SOJO half marathon...

We did it! I did it! I trained my little heart out and the day finally came. And it was so much fun! We went to register the day before.

We got our numbers and all of our SWAG. Love the swag.
We were up early the next morning. Nate and I met Mindi at Scott's house and Polly was nice enough to take us to the starting line. And it was cold! I had trained in temps that were in the 90's and 100's, and at a lower elevation. I was a little worried about the temps and the elevation change. But I should have had faith in myself. I was so excited I think I could have run it under water.

A few minutes before the race started I downed a PB&J and a Dr. Pepper. Of course I did. And then we were off! Scott was off like a race horse. Nate wasn't too far behind him so Mindi and I were on our own. Before I knew it I was just little ol' me running by myself. Which is the way I like it. Music up loud, just me and my thoughts. I found myself a little dizzy for about the first mile due to elevation, but then I felt fine. At mile two we took a sharp right and headed south. The wind hit me in the face and the next two miles were an incline. With the Oquirrh Hills temple at the top. They always put temples at the highest point. It looked like it was on a mountain top! Here in Gilbert, not a lot of hills to train on. Here I am on the OTHER side of that big hill.

Before I knew it I was at mile 6! So I snuck a look at my clock and realized I was making GREAT time. My goal was 2:45 and at that point I realized that I could beat my goal. The time literally flew by. I made sure I took water and Gatorade at the aide stations and downed my Power jelly beans. At mile 11 there was a steep hill down to the riverbank and then it was a running/bike path along the Jordan River until the end. And once again we were heading south and the wind was hitting me in the face. And it was uphill. And I was running out of steam. Along the route someone had taken chalk and written: YOU CAN DO IT! STRONG FINISH! THIS IS YOUR DAY! for the last mile and a half. (There was also a name under all of these, but I just pretended they were for me.) And at mile 12 when I was struggling, a guy gave me a Gatorade, grabbed my hand, looked straight into my eyes and told me, "you've got this! You can do it!" Amazing how these tender mercys could help. But seriously, I was out of gas. I would run and have to walk. And when I would start to walk, I would think to myself, why am I walking? My legs can keep going! It was a little confusing to me. And then I could see the end!!! About .1 mile from the end my parents, brother, sister-in-law, various nieces and nephews and Sam were there. And I was so excited to see them I started to cry. And Sam ran up to me, grabbed my hand and started running with me. "You can do this mom! Let's finish together!"

My brother saw me struggling and told me, "You're okay! You've got this!" And so I did. I ran up to the finish line and there were Nate's parents, Megan, and Nate. I DID IT! Beat my goal. 2 hours and 40 minutes. Booyah.

We all did amazing and had wonderful support from all of our friends and family. I can't wait to do my next one! As soon as my knees heal......

Observations and Thoughts

If there is one thing I am good at whilst running, it is thinking. So today (whilst running 11.22 miles!) I had plenty of thoughts.

Don't forget your sunglasses.

It doesn't matter what time you wake up, it is always hot in Phoenix.

Running for more than 3 minutes can be really boring.

I hope none of my neighbors drive by and see me running.

When you get an upset tummy, count your blessings that are running right by Burger King.

My water tasted like plastic.

I am....stinky.

The gummy energy whatevers are really hard to chew with braces.

Ohmygosh, this hurts so bad, but crossing that finish line will feel soooo good!

I'm sure there were a lot of deep thoughts going on, but these were the top ones.

This was the facebook post I made right after my run:

Ran 11.22 miles this morning. I cried the last mile and a half because.....A: I didn't want to run the last mile and a half. B: I'm finding I become emotional on my long runs. C: It hurt like HELL. D: I'm really proud of myself. Two weeks to race day!

Can I just say...I am in awe of my friends and family. The support from all of them as I have taken this journey has been so inspiring. I cry every time I check my facebook and see more kind comments. See item B above. I never even imagined that I could run a mile, let alone 11! Of course, the way I feel tonight, I can't really imagine running 13.1! Oy! I'm excited for this opportunity that I am taking. I'm excited to cross that finish line and seeing my family waiting for me there. I'm excited that I know I can do this.

I just felt like running...

Well, I turned 35 this summer. And it may sound kind of silly, but this was a tough birthday for me. I realized that I was in need of a challenge. I decided that I would run a 5k. That's a good goal, right? Nice and achievable. I went to Nate and told him my plan. He thought it was great and informed me that he would ride his bike next to me, or drive behind me, but he really hates to run and didn't want to run with me. Haha. I appreciated his support. So we joined a gym, because deciding to get in shape in Phoenix in the summer is just crazy. And we were going several times a week, but I wouldn't run. I felt too stupid and knew that I wouldn't be able to run for very long. Well, one day I went for it and made it half a mile! And then I made it a mile. And pretty soon, I was running 3.2 and since I had the mileage, I promptly decided to go for a good time. And a week later I hurt my knee. Bad. Couldn't walk. Swollen. Dang! So I took a few weeks off and in the meantime we headed up to Salt Lake. I was talking to my brother about running and my goal and he threw out the idea of running a 1/2 marathon together. Love it! And then my sister wanted in. What great motivation! We got home and I started training in August. Nice and slow so my knee could heal. I'll tell you what, I've gone through knee pain, hip pain, ankle pain, muscle cramps and shin splints. But the constant emails with my brother and sister have been great. And as I continued training, something nice started to happen. Nate started running with me! And I LOVE to run with him, (even though he is a lot faster and can run longer distances. Dang him.) And we've been running our tails off and we've had great support from our girls. And in TWO weeks, we will head to Salt Lake to run our first 1/2 marathon. I'm very excited. Very nervous. And very excited. Scott has just started mentioning a full marathon next summer. We'll see...

Six Flags

We spent one of our vacation days at Six Flags. I was really looking forward to this because I like roller coasters. I forgot that I was 12 the last time I was there and now I am in my 30's. Right off the bat we rode the X2 roller coaster. I was shaking when I got off. I had a trauma and was ruined. By far the scariest thing ever.

I made Megan take this picture ;)

Megan loved this ride. I shoots you backward to the top at 90MPH, then you free fall down....

The swings are much more my speed...
The girls were thrilled to find a souvenir that only cost $5 so they each bought a Wonder Woman cape. And I won't go into details, but right after this photo was taken, one of the girls took a flying leap off the curb and quickly realized that this cape will not help you fly. And Nate's mom just happened to have her camera on action and caught it frame by frame. And it was so hilarious to see her wrapped up in her cape trying to get up that I almost peed my pants. I'm cracking up right now re-living it. (She was laughing as well, I swear.) And I'm happy to say that by the end of the day most of my trauma had gone away and I was able to enjoy some more rides. Another great day of vacation, filled with great people watching.

San Clemente Beach

We headed to So Cal for a family vacation in May. Since we've never lived by the ocean, it's always a treat to spend a day at the beach. Megan made it her personal mission to rid the beach of sea weed.
We found lovely sea creatures. The kids wanted to bring this star fish home. Ummmmm....no.

Searching for crabs

It's a hard life, but Sam is willing to take this burden on.

The water was COLD!!!

What a great day we had! Fun memories to always hold dear.

Diamondbacks game

Nate and I were offered awesome tickets to a Diamondbacks game. Row 16 and FREE! We had an awesome view of the game.

Seriously. This is what we saw the entire time. Every time something good happened, he would jump up and kind of dance back and forth and we literally couldn't see anything. And he liked to curse a lot. Nice. And then we had four 20 something girls behind us. They clearly weren't interested in the game. The more they drank, the louder they got. And the didn't stop talking. About nothing. I thought Nate was going to stick his cotton candy stick in his eye.
I always like the self portrait. Forgot to adjust the zoom. Hahaha. Just though everyone would like a picture of my braces.

Annoying people aside, I ALWAYS love a night out with my hubby. The roof of the stadium was open, the weather was perfect and I had cracker jacks.

Sami 4 Treasurer

My girl decided to run for student council again this year. I cannot express enough how impressive this is to me. SOOOOOO brave! We had fun making posters together and utilizing my cricut.

And she had to make a speech to the WHOLE school. She did soooo great! She wrote her own speech, spoke loud and clear and made eye contact. So impressive.

There were so many dang kids running. About 12 for every position. She rallied hard. You know when you were little and you got hurt and you held in the tears and ran home and then you saw your mom? Well, she got the news at the end of the school day and managed to make it home without crying. And then she saw me. (I'm tearing up remembering) and she threw her scrawny little arms around me and sobbed. And sobbed. I hate it when my kids are disappointed. And I held her and fed her and then she collapsed on the couch exhausted and fell asleep. And then she was totally fine and over it. Thank heaven. Way to go Sam, you are definitely a winner in my book!

Easters

This year I was determined to have a great Easter. Last year was lame. We moved the day before Easter. We were exhausted. We didn't have a working stove and couldn't find the dishes. We didn't dye eggs. We had Easter Dinner at Olive Garden. And there was an earthquake. (Which was kind of cool). So this year had to be goooood.

So to make up for the eggs last year, (I still had the dye) we colored 4 dozen eggs. Good times.

The girls got some new summer outfits and beach toys for our upcoming trip.
And we had an Easter egg hunt. Megan needed to find blue and green eggs and Sami needed to find pink and purple. Someone hid one in a cactus. Silly mom. They managed to get it out.

We had a lovely time at church, then it was time for Easter dinner. We had a ham and my favorite thing with ham is funeral potatoes. I rushed home from church and whipped them up and got them in the oven. They smelled soooo good. When it was time to eat I got them out of the oven and DROPPED them. They landed on the oven rack, danced to the back of the oven and flipped upside down and landed on the bottom of the oven. GRRRRR!

Nate scooped them out of the oven for me and took a picture. He thought one day I might laugh about it. And since I had been looking forward to them, I made another batch, so dinner was an hour later than we had planned on, but it was yummy! All in all, we had a lovely day.

Spring Training

What is great about living in Phoenix in March? Baseball!!! We headed out to a game the other night. We couldn't have pre-ordered a more lovely night. Beautiful sunset, perfect temps. Great company. Nate and I took this picture, but I didn't like the way I looked, so I made him take another.

Whoops! Looks like Nate wasn't quite ready.
Okay, I get it, you're messing with me.

And ice cream! MMMMMmmmmmm! The game was fun too. The red team vs. the blue team. One of them won. I'm just happy to go!

Want to know how to tell if you have Canadians sitting behind you at a baseball game? Well, if you are from Arizona, you all come in sweaters. If you are from Canada, you are in tank tops and shorts. And once they start talking, you can tell :) And we had our favorite vendor working that night. If you've ever been to a sporting even in the Phoenix area, you know who I'm talking about. "Lemonade! Lemonade! Just like Grandma made! You know you waaaannt it!" Love that guy!

11

Sammy da Bull turned 11. My baby. My last born. Sigh....

We had a slumber party (Nate was out of town for this one too....I'm sensing a pattern. Very smart on his part.)

My wonderful and talented friend, Mindy, made this incredible cake as a gift to Sam. Sam loves to watch any baking shows and Cake Boss is her favorite. I WISH I had my camera on me when Mindy showed up with this beauty. I thought Sam would pass out. She kept saying, "My first fondant cake!" Mindy truly made this a special night for Sam.

And presents! We LOVE presents!

And I truly couldn't bear to mar the cake, so I stuck a candle in an ice cream cone and we sang to Sam. But yes, we had to cut it open finally. So yummy!
And what made this birthday extra special this year? Grandma and Grandpa Woodard made the long drive down to spend the weekend! I gave her a dress form so she could design and make clothes for her American Girl dolls. Sam loves to sit and draw and make clothes for her dolls. From the look on her face, I think she likes it! Megan gave her some cloth to work with.
About a week before her birthday, I was going through some drawers and I came across an old nightgown of Sam's. Just about everything Sam has owned is very "special" and not be to outgrown or given away. Sam had a silky blue nightgown that was just like Wendy's, from Peter Pan. She loved this nightgown. And I couldn't bear to get rid of it. So I got to thinking....and called another talented friend of mine. (Aren't I lucky to have so many great friends?) And she made it into a pillow. So now Sam can sleep with it at night again!
And grandma and grandpa made Sam's year. She has been dying for a Kindle. But no way was I going to buy her one. I thought she would take better care of it if she had to work and save for it. She had been saving her little heart out and grandma and grandpa kicked in the last of the money that she needed. That Kindle has not left her little hand since she got it. As part of her gift, I bought her some books to download.
And then, of course, we had dinner at Pei Wei and ice cream at 31 flavors. A special day for a special girl! Love you sweetie!

And here is some of Sam's handiwork, designing coll clothes, she'll just sit on the floor and hand sew for hours.