I DID IT!!!!

I did it. It is over!!! The Austin Half Marathon is now a thing of the past. I had an absolute blast. I had so many people there supporting me and running with me. A little background on this thing. Last summer, Ami, my Stroller Strides instructor (and friend) came up with this "great idea" to train for the Austin Half Marathon. She was pregnant and I wanted to get pregnant so I thought "sure!" thinking it would never happen. Somewhere along the way I told Mel (Clay's sister in law) about this race. She has run a half and two full marathons before. She said she would run this one with me. Awesome! I started training in August with Ami and Kristy and found out how freaking HARD this was. I had so many talks with Clay telling him that I just don't think I can do this. He is such a huge supporter and told me that I set a goal, so just do it. It is that simple. Ha! Ami and Kristy would have to keep my spirits up too. They were the best running partners and supporters. So fine, I'm going to do this.

I had my 10 year high school reunion in October and I told a few of my old friends (Laura, Jessica, Anna, and Yvonne) about it and they said they would run it too. Awesome! In the beginning I had some of the worst shin splits I have ever felt. I was in tears on some of our runs. I also got bronchitis along the way and pretty much had to start my training over, but I caught back up! And here we are race day.

I had this confidence that I hadn't had all training. I just knew I could do this. I had a really good pace (for me) in the beginning. In the first 5 miles we got a little taste of some hills. I had a game I would play with myself while on those hills. As I was running up them and thinking, crap, this is hard, I would tell myself after this there will be a downhill. That helped a lot. Melissa also gave me a trick to just focus on the current mile. So after mile 4 or so I would just tell myself, "I'm looking for that mile 5 sign" then after I saw that sign I would just be looking for the mile 6 sign. That helped a lot too. Clay and is brother Brett were hanging out at mile 6 to cheer us on. It was so great to see them and I felt so good at that point. But things really started hurting during that mile. So I had to take a little walk break during mile 7. I was ok with that, I made it 7 miles without walking. So then I would run 3 minutes and walk 1. I felt awesome about it because that was what everyone around me was doing too. I had to walk up all the crazy hills, then I would run down them. Let me just tell you about these hills. Seriously, I mean at some point I would just say, you've got to be kidding me. The biggest one was at mile 10 and GOOD LORD! It was just mean. At some point I looked down at my Garmin and started doing some calculations in my head and I thought, Oh My Gosh!! I might be able to finish this thing in under 3 hours. Based on my training I really thought I would finish at 3 and a half hours. So I started to book it (as much as you can book it after 10 miles). I crossed that finish line and I was so pumped. I FINISHED A HALF MARATHON. I really thought I would cry. I didn't (at the finish line). I did cry in mile 1 and somewhere in mile 12 or so. I just couldn't believe I was actually doing this.

So anyway, I freaking did it. I still can't believe it. Here are a ton of pictures from the big day.

The basket Mel gave me before the race. She is so awesome!

Here I am with Grant (Ami's hubby), Ami (the one who started all of this), and Kristy before the race. My awesome running buddies.

Here I am with Melissa. I am so thankful for her. She helped me so much with her information and support. Love her!!

Here are my high school girls (Laura, Yvonne, Me, Jessica, and Anna). These girls blew me away. To just kind of sign up for this thing on a whim and they all came out and rocked this thing.

Start line!!

Melissa, Ami, and Kristy can be seen in this photo. Can you find them??? Grant and I are in there too just hidden.

Feeling good at mile 6.


I FINISHED!!!

I almost finished under 3 hours. Oh well, next time.

My Stroller Strides girls after the race.

Me and Mel after the race. (she had time to go back to the hotel and shower before I finished, she rocked this race)

Laura and Anna after the race.

Aaahhhh! The reward after the race!!

Can't Sleep

I am sitting here in my hotel room with Clay, Melissa, and Brett all sound asleep. It is almost 1:00 in the morning, our alarms are set for 4:30 a.m. I am so nervous for this big race. I have been training since the middle of August. Six months of hard work and the end is only a few hours away. How am I supposed to sleep???

Maybe I can get 2 or so hours of sleep. Full report of the race to come.........

First Trip to the ER

I know I have been bad about updating this blog. I just couldn't think of anything to post. Well today I got some new material. Wade and I were out in the back yard. He was pointing out airplanes and singing to me. So I wanted to take some pictures and maybe a video. I took a few snap shots and turned on the video. Then Wade fell and hit his chin right on the edge of the deck and split it open. I was trying to figure out what I should do. I really felt like it wasn't big enough for a stitch. I remembered the local corner ER clinic down the street. So I took him there because I would have felt so bad tomorrow if he really did need a stitch. Of coarse I was right. It will heal on its own, just keep it clean.

Here is the video I was taking when the incident happened.

Here he is before the incident.

Here is a picture of the tiny cut on his chin.

Wade showing me where his boo boo is.

I must say that the local corner ER clinic was awesome. We were in and out of there in less than 30 minutes. If we would have gone to the hospital ER, we would have been there for hours. I love this clinic. Good to know that they are there because I know this won't be our last trip to the ER.

Merry Chistmas!

Christmas is almost here! Wade and I have been getting things ready while Clay is in Corpus Christi working hard for us. This has been really hard on Clay. He goes out to dinner and sees families all together and misses us tons. We miss him tons too. While it is really cool that his job takes him to so many great places doing some incredible things, it sucks at the same time because it takes him away from us. Honestly, we are very thankful that Clay HAS a job, and can provide for us.

Here is a picture of what Clay is working on. Clay is involved in the hull which is the part of the offshore oil platform that is in the water. Here it is on a ship in Singapore. The hull is the big hunk of steal (the yellow, gray, and brown thing) sitting on the ship. That ship brought it over here from Singapore.

Here is Wade's picture with Santa this year. He just couldn't believe that I would hand him over to this strange man and just walk away. Maybe next year we'll get a smile.

We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Glad it's over!

We did it! We finally go tubes in Wade's ears. I can't believe how fast it all went down, but I am so glad it is over. We have been talking about this since October. I tried everything to avoid them. I did all I could do and there was still fluid in there, so we did what we had to do. It really wasn't too bad. It took about 15 minutes and he was happy to see me in the recovery room. Here we are right after he woke up.

Thanks to everyone who told me how easy it would be. It really did help to hear that so many people had gone through this and it was so easy. They were all right. I just hope we don't have to do it again.

Getting tubes

Well we finally saw the ENT on Tuesday and it was confirmed, Wade needs tubes in his ears. There is still fluid in there. That makes it since October that Wade has had fluid in his ears. He doesn't always have an infection with the fluid but fluid is in there none the less. He has been on 6 different antibiotics and doctors really don't like to repeat antibiotics, and frankly neither do I. So on to tubes. The doctor had a cancellation and we are getting them TOMORROW (Thursday, Dec 11) morning. I just pray that everything goes smoothly in there. I know this is a very routine procedure, but anytime your kiddo has to be put under, it's SCARY. I'll let you know how things go.

::I've been Tagged::

I was reading my friend's blog the other day and noticed she listed 6 things that made her happy. I thought this was great, then at the end of the post she "tagged" some of her blogging friends to do the same on their blog. I was on that list so here goes......

6 things that make me HAPPY!

1) My sweet husband- I could not ask for a better husband. Clay is so helpful around the house, works so hard to support our family, is GREAT with Wade, and is so loving. Sometimes I don't know how he does it, but he always does. These past few weeks have been a little hard on us. He has been in and out of town since June and will be until at least March of next year. Through all that he still maintains his "awesome husband" status. I honestly think I have the best husband in the whole world (sorry ladies).


2) My healthy, super cute, little boy- Aside from a few ear infections, Wade has been pretty healthy. (Thanks be to God, we are so lucky). I also got really lucky on getting a FREAKEN cute kid. No, Wade has just been so much fun these days. He has been such a joy in our lives. Clay can go from having a horrible day, to walking in the door and seeing Wade run to him yelling "Dada!!!!!" and all those bad day blues go away.

3) My running buddies- As you know, I am training for a half marathon. I run with two girls from Stroller Strides, Ami and Kristy. If I did not have them, I would have already quit. This is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. Running is not easy for me! Ami and Kristy are so positive and encouraging. They are awesome for just putting up with me. I complain, moan and groan, and get down on my self all the time. I honestly don't know how they are not sick of me by now. It makes me happy that they are there for me and let me try to keep up with them during our runs. hahaha

4) Wade's school- I love that I can drop Wade off and know that he is having fun, learning, and making friends while I go and get some things done. I can shop, clean house, make cookies hahaha, and go to appointments all while Wade is safely at school. His teachers are great and so loving. He has so much fun there and I am soooo happy to take him there.

5) My DVR- I know this sounds terrible but I am a tv-aholic. I love "my shows" and a lot of my shows come on when I am running or giving Wade a bath. But no worries, I have a DVR. I can watch my shows later commercial free. It is the best invention EVER!

6) Baking- I honestly love to bake! I have so much fun making sweet treats for people. I know I will be the cause of Wade's teachers gaining at least a pound over these holidays. I have so much fun watching people's faces light up when I give them some goodies. This last week I made some cookies for a cookie exchange I went to on Saturday. I had to make 65 cookies for the party. Everyone there would go home with 5 cookies from each batch. I started on Monday working on these cookies. I made drawings of each cookie so I would know what colors of icing I needed and how I was going to decorate them. Then I spent a day making icing and the cookie dough (a shout out to my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, couldn't have done it without you). A day was spent just rolling out the dough and baking all the cookies. Then two days on just icing and decorating the little guys. They came out looking awesome so, of coarse, I had to take a picture. Needless to say a few "WOWs" were said at the party, and that made it all worth it.


So there you go, 6 things that make me happy. This post was actually kind of fun, and totally put a smile on my face. One day when I am down, I'll come back and read this post. If you haven't done this before, you should. Thanks Kristy