Happy Halloween

I remember that Halloween usually included pizza for supper and my cousins that lived in the country coming over to Trick or Treat in our neighborhood. So to continue that tradition we had our friends Jon and Denise over that live a little outside of town now. We had pizza and then practically had to pry the boys out of the house to go trick or treating because they were having so much fun playing together in the bedroom.

We got cannie (candy)! And Eli gets it- he had a solid grip on his bucket. When his brother and friend Nate dropped the bucket in the wagon because they were getting heavy Eli had no interest in letting go.  When we got home he sat down in the kitchen and tried to open and eat his candy.

Jack O'lantern

The boys were very excited to see their pumpkins Jack o'lanterns (the three year old reminded me that they are Jack o'lanterns not pumpkins) in front of the house when we got home from school today.  We had a family event carving the pumpkins last night. We only got as far as cleaning the pumpkins and drawing the face on before bedtime.

We thought the boys would enjoy digging in and getting dirty cleaning out the pumpkin. We were right about Eli- he loved it.

 Adam stuck his hand in once and then ran off to the bathroom to wash his hands.

 So he watched from the sidelines while daddy and Eli did all the work (ok- it was daddy who did most of the work).

 But after the spoons came out he was helping away.

Spooky Sprint

Pretty much as soon as I finished my half marathon last week my brain switched to the Spooky Sprint. It's a fun Halloween themed 5k here in Hutch. Dave decided to run this year when he came up with his costume idea- Discount Double Check guy from the State Farm commercials. Last year I was so proud of my zoo idea and I wanted to try to top it.  My inspiration finally came Thursday night for my costume.  I changed Eli's Monkey costume into a little Ewok with a t-shirt and I was Princess Leia. Again I did all of the work the night before the race including shopping for my costume and crafting.

I signed Adam up for the kids dash. He seemed excited- all week he told me he was going to run in his race with Hayden. So we found Hayden (Dash Incredible in the picture) and stood by him before the race. Once the race started I grabbed his hand to run with him and basically dragged him across the start line- and then he was done. Hope to have better luck next year.

Then it was time for me to run my race. Grandma and Grandpa watched the boys so we could run. After about a mile all I could think is- man this is fast and I really don't like 5k's. I got a PB by 1 second 24:54. In what is becoming a theme this year- they missed my finish because they went to warm up across the street at Hutch Cafe (not that I blame them it was extremely cold). And as a side note this last week one of my coworkers introduced me to athlinks.com and I found the time and date for my first 5k ever 31:52- which was exactly 11 years ago today (because in Minnesota cross country the girls run 4k's)!

Dave also ran the 5k and I'm pretty sure this is the first time he's trained for a race. He ran with the wig and Cheesehead on and he yelled, "Discount Double Check!" as he ran past me and several others.  29:31 was his time. After the race and breakfast we went across the street to the State Farm office downtown to recreate the commercials.

The Half

There was a time when I thought running 13.1 miles in a race was silly- in fact that time was only a year and a half ago. My good friends were up in Duluth watching their cousin run the Grandma's Half and posted a comment on facebook about debating doing it the next year. I thought he was crazy and as my miles increased this summer I started thinking about running longer races. I did the 10k and decided afterwards to sign up for the Mankato Half. Today I ran 13.27 (why my half marathon was 0.17 miles more than a half I do not know).

I had a goal of running my 10k under 1 hour and I did it, so for my half I figured double it and add less than a mile- hopefully I can finish in under 2 hours.  My goal stressed me out- especially Friday night when the girls I drove to the start with sat down for a pasta feed. One of the ladies told me she thought I would finish first of the four of us. Talk about pressure.  We both started close to the 2 hour pacer and I ran with him for the first six miles and she was a little a head of him, but then I realized my mantra needed to change.  I needed to run my own race and slowed down a little. I finished in 2:05:20- not bad for my first half. I finished second of my group, but I needed to run my own race (see mantra again)!

The first 6 miles were awesome and I was hitting my time goals.  Then I slowed down and listened to my body for the next four miles.  I was running for the most part by myself, but it felt good to be out of the pack.  Right around 10 miles I felt awesome and then just like that I didn't.  The last 5k was the hardest 3 miles of the race. I wanted to be done.  It took actually seeing the finish to find my kick and I finished a second under 2:07 gun time.  

I learned some interesting things today though- I can 13.27 miles.  Messing with your running gear sucks.  My sunglasses kept fogging up, my earbuds continually  fell out and I was wearing David's long sleeved shirt, because the night before the race I realized I didn't have anything to wear! Will I run another half- probably, do I want to do a full marathon- probably not, unless I have a running partner to run with the whole time!

Merica Flag

"Yay that's Merica's flag." Adam yelled as we drove past an American flag. "Do you know who owns the Merica flag?"

"Who?" I asked.

"Merica."

Go Lynx!

The Lynx made it to the WNBA championship series and boy are we excited.  One of the stars- Linday Whalen is from our town and we are so proud of her. Her parents actually work at our plant. And while a lot of yards have political signs up our town has lots of "Lindsay We Are Proud of You" signs up in their front yard. Dave thinks Lindsay might just win a political office here in town.

Six Years

I've been spending a lot of time running lately. I'm training for a half marathon and it's two weeks away. Tomorrow I'm supposed to run 11 miles! That's a long way. Today I went out for my run and ran past our  photographer Renee shooting wedding photos in the park. I yelled hi and congrats as I ran by- thinking wow 6 years ago that was me. Now I have a husband, a house, a dog and two wonderful boys. Tomorrow is our six year anniversary. We actually started dating October 30th 2001- so we've been together for 11 years. My husband gets more attractive every year that goes by.

Dating 2004

Engagement photos via 2005

1st Anniversary at Cafe Lucrat

2nd Anniversary trip to the North Shore

3rd Anniversary Monday Night Viking - Packer game

4th Anniversary trip in July to Glacier

5th Anniversary- Winery and Swing Dancing

The most recent picture of just us two from Easter

We were supposed to be camping with our friends this weekend, but with the temperatures flirting with freezing at night and not warming up much during the day we decided to stay home instead. Thank goodness because Adam was up several times last night. I spent the morning in urgent care and despite my mom intuition the ear check and strep test both came back negative so he has a cold.

Depending on our boys attitude and sick level we may venture out as family to celebrate 6 years of marriage. Dave and I went out to the Melting Pot last Friday for a pre-anniversary dinner and our mini vacation was also a pre-anniversary trip, so if we just spend the day taking care of our sick children that will be okay too.

Happy Anniversary Dave! Thank you for being a great husband, a patient father and being so supportive of me and my goals (running a 10k, the half & starting my new job).

Soaking it Up

We've had a fantastically beautifully week and today was exceptional.  I road my bike to work and did pick up with the bike carrier our Wike and stopped by two parks to play on our way home. It was relaxing and the boys had fun. All of a sudden Adam disappeared around the playground while I was pushing Eli in the swing- he walked over to the Wike climbed in and said, "okay, it's time to go home now."

Here are some pictures from the soccer games with daddy that have been taking place in our backyard every evening. When Dave went in to change Eli's diaper tonight Adam wouldn't play with me. He sat down because he was waiting for his daddy to come back outside.

The Rest of Our Vacation

I always forget to post the second half of a vacation.  Here is a couple pictures from our visit to Grandma Ray's (Grand Marais).  The boys touching the cold Lake Superior water.  No matter how many times we told Adam the water was cold and it was too cold outside to go swimming he kept asking if we could go to the beach.

Eli practicing his football stance.

Monday we had to pack up and head home, but we took our sweet time making sure we got in one last pool swim and then stopping several times to watch the big ship come in or enjoy shovel point from a beautiful overlook.

We had lunch at Gooseberry falls by the lake and then hiked up the river to see the three sets of waterfalls.

 I like to get pictures of my gear out in the elements- below is our back pack carrier.

 Little boys running down the trail carefree- love it.