Thanksgiving Day 5k

It was a bitterly cold day for the Thanksgiving Day run this year!  Trey got 2nd place and won a pie to take back to Grandma's for lunch. I was proud of the kids for getting out there in the cold!

Kid's lives

It's a little overwhelming to even know where to begin when you neglect your blog for months at a time! I actually have a moment with a little time to myself so i thought i would at least get a post on! 

My life these days is much the same as a taxi driver minus the paycheck! I thought i was a busy mom when the kids were small but my goodness does life get busy as they get older!

Here is a little of what they are up to these days...

Trey is 15 (16 in a couple of months) and is in the 10th grade. He is soon to go get his restricted drivers licence so that he can drive to school...yikes!!

He is in the E-communication program at school and really enjoys the video aspect of his program as that is something he would love to go in to. He just finished his cross country season and after a week off is about to start the winter program that his coach has lines out for track conditioning. He dropped his times significantly this year from last and his 5k pr is now 17:20.  He hold the 2nd and 3rd best time for a sophomore for his school. He just got his first phone!! Yes, we made him wait till 10th grade! 

He spends a lot of time with his friends from church, We are thankful for such a great youth program that he get's to be involved in! They always have something going on!

Avery is 13 (soon to be 14) and is in the 8th grade. Avery is a social butterfly and if we let her would be doing something with friends every day of the week! She participates in a lot of different activities. She ran cross country this year but was more than happy to get out of both meets (she hates meets!) She also was a volleyball manager which she loved! She went out for basketball mainly because she was talked into it but after the first couple of days of practice decided she hated it and we decided to let her drop it.

She plays the violin in orchestra but her heart is in choir. She loves to sing! She won't sing for us, we have to wait until her choir variety shows to ever hear her sing, silly girl! I guess it gives us something to look forward to. She just got done playing soccer on a coed team. She loved it and wants to continue playing. 

Ethan is 9 and is in the 3rd grade. He wrote a speech without any help at all this year and gave it in class and was voted into student government so we were pretty proud of that! He is looking forward to playing winter basketball! He is constantly out in the driveway shooting hoops. 

He does karate. He has always been out little flexible noodle so i'm sure that helps! He is soon to be toothless as his two front teeth are finally loose! Our kids are very slow at losing their teeth!!

His Grandpa gave him a Bible for his 9th birthday and he has been taking it to school and reading it when they have free reading time...gotta say i'm pretty happy he wants to do that!

Raegan is 7 and in the 2nd grade. She just got done playing fall soccer. She is a little go getter on the soccer field. She loved it! She has been doing great in school and her favorite thing to do when she comes home is play teacher. She is quite the reader and can always be found with a book in her hands! She does spirit squad at school. They meet and practice a little dance to perform at an upcoming event so she loves being a part of that! She loves helping me around the house...always asking to help with laundry and things. I better eat that up while it lasts...because it doesn't!

Royals go to the World Series

There were some late nights with lots of baseball watching going on all over KC this month! Ethan spent most of those nights like this...

When they made it to the World Series John scored tickets to game two! He and his brother went and had one heck of a night!

10th grade cross country

We enjoyed another season watching Trey run cross country!

He improved a lot from freshman to sophomore year!

He ran in some really cool places including Rim Rock Farms in Lawrence

He took 3rd place in the Metro freshman/sophomore meet

representing XC in the school parade

He got his pr for the season at SMP running a 17:20!

Proud of all the work you put in Trey! It paid off!

Ethan turns 9

Ethan celebrated a couple of days early at Cosmic jump for his 9th birthday.

I had to fly out the morning of his actual birthday. I realized just how much i dislike being away from the kids on their birthdays so i am going to do my best to avoid that in the future!

Can't believe out little man is 9!

Raegan turns 7

Raegan chose CC again for her birthday this year! It's always an easy party so Mom doesn't mind! 

Our sassy seven year old...

celebrating with friends

the dreaded (by parents) prize counter

Happy #7 to a super sweet girl! We love you very much!

Back to school

Trey is starting his sophomore year, Avery her 8th grade year, Ethan 3rd grade and Raegan 2nd grade.

Raegan with Miss Hopfinger

                                                                               

                                                              Getting the locker ready...

Ethan and Mrs. Blunt

The school years are flying!

Myrtle Beach 2014

Trey's freshman track season

Trey worked very hard over the winter. They trained straight through a very cold winter! At the beginning of the season he was running the 1600 and the 3200 but about half way through they had him concentrate on just the 1600. Midway through the season he was very excited to finally break the 5 minute mile barrier with a 4:55 and he was able to better that by a few seconds later to his pr of 4:52.

It was always so fun to go out and cheer him on but i think i got more nervous for him than he did for himself! It was pretty cool to see the upper classmen always cheering him on. In the above picture, Matt the Raven in front of Trey, Matt was a senior and was about 5-10 sec faster than Trey so his goal was always to try to keep up with him and i think that always helped to have him to chase!

He got another pin for lettering varsity in track so i guess it might be time to get this kid a letter jacket!

Way to go on a great track season Trey!

Frigid half marathon

Since we were just coming off a marathon my friend and i decided that we should go for a half marathon in November while we were still in shape. We picked the Gobbler Grind which is run on the Indian Creek Trail and also some roads...one having a very long uphill!

Laura and i had someone offer to be ours and a couple of other girls' personal pacer for the race. We agreed upon a goal time of aiming to finish under 1:47 as my pr was 1:47:48. Jeff has been an official pacer in races before and has qualified for Boston multiple times and had just completed the New York marathon. He was gracious enough to give up this race as he could have blown it away and instead help us to try to reach our goal!

It had been beautiful weather the week before the race and then a cold front came through and race morning was a balmy 12 degrees!!

The first half of the race we did a little bit of talking. Jeff talked about how he slowly reached his goal of getting a sub 4 hr marathon which is the goal i have been chasing so it was great to hear his stories and advise. He would let us know how we were doing on time, that we had banked a little time and then when we were running the hills let us know that we did not eat up all our banked time. The last half of the race there was not a lot of talking on mine and Laura's part. We were very focused and he got grunts and short answers from us.

The water and gatorade was icy at the aid stations and i tried to get my chews out of my pocket at one of the stations and my hands were so freezing that i couldn't even get them to open my zipper...i gave up and went the whole race without nutrition which really didn't end up bothering me that much.

When we were within a mile to the finish he said "ok girls, if you can just maintain you are on track to come in under 1:45" I think i was able to grunt out "seriously?!?" I think we picked it up just a little in that last mile. (mostly because we wanted to be done so bad) Seeing our  finishing time of 1:44 made me one happy chic!! I have picked up that pace bracelet at several different races but have never been brave enough to put it on and go for it. Thankfully Jeff helped us go for it and got us there well under our goal for the day!

This is not Jeff in the picture. Laura is right behind me....this is coming in to the finish withing the last half mile. I must stick my tongue out when i focus! I always take great race pictures, ha!

Laura me and Julie ( our rockstar friend who finished like 5 minutes before us!) We all pr'd so it was a great day but we snapped this picture and got the heck out of dodge because we were all frozen to the bone and they were out of hot chocolate!

Running with the family- A dream fulfilled

Many years ago i remember watching my mom run round and round the sports arena in our town during the winters. I know she ran outside a lot too but i suppose the reason this sticks out to me is because i started running round and round too. I don't even think i was wearing tennis shoes and was still wearing my school clothes but i remember seeing how fast i could go around. 

My mom has always run and if i remember correctly, she ran the night before she had her first baby! So i guess you could say that the love of running was in the genes!

About 5 years ago my mom decided that for her 65th birthday she wanted to run her first half marathon with her girls. She trained very well but during training started having some pain in her leg. By half marathon day she was having pretty consistent pain but if you know my mom, there was nothing going to be stopping her from running that race!

We all had signs on our back and wrote on our legs so that people passing us could cheer her on. She had SO many cheers and i think that alot of what kept her going. She was in a lot of pain throughout the run but as no surprise finished!!

When she had her leg checked out after the run (she had it checked before too and had been given the go ahead by a dr) she had a full blown stress fracture in her tibia! It was a memorable day and i admire her for fulfilling that dream even with so much pain!

Her dreams didn't stop there though! Fast forward 5 years...she had a new dream! She had gotten back in to running and had been running ever since she healed up from the stress fracture. My dad was also doing a lot of running after he had come back from knee surgery. She decided that she wanted to have another try at the half marathon and this time it was going to be my dad and mom and all 6 kids to celebrate their 70th birthdays!

We had to do some talking to the boys and i think there might have been a threat thrown out there by one of the sisters that if they didn't do it we would just drag a dummy along with their name on it? It must have worked! :)

My mom started having a lot of problems with her sciatic while training for this race. She has a couple of slightly bulging discs and stenosis. It got so bad that she had to have several injections just to help her with the everyday pain!

But again, when my mom sets her mind to something...

She was in a lot of pain once again this entire 13.1 miles. Both Dad and Mom did so great though. My dad has diabetes and often struggles with low blood sugar. My sisters and i were prepared  with anything he might need in case of a drop of sugars but i don't think he used hardly anything!

We had so much fun along the way (i don't know that i can speak for my mom on the fun part)! But in spite of the pain that she was in i think i can speak for her that she was having fun out there with her husband and 6 kids all fulfilling a dream of hers together!

I'm pretty sure that i wasn't the only sibling fighting back tears as we crossed the finish line together!

Thank you Dad and Mom for being a great example in many many ways throughout life but in this instance for making staying physically fit fun and always an adventure! Watching your determination has made me more determined to continue to try to accomplish some of my own dreams!

This will be a memory that i know all of us will treasure forever!!

Halloween 2013

Every year the school has a little halloween parade where the kids can show off their costumes to all the parents. They parade through the hallways and into the gym.

and the parties, of course the parties...

Raegan's choice of costume changed daily and changed again when we got to the store. She ended up being a little beautiful Spanish dancer (because of the pretty dress of course!) and Ethan was our handsome little pirate!

The oldest two haven't given up dressing up either. Avery spent the evening with friends...

Trey tagged along with us scaring all the small children...no, i'm kidding he didn't scare the kids. Not intentionally anyway! He has since used his costume in his school video production class so it was worth the money spent i guess!

This picture i took the morning after halloween. It pretty much speaks for itself!