Preschool Graduation

I am so far behind on posting it isn't even remotely funny. Grandma Sherry came to visit last weekend for Garrett's 5th birthday. It just so happened that G's preschool decided to hold his graduation the Friday before his birthday, so she got to be here for that too! It made for a wild, crazy long holiday weekend.

Preparation for graduation festivities took up a lot of the last week of May. I somehow ended up in charge of teacher gifts for his class:


But I didn't mind at all because Garrett's teacher is the BEST and I love her dearly. Some fun little things from around the classroom:

G and I before Graduation
And with Grandma:

I had to bribe the posed pictures with the promise of silly face pictures, a fabulous idea from Jenn.




Garrett's best friend Xander was in Garrett's class this year, and as of right now they will be going to K in the same school too. This is probably the first of many graduations they will have together. It's just amazing to think that they have been buddies since they were infants :-)


I was so rapped up in making sure I got a picture with my little guy on his special day that I missed getting a picture of him with his Daddy. In fact, I failed in getting ANY pictures of daddy. Bad momma!


Getting his diploma. Or, rather, an empty role of paper :-)

The funniest part of the night was G's dancing skills--his teacher says he never would do the moves during practice, but he was OVER THE TOP during the show!

So proud of my big boy, but SO READY for school to be over for the Summer.

And, last but not least, Summer managed to charm a flower away from someone. She's such a cheese ball!!

Show Me the Mommy - The girls

I always mean to participate in LauraC's Show Me the Mommy, but hardly ever have time on Fridays to post. But this week I really haven't had time to post at all, so I have a bunch of pictures sitting around requiring my attention, including this one of Summer and I from right before the Italian Dinner Fundraiser for Garrett's school. I am trying to get better about giving the camera to Brad and having him take pictures, but they don't always turn out well. This one, however, did.

Summer is all grins and personality these days. She is into shoes and fashion and is such a trip. Here she is putting "Shoes on Minnie Mouse!".
Yesterday Garrett and I went on a "Special Date" to see Rio. The last time I went to the theater was in June to see Eclipse, and holy COW, $15 for just Garrett and I. We won't be going to the theater again until Cars 2 is out in June, because that's just highway robbery. We both had a great time though, and the movie was so cute.

Monday Mayhem - the Disney trip

We have been scheming and planning for a while to surprise Garrett with a trip to Disney for his birthday. You must understand that Disney really isn't my idea of the perfect vacation spot--we don't really like crowds or lines or commercialized stuff. But Garrett has been asking for a trip to Disney for a while, especially for a birthday present. Even though his birthday isn't until May, we went this past weekend because A. It will be unbearably hot when his birthday roles around and B. Brad's parents could get the weekend off and were able to spend it with us.

This trip was a total surprise for Garrett. We told him on Monday (two months before his actual birthday) that a big surprise was coming and he would get a hint in two days. His first guesses included only material things (like a Transformer), so when I told him it wasn't something he would get but something he would DO he was stumped for a while. Then his guesses were limited to Chuck E. Cheese and Dandy Bear. On Wednesday we told him we wouldn't be back to school for the rest of the week, so he thought THAT was his special surprise. Silly boy. On Thursday morning we packed suitcases and the guesses included going to Grandma's, going to see Grandpa Hosein, going camping, and going camping on the beach. Then he started asking questions to narrow it down. "Are we driving a long way? Are we getting in an air plane?"

Once we hit the road he got out his leapster and basically stopped guessing for a while. It was until we were IN orlando that he started guessing where we were. And once he figured out it was Orlando, he assumed we were going to see Shamu. We picked Grandma and Grandpa up at the airport, and although he didn't know for sure who we were there to get, I think he knew it would be them, because while he was happy he didn't seem all that surprised.

We went to McDonalds and told Garrett that it was his special surprise. He actually was cool with that, acting all happy and then said "But why did we drive all this way to go to McDonalds?" We gave them each a Mickey and Mini and finally told them we were going to Mickeys house. :-)

It was yucky and rainy, so we spent the rest of the day chilling at the house that Brad's parents rented. Grandma loved reading to the kids all weekend long!

Summer enjoyed modeling her new "Kitty glasses"

Friday was Epcot.

Since Grandpa Lynn works for GM, we were able to get the VIP treatment for the Test Track, which he LOVED. He rode it twice and STILL asked for more.

Riding the test track with mommyGrandma and Summer being silly :-)

Brad, Garrett, Grandma and Grandpa at Epcot

Lightening McQueen! Cars 2 will be out in no time at all :-)

Summer drumming away from the Oh Snap.

Summer took a break from playing at the playground to bring Daddy a flower :-)

and she was in LOVE with the sea horse from Nemo at the Seas With Nemo and Friends.

Garrett loved all of the rides

Summer-not so muchBut everyone enjoyed the fish!

And we lucked out while we were leaving by catching Daisy with no wait.

We did movie night, watched Tangled, and otherwise just enjoyed each others company for the rest of the afternoon. Summer swam, but I didn't take any pictures.

Saturday was Magic Kingdom. I really didn't take that many pictures. We rode Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain. Garrett really wanted to check out the Swiss Family Robinson tree house.

We got our pictures taken with Goofy, but Garrett didn't want to do the Pirates of the Caribbean, which surprised me.

We went to the T-rex Cafe for dinner. Summer was too tired and completely scared to death of the dinosaurs. Garrett, on the other hand, loved it like always. He especially loved digging for dinosaur bones.

And on Sunday we took him back to build a dinosaur. He picked a saber tooth tiger that he has named "Tooth."

It was a super fun weekend that went by way too quickly. And this pretty much sums up how we all felt afterward!

Race Report - Homestead Hearts and Soles 5K

This year I promised myself some actual organized races to keep myself motivated. 2010 was marked by a TON of budget races, but no organized ones. Homestead holds its very own 5K every February, and this year Brad and I did it together. Two years ago, this was my first ever 5K. Its kind of fun to see how far I've come since then. Two years ago I finished in 36 minutes and was proud. This year I finished in 30:03 and was mildly annoyed with the time. I was really hoping for a personal best, and THAT was definitely not it. But oh well, exceedly fun all the same. And a huge improvement in my running from 2 years ago. Big thanks to our neighbor Julie for taking my kids at an early hour so Brad and I could enjoy doing this together.
Of course, when I say together, I use that term rather loosely. We started together. We left together. During the actual race, he smoked me. But after several years of running, I've accepted that he's just faster than me :-) Brad finished in 24 minutes. It drives me crazy how fast he is!! All in all, a fun and fabulous (if sweaty) way to spend some date time.

Next up on the race schedule is the Move It 2011 Budget 5K on 3/26!

Monday Mayhem - Bring on a new week

This past week was insanity. I chalk it largely up to Brad having been gone for 4 days last week and then having 2 meetings in the first half of the week. Add in soccer practice and our produce day and it made for a very insane first half of the week.

Add in the following factors (AKA the bad stuff):
*Garrett hit a classmate at school on Wednesday. Grounded for the rest of the week. No TV, no friends, no fun to be had at all. As most moms tend to do, I took it personally that he would make such a bad choice. Sigh.
*I saw a dog get hit by a car on Wednesday during my run (you really have to know how much of a dog person I am to get why this would be so upsetting to me) . . . we stopped to help, and hopefully the poor thing is recovering well. Of course, I couldn't bear to let my dogs out of my sight for a couple days . . . logically, the entire thing shouldn't have affected me as much as it did, but I'm in this weird stage where I am terrified of losing my dogs and that really didn't help.
*Brad has been sick
*The boy refuses to sleep in his own bed after midnight, which means I haven't slept well in days.

The good stuff:

*Downloaded a chore chart from Motivated Moms on Monica's suggestion, hoping that will help me with the whole balance thing. Because if there is one thing I am TERRIBLE at its cleaning my house.
*Coffee and a nice chat with Shelah on Friday, because darn it, it had been that kind of week for us both.
*We had to break out a lot of the 3+ Discovery Toys this week for Summer. Little girl is getting big, which is both sad and super exciting. Here she is doing the Busy Bugs.
*My boys made me a wicked cool butcher block cutting board. I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT (and Brad made the bread too!)
*Girls Night Out at the Winery. There was a lot of dancing involved, which made me a happy camper!!
*I managed a 20 mile week, and with all of the insanity, I can say that in the fitness department it was a REALLY good week. 2 short, relatively fast runs, yoga, a long bike ride, kickboxing, zumba, and two FABULOUS weekend runs on Key Biscayne.
*The weekend runs on KB get their own bullet point--14.5 miles in 2 days. A gorgeous sunset on Sunday to help me get all nice and centered for this week. Explored some of the trails in Crandon Park on Saturday, saw a spotted eagle ray jump out of the water, and just generally let go for a couple of hours. Absolutely beautiful weather. I honestly have NO CLUE how I remained sane before I became a runner. These two weekend runs have made me feel all nice and centered and ready to tackle whatever comes next.

I am so very glad to be starting a new week. I really hope it is better than the last one.

Swamped . . .

I wish I could say I've had time to download all of the Christmas pictures and write an accurate account of just how absolutely fabulous our weekend was. But I just haven't found it yet. I've been struggling with a very sticky cold that won't leave me alone, work has been crazy and when we I am feeling human and not working my butt off, I pretty much have just hung out with the family. Which is, of course, what the holidays are meant for. There is sooo much that has happened this past week worth writing about -- Christmas, our 8th wedding anniversary, and the fun things the kids have been up to. Hopefully I'll find time to put these last precious moments of 2010 down before 2011 rolls its way in. In the mean time, here's this year's family picture. Its the closest we got to a Christmas picture this year--first time since Garrett was born that we skipped the Christmas cards all together, in an attempt to limit the chaos.

Show me the Mommy - the new do

Craptastic picture because its from the webcam, but I chopped my hair off. Brad doesn't like it, but whatever. I'm turning 29 tomorrow and decided it was time for a change. Now everyone says Summer and I REALLY look alike :-)
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Race Report - the Budget (Almost) Half Marathon that just wasn't meant to be.

Today was my scheduled to be my Budget Half Marathon, run in conjunction with my friend Amanda's half in Illinois. My friend Amanda is FAST. As in, she finished 13.1 in 2:00:25. Yes, folks, an almost 9 min mile pace over a half. But anyway . . . This is the kind of day when both the pluses and minuses of doing a budget race, rather than an actual organized race on a predefined course, reared their heads. I have been very much under the weather for the past few days. As in barely-able-to-stand-up-without-falling-over sick. Last night I took a ton of cold medicine to knock me out so I could sleep.

The ORIGINAL plan for this half was to run it first thing in the morning at work. THAT plan was ruined when Garrett got an AWESOME opportunity to do Ocean Kids, a really great educational program held at UM. So I didn't go to work, and I had Summer starting at 7:30 when they left. But the second plan was that I would go early AT HOME, and be back in time to take Summer so the boys could go. THAT plan was ruined by my copious use of cold meds. I'm pretty sure running 13.1 miles with medicine head just isn't the best idea . . . and really, I'd rather not find out the hard way. Soooooo, I ran when Brad got home. This is the plus side of budget races. Flexibility. And had I decided I was still not feeling well enough to run, I wouldn't have been out the $50-$90 race fee. So, yay for budget races, right?

I made the HORRIBLE mistake of not mapping my course out before hand. In hind sight, I should have known better. My Nike + has been giving me issues as it has been off on distances here lately. I KNEW this, and yet I went out planning to just run based on the distance on it. I just went wherever my little heart desired. BIG mistake. 10 miles (according to it) and 2.5 hours later . . . um, wait, a 15:00 min/mile pace?? REALLY?? I was annoyed, I was tired, and damn it, I did NOT have another 5K in me. I could have made myself run it if I really wanted to. But I was tired, I was BORED, and darn it, 3.1 miles would have sucked. I could have done it, but I would have hated every minute of it. And I probably wouldn't have run again for weeks. So since I was coming off being sick anyway, I cut my losses, turned off my Nike +, and walked the mile home. This is where the boo for budget races comes in, because A: I never would have quit with other people around and B: I would have known, as I do now, that I had actually ran 11.5 miles and I would have found 1.6 WAY more doable than 3.1.

Anyway, I came home, mapped my route, and found it was 11.5, which averaged to a ~12:30 min mile, which is doable for me. I just hope Laura C over at the 500 miles in 2010 blog won't type a huge FAIL next to my half marathon, and instead will descreatly draw a line through it and put Angela's 10-miler instead!! :-)

So, at any rate, I don't consider it a failure. It was a long run, it was fun right up until the end, and I was coming off being sick . . . so no regrets. I AM fighting the urge to throw my Nike + in the trash. A garmin is definitely on my dream big list . . . there was one on sale for $125 on Amazon and I am seriously kicking myself for not buying it. But oh well. Next time I will DEFINITELY map out my route before hand. And hopefully run it at work. Because ocean views and multi-million dollar mansions are way more interesting than the scenery around here. And I can also like running without music for at least part of my run out there, something I haven't been able to pull off at home. Live and learn. And not a penny spent in the process :-)

Oh, official stats . . . or, er, my best guesstimate anyway:
11.5 miles
2:24:46
12:35 pace