Saturday, February 27, 2010

Good time with family tonight!

The kids and I met with Aunt Brenda, Uncle Jack, their son Jason and his wife Sara for dinner tonight. They drove up from Cincinnati to pick up cookies from Kylie. We met at Cazuela's, our favorite Mexican restaurant, which is 2 blocks from our house. We all enjoyed a delicious dinner and margaritas. Our favorite waitress, Vickie, took good care of us too. She loves to talk to Kylie and Matthew in Spanish. Matthew ignores her and Kylie does her best to talk back to Vickie. After dinner, everyone came back to our house for a tour and beer. Good times!!

Last night I took the kids (Brett is in Houston for work, gets back late tonight) to church to watch the new Veggie Tales movie. They enjoyed it. Several of our friends were there as well so that was fun for all of us. And the kids won a door prize - a big plastic popcorn bucket with candy, box of popcorn and a gift card to the local video store. Score!

Ran 8 miles this morning. That made 25 for the week. Much more then normal but scheduling had me run 8 on Sunday and 8 on Saturday. No pain and I felt great the whole way. I'm gaining some confidence in my running again.

Kylie had a b-day party at the local roller skating rink today. She seemed to have a good time. Nearly every girl in her class was there. She has another party tomorrow at the skating rink again! Her poor knees will be so sore from falling!

We decided on a vacation for this summer. We're going to stay outside of Orlando in a 2 bedroom and taking Brett's parents with us. Since we'll be near Disney, we'll go there for one or two days. Brett and I signed up to volunteer a day to earn a free admission to Disneyworld. We'll be working at the Children's Museum in April. Pretty good deal, work a day at the museum, earn a free day to Disney - a $85 value! It also happens to be a Star Wars weekend at Hollywood Studios so maybe we'll go there for a day for Matthew. There is also a 5k and obstacle endurance race through Animal Kingdom on our last night there. I'm hoping to take part in that with Brett - how fun!

So, that's about it with our family. Got you all updated, Aunt Brenda!

Saturday, February 13, 2010

First race of 2010.

Just a simple 5k that the 500 Festival Training Program puts on. It was busy though, 3000 runners registered. But it was also only 15 degrees out so not that many showed up, probably 1/2 of that or so.
I had in my head to keep a steady pace, practice running on hills (there were 2 small hills) and keeping "gas in the tank" for a strong push to the finish.
It gets close to gun time so I scoot up towards the front. I've run enough of these races to know that inexperienced runners/walkers will get in the front and unknowingly slow people up. Well, when the gun went off, the people around me were flying! So I eased over to the side, watching out for the ice on the roads and settled into a good pace. I wanted about 8 min a mile so was happy to see 8:05 when I passed mile 1. There was one point where you turn around and pass everyone behind you on the other side of the street. I got to see Lynk and his friend, Scott, running during this turn around point.
Kept going strong, still very cold. I didn't start to warm up until about 2.5 miles. I worked on staying upright during the uphills and leaning forward in the downhills. I could really feel the increased pace on the downhills by doing that. My natural instinct was to lean back to slow down but I fought that and powered down the hills, if you could call a bridge a hill...
I saw the 3 mile mark and time was 24:05, so staying consistent with my 8 min mile plan. Next step was to push hard to the finish, something I don't normally do well. But I did, I stepped it up and my finishing pace was a 7:36, down from a 8:02 for mile 3. My finishing time at 25:01, which is my slowest 5k ever. But I didn't go out to set a new PR (personal record).
Hung out by the water and bananas and saw my friend Cindy, who ran a PR of 26:00, 4 minutes faster then her first 5k in September. Then I saw Lynk and Scott. Poor Lynk had frost on his eyebrows! I went inside to stretch and wait for my friend Amy who was running her very first 5k. She did well, better then she expected.
After I got home, I check the on-line standings. I ended up finishing in 25:01, 24th for females and 5th for my division. Very pleased with that, considering it was my worst finish ever. Getting excited to see what the rest of this year holds!

Monday, February 08, 2010








What a weekend.

So, let's recap. We were given tickets to Superbowl XLIV by Nance's boss. That was amazing in itself. Saturday afternoon we chilled by the hot tub and showed off our pale, Midwestern bodies.


Then Bill, Nancy's boss, picked us up at the hotel for dinner. We drove down to South Miami to pick up Bill's business friend, Preston and his wife Rosa, who were from New Orleans. Then we all headed to dinner at The Rusty Pelicanhttp://miami.therustypelican.com/ which was soooo good. It was a chilly night so we just had drinks around the fire pit and ate dinner inside. The Hollands and Brett and I took care of the bill since Bill had been so generous about the tickets.

After dropping off Preston and Rosa, our group headed to The Cafe Iguana http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/sports/colts_and_nfl/colts/colts-fans-celebrating-in-miami where there was a major Colts party. It was fun but it was also late so we didn't stay too long. We finally got back to the room about 1:30am. Whew.

Sunday morning we were up and ready to get to the Stadium. We were meeting Bill at noon at a hotel near the site. We stopped at the grocery store for some snacks and headed to pick up our tickets. The moment that Bill walked up with the tickets was so surreal. We were actually going to a Superbowl. Not just any Superbowl but one that OUR TEAM was playing in. Amazing.






So we get parked (Nancy had a free parking pass, it would have cost us $75 to park in the lot) and walk over to the stadium. There is a massive line for security. We were patted down, bags searched and had to go through a metal detector as well. Once we were in, there was so much to do and see! We had our picture taken with the Lombardi trophy, saw all the past Superbowl rings, threw some passes, stared at some Saints fans and ate lunch.

We headed into the stands about 4:30. We were surrounded by Saints fans. It was like 70% Saints. And they were loud, rude and crazy. Their team chant that we heard nearly every time we saw a Saints fan all weekend was "Who Dat? Who Dat? Who dat thinks they gonna beat da Saints?" They chanted that for most of the game. Drove us nuts. And they booed our players, even during the singing of "America the Beautiful". Just plain disrespectful. But the worst part was the plane flying round pulling a banner that read "Hey Indy - Katrina blew and so do you". Nice. Klassy.

Anyways, the game was very exciting but we lost. Once they kicked the onside kick to start the 2nd half and we didn't recover it, that just shifted the momentum of the game. Then we didn't score on a few drives. And then the interception that sealed our fate. We headed out with about a minute left in the game. The drive home was long and filled with "I can't believe we lost" conversations. But after the stunned feeling went away, I think we all were just happy to have been there.

My flight left early, I was at the airport by 6:30. The other's flights didn't leave until the afternoon. The kids were at the airport to pick me up - so wonderful to see their faces and see how happy they are to see me. Kylie made me a card and kept saying how sad she was that the Colts lost. She also saw a replay of the interception and said "Peyton threw the ball to our guy and their guy caught it instead, that's cheating!!" LOL. Matthew said "I don't like Saints". But I told them that we lost but we still love our team and we are good sports.


Bring on next season!






Saturday, February 06, 2010

We're going to the Superbowl!!!!

Ok so our BFF's invited us down to Miami and are sharing their room with us. Well, her boss gave her tickets to go. He heard that we were coming just to spend the weekend down here with them but didn't have tickets. And he got them for us!!! We just found out at lunch today. What an amazing blessing, we were all crying when he called Nance and told her. So awesome!

This morning we ran on the beach for 7 miles. The weather was beautiful, the feeling of the crowd was electric. We saw the Colt's cheerleaders being interviewed and doing a photo op. We're 95% sure we saw a football player but couldn't tell who it was. But he was big with a Nike sweatsuit on with the hood up. So pretty sure it was a player.

That's about it so far, I'll be posting more later!

Friday, February 05, 2010

Go Colts!!! We're going to the Superbowl!! Well, the Colts are, that is. But Brett and I are going to Miami!!!
Our BFF's were given tickets through her work and they invited us to join them for the weekend. Her work is paying for the hotel too. So we just covered the cost of our flight, rental car and food/entertainment down there. Can you believe that?! Once in a lifetime deal. Even though we don't have tickets to the game, we're still going to have a blast. After all, Miami instead of Indiana in early Feb?? LOL
I'm at the airport, waiting to get on the plane!!!!

Only downside - Matthew was sick yesterday. Fever of 101. Then a some puking. Then he zipped his penis in his pjs. Ouch. But Brett (who has a later flight) said his temp is at 99 this morning and slept great last night.

Oh, flight is boarding!

Go Colts!