Half Marathon

 

On Saturday, May 1st my dad and I ran our first half marathon.  Were we crazy?… Yes.  What were we thinking?… I don’t know.  We are both glad that we did it, but it sure was painful.  The race was in Sacramento at the American River Parkway.  Our friend Kristina (who is a veteran at these things) ran it too.

Here are some before the race pictures, where we are much happier and better looking.

In this one, my Dad is standing in the insanely long line for the porta-potties and Kristina is the one on the far right in the hot pink shirt.

Just hanging out before we headed for the starting line.  I really don’t want to know what Ethan is doing.

There were about 3,500 people running the race, so it made for a lot of people while we were waiting for it to start.  James was a little picture happy while we were waiting, plus it started 20 minutes late, so we were standing in the crowded area for way too long.

     

Here’s the start/finish line from the other side before it started.  There was so much anticipation in the air, you could cut it with a knife.

We are finally off!  You can see my dad and me on the far side of the path, in the middle of the picture.  We were still happy at this point…  …and here we are at the end of the race.  Yes…that is me wanting to die and feeling like I’m going to.  Not one of my finest moments, but I was still running.

Now, please take note of what you see in this picture.  Here we are, with about .10 miles left to go.  We have just ran 13 miles and up ahead there is a hill!!  In the picture it doesn’t look like that big of a deal, but let me tell you….it was!!  What were they thinking?

 

The after race crash…

      

…it took a couple of days before I could even get up and down without being in severe pain.  I walked like a 90 year old woman.  Looking back, I’m glad I did it and I think it was fun, but those last two miles I swore I would never do this again…We will see :)

Another Fun Outing

Straight From A Horror Film

The most horrifying thing happened to me a couple of mornings ago. I was calmly flossing my teeth, listening to music, when all of the sudden the drain stopper popped out of the bathroom sink. I thought to myself, ‘that’s weird.’ Then a few seconds later black water came erupting out of the drain. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This has never happened to me before. It terrified me! About 5-10 seconds later more water came spouting out. It did this several times over and each time I was so scared I screamed. I felt like I was in the middle of a horror movie and I was about to be attacked by a poltergeist. To top it off, when it was finally done I kept waiting for it to happen again, expecting it at any moment. Then all of a sudden a nerf dart landed on my head (the boys shot some nerf darts on the bathroom ceiling a few weeks ago). It freaked me out. I was being attacked from all directions. Needless to say our bathroom was a disgusting mess afterwards.

Luckily the plumber said there was no sewage involved…still very gross.

A Lot of Good and a Little Bad

It has been a little while since I've blogged about anything, so I have a few updates...

First, I want to share a great moment I had this morning, which was much needed after yesterday's incident. I was riding my bike along the bay towards Lover's Point. It was a beautiful, sunny, blue skyed morning. The water was a very rich blue with the reflection of the sun on it and I was breathing in the fresh bay air. My legs were burning from pushing myself to go as fast as I could and 'Just Say Yes' by Snow Patrol came on my IPod. It was definitely a moment I don't think I could recreate, but my heart was filled with gratitude for this beautiful world we have to live in, my loving family and friends that I am blessed with, and especially James and Ethan.

On Tuesday James received his orders! We now know where we are going to spend the next few years...Germany!! I found a few pictures of the city where James will be working. We aren't sure yet if we will be living in this city, but it is beautiful. We are excited for this new adventure, but at the same time I am a bit sad to leave this one behind. Monterey has been a great experience.

Now for the bad part of yesterday. I had a little fender bender, which was my fault. This has never happened to me before. It was awful!! Luckily there was no damage to the other car, but now we are marked on the front of us until we can afford to get it fixed. I was on my way to pick up James from work when it happened. I was only a couple of minutes away, so when I got to him I was a bit shaky and very nervous to tell him what I'd done. He is too good to me because he wasn't upset or mad at me at all (if he was, he hid it very well). I still cringe when I think about it.

Here's a close up of the black mark, scratch and dent in the hood. I guess it could have been worse. The awful part is that we just got the back end fixed from something that happened to James in a parking lot.

Now for the best part of yesterday, which helped to lift my spirits after the accident...Ethan rode his bike without training wheels for the first time! He did so awesome. He was nervous at first, but picked it up pretty quick. I can't believe how much this kid has grown up in the last few months.

This week has definitely brought a lot of good and some bad, but each day is a gift and so much brighter when you look for that good you have been given.

Happy Helper

Ethan has been on spring break for the last two weeks. Today is our last day...yay! He is so ready to go back to school. He has been quite the helper for me though. Folding laundry, cleaning house, helping with dinner, running errands, and so much more. A couple of days ago I taught him how to dust. I hate dusting his room because he has so many things everywhere. Now I don't have to :) He did a great job too.

After working on it for about 20 minutes I went back in his room to check on him. This is what I found...

Atleast he finished half of his room before he took a break. I couldn't be too upset because he was reading. Something he needs to do a bit more of. Even though we are both ready for him to go back to school on Monday, I am going to miss his company during the day.

My long lost friend has returned

My friend Aloe returned on Saturday!! Yes, I got my first sunburn of the year. This is the start of a great year of color (I hope).

It was in the 70s and perfect that day so we decided to head to the beach to catch some rays. I did not feel like joining everyone else on the beach, so we thought it would be fun to try to find our secluded beach with the waterfall. That way we could have an enjoyable afternoon without all of the crowds. Unfortunately we were not able to find that exact location, but decided to make the best of what we found. It turned out to be a beautiful day, even though I had to lay out on rocks instead of a sandy beach.

No adventure is complete for us without having to climb down the side of a cliff :)

These are the rocks we hiked around on and I eventually tried laying out on. It wasn't the most comfortable, but the scenery made it worth it.

Here is Ethan in a cave we found. He really enjoys posing for pictures.

Here is James, my other cutie, who doesn't like posing for pictures.

We found another cave that was filled with water. As you can see here, this is the opening of it where the water goes in.

This is what it looked like on the inside of the cave. It was so cold in there, we could see our breath.

One of Ethan's favorite things to do is snap. He is aaalways snapping. We call him 'snaps'. I think he always has a song in his head because he dances a lot, too, without any music. He is very intently watching James climb down into the cave.

I debated whether or not to put any pictures of me since I'm in my swimsuit and that is so unflattering. But I thought it would be a good idea to document how white I was then, before the sun and Aloe returned.

Here I am quicly hopping from rock to rock with my feet hurting trying to get to the cave.

I made it, but please cover your eyes if my whiteness is blinding you.