The Painter's Half Marathon

I have been such a slacker with blogging lately, but mostly related to the fact that I was out of town running my first half marathon. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be! I went out a little fast, and came in a little slower, but I didn't have a watch to pace myself. My legs got really tight at the end as well. I am happy that I finished. I would have liked to have done it a little faster, but oh well. It is funny, because I know I am not a natural runner who could run 1 mile in 6 minutes, let alone 13, but I do have some hopes of getting faster, some day. I may even be considering doing another 1/2 soon. Many have asked if I will do a full, I don't think so, but you never know. I don't really have many pictures of the race other than this onehttp://www.zazoosh.com/events/searchPhotos/178?query=2287&keyword_8= . My father in law was awesome and followed us the whole race. I will have to get the shots from him. He was at every aid station ready to start snapping. Melissa also inspired me to run. She asked me to do it, I never would have done it without her asking! I hadn't been exercising great since I had my last baby, the gym was to far away. This run definitely gave me something to train for and to push myself for. It was so worth it!!! Luckily I had very few battles wounds to show for the run, other than a few sore muscles and one area with mild chaffing. Melissa, however, will probably lose both toe nails, one on each foot. It looks so painful! My neighbors also ran the race as a couple! I tried to talk Brett into running with me but he refused, BUT, he might be considering the next. Anyway, my neighbor, Brandon, thought it would be fun to run with his camera so he could get pictures along the way. He would run ahead of us and turn around and snap a few shots. The first picture is barely mile 1, and us feeling pretty good. The last picture is us all at the finish line. Hooray! We made it.

My Goal

To survive another year.
I realize I should be a little more ambitious than this.
But let's be honest. This will do for now.

Who Takes the Cake?

New Year's Eve definitely came in with a bang for us, a Wii bang. We got the Wii for Christmas and had so much fun playing it all night on New Years. We got the game Mario and Sonic Olympic games and it is so much fun. We keep playing it, haven't even tried out any of the other games we got. Here are some videos of us doing the Vaulting event. I do have to admit that Brett scored a couple of 10's. I am trying to adopt more of his style, but have yet to do it effectively. Guess I will just have to continue to watch the video to see how it is truly done, something I used to do back in the day, review tape. I am embarrassed to even put this on here. My brother and his wife appropriately titled this entry on their blog "Wii Spaz".

Christmas Day

Like I mentioned in the last post, I was able to wake up Christmas morning with my kids because I was put on call. It was great. The kids actually slept until almost 8 and we even let them sneak to the top of the stairs to see if Santa had come or not. Christmas really is fun when the magic of it still exists. However, we about blew it!!!

Favorite lines from the day:

P: Hey look! Santa has the same wrapping paper as us!

T-man: (seeing the price tag on a toy) I wonder where Santa shops?!?

And the Little One couldn't get enough candy from the stocking. We just let her go to town and it shows all over her face!

Then she even got a hold of the camera, managed to get it on and take a few pics of herself. I don't know how she did it without going blind!

After we had Christmas this is what we had to dig ourselves out of:

And the sad thing is, it was coming down so fast he had to shovel again after he did it the first time. While he was shoveling, Princess went out and got in the car and turned it over so she could watch a movie. We didn't know this, and left it like that for a few hours. Needless to say, the battery was dead and we barely finagled Brett's car in the garage to get close enough to jump start the mini. Definitely a Christmas to remember.

Then we headed to Brett's families house for dinner and more presents. We even made candy trains and had the traditional duet of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. It was a grand old time.

T-man was disappointed when Santa didn't bring him the Wii or a Nintendo DS. Good thing Santa knew that someone else was bringing it! Princess was so excited about her new princess bike and helmet. Since she couldn't ride the bike outside, she insisted on wearing the helmet all day and even wore it in her carseat and fell asleep with it on!

Christmas Eve

It is a tradition in Brett's family to go to P.F. Chengs Christmas Eve. Brett is put in charge of ordering the food, and we definitely go with just a few lettuce wraps (LOVE THEM!) . We love this tradition and love being able to feast! I even got a few good pics of Momo in here, a nearly impossible feat. We even managed to have the gift of parking, and were able to park right by the restaurant. I was scheduled to work from one in the morning to seven in the morning but was lucky enough to be put on call. But because I thought I was going to work, I took a very late evening nap and wasn't able to fall asleep until four in the morning, arrghh. But luckily, I finished the book I had been reading as a result.

The Nutcraker

This year the girls in Brett's family went to the Nutcracker. I thought it might be fun for the Princess to go, so we gave it a shot. She absolutely loved it. She loved the dancing, the outfits, and just getting to go somewhere all dressed up herself. We had such a great night! It was fun to get to hang out with just one of my kids. I need to make it a point to do some of that one on one stuff more often.

The New Year

One would think with the recent purchase of our NEW computer that I would actually get with it and blog. But with a new computer, I have to install all my old programs onto it and haven't quite done it all, although I am a lot closer. So, yes, we finally broke down and bought a new computer and this one is so much faster and smoother than the last. I hope I save time with this NEW investment. I also started a NEW job. I work a lot of nights from 7-9 pm. Makes it thought to have the time to sit and blog at night. I am a home care nurse, which I never thought I would do. I guess there are 2 things in life I never thought I would do or own: 1. owning a mini-van and the 2. already mentioned: home care nurse. Oh well. I guess I learn from my own life lessons. I go see a few patients every night, check their blood sugars and give them insulin if needed. Most live in Assisted Living Centers but don't remember to do it themselves. There is much to say about the NEW year, but above all, I just hope it was better than the last. Here's to wishing you all the same: Have a very Happy New Year!