Park, anyone?

We practically live at the park. Seriously. The kids love to climb, swing, slide, etc -- and they want to do it ALL.THE.TIME!! I love to do those things too -- so we make a good combination. No plans for the long weekend -- other than playing outdoors :)

Can you tell that the kids like the motorcycles? I just realized that the pictures were all similar. I guess part of the reason is because they are staying still, too!!!

In other news, my foot is healing. Physical therapy has been helping a lot. I wore the boot for about a week... and then moved on to shoes with good arch support (I've been living in tennis shoes). I finally got the okay to start doing some cardio again. Still can't run... but watch out StepMill, Elliptical, Rowing Machine... here I come!!!

Also including a finish line photo from the race -- I decided to order a picture from the photography group at the event. Hoping this wasn't my last half marathon... but it will definitely be a memorable one!

Beautiful Day

It was a beautiful day today -- so we spent the afternoon at the park. Here is the little hoopster:Evelyn and Noah made friends with another mom at the park with bubbles. This kept them busy for a while.
So much fun chasing bubbles!!Step 1: Hug Step 2: Head-lock!! (I did get a cute hugging pic -- but this one is more fun)

Just Me & My Buddy

Travis took Evelyn this morning to help out a friend -- so that left me and my little buddy to spend some quality time together :) Here is Noah modeling a sweatshirt from his Papa:
Mowing the lawn (I wish he really was old enough to mow the lawn -- our yard needs it!!!) That is Trav's job... Update: the lawn has now been mowed!

Noah trying out Evelyn's bike. Typical boy -- in 5 minutes time, he crashed harder on that bike than Evelyn ever has!! He didn't mind though :)

My foot is feeling a little better -- not quite as sore and swollen. I am wearing one of those walking boots a lot during the day. It doesn't hurt if I walk a little bit without the boot... but I find myself babying that foot and kinda walking differently to avoid any pain. I went swimming last night for the first time -- I have a feeling I will be doing a lot more of that for a while!

The kids have a trial gymnastics class in about an hour --All for now! Happy Saturday!

Stubborn & Competitive... A Dangerous Combination

I will preface this story by saying that I had a painful run on Thursday evening (and it was only a 3 mile run). My heel/arch on the underside of my right foot started hurting... so after about 1.5 miles, I just walked home. I took Friday and Saturday completely off (hoping to heal up a little bit). My initial race expectation/goal was to finish at or under a 10min/mile pace for the race. With this pain I was having... I was starting to feel a little uneasy about that goal.

Race recap: The course was beautiful -- started out in Sequim in somewhat farm-country... open roads, beautiful views... from there it went into the woods for a while. We ran over a few streams on wooden bridges... ran under a "canopy" of evergreen trees for a while... beautiful running views! The last 5 miles of the race is right along the waterfront into Port Angeles.

I felt great the first 3 miles. After mile-marker 3 I started to feel a little tenderness in my right foot. After mile-marker 6 the pain was considerably worse. But -- I was able to maintain just under a 10-minute-mile pace this entire time. At mile11 I thought I was just running through the pain and doing okay... but as I was running up a hill between 11 and 12 I heard a "pop"... it was so painful/shocking to my system that I screamed outloud. I slowed down and tried to maintain a walk/run for a few yards.

It was at this point in time that my stubborn/competitive side took charge and pushed common sense aside. I decided that I didn't train for this event just to have a "DNF" (did not finish) next to my name. I decided that I was on track to reach my goal -- and I wasn't ready to let that go. So -- I ran the last 2 miles -- burst into tears at the finish line -- and went immediately into the medical tent. They gave me ice, a bunch of ibuprofen, and told me to see a doctor on Monday.
I still didn't really care that I was injured -- I was successful!! :)

I saw a sports medicine specialist/podiatrist today and his diagnosis was that I ruptured my plantar fascia. OUCH! I am not supposed to do anything (but swim) for at least another 3 weeks until I see him again. In the meantime -- I am icing, elevating, on anti-inflammatories, going to physical therapy, might have to wear a "boot"... UGH! I'll keep you all updated.

On a happier note -- here we all are at dinner Sunday night -- I LOVE Buca di Beppo's!!

Fun with the Girls

Let me just start by saying that I had an amazing weekend with my friends. I hated to see them leave!! There is something to be said for the friendships that you establish in college... we saw each other through a lot of changes, highs/lows, etc. I feel blessed to have such wonderful friends in my life. Even though I don't talk to them every week, and it had actually been years since I saw them last -- we can always pick up right where we left off :)

The girls flew in Friday -- we hung out Friday night, reminisced about old times, and then got a good night of sleep. We spent Saturday morning downtown/at the market doing some touristy things. Here we are in front of the original Starbucks. Notice the trampy mermaid -- no wonder they changed their logo, huh? :)

Saturday afternoon we took a ferry out of Seattle and made the drive to Port Angeles. We were able to pick up our race registration stuff and then drive up to Hurricane Ridge. The views were amazing -- as usual. Then we checked into our hotel, ate a huge dinner, took hot showers/stretched and went to bed. Bri and I had to get up and take a shuttle in the morning to get to the start of our race. We were both running the half-marathon. Dee was running the 10K (she just had a baby 4 months ago) -- and then she was going to wait for us at the finish line.

To Be Continued...

Worth the Wait...

This is an African Violet that I have in my kitchen. I received it last year as a gift from my mother-in-law for Mother's Day. It was blooming when she gave it to me. I am horrible with house-plants... and I didn't have necessarily high hopes for this one either. The blooms went away within a few weeks... but I kept it alive... and it bloomed again this Mother's Day. Definitely worth the wait! I took quite the break from posting...not sure if this post will be worth the wait... but I will provide updates none the less :) Obviously life has been busy this past month -- as I am sure everyone's life is.

Here is the only other picture that has been taken recently... Noah and his cousin Lola playing together this past weekend: (you can also see the top of Evelyn's head in the corner)
Moving forward... I have an exciting weekend coming up!! College girlfriends Dee and Bri will be flying in on Friday evening for the weekend. We are all going to do a race together on Sunday morning. Bri and I will be in the North Olympic Discovery Half-Marathon (nodm.com), and Dee will be running the 10K.

With all that has been going on, I completely fell off the training plan... and I am going into this with my longest run being 10.5 miles... but I figure if I can do 10.5, what is another 2.6 miles? I might be singing a different tune come Sunday though :) I received some words of wisdom from a fellow blogger the other day... "Just remember your mind is tough and it will carry you through - so control your thoughts and don't let your mind convince your body that it is too hard! Because it is not!" Wish me luck :)