I shaved my head

Yep - I did it. And, having a shaved head suuuuuucks. It's not fun, and for heaven's sake, it's not fun to look at. But alas, here I am with a quarter inch of hair.

What was I thinking.

I haven't mentioned it on the blog yet but, it must be done because my grandma Shirley is all calling me out in letters because I told her I wouldn't go any shorter and here I am, kind of almost, bald. Traci, my sister-in-law/sister/we are the only siblings she has/bestie was informed a few short months ago that she had cancer. The first words out of my mouth were "When are we shaving our heads?!" (Not smart... not. smart.)

This was, of course, before they even knew anything about it. Before they knew that it was in her lymph nodes, before they knew that a mastectomy might not quite take care of the issue, before they knew she needed Chemo. Well, not the brightest move on my part but, you know, once I say it I am all in.

Fast forward, this is me, wanting to get it all over with... this is her, delaying it until the last possible moment because no matter how soon she has no hair, she is still not going to get it back until December.

We got together with my family on a Sunday before her second chemo treatment, and knowing it was probably the last time we would be together and actually have hair, we took a picture. (More like... ten or fifteen, but you know...)

Ahhh... to have hair...

Then came Wednesday and she knew it was time. It just so happened that Jill was cutting hair at my mom's house and we could tack on a couple shaved heads to the evening so we did. 

It sucked and it was fun, and it sucked, and it was fun and you know all of that. After we took like 20-25 pictures because, you know if it took 10 to get a good one when he had hair, well... it's going to take more than that to get a good one without it. 

A real hair artisan.

(Yea, a little pink-eye never helped look anyone look decent either...)

As much as it kind of stunk it was nice to be all "I can't get my beanie on because what is left of my head is like velcro!" And "My head feels like it is having hot flashes all by itself..." And "I have to wear something on my head at night because it get's cold, do you?" At least we were going through it together. 

I ran my race with a bald head and actually kind of felt like a poser. At the end I got lots and lot of cheers and I kept my head phones in to I wouldn't hear them just because I felt a little guilty. After I had someone tell me good job and I didn't want to stop some random stranger just to explain so I just said thanks and kept going. Kind of funny. 

My sweet neighbor stopped by a couple of nights ago and she rubbed my head and said "Now, tell me what's going on with your hair dear?" Which I though was a good way to ask what in the world I was thinking... Apparently another neighbor had driven by and inquired to her if I needed help. Yea... no. Ha! 

Anyway, there you have it. Why I have no hair... though, it's starting to come back actually, Traci still has a little while to go. It will all be back before we know it.

We decided that beanies weren't really the look for us...

But we wear them anyway. 

Catch up and BC race recap

We are now a couple of weeks into school and the kids love it! Asher loves school and it totally bummed every Tuesday and Thursday when I send Ian off without him. I love that he likes it so much! When I drop him off he is like "peace out" and he takes off. Ian still hugs me and kisses on me and stuff, but not Asher. I am glad to report that he is happy to see me when I pick him up though, so that's something.

Duncan had his first spelling and vocabulary test and killed it. He is a smart boy. I worry about how his teacher can keep him sitting still for long periods of time but when he goes for it, he does a good job. And he is really good at math, just ask him, he will tell you all about it. We now have a routine that will last forever and that is that we come in from school, no TV everyone has a snack, Duncan does any homework that he has and then we read for 20 minutes. All of this before the TV goes on or we play. This may involved iPad bribes for the other kids though... not proud of that but you do what you gotta do.

Dylan seems to be doing well in school. I have gotten reports back that she has gone to the music classes with the Kindergartners and had that special time in the classes which is great, and a huge improvement over last year! The program is not very well funded (of course) but the teacher seems willing to try and do whatever we ask of her. That's great. Dylan IEP is coming so I am interested to see what they will come up with to make Dylan's time at school valuable. That's what she mentioned her goal was. I love it, we shall see.

Greyson turned two on us this past week, boo hiss! Mom and Bob totally spoiled him with gifts, it was crazy! They got him way more than we did... Grandma Shirley sent him $5 which I promptly took to the preschool to buy more books at their book sale (21 more books to be precise!). We kept telling him it was his birthday all day and he kept trying to say it. It was fun. We ate his favorite foods for lunch and dinner and had cake and ice cream on Friday. Now we are on a birthday roll with the other kids all asking when theirs is and who's is next and all that. He is on the Ian track of already knowing all of his letters and I think that's pretty good for two. I am not sure if I mentioned that before but it's worth mentioning twice. He thinks D is B, Y is V and Q is O, but other than that he does really well and has fun with it. Every kid has a parlor trick right?

Speaking of that book sale, I killed it. I ended up spending $23 and I got 89 books total. When I spent the last five she told me I was her best customer. The kids LOVE it and Duncan is starting to read really well and he is having fun being able to have a lot of choices of books that he can read. Great opportunity to build up the library! I always miss these sales but this one came to me.

Boring (but freaking awesome) Running Stuff

I ran a half marathon this past weekend and did great. It's the same one I ran last year as my very first half. Last year I ran a 2:06:11. I didn't train as well as I should in the last couple of weeks because I had just ran that half really well. I totally slacked on my mid-week runs (As in, I maybe did 2?) and was kind of nervous about it but since I had gotten my sub-two I was pretty chill with whatever time.

I met a cute first grade teacher on the bus and we hung out for a while before the start. She was alone as well and great company for a couple of hours but we ran difference paces so we separated when we lined up according to the pacers. I started just in front of the 2 hour pacer (and intended to stay that way). I totally stalked my new friend's, results and was happy to see she made her goal time without having to drop back to her "I would be happy with" time. Yay! Go random stranger!

I have decided that I have a hard time following a pacer or running with someone. If I feel like they want me to go a certain pace I fight it. But this time I got a pace band that adjusts for elevation (this is a huge elevation drop for the first 8 miles). I bought it to pace myself with a goal of 1:58. I got it prior to getting this on the race in August but figured I would shoot for slightly better and it would be a win. I had my eye on my watch quite a bit during the race which I don't know if it's a good thing of a bad thing but it was certainly nice to be able to start huffing and puffing, glance at my pace and tell myself not to work so hard. I would back off a little, which was awesome. I also have a tendency to slow way down at the end and not know and not pick the pace back up and this time I would look and be like "What the? Get going girl!" and step on it a little.

I was so afraid of having that 2 hour pace group pass me... That is so disheartening.

I did fuel well and I walked for a few seconds around mile 11. I didn't want to start walking at all because once I start walking a) I tend to think those walk breaks are okay and b) it is blasted HARD to get going again after having walked after 10 miles. Not happy about having taken that break at all but I needed it or I wouldn't have let myself.

Previously I have hated being able to see the finish line from a great distance but with this method of pacing myself it worked better - You could see it about 3/4 a mile to a mile away. I was able to go a little bit faster for the last five minutes or so and finish strong.

The finish was a closed down section of a huge and very busy street! The crowd support was awesome at the end and it was quite a big deal, probably bigger than any race I have run in yet. (Driving home was another story...)

Fresh off me celebrating my first sub-two half a few weeks ago I beat that PR by 3 minutes. My official time this week was 1:55:23. 11 minutes faster than when I ran the same race last year!

This is the official report - It is INSANE that I about close the top third. Why I never...

Chip Time	01:55:22.4
Start Time of Day	07:25:50.95am
Finish Time of Day	09:21:13.37am
Pace	08:48
Overall Rank	867 out of 2551
Gender Rank (Female)	499 out of 1798
Age Division Rank (F35-39)	141 out of 398

And along with that, my BRF did her first full at this same race and killed it. That girl is crazy! She did a full in 3:36, which means she Boston Qualified (by 9 minutes).  I was so bummed I couldn't watch her come in, but my mom was here with the kids so I had to get home and getting back would have been impossible.

Sara and I have two fun Halloween Halfs in October. She says she expects another PR for me, I say she is crazy. We will see how it goes.

I added these pictures last week and Fitz is now twice as big as these pictures! How unfair! He is sleeping in between my legs as I am standing here typing this. He wants to sleep at my feet but I always move, I guess I have been here long enough for him to crash out. (Part of it is me protecting him from Grey!)

Fitz and Trina's new puppy Trixie on a play date. We need to get them together again soon! 

See this saggy collar? I have already had to make it bigger for him. :(

Asa in the tractor with Uncle Gary - The kids all loved having a tractor in their back yard! 

We started school!

Been a crazy couple of weeks here! 

Matthew took the last week off to do some yard projects. I mentioned that I wasn't that big of a fan of the backyard and, well, Matthew decided to take it into his own hands and make it be something we will like. It started with burying the trampoline. It's quite the project in an of itself but then it got bigger... 

It turned in to pulling out the pavers, pulling out the stamped concrete walkway to the RV parking (It had settled...), adding flower beds all over the place, adding more grass than cement and then... the biggie, leveling the yard. So basically, as you can imagine, the back yard is a major construction zone right now. Coupled with all the rain that we got last week it was a complete mud bog! 

I don't have any idea how someone can go through a kitchen remodel because just having this in the backyard makes me slightly stabby. On most of the days Matthew was great at having the boys come out with him to work but this means they are dirty about ten minutes in, so they get lunch outside and baths are a must (sometimes more than one in a day!). Or I would keep the kids in half the day and let them go out in the afternoon or whatever. But it certainly means I can't just shoo them outside when they get cabin fever. I think the new sod comes at the end of this week. This is good. 

And it's a good thing the D's had school. Yep! First week of school in the books! Was super glad to have Matthew home all week because of all the running around and back to school nights and stuff. Him being here allowed to be to be as involved as I needed to be, especially with Dylan.

On the first day of school Duncan saw his friend and shot out of the car. I was standing with Tammy, Dyl's aide from last year (who we won't have much this year... sadz...) and I asked her if I should go find him or what I should do. We both assumed that he knew the drill from last year and that he would be fine. So she took Dylan in. 

Come to find out, when she took Dylan to Ms. E's class Duncan was no where to be found. What? Yea, that kid followed who knows who in and sat down in the wrong classroom as happy as can be. Thankfully Tammy happened to see him in there and got him ushered to the right place. Silly kid, he was so excited. 

All of last week I went in to Dylan's class at her food time to help teach he new teacher how to get her food going and how to change her. The new teacher is pretty much the opposite of last year in that she is very quiet and not very assertive. So teaching her something that can be a little intimidating was interesting but I think she has it. I hope Dylan behaves herself. 

From Dylan being the only severe last year to there being 11 this year is quite the change! They are in this tiny little room, 11 of them! Two aides and the teacher. It's crazy, loud and unorganized! But it was the first day of school and Dylan kind of digs things crazy and loud so we will see what happens from here. With only two aide and some very demanding kids I am not sure how much of Dylan's day will be spent in her classroom... any? I don't know... we shall see. The kids in there are for sure cute but wow, what a job! 

It really seems like one of the aides has made a good connection with Dylan and she went and bought some balls for her to have since I mentioned she liked balls. I also got a lot of toys that are just Dylan's, she will have them available during the time when she is by herself eating. (A lot of the other special needs kids pull on the tubing! I am not sure how to handle this...) The aide noticed Dylan doesn't really like container play so she started to work with her on colors and... well... the first trial of colors was quite promising but I haven't decided if it was a fluke or not so no horn tooting from me just yet. Suffice it to say, that girl might be learning her colors this year. Prompting us to wonder what ELSE she knows right?

The little boys start school this week. Ian is M-Thurs and Asher is M-W-F which should be interesting to keep track of don't you think? Monday and Wednesdays will have to be my get things done day because I will have two hours with just Greyson. The other mornings should be fairly easy too with just two kids.

We got Dylan's new AFO's last week and she hates them, she freaks out! She cried the whole time she had them that night, all through school on Friday and as a test I put them on her after I knew she was happy on Saturday and she flipped out. So off they come. It doesn't make sense for her to have tolerated braces for five years and all of a sudden not so I will be calling them tomorrow. Just another thing to do for us. Boo. 

Oh, also... Dylan has had this loose tooth that looked all snaggely and I told Matthew he had a father's duty to pull at because she might choke on it. But really, we all know she won't choke on it because she would spit it out but it just looked so bad I wanted it gone. He and Tracy have been wiggling it for a week and last night Matthew went for it. He got it! (And had the bite marks on his finger to prove it!) Making it the first tooth of four that we can account for. Gross. Teeth are gross. 

We did get our little dog Fitz and we have had him now for a week. He is adorable and super fun. When I picked him up she said that he was the most playful one of the three (yay?) and that the other one I was looking at ended up being quite a snuggler so it was good that he went to an older couple. I guess... Ha! Really though, he will be so great for the boys to play with. So far so good. We kennel him in our room and slowly but surely we are potty training (miserable!).

We saw my little (big) niece Eden off to serve a mission in Ecuador. We will miss her so much, she spent a lot of time with my kiddos when she was in high school. She was so happy and will be such a great missionary. Love that girl. 

I finally hit my downhill goal time of a sub two hour half at a race the weekend before last. It was snowing at the start! Snowing!! I was not ready for snow at all and I had pretty much written off trying for my goal when we started but the clouds parted at about 2-3 miles in and we went for it. Sara is training for the full marathon in two weeks so she had to run these 13 and continue running for another 7 so she used this as a training run and helped pace me in. (I forgot my watch, she was using her phone.) At about the 12th mile she told me I was going to make it but it was going to be close so if I had any juice left I needed to use it, so I did. I would have liked to see my mile splits for this reason! I actually came in at 1:58:30. Woohoo! Now I can quit running! Just kidding. Kinda. 

This kid is thinning out and it ain't cool.

Pretty girl looking at Uncle Kiko at the cabin. 

Cute cousins. (Who puts their kids in white shirts to go to the cabin anyway?)

Last cousin picture with Eden! 

The story of my last 8 days... 

It's Fitzgerald!

He likes to lay on the vents and on the tile because he likes it cool. 

Did I mention that it was snowing at the start?!

It's not fair.

Ian has this horrible habit going on right now. His new thing is saying "It's not fair!" When he loses a game, when he can't have something. Everything is just "not fair!" It drives me crazy. After reminding him and telling him it's not okay to say that, I got after him good.

"Of course it's not fair! Nothing is fair! LIFE IS NOT FAIR!"

So isn't it ironic that all I can think and say right now is "It's not fair!"?

Do you remember my #2 HPE baby Jane? Rachel is baby Jane's mom and one of my friends in HoPE. She was taken to heaven very unexpectedly. The world lost a beautiful spirit this week, And I am really having a hard time with it.

I have come to anticipate, expect the loss of an HPE child. How cruel is that? We just lose them so frequently it's always a 'risk'. But the loss of one of our moms is almost too much to handle.

Oh how I have adored Jane and her mother. Rachel and I were close from the beginning, we met while we were both pregnant with babies due in September. I envied other HPE moms as they got to meet together (there are several lived very close to each other, Rachel lived in Mississippi). We would talk over your favorite social media site, trade notes with each other, ask questions. Laugh. Complain. Cry.

She has such a strong testimony, her husband Charlie is a Baptist minister. She was always so grateful an expressive that Jane was a miracle brought to her from Heavenly Father and she owed all to Him. She was the first to reach out to new HPE mothers to give them a reason to have HoPE.

All of her HPE friends that she met in real life have come together to grieve and they have decided she is in heaven rocking and singing all of the HPE babies that went before her.

Pray for Charlie and baby Jane, until they see her again.

xoxo Rachel.

Ahhh, summer summer summer

We start school again next week and I am not sure how I feel about it. At least Duncan and Dylan do anyway. Ian and Asher will start after Labor Day. On Mondays and Wednesdays it's just going to be Greyson and me at home for two hours. What the what?

Matthew has been busy working in the yard doing all kind of crazy things to make it so he likes it. I mean, he is tearing out concrete, we are putting pavers up on classifieds, he is pulling out the rock wall. It's crazy. We asked a yard guy to come do a bid on it but he never got back to Matthew so I guess he feels like he needs to take it upon himself to get the job done? Whatever... I don't think I would have been comfortable with the yard guy's asking price so it is what it is.

So the last couple of days there have been a couple random strangers coming to pick up the pavers though, it's kind of funny. They are just doing it, for the payment of the pavers that we are trying to get rid of. I guess that's why classifieds work yo.

Tracy and Shannon even joined the concrete party, Tracy came to help with the hard labor and Shannon came to cheer them and help Matthew with the plants. (He needs help, his Shannon is no good at plant stuff!) Their little Asa is so good, he will nap over here so we just set up his pack and play and he went to sleep.

Supposedly when Matthew is done we will have the trampoline up, or... Down? In the ground. Just in time for fall. Oopsie. Well it's been too hot to play outside anyway.

Duncan asked me if I stunk the other day, I don't, I don't think, but I said yes. He told me I stunk because I never took showers. What? I told him I did and we had quite the spirited conversation in which I insisted I regularly showered and he insisted I didn't! This conversation caused me to remember how, in Primary, he turned to his teacher the row behind hi and informed him that indeed Sundays were special because his "mom even showered on Sunday!" I was like "well occasionally..." Turns out, he really believes I only shower on Sunday and after my long runs on the weekend. I am not sure how I feel about this!

FYI, I do shower, but it's only after he has gone to sleep at night after I work out. He thinks his mother doesn't shower!

I woke up the next morning and told him that I showered and he smiled all guilty like and said "I just didn't know!"

Greyson has been saying everything but most of it you can't really understand. We have this great game where you ask him to say any word and he repeats it back. It's so fun and the kids all think it's great so they get in on the action. I don't think the other kids were such sound mimic-ers but then again none of them had this many people around telling them what to say right? The other day he got in trouble for something and he stood there and cried and then walked over to Ian like he was wounded so Ian would give him some sympathy and love. It's usually me he walks up to when one of the other kids get after him so it was funny to see that he would go to anyone!

I went to Demo Day for Boost Startup. It's the end of a three month program for new tech start ups where they present their product to angel investors and ask for money. I did it to support the Lionheart Innovations app but it was so fascinating! I don't know how successful they were, I won't know... I am just someone who blog for them... but it was great nonetheless!

I ran my longest run ever with my friend Allison and one of her friends the other week and it went great. A little too much stopping for me with that many miles though, once I stop it's hard to get going again, especially after 10 miles. It was still fun and I never would have gone 15 without them so it was good that I went. The idea is that if I have gone 15 it will make my 13.1 in two weeks easier.

I hope to get a sub two. I better get a sub two, it's a very very downhill run, more so than any other downhill race I have done so that should help right?

Last week Sara and I ran our downhill canyon run in prep (have to do some downhill so I can do some sort of walking without hurting after the race.) We went a lot further than we had gone in the past, to a city park in town. The last about 1.5-2 miles of the 12 were flat and I was able to keep up my pace for it which is awesome, and a good sign. Even on the downhill races, once you come out of the canyons, they are flat or rolling hills. If you can do that after that much down you are good to go. We shall see. She had to keep running and ran home to do a total of 17. (She is training for a full in Sept. for her 40th birthday)

This weekend it's a shorter run, 8 miles, and then "rest week" for the race.

Last week we went to a book reading and gathering for The Mother Runners. They are a couple of ladies that wrote some apparently great books about running and motherhood and all that. I don't know, I don't read books anymore! I did recognize them, most runners recognize the books and I saw one author at a booth at Princess last year. She is about three feet taller than me. (See picture). It was really fun, one lady won a treadmill! Just for being there! A treadmill! She wasn't that excited about it...

My adorable imaginary friend Bonnie ordered some Christmas ornaments so I am making those when the kids are in bed as well (after I shower). Just all around a little busy so the blogging is slacking. Except on Lionheart, where I have a financial motivation! I will appreciate this when I get to the 2014 blog book but somehow I don't see that happening any time soon.

This little Asa face... I die, he is an angel. 

The wounded soldier.

...requiring major surgery.

Charlotte looking for a bug in her drink.

This picture is hilarious...

(The two Mother Runners are the tall ones in the middle, my buddy Alison is second from the left.)

Catching up!

I am a wee bit behind on my blogging but there isn't much going on and for some reason I am busy? I guess? I don't know where my time goes but it is going going. Well, not to mention, with it being summer I spend a lot of my day breaking up fights. Too much time together!

I had Duncan going to that summer camp and he insisted he liked it but every time my mom or I would take him in he would just sit alone by the mirror. Then, when mom would pick him up he would be sitting by himself. I grilled him to see if he liked it and he insists he does and that he plays with people but to watch him go sit alone is so sad! There are teenagers who run the program and it's kind of irritating that they don't great them and get them involved in something with the kids who have been there all day too. But, they are teenagers and it's much like a daycare for the kids there all day so what do you expect I guess. So we asked him very specifically if he wanted to go each day and he has said yes, especially the swim days, but I think we are done now. Which begs the question, what in the world are we going to do with the rest of summer? With the fighting? I guess that was good for two and a half weeks eh?

For the first day he went over to grandma's to do some chores. She has some dead leaves and stuff in the bushes outside and needed someone to go pull them out. While he is not really a fan of hard work, he does love legos and is starting to recognize that working = money = more Legos. Apparently he was a very willing cleaning partner. Who knew? I am glad he wanted to go over there and I am sure he was quite spoiled for it... mom better be careful she might not be able to get rid of him.

I took him to the store the other day to spend his money. He had $25 dollars. Funny story - I needed to go buy and old metal box the other day and it was $11 and I had no change. So I raided his box for change. I took $17 and put a $20 bill in there. I am thinking this was a good deal right? WRONG. Wow, was I in trouble. Matthew ended up trading him his $20 for 20 ones! (I personally think we could have gotten away with 10 ones and made some money...) Anyway. So we go to the store and I am having a hard time explaining money, like when it says it's $4.98 I am saying it's $5 and he is like "It says $4". So I explain. Then we get it added up and we go to check out and I am thinking what a nightmare adding and explaining the tax will be! I must have done something right with my life because the grand total, with tax, was $17! Thank you thank you thank you! He keeps telling people he has $4 left (but really he has $8 because one is a $5!). I am sure he will get it soon.

Duncan lost his second tooth on the bottom and the tooth fairy brought him $2, which I guess is better than the $5 she paid for the first tooth?

I took the pickle to get molds for her new AFOs and that was rather uneventful. She does not like to be in the cast so she is fine for most of it and then it starts to harden and it's all over. She did well though, can't ask for more than that. They don't have the authorization yet so we are on hold at this point until they get that and we can move forward with them making them. They are the same carbon fiber backing type she has had that are really great. He said if the ankle part is made of plastic is gradually loses it's flexibility but the carbon fiber ones don't so they have been working out really well.

I scheduled an appointment for Dylan to get into the Spina bifida clinic to see if they want to do anything with her legs to try and straighten them, since her knees are bent all of the time. "Tight capsules" they say. Sometimes they like to put a screw in the front of the growth plate which would slowly stretch it out as the back growth plate grows as normal. (Similar to how they correct bow legs these days). They have found that if they do any messing and cutting with the tendons, not only is there scar tissue but the nerves don't stretch. Kind of gross, I know... but interesting. I just keep calling for med refills and new prescriptions and all that and I LOVE the NP there and I am pretty sure she trusts me and knows Dylan is in good hands so she is great. But, it won't hurt to check that box. We go toward the end of August, on a school day. (School!)

I have been busy blogging now for my "job" at Lionheart and it's going really well.  I put job I quotes because I do get paid, but I am having fun with it and it's a great company with a great concept that I can really believe in. Aside from that, if I consider it a job I won't want to do the blogging twice a week there right? Well, and Matthew is like "why would you need a job? You have one job." So let's stick with not calling it a job. M-kay. That said, he happily cashed my first "paycheck". You can see why I get my blogging fix elsewhere. Nonetheless, don't let the journaling slide! Let's keep going.

Lionheart are doing a demo in front of investors on August 8th and want me to go because I am part of the team. Matthew has to take his vacation days so I had him take that day off so I can go to it. It's kind of nice being on the business side of things again, and it's even nicer being able to say what I want without having to worry about my lifeblood. I think it makes me good at what they need me for and it's definitely more fun!

Matthew and I did a race together a couple weekends back. I had registered him and Michael but we weren't able to get ahold of Michael so we had my mom come over and I did it with him. It was a night race, it started at 10:30 so everyone was in bed and I guess if you have to babysit, that's an easy way to do it. Matthew hates running but he needed a decent time to be able to get in a good corral when we do Avengers together in November. just so we aren't in the back with the walkers anyway. His knee totally bothered him but I assured him we would be taking Avengers really easy if he could just do this I wouldn't make him run anymore. (Let the record show, he wanted to do Avengers!) Interestingly enough, I placed. Third in my age category. Make that third in Michael's age category... since I was running on his bib. Oooops, let's get out of there before they make the announcements shall we? My time wouldn't of had me place in the females as there were three times as many females as their were males!

We had to go on quite the drive to pick up the race bibs and I told Matthew we could all go together so we all piled in. He was wracking his brain trying to figure out what we can do to make it not boring for the kids and I told him if we got them a Happy Meal they would think it was awesome. So we did, but we brought them home to eat (no food in the car says Matthew, pshaw...). During dinner Ian exclaimed "This is the best day ever!" See what a little meal in a box can do? Crazy kid.

Sara and I were all set to run a half marathon for fun last Saturday and the race cancelled at the last minute citing lack of registrations. It was a net uphill race and 2/3rds of it were on unpaved roads (I didn't tell Sara that part! She wouldn't have done it!) You were supposed to take the train to the start of the race and run back, fun right? Well, not enough people thought so. So after it cancelled we hurried and signed up for another down hill canyon race that I was NOT prepared for. I hadn't run a good down hill run in a long time! As a result I couldn't walk like a normal human being for about four days!

I didn't do that well, I started out with Sara and I shouldn't have. Again, I let her talk me in to trying to go a little bit faster than I wanted to for my goal. She ran by me for the first few miles and I kept waving her and her brother ahead (having him there was nice, it took the pressure off me!) Then I was on my own. Next race I am all on my own, she needs to go and like... win the race and stuff. I swear she is fast enough to place on some of these. She said she is going to wait until after September when she turns 40.

You come out of the canyon before 8 miles and then run on this hilly parkway the rest of the way. I hit the wall at mile 10 and when the pacer I wanted to follow passed me at mile 11 I just about gave up entirely. I was 1 minute and 45 seconds behind her at the finish. Whomp whomp. Next time... I am following the pacer, not going too fast at the start! I knew I could have made it if I did my own thing. (For the record, Sara's brother said he started out too fast too, it wasn't just me who had that opinion!)

Grey was either wearing his sunglasses or he would put them up here to be like mommy. 

My little cat

I was making a smoothie and this is what happens when I do that...

And this.

I have no idea...