Ian's five!

My sweet little Ian turned five! I can't even believe it, it's so crazy...

He is my tender hearted boy that has everyone (literally, EVERYone) thinking that he is the sweetest, most loving most, level-headed and charming boys ever. While some of that is true, I am not sure he is so level-headed at home.

He has always been famous for his fits, which are AMAZING! My mother in law said that it's great he feels so comfortable to be himself at home and on his best behavior when out and about. Yea, it's great. Ha!

People just love how sweet and caring he is, how kind-hearted, loving and generous. And he is, he really is. One of his preschool teachers said her favorite part of the day was watching him say goodbye to me because he has to have a hug and a kiss, every time, and then he walks away smiling and waving and breaks eye contact at the last minute. It is pretty darn cute. He is the sweetest most huggy and kissy boy ever. I love it.

And he has the cutest stinking face EVER.

He also is the most cute with my Dylan. When she cries and we say "What's wrong with Dylan?" to each other he says "I need to go sing to her!" and he runs in and sings. Right now he is on a Jingle Bells kick and she likes it... it's better than the ABC's which she is OVER.

For his birthday we went the Jungle Jims which has indoor rides and is disgusting! Of course the kids pay no mind to the fact that it hasn't been cleaned in 25 years, they LOVE it. He was thinking about a bounce house place like Duncan's 5th but we wanted to make sure our neighbor Kyle could go. He is in a wheelchair and is a little too big for mom and dad to help with bounce houses but rides are no problem to get in and out of. It was crazy! Thank goodness a few moms stayed and they helped chase the kids because they all went in different directions! There was a pinata which the kids loved and ice cream and pizza which was fun. I liked it because it was pricey but required minimal planning and I am a minimal planning kind of gal.

For his birthday he got to choose what we had for lunch and dinner. I believe we had fries and nuggets for lunch and spaghetti for dinner. He also got to choose a treat at the gas station for the boys to share and he chose gummy worms. "Wiggely worms" is what he calls them.

Here are Ian's birthday questions.

What do you want to be when you grow up? "I don't know..."
  Me "You don't? I thought you said you want to be a doctor?"
  "No..."
  "A fireman?"
  "No..." "a dad?"
  "No... I don't want to be any-fing."

A couple minutes later "Oh I know... I want to be a good game player."

What is your favorite cereal? "The cereal that are colors." "What else do they look like?" "Honey cheerios. But..." (walking to the cupboard) "They look like this..." (Fruit Loops)

Favorite dinner? Spaghetti
Least favorite thing to eat? "I don't like mushrooms"
Favorite breakfast? "Watermelon and apples and pineapple, watermelon and cereal that has milk in it and uh... that's all"
Favorite toy? "The car that Asher's playing with that I got for my birthday."
Best friend? "I got lots of best friends. Xander, Gage, Jude and uhhh, who else? Duncan!"
Favorite TV show? "Team Umizumi"
Favorite Book "The Moose that had a Moustache"
What time do you go to bed? "Hmmm... six."
What are you really good at? "The Pogo stick" (eh?)
Favorite place to go? "The park"
When do you go to the park? "I don't know, because you never take me there... mmm... I think 10:00"
Favorite kind of candy? "Halloween candies" (Smart!)
What do you and dad do together? "Sometimes he helps me tuck into bed"
What do you and mom do together "When I was a baby, you kind of helped me have a drink."
What are you afraid of? "Monsters"
What do you like to do with your family? "Take pictures"
What makes you laugh? "When you make silly faces"
Favorite time of the day? "Uhhhh Sunday"
Why is Sunday your favorite? "Uhhh, I think because the sun comes out and uhhh, so I can get warm, I always love to get warm."
If you had one wish what would it be? "That I could have ice cream!"

Disney Land!

This is me… trying to get back into the swing of things after a fun (and exhausting) vacation to Disney Land with three of our boys! Thank goodness the night we got back, while I was off getting Fitz from Trina, Matthew unpacked everything and started the laundry. Yay! Slightly less over-whelming. As was having him take the following day off!

Here we go!

A few months ago, while I was at the Disney Princess Half Marathon, Disney announced that there was going to be a new Avenger’s themed race at Disney Land. There aren’t as many races there, and all for the year were sold out, but this new one provided an opportunity to get a new challenge medal, the coast to coast, which is where you complete two races, at two different parks within a calendar year. I signed up, we were going to plan a family trip around it done and done. It's an excuse to go and it was time really...

When my mom decided she wanted to go to see the boys and all the magic I registered Matthew up for the half too (he wanted to! Not sure why… but he did! Perhaps it’s all the teasing I do about him “only” having run 12+ miles with the Spartan…) Mom volunteered to watch the boys race morning and take off with Asher when there was a ride that he couldn't get on. Perfect!

Michael volunteered Megan to watch Dylan and Greyson so we were going to take the three older boys alone. This meant we had a one to one ratio yo! Awesome!

Since I am no fun, and can’t handle the excitement and anticipation, we decided to tell the boys the morning that we were leaving, early, rather than me having to listen to the “when are we going to go?” questions and obnoxious excited behavior in the days leading up to it. Good plan. Like to keep them in the dark, it’s the way to go!

In the weeks leading up Duncan would say he wanted to go to Disney Land and I would tell him he doesn’t even know what’s there. He said he did because of an app on my iPad. (Score one for mom.) He told me there was a train there. Yes, yes, he’s right. There is a train. (A few counting KC Jr. and the monorail, which we did…)

One day in the car Ian said he wanted to go to Disney Land (mimicking Duncan, the kids have no idea) and I hear Duncan say “We can’t go to DisneyLand, it costs a lot of money!” And Ian said “We have a lot of money!” And I hear Duncan, in all of his wisdom say “Well it takes MORE!”

So morning of we did an awesome scavenger hunt. Matthew was poo-pooing the whole hunt idea saying it added stress to an already stressful morning but the kids love hunts! And it was easy, short and lead them directly to the car. Not only that, but don’t expect the Disney surprise magic when the kids have no idea what to be excited for, if we were to try it again today, no hunt needed, the kids would provide a sufficient excited reaction! Hello. No brainer for me. He came around though, he always does… Silly Matthew. It worked swimmingly.

The kids looked so cute and so excited in the airport. It was fun seeing their little faces. We were on our way.

Matthew got a car service for us which was less expensive than renting a big enough car for all of us for four days. It really shackled my “get snacks at Target down the street buzz” but apparently Matthew is fine paying top dollar for snacks anyway so it’s no biggie. Roger was waiting for us at the baggage claim, our bags were 3 of the first 4 (hello, awesome… ) and we were off again.

The hotel we stayed at was the Best Western Boardwalk Inn and Suites. Somewhat limited options to sleep six and it turns out the location was ideal. Like… ideal ideal. It was just across the street from the drive way where the buses drop people off. Staying on property would have been nice but two rooms or a room large enough would have been 4 times the amount. No thank you, even with the perks. We weren’t in the room long enough anyway.

One of my friends suggested renting a stroller there. There is a company that will drop off and pick up a stroller at your hotel so you don’t have to pay the very Magical Disney price of $20 a DAY and not be able to walk your sleeping, tired child back to the hotel in it. It’s the way to go! $35 for four days! And we paid $10 for the ride on thing on the back. It was seriously ideal… next time we will go for the double stroller as I had anticipated lazy, I did not anticipated lazy x3 x3. Suffice it to say, it was cramped and we exceeded the weight limit, more than once (like 70% of the time!) but all seemed well.

I had made a reservation for a character breakfast on Saturday morning and it was a great start to a full day in Disney Land, The food was decent but there were a LOT of characters! So many it made it hard to eat in between all of them. Asher wasn’t about Captain Hook, Ian thought he was cool though. Asher didn’t get up for anyone… until Poo came along! My mom commented to Poo that he should feel pretty special because Asher wasn’t all about before Poo! (And after for that matter!) He gave Poo a big cute hug.

The first two days we went to Disney Land, the second two California Adventures with the exception of the third night when Matthew, Duncan and I foolishly decided to close both parks. What the what? Duncan got to go on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (his favorite) four times in a row, we hit Peter Pan (which had a huge line all the time we were all there), and Little Mermaid. We also saw the show at California Adventures which was my favorite Disney night show yet. It was incredible. More incredible because we were up front, but it would have been incredible regardless.

Duncan was a big boy and went on Indiana Jones which is scary right? After it was over, I looked over at him with his big eyes and huge smile and I said “Duncan! Was that awesome!?” and he exclaimed, very excitedly “Yes! I am never going on that ride again!!” Hilarious.

When we went to see Mickey Mouse at Toon Town, we got in the room with Mickey and Matthew bent down and said “Asher, there’s Mickey Mouse!” and Asher said “ I LOVE MICKEY MOUSE!” Loud, and cute enough for everyone in the room to think he was the cutest ever (and he is, of course…)

We took the big boys on Soarin’ and after Ian kept asking if we were at Disney Land. We kept telling him yes and Matthew explained to Duncan that it was a movie. When we ran into mom after, she asked Duncan how it was and he said “it was just a movie.” She thought he didn’t like it, but he was just explaining to her we didn’t fly anywhere. The both liked it I believe.

We went to the Disney Jr. Show which the kids loved, We got to go on the Cars ride twice on both days because we got a rider switch pass for mom (that’s the way to go…) It allowed for three people to return and since we were within the fastpass window we got a fourth pass. That ride was Ian’s favorite.

We did not get on Small World since it’s all decked out for the holidays and the line at night was always incredibly long! Matthew and I saw it at Christmas time in Paris so we were good not waiting.

I LOVED the Haunted Mansion all done with with Nightmare Before Christmas, like… LOVE loved. It’s was so fun! I would have gone on that one again and again to take it all in but everyone else was over it. Hrmph.

We missed the Jedi training which we had planned on doing but got to everything else and since the boys aren’t all about Star Wars yet we were fine.

Then it was time to go home (and boy was it time to go home!)

Matthew and I “ran” our race on Sunday morning (which was the day that we closed the parks with Duncan, it was a 21 hour day!). It was not a good race! Not only was the wind blowing 40 mph, blowing down barricades and even port-o-potties, but there was only slightly over a mile in the park. The majority of it was through Anaheim and then through the back and parking lot for the last mile. Yea… gross. And so windy and dusty! I guess for the Tink course you don’t get out of the park until after mile 6 but some of it is in the back of the house. I would be okay with that… no offense Anaheimers, but my city is prettier. Most of it anyway!

We had a great placement time so we started in corral C and walked most of the way on account of Matthew’s knee. We didn’t do any character stops and the course was not nearly as crowded as I had experienced at Princess. Though, from what I understand that was 100% corral placement since a lot of people in the further back corrals really struggled with it. So, if you want to RunDisney, get a good corral time and stay to the right if you are slower. The walkers really picked up for us around mile 11 but it was still fine with only one spot where the walkers were more than 2 people wide. That was a win compared to Princess, but the rest was blah!

Except the medals the medals are awesome. Oh, and all the cheerleaders and bands. They tried to have a lot of them on the course (Disney gave away a park ticket to volunteers!) but al lot of normal crowd support didn't show on account of the weather. I guess this is typically better in California.

I do have one more RunDisney race in January with the girls but after that I am totally writing off RunDisney. Most of the people on social networking don’t embody the "Disney spirit" very well, I wish my head was in the sand as far as this goes because it’s been a bit soured for me. To make an analogy, like religion, Disney attracts some nutters and unfortunately for the more ‘normal’ people, the nutters are quite a bit louder and more vocal than the rest. I have heard too much of the nutters I am afraid. And it’s quite costly! I need to see more of the world… I would love to run more of the world… DC, Niagra, Great Wall of China (ha! I kid!), we shall see.

I have said it before and I will say it a million times. It is SO nice to be able to leave town and know that your babies are being taken care of a loved! Michael, Megan and LouAnn had Dylan and Greyson covered the entire time and Fitx stayed with Trina, Steve and Trixy. I honestly didn’t worry about them at all, the entire time. At all. I knew that they were being loved and it was no big deal. So GRATEFUL for family members who aren’t afraid of doing Dylan’s cares and who act like it’s no big deal. That was so nice to not have to worry about!

"I love Mickey Mouse!"

Cristmas card done! Oh wait... 

Tea cups. Not gonna lie... took a while to get our bearings once the ride stopped. We were cruising. 

Closing it down man. 

She blogs!

You know I have been a slacker when Grandma Shirley calls to make sure that you are still alive and everything is going okay! I am! We are here, good times, good times. I need to keep things going on here but I have a hard time because of the Lionheart Blog. I have to do that twice a week so I am kind of weighed down by that and then I let this slide. Boo! (I will be thankful though, if I ever get off the 2009 blog book, and 2010. '11, '12, '13 and then it will slow down for '14. Ha! Speaking of daunting!)

Duncan and Dylan turned 7 which is AMAZING. I can't believe they are that old! I feel old! They are all grown up! When did that happen? I need to ask Duncan his birthday questions because I bet they will be super funny. We didn't do much this year, having decided that they get big parties at 5, 8, 12 and like... 16? So it's not his year, it's Ian's. He got to take two friends to this skating, slide, jumping place here and I am sure it cost as much as a big party but the effort for me was less. (Sorry, love you...) And, Dylan didn't much care so there is that. She stayed home with me.

And, well, now that I look at it I never posted picture of Grey since he turned 2! So yea, that happened too. He got a Thomas cake "choo choo" he says, so adorable.

Last weekend was the primary church program and we totally slacked on making sure our kids learned their lines I was so good about it in the past... not no more! Work it into the schedule! So they go up there and help them with their lines (which is super common anyway...) but Ian says something about "Smirving mothers" instead of "serving others" which was adorable. I really couldn't pay much attention to everything because of, well... Greyson, Asher and Dylan, but we gave it a good effort.

Hmmmm, what else... Greyson is suuuper cute and fun lately and he is communicating more and more. I put down the toddler bed in his room just to get him used to the idea and sure enough, he wanted to sleep in it that very first night. I always think these things are going to be a lot more complicated than they end up being. Taking away the binki, big boy bed and that kind of stuff. Really it was done. We give him the choice of the "big boy bed" or the "baby bed" now and he had chosen the baby bed once since but even naps have been easy. He might need one reminder to say in bed but for the most part, he has been great. He loves to count, oye, the whole family loves to count... and he loves the alphabet. He knows the capital and the little letters and thanks to a folder game Ami gave Duncan for church he will match them up. It is the cutest thing ever. He just seems too young to do it but alas, I am not sure he knows his colors yet, so... one thing at a time.

About Math... my kids love math! Duncan is really good at it (and he knows it) but I am continuously being pelted with Math problems. From everyone but Greyson and Dylan. Asher is even in on the game. Duncan has been doing so wonderful at school that I can't argue. In the car I started asking the questions and then Duncan started getting mad when Ian answered before him. IAN! All this math practice is paying off I guess! So I would take turns though the kids and they weren't allowed to answer each others. Good grief. Everything is a competition!

Asher occasionally gets up to pee at night and won't make it to the bathroom, I think he totally could, I am not sure what his deal is. So he pees a little and strips down and then comes and crawls in bed with us naked and cold. But he doesn't move, he is a snuggler so Matthew loves it and lets it slide. He is just this little skinny twig! So last night he is sleeping on Matthew's back (Matthew has no idea!) and I decide he needs undies so I get them, he takes him to pee and then Matthew can't bare to take his tiny body back to bed so he snuggles like a warm (skinny) rock and falls back to sleep. If he moved the slightest bit I would make him go back to bed, maybe he knows that... because somehow this kid gets away with it! Nooooo, no kids in bed! Except tiny, warm cute, not moving ones I guess.

We had a church Halloween carnival the other night and the kids went NUTS. They had so much fun! (Except Dylan, she slept. zzzz) When Ian was getting in the car he said "That place was so fun! I want to go there again tomorrow!" Cue broken heart when we told him he can only go once a year. Halloween should be fun this year, I am excited to see how they do. Hoping to make cotton candy in the garage but all of the kiddos might be a tad too young yet and it might not be fair to leave them all to Matthew while I eat candy with the neighborhood kids so we will see how that goes. Ian is Dry Bones (which is a character from Mario, and it's kidn of thrown together and interesting, Duncan is that lame MineCraft guy, Asher wanted to be a red ninja but when it came down to it he decided to be a train (I think he remember from last year...), Grey was a skeleton and Dylan has a pirate dress. I did not put Dylan in the dress for the Halloween carnival though, I have it saved for school, I hope she doesn't hate it. I am going with her to her class at school because the Special Needs teacher wanted them all to go to their class parties but they don't have the support to do it. So alas, I will go go go.

School pictures. I did not buy Duncan's and I am undecided on Dylan's. Thankfully we had just gone to get them done. Which reminds me... I need to get Grandma Shirley's in the mail to her! Totally spaced it.

I hear he looks sneaky and cute... but I think a real smile is cute. I am such a mom. 

I am pretty happy to say that all of my planned races are OVER for the season expect for a very low key one in November and another in January. Easy, fun, walk-ish, not really race-ish ones. Yay. I did two half marathons in a row and it wasn't my thing. Combined with the second being a night race and wow... I tanked. But we looked pretty cute.

 This was the first, morning race in which I did pretty decent for not really trying to race... Sara coem in a mere 22 minutes ahead of me, you know how that goes. 

The night race in which I did terrible. I was slow enough to meet some new friends though. And thankfully, my mime friend waited for me at the end. (White is not nearly as flattering as black.)

Night races are boo. You don't really know what to eat during the day and they are dark, and lonely and boring and... yea. So I hope Sara will do it again and will just volunteer. She stayed with me for a slow 2-3 miles and then just had to go (Matthew had joked before the race that she had no slow setting, he was right!) She took third in her age group in this small event, I think she could have won. Maybe next year she will and I will cheer from a water table or something. I will stick to the day races!

Fitzgerald Grant. 

Dylan, so cute, in a shirt mom got her for her birthday. LOVE. 

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!