The Misltoe Half Marathon

On December 6th I ran my first half marathon (13.1 miles) and truthfully I really enjoyed it. The training was really hard for me, mostly because we were so busy with craft shows, so most of my long runs were done after I had been at a craft show all day. It was hard to get home after leaving the kids all day and say oh sorry guys I have to go run for two hours, but I had a goal and I stuck with it. Race day was pretty exciting. I was nervous. I knew I could do it, but I was worried that I would get an adrenaline rush and start off to fast and run our of steam before the end, but luckily I got my adrenaline rush and it stayed with me until the end. I was hoping to finish in 2 hours and 30 minutes and I ended up finishing is 2 hours and 17 minutes. That gave me about a 10:38 mile average which was pretty good for me. We were running 11 minute miles on most of our long training runs, so I was able to shave off some time for the race. I started at my regular pace, but around mile 6 I was feeling so good I decided to pick it up a little and once I got to mile 10 I was able to book it to the end. I am pretty proud of myself and I even said to Whit that I think I will try and do a Marathon in the not so distant future. I wish I could do one soon so I could just continue training, but I don't think I can do the cold early mornings anymore. I think I will wait until the spring and start training again.

I am so grateful to Whit and the girls for their patience and support through this whole thing. Whit is so great. He is truly my biggest fan. He even picked a spot along the race that I would pass by twice so that he could see me twice during the race and then still make it back to the finish line-all with four girls in tow. I wish I had a picture of the sign that he made for me and my running partners it said, "Ridgecrest Moms Rock" It was so cute. Ridgecrest is the name of our neighborhood. Besides me and my two friends that I trained with another woman in our neighborhood ran it and two other mom's ran the 5k part of the race, so Ridgecrest Mom's really do rock!!

I also have to say thanks to my partners in crime, Marcia (our team captain) and Kim, if it weren't for these two I would never have even attempted something like this. Thanks ladies for a great run!!

Oh a Christmas Tree hunting we go

Our all time favorite North Carolina tradition is our Christmas Tree tradition. We have been able to share this fun tradition with several family members in past years and for that we are grateful, but this year we shared it with our local family and we had a great time. The tradition goes like this: On the day after Thanksgiving we head up to the mountains to a Christmas Tree farm where we hunt down the perfect tree.

Once we pick the tree a man with a chainsaw comes and cuts it down for us. I have often wished they would let Whit have the chainsaw and let him cut it down, but when I really think of Whit with a chainsaw I realize we are better off letting these guys do it :)

Then we let the girls haul the tree back to the car.

O.k. not really. We wait for the tractor pulling a trailer to come pick up our tree and give us a ride back to our cars.

While Dad loads the tree onto the top of the van the girls and I enjoy a nice cup of hot cider to warm ourselves back up.

You can't get much better than that!!

Last but not least, we go home and we decorate. We got a much bigger tree than normal this year so our lights and ornaments were a little sparse, but it still looked really pretty.

Yes that is Whitney making Addie sit for the picture. After this shot the camera died so we gave up on a good picture.

Thanksgiving

I am sad that I haven't taken the time to sit down and reflect on how Thankful I am before now. Thanksgiving came and went in a whirlwind of craziness, but this year as a family we tried really hard to express how thankful we are for all of the wonderful things in our lives. We put a paper on the fridge and everyday we were supposed to write something that we were thankful for. We missed lots of days, but the girls really enjoyed the days that we did do. I still have it up and I have added a few things here and there since Thanksgiving and I hope to keep it up for a while as a reminder during these scary economic times of just how much I am blessed with.



Jaynie's Class at school sang some cute Thanksgiving songs and I thought it would be a great way to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all of our loved ones. I know it is way past Thanksgiving, but truthfully shouldn't every day be a day of Thanks. Enjoy!!

Sickness in the Air

I know I still need to post Thanksgiving and our Christmas tree and I will eventually, but today I just needed to post about Eliza. Addie has been sick with a double ear infection so her and I haven't slept really well the last couple of nights. Then last night Eliza decided to get sick in the night so Whit didn't sleep very well either. Eliza is throwing up so I am glad Whit got to take care of that one. The funny thing about Eliza is that she is so stinking cute even when she doesn't feel good. It was 5:00 am this morning when she threw up all over Whitney in our bed so Whit got up and took her to the bathroom to put her in the shower and as he was undressing her she said, "Dad I want breakfast." Which I guess after you empty your stomach of all it's contents the natural response is to fill it again. Right?