Update

For the three people who read this and are NOT my mother or sisters, here's what we've been up to lately!

N had to go to Las Vegas for a business trip so Milo and I packed up and headed for my mom and dad's house for a couple of days.  

Milo picking "beans" at Grammi & Papa's:

 Sitting in his cousin's lawn chair on the patio - just his size!

Having some lunch...

The next six pics are some that my sister took while we were sitting on the patio watching the girls swim.  I love these pics of Milo!

Grammi bought us a dump truck - as you can see it was a big hit!

Poor Livi - she was so worn out after a couple hours in the pool she fell asleep waiting for dinner.  This was not staged, she really is fast asleep!  Stayed there for about 30 minutes until they finally had to wake her.

  

Milo wore big boy pjs for the first time - no feet, two pieces.  Makes me a little sad...

On Saturday, Mom, Aud, Steph, Scott, and I ran the "I Like Ike" 5k in Denison.  Scott smoked us all, the Clay ladies ran it in right at 41 minutes.  And it was HOT.  Also, Ains ran the "fun run" which I think was about a half mile.  

And to cap off our trip, Milo learned to climb stairs. I believe the look on his face says it all.  I am in so much trouble.

We had a great time visiting my family (and N's) but we were VERY glad to see the Daddy on Friday night and we were glad to get home on Sunday.

OKC Memorial Marathon

This past Sunday was the OKC Memorial Marathon. (In the interest of full disclosure, I did not run the actual full marathon, only the half.) This race is held each year to remember those individuals lost in the bombing of the OKC Federal Building on April 19, 1995.

It's one of those "I remember where I was" events - I was a senior in high school and was actually in OKC that morning for an orthodontist appt. I got to drive (with mom riding with me) so I got to choose the radio station and of course I chose The KATT. I still remember a guy interrupting the broadcast, he was one of their employees and happened to be downtown doing something and called in to say there seemed to have been some sort of explosion. We listened to things unfold as we were driving home and when I got there we flipped on the TV and continued to watch the coverage. It was an awful event. This was when "the Oklahoma Standard" was seen on the national stage. People helping complete strangers, jumping in and doing whatever it took to clean up, etc.

I believe it was five years after the actual event before the marathon was started, but this race is the main source of funding for the OKC National Memorial. I will DEFINITELY be participating in this one again. There were around 25,000 people running in the full marathon, half marathon, marathon relay, 5k, or kids marathon. The weather was atrocious - for the first time in race history they actually had to delay the start because of lightning on the course. It was supposed to start at 6:30 - you'll see in the first pic below that the clock says 6:00. We had actually already been downtown once, heard about the delayed start, and come back home because of the rain (and the fact that we are only minutes from the start line). We settled in to watch the weather and at 6:40 headed back downtown. We got there and Nathan dropped off me and one of our friends and he and Milo headed back home to stay warm and dry!

This is a pic of the TV screen - how Nathan and Milo "watched" me (I can assure you I was nowhere NEAR the front of this mass of people - I was in back with the slow folks). You can see from the pic though that the weather was horrid - raining and the temp was around 50 degrees, with winds 10-20 mph I believe. The temperature only dropped throughout the morning so that by the time I was done it was 45 degrees.

Nathan and Milo watching the race on TV:

I finished in 3:00:26 - a full 18 minutes faster than my time at the A2A half marathon! I don't know if anyone that reads this blog was a volunteer or knows a volunteer, but I need to say a HUGE THANK YOU to those folks. They were out there in gross weather cheering and directing traffic and handing out water and oranges and Powerade and pretzels and all manner of things and they were probably the only reason this girl finished! Between mile 11 and 13, the race course goes ONE BLOCK from our house and let me tell you, after more than 2.5 hours of being alone and seeing no one that I knew, I was over it. But I passed a course marshal who saw my OSU hat and said (as I was walking for a second before my final run to the finish line) "Cowboys don't walk! Cowboys don't walk!" and I took off and that's really probably the only reason I finished at 3 hours even! Seriously though, the volunteers and the people who were just out cheering even if they didn't know anyone were a HUGE help!

Me after N picked me up - you can see it's still raining:

N wanted to take this downtown "around all the people" but I couldn't feel my fingers or toes at this point and just wanted to go home so we took my "after" pic on the front porch:

If you're ever looking for a race of any distance, this one has them all and it's probably the best one I've ever participated in, and that's something considering the conditions this year! I had a great time, the other runners were great, and it was for a great cause!

MFT: Late Again!

So, it's Tuesday and I'm just now linking up with Abby for MFT. Raise your hand if you're surprised...yeah, me either. Down to business.

I cannot even believe I'm about to write this but...running. It's one of my favorite things! When Milo was just three months old, my cousin asked me if I wanted to train for the Memorial half marathon. I said "sure, it's something I've wanted to do", thinking "Oh, maybe in a week or so we'll start jogging or something"....clearly I wasn't thinking. My cousin is not one to mess around. Within two hours, in my inbox, I had a Google calendar link to a training plan that started AT 6:30 A.M. THE NEXT DAY!!!! I told Nathan I was pretty sure I'd just gotten in over my head but whatever, we'll give this a whirl.

Now, let me just say here that I had not done a lick of exercise since Milo had been born and before he was born the only exercise I was doing was walking my feet to the bone around our neighborhood trying to GET HIM OUT! So, we started the next morning using the Couch to 5k program (C25K). Fast forward to last weekend. There was a point to point, (supposedly) mostly downhill/flat half marathon in Ardmore. We decided to do that one as a "training run" since we were supposed to have a training run of that length on that weekend anyway, and it was a smaller race to get one under my belt since this was all new to me. And you know what? I FINISHED!!!! And I enjoyed it!

My cousin has been injured for a few weeks but I talked my sweet running buddy Jenny into going with me and we had a great time! In spite of the 20 MPH HEADWIND FOR 12.5 OF 13.1 MILES (I blame that for my slow time). We took it easy, we jogged, we chatted, we joked about the wind and how it should DEFINITELY make our race count for more than 13.1 miles because it sure made it feel like more, and we ran into that stadium and across the finish line and it was one of the best feelings I've ever had!

Point is, I actually do enjoy running (I sure hope anyway otherwise I'm just plain crazy!). It has become one of my favorite things, and I miss it when I don't run for a few days. I'm not some superstar athlete, that's for sure, and I'm not running to beat anyone or set any records, I'm just doing it because by golly less than a year ago I had a 30 hour labor and had a baby and now I have run a half marathon and I'm doing another in a few weeks and I think I'm pretty awesome, even if I am slow! :) Also, for a while, I've had this secret goal to run all the way around Lake Hefner...and I achieved that goal on one of my training runs!!! Plus, I've lost a couple of pounds, which I'm certainly not going to complain about. I've also gotten to spend quality time with my cousin on our runs, and get to be better friends with someone I've known for YEARS (Jenny) on training runs. These two girls have kept me going when I didn't think I could go another step, and they made me laugh while I did it! So really, what's not to enjoy!

So, I know this is WAY longer than it should be, but there it is. And now, some pictures from the event:

Jenny and me before the event - this was around 6 a.m., just before we got on a SCHOOL BUS to get driven out to the starting line.

This is just before some guy (a volunteer with the race) tells us "great job girls, almost there, just enter the stadium and ONE LAP AROUND THE TRACK". WHAT??? We didn't sign up for one lap around the track...I want a refund!!!

Here we are making our "victory lap". I believe this was the point where I was asking Jenny "do I NEED one of those shiny blankets?" and she was daring me to take one (it was humid and in the 70s). I did not. But I should have.

And here we are crossing the finish line. That lady standing on the track just ahead of us might have been my favorite volunteer at the event (all of them were fantastic though). She was cheering us ALL the way across the line and telling us (and everyone) how great we did. And this was more than three hours into the deal - I can promise you she had to be tired but she still had a smile!

And last, but not least, Jenny and I just after finishing, Jenny w/her cinnamon roll, and me wondering where my husband went with my two bottles of water, my banana, and my king sized Payday.

Snow Days - How We Cope

We are snowed in for our second day now. Yesterday I was supposed to make Santa Fe stew for dinner, but I forgot to put it in the crock pot until it was too late SO, then I was scrambling to figure out what to make for dinner. I had to get creative...here's what I came up with. First of all, I had seen a segment on the Early Show a couple of weeks ago about recipes that use five ingredients and there was one (that actually only used three ingredients) for oven roasted tomatoes (you can find the recipe here). I had the tomatoes and was able to scrape up a little olive oil so I made those. Here's what they look like before:

Then I had some egg noodles and goat cheese so I cooked up the pasta:

Then I topped it with the tomatoes and some crumbled goat cheese:

I think it would be even better w/some fresh basil or spinach (something green) but given what we had to work with, it was pretty tasty! My husband also whipped up some brownies from scratch and oh. my. word. They're like fudge. It's a recipe he found online (he's going to have to go back and print it and save it because they are SO GOOD) that has a frosting made of butter, cocoa, powdered sugar, and a little honey. AH. MA. ZING.

And so today, I'm trying to figure out how to work those brownies off! I was supposed to run 4.75 miles yesterday but with temps in the single digits and wind chills in the NEGATIVE DOUBLE DIGITS, going outside is just not an option. So, here's my running track for today:

At the bottom of the stairs you can see my trusty foam roller - best thing ever for after running or just anytime to help get rid of sore muscles. At the top of the stairs, you'll see my new shoes I'm trying to break in. I got some FiveFingers. After running 8 miles last Saturday my feet were KILLING me and my cousin has just raved about how she has virtually no pain now that she runs in hers. So I went and bought some. Unfortunately, you can't just take off running in them as much as you were already running in tennis shoes - you have to work up to that because the FiveFingers make you use muscles that your other shoes don't! So far, I really like them!

Anyway, I looked up online and found that 20 flights of stairs = 1 mile so I took off this morning. This is my tally sheet to help keep track of how many round trips I've made (one mark = five round trips).

I'm assuming that when they say 20 flights they mean 20 flights UP, not one up one down. Assuming that is the case, I did a mile and a quarter in about 20 minutes, including one stop to change shoes, and two to get a drink of water.

That's about it I think. Now I'm going to go try and catch up on some reading while Milo is snoozing (and maybe have another brownie) and then I'll have to get back on the stairs later this afternoon. Ugh. I will say though, that we are having lots of fun having the Daddy home for a couple of days in the middle of the week! Hope everyone is staying warm!