Run Baby Run

For the second week in a row, we have had a fairly uneventful week which leaves me wondering what exactly I want to blog about today.  I always feel comfortable talking about the kids, and even Jeremy for that matter, but I feel less comfortable dedicating an entire blog post to talking about myself.  With that said, I guess that is precisely what I am going to do today.

Just over a year ago, Lora (my co-teacher at preschool) and I were having a discussion about getting healthy and how we both really needed to start exercising.  We talked about how exercising is always easier with a partner and how we were together pretty much everyday anyway.  We decided that we could piggy back time for exercising onto some of the times we were already together during the week without too much trouble.

At that time we were living in my parent's house and across the street was a great park with a really nice paved track that goes around the perimeter.  We decided that we could go to the park after school and let the kids play while we walked around the track.  Sometime between when we decided on this plan and when we actually met at the park, I got this harebrained idea that if we could walk the track, we could run the track.  I downloaded the "Couch to 5K" app and had it in hand when we got to the park.  Lora was hesitant to say the least when I presented the idea but is too nice to say no so we decided to give it at try.  In the program, you alternate walking and running intervals and in the beginning your run intervals are 1 minute long.  I am embarrassed to say that those 1 minutes where some of the longest and hardest of my life.

Thankfully we didn't give up and probably 6 months ago we finished the program.  That means that we would run for thirty minutes at a time at close to a 10 min. mile pace.  Since then we have maintained this, running approximately a 5K three times a week.  Then, unfortunately for Lora, I got another harebrained idea.  I started to feel like I wanted to push past what we were doing and train for a 10K.  Without telling her, I signed up for 10K in September with another runner friend of mine.  When I did tell her, she was supportive of my running it, but didn't think it was for her.  We decided to stretch our runs just a bit to 35 mins and decided that I would do longer runs and training this summer after school was out. One day, a few weeks back, we were running and she started talking about the race.  She told me that she had not even told her family yet, but that she had signed up for the race.

Since that day, we had continued with our plan of waiting to ramp up our training until school was out, but at the end our 35 min runs we were feeling more and more like we could do more and more.  Finally on Friday, we decided to try for any extra 5 mins.  At the end of that we were still feeling good so we added another 5 and then another and another.  Eventually we stopped after a full 60 min. run!

I have to say that I am REALLY proud of myself.  I am not a "runner" and to go from barely being able to run for 60 seconds to being able run for 60 minutes is beyond huge for me.  I can't wait for race day.  I just wish I didn't have to wait until September.

The Costume Box

Last week Merrick asked Jeremy out of the blue to get down the costume bin from the top of the closet so that he could try on his tae kwon do outfit.  Jeremy, in "stick in the mud" dad fashion, told him there was no reason for him to have it right then.  Then I, in "let the kids be kids" mom fashion, told Jeremy I didn't see why not.

What proceeded was five minutes of Merrick wearing his tae kwon do outfit and then three days of Carrigan pulling out, spreading around, and trying on EVERY item in the costume box.  I think Jeremy had the right idea all along because I too was feeling very "stick in the mudish" about the whole thing after three days of my house being covered in costumes.  We did at least manage to capture a few pictures of some of the C.C. costume creations and her cuteness might have been worth all the mess.

Downtown Adventure

On Friday night, Jeremy mentioned to me that Bill Walton (a famous basketball player for those of you, like me, who didn't know who that was) was doing a book signing downtown at Powell's Books the next day and that he really wanted to go.  I was not sure that sounded like a lot of fun for the kids, but was confident that we could find fun things for us all to downtown so we decided to go.

The signing started at noon and by the time we got our bundle tied at home, drove down there, parked, and made our way to Powell's it was pretty much noon on the dot.  Our first surprise there was that the they were selling the book there for double what it was elsewhere.  Our second surprise was that the line wrapped all around the third floor and down onto the second.  We opted not to stay for the book signing but did have lots for fun exploring the rest of Powell's.  Merrick had really been wanting to find a "Missile Mouse" book and decided to use his Christmas money to buy one once we found it.  Carrigan liked browsing their large selection of Daniel Tiger, Dora the Explorer, and Pinkalious Books.

Eventually we made our way out of Powell's and onto the streets of downtown.  We stopped for lunch at a place that sells pizza by the slice and then ran a couple of errands.  We stopped by an eye glasses place for Jeremy and then hit up the downtown Target.  The Target was an adventure with several sets of escalators (and even ones for your cart-Merrick thought that was really cool).  C.C.'s favorite part was that they sell "yatas" (pinatas).

After Target we headed to the waterfront.  We walked along the water for a while when we had our catastrophe for the day.  C.C. tripped and was not able to stop herself before hitting her knees, hands, and eventually her nose and forehead on the concrete.  It was one of those slow motion moments as a parent where I could see it happening but was just not fast enough to stop it.  She was a trooper though and after just a few minutes of crying wanted to get back at it.

The highlight of the day was that we rented a surrey.  We took our surrey along both sides of the river and across two bridges.  It was fun to work all together to pedal and get where we wanted to go.  At the end of day Jeremy said we should have gotten a discount on our rental because so many people commented on how cute we were in our surrey and he was sure we had boosted their sales.

By the time was got home everyone was wiped out and ready to call it a day.  It was a great adventure and hopefully one that will not soon be forgotten.

Family Pictures 2016

My good friend, Lora, who I do the preschool with, also happens to be a really great photographer.  You may remember (probably not) that she took our last family pictures just before Jeremy graduated from law school.  Well, shortly after that she decided she was too busy to do pictures for people.  I was heartbroken, but then spent the next (almost) two years convincing her that what she really meant was that she was too busy to take photos for everyone but me.  Thankfully I wore her down and when she and I were off school for spring break and Jeremy had a couple of days off, she agreed to take our family pictures once again.

The weather was really crazy on picture day and over the course of the two hours we were out it rained, was sunny, was cloudy, was bright, was windy, and all combinations of those things.  Despite that, I am really happy with how they turned out.