Marathon in a month

Two weeks ago I was talking to my friend Tara and I happened to ask her when they were going to do marathon in a month and it turned out that were starting it the next week, on March 20th.  Last year we did it with them and some other friends in the month of April but since they are in Texas now and its so much hotter they are starting sooner. I was so glad I caught them at the start. I sent out an email to friends here to let them know we were doing it again and there are about 5 families participating here that I know of plus the Texas group.  We have finished week one and Jared and Lydia are doing awesome.  Jared ran all of it last year with Mark.  Lydia had very little interest last year and probably ran 2 of the 26 miles but this year she has done them all.  We try to go in the morning before school and its been working great.  I printed out a chart for each of us so we can keep track of how many miles we have run and its been a fun motivator.  One day we ran around the bus parking lot at Baker Butler with the Shaw's which was fun.  Lydia did about 3 laps and Jared ran the whole mile and then ran another one with Mark, Lydia and me when Mark got home.  It was a little colder than we wanted to have them out running in that morning but I was reminded of how much I dislike running in the afternoon. I have way less energy and its just not as enjoyable.  Also temperature is so huge for me which I had not forgotten.  Jared can go out and get it done, running a mile without stopping is not a challenge for him.  Lydia can run it all but prefers to stop and walk at least once which is perfectly fine.  Its been fun to talk to the other families about it and see that it has been a positive thing for them.  Normally Mark and I spilt up the mile with Lydia. One will run the first half and the other finish it.  She obviously has much shorter legs than the rest of us and needs lots of distractions but she gets it done. One day she started counting our steps which was great counting practice too!  A sip of Gatorade is a great motivator and to celebrate completing our first week Mark got celebratory donuts on Saturday.  I know Jared will have no problem finishing the month out but I hope it stays a fun thing for Lydia.

Day 1

Daylight savings wasn't that long ago so it is still pretty dark around 6:45 when we head out so one morning we wore glow sticks which was fun.

The motivating power of Gatorade and donuts!

This Saturday we ran the first 1/2 of the mile together and then I continued on instead of turning around and did a 5 mile run.  It was the first or maybe the second really long run I had done since my race and it was so much harder than the day of my 10K!  The temperature was for sure the biggest issue.  It was like 56 degrees which is hot for me. I was super happy I could still run it all and hope I can keep it up for a good while.  At least until May when it's too hot. It was not quite the same though as before the 10K.  That is one hard thing for me.  After a race I am way less motivated to run. I want to keep up what I gained because I worked hard to get to that point but its not the same.  We will see how long I can keep it up. I do want to keep 3 miles as my base instead of 2. I want to be able to walk out the door and run 3 miles so we will see.

Only 20 miles to go!

Yard work

The past few Mondays we have been meeting up with a friend from Jared's class at school out in our woods.  He and his family happen to live on Chris Greene Lake Road so we essentially share the same "back yard" as it's just open woods behind all the houses on our street and theirs.  We were really excited when we found out last Fall that Marcus lived so close to us.  Our neighborhood is not exactly full of houses or kids to play with which is admittedly one of the things that attracted us to this house. Growing up I never had a best friend on my street. It seemed like something you saw in movies or read about in books.  There was one family with some kids close in age but we just didn't really hang out much.  So while we didn't expect Jared or Lydia to have a close friend their age at this house it has been fun to think of the fun he and Marcus could have over the years.  For 2 weeks or so Jared would come home from school and tell me that he and Marcus were going to meet in the woods at 4:00.  Jared would go to the creek on our property and yell "Marcus" a few times but there was never an answer.  Then one day when I checked Jared's take home folder there was a note from Marcus's parents.  They talked about meeting up and left their phone number.  I was happy to see that they were interested in pursuing this idea of letting Jared and Marcus meet in the woods. I talked to his mom Annelle on the phone and thus Marcus Monday was born.  They are a really nice family and it's been nice to get to know them.  Jared is really happy to get to play in the woods and hang out with a friend from school.

Our next door neighbors happen to have a really awesome tree fort that they built for their kids when they were young.  We also have one left behind by the previous owners but it is not nearly as stable or impressive as our neighbors, the Balckman's.  When we introduced ourselves to them they said they didn't mind if we let Jared and Lydia play on their tree fort.  On one of the first Marcus Mondays we walked over to the fort and noticed that Mark (Blackman) had cleared a really nice, wide trail all around the tree fort and on the back side of his property. Long ago he and my Mark had talked about making a trail connecting our properties but we had not gotten around to it. I was so impressed by their trail that I told Mark about it and committed to helping make one even though I truly hate yard work.  Truly.  The idea of a garden has never appealed to me and I never want to go "work in the yard".  But I was so impressed by his trail we spent one Saturday morning clearing one of our own to meet up to his.  It took a good while but we got it done and it looks great. It makes me feel more comfortable about letting Jared and Lydia go into the woods or off to the cool tree fort.  Like, they could find our path and know how to get home.  They were doing fine before but it is nice to have one. It makes for a pleasant place to walk back there too.  We also needed to build a better bridge to cross the creek. Its not that deep or wide but it is wide enough you need something. The previous owners had a half bridge but it didn't quite work for Lydia or Jared.  They had left some cinderblocks back there so I suggested that we move them over and they worked great.  This was after Lydia and I spent some good time "raking" the creek.  There were so many leaves in it it really didn't seem to have much flow to the water and now its much more exciting, since you can actually see water moving.

 

While we were working on the path I got to thinking about how I was happy to have this path yet at the same time no one was really going to see the results of our hard work.  So that got me to thinking about our front "yard" and how we have no curb appeal at our house at all.  The fact that our property is literally on the downward slope of a hill does not lend itself to a beautiful lawn.  So I got to thinking about what we could do to spruce up the front and even though I hate yard work, committed this past Saturday to cleaning up the front section.  I thought about how other houses without front lawns made their yards look nice and decided we could do it too. We borrowed a friend/coworker of Mark's/neighbor's strong leaf blower and got to work.  We trimmed excess branches that were hanging low on trees, raked and blew probably 3-5 years worth of leaves, picked up who knows how many buckets filled of sticks and pulled vines, brambles and little sprouting trees up and. It was quite the process.  As Mark blew the leaves off to the other side of the driveway (because that was a big consideration too, where are we going to move all the leaves?) I would rake behind him and try to rake up the stuff left behind.  We were pretty sure the vines were poision ivy that had not sprouted leaves yet and just hoped for the best that we would be okay. I seem to have escaped but Mark did not.  He was actually wearing gloves but I was just pulling them up with my hands and didn't break out at all.  Mark on the other hand grabbed some gloves but still got some yucky poison ivy spots. I apparently do not have much of a reaction to poison ivy. (Such good news, its really nice to know this. Not that I am about to go walk through patches of poison ivy, but still it's a relief only now I may be in charge or removing any poison ivy in the future)  The vines had no leaves at all.  As we pulled them out of the ground it was interesting to watch them get longer and guess where they would pop out of the ground at.  We got some that were over 4 feet long!  It is a crazy system of vines/roots underground.  I feel so bad for Mark.  It's going to be a rough few days for him. After a few hours of work, during which Lydia and Jared put together some fun "stores" to sell stuff at and played so well outside, we took Jared and Lydia to an elementary school that has the best playground to play.  It was a nice break. We have a few trees that aren't too big for us to cut down with a chainsaw and a bit more trimming to do of little tree sprouts but the bulk of that section is cleared out and it looks awesome.  We haven't quite decided yet but we may spring for some much to cover this area.  This coming week we are going to attempt to do the same thing with the space by our fire pit.  I don't think it will take as long since Mark already cleared out a lot of the leaves. Since we do not have the budget to do work in our house (like redo our bathrooms) I guess I am stuck doing yard work.  Much we can do new bathrooms we cannot. It will be nice to have some curb appeal as well.

The amount of leaves easily went up to Mark's knees

I have never liked this tree/bush.  It was right at the top of our driveway and so ugly! It sort of looked like  a weird cross palm tree. I asked Mark if he thought we could dig it out and he got it! There was also this dead ugly tree stump left over from when the previous ones had cut down a tree (or the wind knocked it over).  Jared and Lydia had spent many a day whacking it trying to get it to fall over with no luck. Yesterday Jared went over and pushed it from the opposite side he normally pushed from and it fell right over. It was about 4 feet tall and I was so happy to see it go!

Cute little helper. 

Checking out the local businesses.  Lots of glass pieces and rocks for sale.  I had 21 cents in my wallet and Jared and Lydia were so thrilled when I bought something from their stores.  Side story: While were were working Jared came over and gave me some of his own change and asked me to come shop in his store because he really wanted more customers.  After I had spent some of the money I said something to the effect, "what else can I buy with this money?" and he said, "You can go spend it at Lydia's store." I was so happy that he suggested it.  Jared is a great kid but he doesn't always have the first instinct to think what would make other people happy and I was so touched that he thought of Lydia.  

They were both so patient while we worked for hours out there.  They both tried to help too which was nice of them. 

The end result.  It doesn't look like much in this picture but man it looks way more appealing now.  

Saint Patrick's Day

It was fun to have another holiday to celebrate.  Lydia has been looking forward to it pretty much since Valentines ended and we put up our Saint Patrick's decorations and Jared has been plotting his Leprechaun trap since last year so yeah, they were excited.  Who am I kidding I was about as excited as them.  The night before I had fun rearranging our furniture and turning pictures upside down. Most of the mischief was in the front room but I also switched some of Lydia's stuffed animals with Jared's and their alarm clocks.  Books were turned upside down and food was of course turned green.  I left a trail of gold coins for them both and a little note with a bag of gold coins. We sure are lucky to have Jared and Lydia.

They both made sure they wore green pajamas, they weren't taking any chances of getting pinched.

Finding the note and coins. 

A little rainbow treat

Green shamrock pancakes and green milk

Jared wanted to sleep downstairs in our basement so he could catch the leprechaun in case the trap didn't work but I didn't to endorse that.  He placed a penny on top of the trap to attract the leprechaun and I ended up taking it.  He was so upset that the Leprechaun stole his penny.  We will see what he 

comes up with next year.  

Checking out the note the Leprechaun left. 

Dinner treats. Sherbet and sprite float and green Jello.  

My sweet family visited me at work and brought me some of the dessert I made but didn't have time to eat before leaving.  (Mint brownies with a layer of mint ice-cream, chocolate ganache and cool whip) They also shamrock attacked my car.  A few days before Saint Patricks day Lydia told me that they had a surprise planned for me while I was at work.  She is sometimes not the best at keeping secrets. I loved it.  My favorite line" You Sham-rock our world".  So lucky they are mine.

Maple Syrup Festival

Last year a friend told me about the Maple Festival over in Highland County which is about 1 hour and 45 minutes from here.  We weren't able to make it last year and this year I put it on the calendar and convinced Mark it would be worth the drive. We were originally planning on going the week after my race with the option to go the day of but I checked the weather for the following Saturday and it showed rain so we decided to go the same day as my race.  I got home, got ready for the day and then we left around 11:30.  We knew there were pancake breakfasts, syrup farms we could tour lots of maple BBQ and fresh maple donuts.  A teacher at Mark's school had mentioned the donuts and told Mark we should not mis them even if there was a long line so we were determined to find them.  We had hoped we could meet up with this teacher and his family and as I was waiting in the 30 degree, frigid wind chill weather I saw him leave with his dozen donuts!  So I knew we had found the right spot. We did not end up meeting up with them but did run into our friends the Farnsworth's which was fun.  We knew they were going but weren't sure if we were so didn't plan on meeting up. We ended up waiting in line for the donuts for about 30 minutes and it was so worth it.  I did the first 20 minutes while Mark parked (fortunately he found a spot right by the trailer where the donuts were cooked/sold) and waited in the car with Jared and Lydia. They came out and we switched places so I could go warm up. It was so cold!  But the donuts were amazing. So warm and fluffy.  After we secured our donuts we went over to the local elementary school and enjoyed a pancake breakfast.  This area is up in the mountains and has a very different feel from Charlottesville.  I saw this advertisement at the school and sot of chuckled.  Not your typical fundraiser, in my experience.

The pancakes were fine, they had buckwheat (which I liked more) and original and it's a good fundraiser but I think next time we go maybe in like 2 years we would skip it and just get the donuts! Mark got a Maple BBQ pork sand which was was yummy too.  After checking out the booths we headed down the road to MCDowell to the "Country store" and had a little lesson on how Maple syrup is collected and graded.  Next time I would hope to tour an actual farm but it was so cold and it was getting late.  There also happened to be Civil War Re-enactors (Re-enactors always make me think of Gilmore Girls) near the store and Jared was so happy to check out their campsite.  It was a fun outing. I just love festivals like this.  It's not something we would do every year but maybe every 2 years or so.  It turned out to be a beautiful day yesterday, perfect to be at such a festival but we are glad we went when we did.

 

Sugar Hollow 10K.

Resolution: Run a 10K in 2017. Check!

The day of my 10K was sunny and cold (like 28 degrees cold) which was just how I wanted it to be.  Maybe not 28 but by the time we started running it was about 32. I was really disappointed last year when I set the goal to run a 10K and then did not do it.  I just could not find a good one.  I remember when I did my other 10K it was the first weekend in May and I was way too hot. Most of the 10K's I saw (and there are not very many) were in June- August which I think are for sure the worst times to run especially here with the humidity.  I am for sure a winter runner well, a winter in Virginia runner.  Although I did run quite a bit in the winter in Colorado too.  I think my ideal running temperature is around 40 degrees.  I find it so much easier to run in the cold.  I mentioned my goal of running a 10K this year to a friend here who runs a lot of races back in January and she mentioned the Sugar Hollow 10K.  She said it was a nice level run and early in the year.  I was nervous for a March run because I thought it would be hard to go in the cold and too snowy to go when I needed to but it turned out perfect.  I was pretty sold on the idea of a level run and accomplishing it so early in the year.  My friend Megan set up a training schedule for me and it worked great.  I got some new running shoes and new music to listen to and was ready to train.  It started out nice and easy with 2.5 mile runs but then it jumped to a 4 mile long run really quickly. I remember doing that run and not feeling very great but at the same time feeling awesome that I was able to run the 4 miles without stopping.  My friend encouraged me to try to push myself harder and run the last .5 mile faster and I found myself doing it and it proved to be really helpful. Most often my schedule was run 3 miles Monday and Wednesday and then a 5 mile run on Saturday.  For my 3 mile run I would run from our house to the airport and back.  Once I got to our gravel road I would kick up my pace and try to get home as quickly as possible.  I remember finishing my first 5 mile run on Saturday and as I started down the the gravel road Fight Song, by Rachel Platten came on and when I got to our house she was singing the line "I've still got a lot of Fight let in me" and I really felt that way. It was awesome.  Music is amazing.  My most favorite songs for this race were: Piano Guys: It's gonna be Okay, TobyMac: Light Shine Bright, Shakira: Waka Waka This Time for Africa, and Pink: Just like Fire.  I could explain why but then this post would be forever long. When those songs came on they were the best pick me ups. Needless to say I love these songs and now when I hear them they remind me of this cool accomplishment I did.

The week before my race I was set to run a 5 mile run but when I got to my 5 mile mark (Chris Greene lake Road) I decided to keep running and see how I felt.  As I was approaching the road I saw a young looking teenage boy round the corner followed by his older brother and then his Dad. It was cool to see a family out running together and it made me feel a little bit like I was running with them too. Sort of like a mini race.  I kept running and made it to our house about 5.6 miles total and felt great.  It was awesome to push myself and when I was done I felt like I could have run farther, I didn't feel like I was about to die.  I totally got that runners high and it was awseome.  The day of my race was pretty similar.  I rode up with 2 friends who were running the 5K and it was fun to ride over with them.  We ran the first mile together and then split up.  My goal was to run the whole race and to keep a 10 minute mile pace.  I reached the 5K point in 30.39 seconds and felt great.  The race had about 100 participants so it was easy to start out, sometimes in races the first little bit is just super crowded and this one was not at all. The scenery was beautiful even in the Winter.  You are running along side a creek for the whole race and run over a couple of bridges.  It was actually the most peaceful run I have ever been on, it felt almost relaxing. I felt calm and good the whole time.  In fact when I got to mile 5 I was slightly surprised I was there, it sort of snuck up on me.  I finished the race in 61 minutes which is almost spot on for pacing. When I crossed the low key finish line I felt fine and was ready to keep running. It was such a positive experience. I am looking forward to running there again and doing the race next year too.

Around the house + Spring!

We celebrated Dr Seuss's birthday with green eggs and ham.  Jared and Lydia loved it. I loved how easy it was.  Jared asked me how I made them. I should have told him I searched for a green chicken who only laid green eggs twice a year and a pig who only ate green foods and that it took a really long time and was really tricky but I told him I just added green food dye.  Sometimes I think I am too practical and take the magic out of things, I don't mean to but need to rethink it some as I don't want to take all the magic away from their childhood. But green eggs and ham was a fun breakfast surprise.

We did a really fun Cat in the Hat STEM activity in preschool.  While it takes me a lot of time to plan my curriculum and prepare everything I love that I get to choose what and how to teach.  It's lovely.  We are doing a mini study on different authors right now since March is National Reading month and its been a lot of fun. The preschool kids could have done this activity for much longer than we did! So rewarding. And why not make some cat in the at whiskers? I realized just recently that I haven't written much about preschool on here but I should change that because this is Lydia's preschool experience. So even though they are "my students"  I should share pictures of her as any parent would of their child doing fun, cool cute, preschool activities. I have all the pictures but I should write more about her experiences so then she can one day tell her kids about what she was like in preschool.  Things I realize while blogging. Seems I better keep it up.

 

We recently acquired some new furniture in our house.  A sister in another ward here posted on Facebook that they were giving away this awesome girls bedroom set for free. I just happened to be on the computer when she did it and asked about it and got it!  It was a bit of a headache picking it up because for whatever reason we could not get the trailer we borrowed to attach to the highlander!  (the family we borrowed it from just offered it to us to use. It was so thoughtful!  Sometimes I hesitate to attempt these things because logistics could be crazy so it was just really nice that they offered before I even had to ask anyone.) We had just used it over the weekend so it was so weird that it was not attaching.  Mark finally felt it was secure and off we went only to get just past our house on  our road and have it fall off!!  We pulled over and after another 10 minutes got it on for real.  The family we got the set from lives in Crozet which is a good 30 minute drive from here and this time around it was a really stressful drive as we were concerned the trailer would fall off any minute and A cause a major traffic headache at a busy time B damage the trailer. Lucky we found their house loaded it up and made it back safely and Lydia is now enjoying her new set. We both love it.

I love the mini wardrobe that fits right under the bed, really, I love it all. (You can just see it behind the ladder.) It has all her extra stuffed animals and blankets in it.  So nice to have a place for them and other treasures too. She talks about her new bed a lot and loves the desk and how high the bed is.

We also got this really tall new bookcase.  The one we had for the last 5 years or so had become really unstable for the last 6 months or so.  I really wanted to go to Ikea and shop around (I've never been) but Mark did not want to go there on a Saturday (which most people we mentioned it to agreed was a wise choice) so he found one online. It arrived yesterday and looks nice. Big, but nice it will just take a little bit of time to adjust but not too long.  It's great to have the 2 extra shelves as we only had 3 before. We are planning a trip to Ikea during Spring break which will be a fun different outing.  Thats how we roll, our spring break plans include checking out Ikea.  Well, we are also going to have Hannah and Matt watch Lydia and Jared while Mark and I go to North Carolina for a night and 2 days which will be a fun treat.

I haven't taken too many pictures of all the beautiful Spring blooming going on around here mostly because like the Fall colors my pictures are never as beautiful as in real life but the other day I was driving to Jared's school to pick him up and looked down a side street and saw the most beautiful trio of trees.  I love seeing all the Spring colors.  A teacher Mark works with mentioned to Mark that the trees at Chiles Peach Orchard, also in Crozet, had all bloomed so we stopped by on our way home today and it was gorgeous. I am so glad we stopped. A beautiful sea of pink.

And to end, some solid advice from Lydia:
Love is more.

We did a community helpers theme at preschool recently and I set up a cute little post office activity and put out lots of envelopes so we have been delivering a lot of mail around here.  Lydia loves sending mail and writing notes/drawing pictures but the envelopes have increased such offerings. She and Jared played "mail delivery" for a really long time after school one day. It was great.