Sunday, April 10, 2016

Bentonville Half

I ran my first half marathon last weekend.  Woohoo!
I had so much fun during the race.  There is definitely such a thing as adrenaline……I have never ran this fast for this long in my life!
I planned several months ago that I would do this half marathon and started running more regularly again.  I found a great running partner in Chrissy and we would hit the pavement together.  Our goal was to run it in under 2 hours (my personal goal was 1:55).

This was us before and after the race

The race started at 7am and it was cold out……I usually don't run in cold weather, because it hurts my knee.  I was freezing the first 3-4 miles, but then I warmed up and it was actually perfect running conditions.

I came across these 3 (and Scott of course) around 7.5 miles.  Their signs sure made me laugh.  It was so good to see so many familiar faces along the course.
The one that says "Hurry Nora pooped" was Hannah's idea……she knows how much Scott dislikes to change a dirty diaper.
After one of my long training runs the kids asked where I ran to and I told them that I ran past Lowe's and they were quite impressed.  The night before the race I was talking to Evan about coming to cheer me on in the morning and he said "Are you running to Lowe's again?"  I told him that I was going in that direction, but going actually further than that and he said "Can you stop at Lowe's and get me and Hannah a present?"

The hill at mile 13 is pretty brutal, but I made it and all of the signs and people cheering were very distracting and entertaining. We have such a great running community here and it was wonderful to see all of the support.  There were a lot of signs that made me laugh.

Sprinting to the finish line…..

I crushed my goal and came in at 1:44.  I am very happy with my race results and look forward to doing another half marathon.
And since I burnt 1420 calories I had a big piece of cake that afternoon at Allison's baby shower!

Here are a few of the official race photos
It was such a great race and I definitely had a little bit of a runners high at the end.






Monday, April 4, 2016

Catching Up…..Spring Break and Easter

A few weeks have passed since my last blog update……time to play catch up.
  We had a wonderful spring break and spent a few days in Branson with grandma and grandpa.  Before heading out for Branson we had some fun at the Amazeum. The kids love to go there and do the science experiment.  Every time I go by myself with all three kids I lend up losing Evan.  He knows to stay with us and that he has to ask when he wants to go somewhere else and does a pretty good job of that, but every time there is that one moment when he sees something that distracts him and he just takes off.  
We made ancient drinking chocolate this time

This face swap app is disturbingly funny…….these are Morgan and the kids
Hannah and Morgan
Evan and Morgan
Nora and Morgan
I just downloaded all pictures to the computer and came across about 500 of these pictures……somebody had fun with the ipad
I am not exaggerating when I say there are about 500 of these.

Scott took Hannah to see Zootopia during spring break and I took Evan back to the railyard bike park. He loves it.  He is getting so good at his balance bike. And of course he had to use the bike wash at least 5 times…….

We had a few really windy days in Branson.  The kids enjoyed hiding easter eggs in grandma and grandpa's yard.
We also practiced some chalk art
We went down to Table Rock lake for a little bit to explore and throw rocks. At one point Nora just sat down in the water……it was pretty cold!
Surprisingly Evan stayed the driest out of all three
We also went on the Showboat Branson Belle. 
I thought the kids would really enjoy a ride on the lake. Remember when I mentioned earlier that it was really windy…….well, that put a damper on our plans. We all got onboard and seated and they started serving food already when the captain came up on stage and said we will not be leaving the dock, because it is too windy!  What?????  I thought he was joking, but no we just sat at the dock and had our meal and watched the show.  Hannah enjoyed the show and Evan watched for a few minutes, but then he got bored.  Nora was not a big fan, so we just walked around with her and enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the dock :)
The next day we decided to go to Silver Dollar City, but it got really cold!  We were not really prepared for that.  We toured the cave for the first time and it was pretty impressive.  It is an hour walking tour with about 500 steps down and 200 steps back up and then you take a 2-3 min train.  We were really impressed that Evan walked the entire way.  Nora fell asleep in my arms, so it was a little tricky for me to maneuver through the cave with a sleeping baby in my arms.
Pretty dark cave selfie:)

We had a pretty low key easter at home.  It was supposed to rain, so the the easter bunny hid some eggs inside of the house.
Oh the golden egg……thankfully the bunny hid two of them!
This hair!!!!!
We decided to dye some eggs on easter…..I didn't realize this pack of dye came with glitter.  I am still finding green glitter.
In the afternoon we went over to Robin and Alan's for another easter egg hunt
No time to take pictures…..there are eggs to hunt
Evan got this firefighter backpack with water hose in his easter basket and it has been a favorite of his.
We have been playing the chalk firefighter game a lot.
Firefighter Evan putting out a fire.  He said to me"How about you are one fire and I spray you".  Haha! Maybe next time when it is a little warmer.
Oh and this is happening at our house…..
We got 4 chickens on Saturday.  We have already collected 2 eggs.  The kids are very excited about having chickens.  They already have names: Rosie, Bella, Pedals and Matilda.

Evan has been making up stories all of the time.  Some of them are really funny.  This morning he told me that one of the chickens was sad.  I asked him why and he said, because the chicken wanted to have a water balloon fight with him.

Right after he came downstairs this morning I asked him if he had a good night and he said "I couldn't sleep, because daddy snored so loud"


Not sure where these stores come from, but he is pretty funny.