mini shout-out.   ;) 

So what I thought was literally going to be a 10 page novel has turned fairly short.  Once Ryan has something concrete going, I will update.  

Nuthin

I am so behind, but I have no desire to blog right now...there is just too much going on and it stresses me out to think of writing it all down.

major changes!

Still way behind here… Things have been interesting to say the least.  Ryan is leaving his business (I am not going to say the name of his business here just so I can avoid it coming up in an internet search).  The short version of a very long story begins with Ryan trying to buy his business partner out.  He had been trying to do that for almost 3 years, and they could never come to an agreement on price.  John (business partner) was asking way too much.  John also would tell Ryan to put something together, Ryan would, and then John would take 3 months to get back to him (John lives in Hawaii).  Repeat this scenario for 3 years.  So earlier this spring, Ryan took a really hard look at the numbers and realized that the business would have to change a lot in order to actually make money.  They were making money, but not very much.  John had also been pretty shady about several things, like many promises made to Ryan about getting more of a stake in the business.  When it was set up, Ryan didn't get an attorney (major problem #1) and he didn't ask a lot of questions.  John forked over all the money and Ryan got a 5% stake in the business with promises of more when he built it up.  Well, Ryan built it from the ground up, putting ridiculous hours into it.  He has made it into what it is today, yet he never got more than 5%.  Ryan was fed up and he and John had some interesting discussions where Ryan told him he was going to walk away.  Then John came up with someone to buy the business.  This guy is overpaying for it.  We almost feel bad for him.  Almost.  There is no way Ryan would have ever paid that much because the business doesn't support it.  Yikes for this guy.  But what really sucks is that Ryan will be lucky to get a few thousand dollars out of the sale.  And yet, he IS the business.  So frustrating!

We are not sure what will happen now… Ryan is exploring a bunch of options.  Unfortunately, he wasn't able to start telling people until last week, so that means he has 30 days to figure something out.  I guess we will see what happens!  More to come… 

Not much to report...

Well, I haven’t been good at blogging the last month.  Mostly because all the stuff I want to say I can’t say yet….

Anywho, I have another triathlon this weekend in Topeka.  It looks like we might actually get to swim in this one, ha ha!  Ryan and I went for an open water swim on Monday at Longview lake in Lee’s Summit, and the water was way warmer than I thought it was going to be.  The swim was good, and I’m glad I got it over with.  Mentally, getting my first open water swim of the year in was good for me, although race day is always different.  Ryan’s age group takes off 3 minutes after me, so I will be trying my best to keep in front of him, although I know he will catch up to me eventually.  He is faster than me on all 3 sports, but I will at least make it my goal to keep him behind me for as long as I can.   J    

So much for the swim...Lawrence 5150 Triathlon

The weather over the weekend made for an interesting race on Sunday.  As per my previous post, I was nervous about the swim…but I was ready to put my game face on and suck it up.  I got up at 4:30am on Sunday morning so I could have my coffee and let it settle.  I had all my stuff gathered and I got it into the car.  It was wet outside because we had a storm roll through around 3am, but otherwise looked clear.  There was still a chance of showers but they were supposed to end by 7am (the race started at 7:30).  We decided to put the bike in the car instead of on the bike rack since it was wet outside, and since Ryan wasn't racing.  As we hopped on the highway, I could see a huge bank of clouds to the west where we were headed.  Then the lighting started.  By the time we got to Lawrence it was raining and lighting pretty bad.  We got everything unloaded from the car.  I started to put a trash bag over my handlebars to keep them from getting wet, but I looked around and realized that they were going to get wet no matter what so I gave up.  The walk to the transition area/race start took forever.  It was cold, windy, and wet.  They ended up delaying the race, and then they decided to cancel the swim and just send us on the bike and run.  I’ll admit, I wasn't disappointed at all.  Looking at Clinton Lake during the storm, there were big whitecaps and the wind was howling.  I was not looking forward to getting in that water!  The second they announced they were cancelling the swim, I was not nervous at all.  Not even a little bit.  They had us line up and do a ‘time trial' start on the bike, meaning each person went off one by one.  Our time didn't start until we crossed the mat, so there was no hurry to get to the front of the line.  Unfortunately this meant that there was congestion during the first few miles of the race, plus the wet roads made it tricky.  I'm sure the pro athletes were really annoyed too, because they had to deal with all of us 'age groupers' being in their way the whole race.  It had stopped raining by this point which was good, but there was standing water and debris everywhere.  By the time I was ¾ finished with the bike, the sun had come out!  It got really warm and super humid, and of course I hadn't put any sunscreen on.  I debated on whether to even wear my sunglasses on the bike, but decided to just to keep the water spray and junk from other bikes out of my eyes.  I'm glad I wore them.

I was hurting on the run, which was fairly hilly.  I thought I ran faster than my final time showed and I was disappointed in my time, but regardless I did okay.  The frustrating thing to me is that the gal that won (I got 2nd) beat me by 7 minutes!  7 minutes in a sprint triathlon is a lot of time.  So for the past day I have been trying to figure out what to do to make sure that doesn't happen again!  I know what I need to do; I just need to see if my body can actually do it.  My ultimate goal is to beat this lady, but she has years of triathlon experience on me… I still think I can beat her if I work my butt off.  Regardless, I need to be a faster biker and runner.  I know she will be at the next triathlon in June.  Obviously I would love to say my goal is to beat her at this race, but realistically my goal is to narrow that 7 minutes down as much as I can.  Looks like some more speed work is in my future!  

Misc recent pictures

Some recent pics:

Birthday party fun for a school friend

Same birthday party as above - both girls were trying to imitate other gymnasts and doing a fairly good job of it!   

Same weekend, but another birthday party for one of Luca's friends

Ryan turned 41 on the 5th of May.  I made him an almond cake with lemon curd (gluten free!).  We re-used candles from other birthdays if you couldn't tell... 

Lola's first trip to the dentist.  She did okay...she was a bit hesitant but I think she will be much better next time.  

What do we do after the dentist?  Eat a cookie of course!  

Luca had to go to the ER to have her foot looked at.  She had some sort of weird infection that seemed to be spreading really quickly on her toe.  This was 11pm at night and she was wired!

We have some crazy stuff going on in our lives, which I can’t really talk about yet….I want to talk about it really badly but I’m not allowed.  We are very stressed out and we’re trying to work through it.  More to come very soon I hope.

On another note, the Lawrence 5150 Triathlon is less than a week away.  Thankfully the water temperature has warmed up considerably from a few weeks ago when it was in the low 50’s!   I am still very nervous since this is only my 2^nd triathlon but I’m ready to put my game face on come Sunday morning.  Bring it ladies…I’m going to be on your heels and then passing you.   J 

We went to my parents last weekend and Lola got to ride horses at April’s house.  She has been bugging me for a while to go ride so I finally bit the bullet and took them to Fort Scott.  They also got to bottle feed some calves which Luca really liked.