September stuff

September had a busy start, and I'm sure as the kids get older, it will continue to stay that way. Here we are at open house for Brennan. He started Preschool this month. It is a 3-4 yr old mix class. He goes MWF from 830-11.

Bathtime is always a hit. They can't get their clothes off fast enough to crawl in when they hear the water start. They love when Adam blows bubbles with his hands. They scream with joy.

First day of school. He was so excited, and is still so excited about school. He asks everyday if he is going and gets a little mad on Tues/Thurs when he is not going.

Waiting for the doors to open at school. Adam and I both came for drop off that day. It was a big day for everyone, but no tears by any of the Thomas family. His school is a few blocks from the Y so they let me leave and come back on his school days. I have friends to drop him off on MW and I drop off on Friday, and then I pick up each of the days. I'm very glad the Y is willing to work with me and get him to school.

I ran another half marathon a few weeks ago. I got a PR (personal record) by 7 mins, and got my goal time and then some. I was hoping for a 2:10 (to beat my previous time of 2:14) and got a 2:07. Not too bad, huh! I'm going to take a little time off from running and have some toe surgury (get a few more nails removed- sorry if tmi) and then I'll start training for my full marathon in December, that race is April 29. I'm headed to California to do the Big Sur marathon with my brother, and that will be his first marathon too.

summer pics

Everyone love ice cream!

and free ice cream is better yet. Free coupons from Miss Sue and the summer reading program at the library. We like to visit the library throughout the year on Monday nights for the family storytime.

I competed in a few races over the summer. It has been fun to see my time drop, speed increase since my half marathon in May. I competed in my first triathlon at the end of August. I was the swim leg. I was the 3rd fastest woman out of Lake Michigan. It was a sprint tri, but the lake was cold nonetheless, 56deg. Oh! and we won the womans relay event. Here are my teammates, Mary and Lori. I really enjoyed the relay event. It was my first tri and I just had to get the swim out of the way. I'm a great swimmer, but open water is way different than in the pool. I've pinned it to, that it is the opposite of clostraphobic, but it's that there is too much water around me and I don't know what is under me. BUt the more I do them hopefully I can overcome that. I'm looking forward to next season. And I have another half coming up in 2 weeks. And then I signed up for a full marathon in April in CA. My bro and I are running the Big Sur marathon!

And as you can see from the post just before this, we spent a short time over Labor Day at Mermaid Lake with the Reed family and my brother. We had a great time!

It was a little rainy, but that's OK.

Other events from the summer- Adam and I went to Upper Peninsula MI. It was great. The kiddos had a sitter and we had some time away. We went to Pictured Rocks Nat Lakeshore. Put iit on your bucket list people. It's awesome and we also spent a few days in Marquette. And we'll be back next summer, they have a mountain bike race and Adam is going to jump into the racing events too.

**and not real sure what is the problem with this blog. but hopefully I figured out a way around things so I can post.

Mermaid Lake

We spent a short 24hr time period in Northern WI at Mermaid Lake visiting with my brother Joe and his girlfriend Suz and her family (who have a cabin at this lake) we had a great time.

Happy Birthday Quinn

It was pretty fun to watch Quinn get into her cake. And she was green all over her face. and the green cake is thanks to brennan, it was his selection for her :)

reposting some of the missed ones that i had saved...

I did it!

This one is real old, but this is when the problem began and I wasn't able to post, so it goes back to May....Here I am (not sure where exactly) with a couple thousand other people getting ready for the big race, 7am Sunday May 15, the Cellcom Marathon and Half Marathon. The weather was sunny. From the picture you'd think it was great, but there was a nasty nasty wind. June 2009 I ran my first organized race of any distance, a 10K, about 6 miles, and I had more energy at the end and wondered of I could ever do a half marathon, 13.1 miles. We had a baby last year, so I wasn't doing anything runningwise. And this past fall I had toe surgery, ended up with some bad infections and hadn't exercised for 4 months, and used this race to help get myself back on the exercise wagon. I'm not one to pay for something and not follow though. The training calendar that I followed wasn't too too much of a commitment, running 3x a week and swimming once. The long runs were Saturday, so it was manageable with work and the little ones. So the training began.

Here I am in the purple, waving at the family, I'm behind the woman in red. This was about mile 4. I'm super glad that my dad and deb, as well as Adam and the kids could come and watch me accomplish this goal of mine. I decided to run with a pacer, to help me catch my goal time of 2:15. I am glad that I did. I stopped to use the restroom at mile 2, then spent the next mile trying to catch them. Then at mile 5 I had to stop and take off a layer, and spent the next mile trying to catch them and at mile 6 I got head of them, but never saw them pass, so I figured I would be right on track.

Coming up on Mile 10. Feeling good, I made a new friend on the course, the guy next to me, we had been pacing off each other since mile 5 and around mile 9 we started talking, Daniel Schumacher, (small world) happens to be from Kohler, has cousins that I went to high school with back in Sheboygan, his mom lives there currently and he actually lived there after college too, and he went to college with my good friend Heather Dunn, knows her husband from work. So we passed the time of the last 3 miles chit chatting. That last mile 1.5 miles was a killer! I'm not sure if it was the chat or the crazy wind that we dealt with around mile 8.5 and then again during the last mile.

Here I am crossing the finish line, looks like 2 people behind the guy in yellow. I did it! When I caught up to my dad afterwards, he said you looked disappointed at the finish. I had two goals from the start of my training, I wanted to run the race and I wanted to finish under 2:16.27 (that was the average finishing time last year and I thought - I can be average). When I came around the bend, it said 2:18, I was so close! But come to find out, that was the gun time. My chip time was 2:15.46! I did it! I was so happy! And what an accomplishment. I trained for 18 weeks, committed to my runs on my treadmill in the basement watching my tv shows; Friends season 8 and 9 and I got hooked on Glee. Not many people like the treadmill, it was my friend. While the kids napped, there I was jogging away....But I worked hard and I am proud of myself.

Next.....I think I'll sign up for the Fox Cities Half Marathon in Appleton on September 18, our 7th anniversary actually and see if I can't better my time, under 2:10. and then the big one....I talked my brother into doing a full marathon next May, the Big Surr Marathon. Might as well get it crossed off the list....

Hold the phone...I couldn't post this on Monday, something was wrong with the site, but they marked the course incorrectly- I know hard to believe a race at that level would do that- but just after mile 3 we all ran an extra ..800ft about .15 of a mile. So they had some fancy number of .9886 that they multiplied our times by and everyone did better. So my official time is 2:14:14.

moms day

moms day was nice. I went swimming with Brennan and then had some time to myself, I rode the half marathon course on my bicycle to get a feel for the course. When I got home the kids were still napping, but dinner was ready, so we had a nice meal without the kids. So we could talk and my meal was hot....and then the day made a turn.

Brennan has been doing great staying dry. He hasn't had a #2 accident for a long time, he had stopped doing that in a diaper way before he stopped going #1 in the diaper. But I spoke too soon. We were at the park last night, and sure enough there it was. But hopefully the walk home, seeing his cloths go in the garbage and the cleanup in the shower, helped him see that it doesn't belong in his underwear.

And as for the picture.....I love sweets. For moms day Quinn picked out a huge cupcake with the really sugary frosting. Today Brennan felt that a nap wasn't important and while I was downstairs running, he was upstairs playing in the living room and eating my other half to the cupcake (without my knowledge- I run with headphones on). When I came upstairs, I saw him and the mess, and shooed him off to bed. Probably 2 hours later, I was finally curious about the tupperware container on the table...what did Adam give him for breakfast in a tupperware container.....and that's when I realized what he had done. I was at a loss for words. I am still at a loss for words. I can't believe he did that.

oh well.

running.

The big race is only 5 days, 10 hours and 37 mins away (but whos keeping track.....) I am very excited, and have worked hard over the last 18 weeks. I hope I have a great run and we have some nice weather, I'll be happy with not downpouring rain, and no highwinds...