13.1, Baby!

Yes, this morning I did something I never thought I could do.  It started out like any other day.  The alarm clock went off, and my immediate thought was "I don't want to run today!"  ha ha  The bed just feels so cozy, ya know?  In an exciting turn of events, God sent me exactly what I needed to get through this race - my sister in law, Shanna.  She had been running, but not training for this race, though she has several halfs and a full marathon under her belt.  A few weeks back, we were talking and she said she wished she could come cheer me on (she lives in a different state) and then asked which weekend the race was.  After I told her, she said in disbelief and excitement that they were going to be in town that exact weekend for a family reunion!  Ultimately, just last week she decided to run it with me and what a gift that was!  I never thought that I would describe running (or certainly running 13.1 miles) as "fun", but I absoutely had a blast.  I'm sure I looked like such a dork because I felt like I had a goofy smile glued on my face the whole time.  We enjoyed a nice long chat, the pretty trail, and the picturesque neighborhoods we ran through.  Our favorite part was that "small town charm"...lots of people in those neighborhoods were out cheering and had little stands set up in their driveways of water, snacks, and tissues.  My personal favorite was the elderly lady cheering for us with pom poms in hand!  I really couldn't have asked for a more perfect day.  The weather was perfect, I had a running buddy, and Chad, his parents, and the boys were at multiple points along the way cheering us on.  I felt great as well, better than any of my runs during training.  But, God did not let me forget that He was helping me every step of the way.  There was a woman just behind us who hollered out at every mile, "Mile Four, Praise the Lord!", "Mile Five, Praise God!".  It made me smile every time.  While everything went fabulous, mile 12 certainly was a brutal one.  I had nothing left.  If it wasn't for Shanna encouraging me and pushing me, I would have probably given up and walked.  But we made it through the whole thing, only allowing ourselves to walk through a couple of water stops, in 2 hours and 27 minutes.  I'm sure, you know, to "serious" runners, that would be a disgrace, but I am really proud of it.  It's faster than I did in all of my training.  And I know that's because I wasn't alone.  It reminded me of the verses in Ecclesiastes 4:9,10,12  "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up.  But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!  Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."  Another thing God is working on me about is depending on others for help.  I tend to be independent and want to do things on my own and not ask for help.  But the truth is, I need it!  I need others to spur me on, especially spiritually, if I am to grow.

 We're at the starting line!

 We deserve to have a little sass after all that hard work, right?!



Taking a picture with my family was almost as hard as running, ha!  Luke is anti-camera if you can't tell.



I was so glad that I ended up doing my race here in town.  The coordinators and volunteers did a GREAT job.  It was actually fun to see people I knew as well - our pediatrian and optometrist were among the runners, as well as a number of other mamas my age-ish that I knew from here and there.  Pride be gone...we were all having fun together!  :)

Running Ramblings

Well folks, I have some news.  Nope, not pregnant.  The 3-4 people in the world who actually read this blog are about to be privy to some inside information.  Ok, don't get too excited.  I'm pretty sure this information is only interesting to me, but I will share with you anyway.  In two weeks, I will be running a half-marathon.  This is big for me.  I've always considered myself to be athletic, but never a runner.  In fact, I've pretty much always viewed running as punishment.  When I played softball in college, we had to run a mile for every minute we were late to practice.  I'm not the most punctual person in the world, but I made sure to never be late - even to the 6 a.m. practices.  So, a couple of months after we got married, I got a crazy idea to try to start training for a half marathon.  Well, I couldn't even get up to a mile as I was dealing with a bum hip (yes, kind of like an 80 year old woman).  So, Chad decided he would do it.  And so he ran the Cleveland half marathon in 2007.  Back in January I started running to train for a 5k in April.  And I kept running.  And one day while running, the thought came to me...why not go for the half now?  Thus began the training.  Now I've asked myself many times, "Why do I want to do this?".  What is my motivation?  For a good portion of my training, I didn't really have an answer to this.  I don't particularly enjoy running.  And as I train, I constantly have self-doubt in the back of my mind wondering, "can I actually do this?".  Now, there's the obvious reason any woman does any kind of activity...get fit, lose a little baby jiggle.  But you don't have to run a half marathon to do that.  So here's the answer: One day during a long run, I was supposed to go 8 miles.  Around mile 6, my body just shut down.  I absolutely could not take one more step, even though the previous weekend, I was able to do 7 miles without such serious struggle.  As I stretched, I thought in frustration, "What is wrong with me? Why can't I do this?!".  And immediately that quiet, calm voice answered me "Because you are trying to do this on your own strength. You need to learn to trust and depend on My strength."  It still gives me chills.  My God wanted me to do this race so I would have to practice trusting Him.  So, although it might sound strange, I now view this as an act of worship.  I talk to God while I run, I listen to worship music while I run, and most importantly, before I start running at all I ask God to help me be able to do it.  I thought that was lesson enough, but then I learned that the race I had registered for (an all women race in another town) had been cancelled!  Now, there is another race right here in my home town the weekened after that one had been scheduled for, but I hadn't wanted to do that race.  God decided to work on my pride as well.  You see, this isn't that big of town.  I didn't want to do my local race, because I didn't want people I know to see me do it.  What if I fail?  What if they note how SLOW I am?  Well, I had to get over my pride and just do it! So there you have it.  And I might add, it's a good thing that there is a bigger meaning and purpose for all this running, because despite my best efforts, I haven't lost a single pound!  If that was my only motivation (as it was at the beginning of my training), I would be pretty discouraged right now.  Good thing I know that "The Lord does not look at the things a man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." - 1 Samuel 16:7  My personal goal from this is to finish the race, with God's help.  I don't care about time, or if I have to stop and walk some.  Finishing is my reward.  Stay tuned...

 

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

 

"I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." - Philippians 4:13  

Preschool!

I can't believe it, but my firstborn baby started preschool this week.  He LOVES it!  He goes 2 mornings a week.  The best part for me is that one of those mornings I am in the building as his preschool is also my workplace!  He is not in my classroom, but I did sneak in through my friend Shanna's office (his teacher) and steal a few peaks at him throughout his first day.  When I pick him up he talks nonstop and tells me all about his day and all the fun he had! 

 I love that he gets to be in my friend Shanna's class. 

 Adam wants to go too!

In related news, this was my 3rd week back at work, and like every year, the first weeks are the most challenging for a variety of reasons.  Each year, something difficult seems to happen during those first days, and this year was no exception.  My first day back at work, I came home to a hot house.  The air conditioner had died sometime during the day and I mean DIED.  The entire thing had to be replaced.  So, it was 87* in our house for almost 5 days.  Good thing the Olympics were on that week and I had an excuse to lay on the couch and watch TV (and nearly drown in my own sweat).  Awesome.  It didn't stop there.  Week #2: Monday morning on my way to work I was in a bit of a fender bender.  No injuries, just irritation and 45 minutes late to my meeting.  Oh, and we also started at a new babysitter this year and my 18 month old child who naps for 3 hours a day does not nap there and is a complete bear in the evening when I pick him up.  So obviously, I question myself constantly if I am doing the right thing by working (even though it's only 2-3 days per week!).  *sigh*  In other news, the people who lived in this house before us put in fresh white carpet just months before we bought the house.  That's great and all, but WHITE???  With children???  Today my sweet and naughty 18 month old decided white carpet is boring.  It should be GREEN!  Any suggestions on how to get crayon out of carpet?  This (long) green line extends basically straight across the center of our living room.  You can't miss it.  And you can't put furniture over it there either.  I couldn't even be mad at him because after his "time-out" he was so repentent and tried to wipe it off himself.  That's what I get for trying to make lunch!  Ha!  They were playing "school" so nicely in the living room.  I should have known...

But even with all this, there is much to be thankful for.  The week our air conditioner died, it was one of the coolest weeks we had had all summer!  Only one day with 100* weather.  It could have been a lot worse!  Plus, because of the work my awesome husband does, he was able to do ALL of the work himself to install the new unit, thus saving us all the $$ it would have cost to hire someone!  And as for the car accident, again, could have been much worse!  No major damage, no one injured.  The days may be hard sometimes, but God is always good.

Summer Wrap Up

As it does every year, summer got away from us quickly!  My blog may have been pretty boring lately, but there was never a dull moment around here!  We did so many fun things, this mommy was sad to return to work and miss out on our fun outings.  Here's a look at a few of the fun things we did.

Luke played T-ball this summer and loved it!  And I had fun coaching the team.



We went skating, old school style!  (I seriously had these exact same roller skates when I was in kindergarten!)



 Adam got his first haircut

 We were into the Olympics at our house!  Adam and Luke enjoyed racing around our house and attempting to mimic the gymnastics moves.  Here they are showing their muscles and racing!

 We spent lots of time just playing outside at home.  One day, Luke spontaneously plopped down in the middle of the yard and started watching the clouds and told me what he thought the clouds looked like (flowers, tigers, etc).  That's what summer is all about, right?

Missions Trip

A few days after returning from Branson, Chad and I left with our church's youth group for a quick missions trip.  This is our second year working with the youth group and each summer, the group goes on a missions trip of some kind.  Last summer, they went to Joplin, MO to help with tornado cleanup.  This year we went to Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) in Bartlesville, OK.   VOM helps Christians around the globe who are being persecuted for their faith.  They provide medical assistance, food, clothing, and other forms of aid to these people.  Also, they help inform Christians in the US about the persecution happening abroad and what we can do to help.  Our volunteer work while there wasn't earth shattering by any means (mostly stuffing envelopes, shrink wrapping materials, etc.), but was a great trip, because it opened our eyes to what other Christians in the world have to face and how much we take for granted.  We are posing here in front of a memorial "Wall of Martyrs".  It listed different Christians who have perished and either a brief story about them or a quote from them at the time of their death. 

 This is a Bible that was burned.  It was the pictured girl's Bible.

 If you can read the caption below it explains these objects.  The burned microphone was from a church that was burned to the ground.

Branson

The reunion was only a couple of hours from Branson, so afterwards we headed there for 2 days.  I am a pa.the.tic. mother and have basically no pictures to show for it.  Not even one fun family vacation photo.  Basically, we did a little shopping, checked out the Titanic Museum, and walked around on the strip.  The second night we were there, there was a fireworks show following a free outdoor concert.  Luke loves fireworks, (so does his mama), so we headed there.  He said his tummy was hurting but was trying to be brave because he really wanted to see the fireworks.  He may or may not have vomited in the street.  You can judge us if you want, but we stayed and watched the fireworks anyway which made everyone happy!  He threw up again the next morning (the day we were supposed to drive home!).  We milked every last moment in our hotel room before having to check out, dreading being in a car with a sick child.  We headed out around 11:30, and within a couple of hours he was good as new!  So...24 hour bug??  Reaction to being in too much heat??  We don't know but were so thankful it didn't last long!  So we took our time driving home trying to stretch out our short vacation, stopping to check out a Bass Pro shop in Columbia, MO, and then a random spontaneous stop at Big Brutus in West Mineral (nowheresville), KS.  What is Big Brutus you might ask?  That would be the largest electric shovel in the world (16 stories tall).  Isn't that exciting??  Well, not to me, but it is to my 3 year old son and my 30 year old husband!  Here are the boys sitting inside the bucket.

 Some size perspective.

 Fortunately, it wore them out, and we had a few hours of peace driving home!

 And, though we didn't plan for it, we drove into our hometown just in time to watch our local 4th of July fireworks only blocks away from our house.  It turned out to be a great day! :)

Family Reunion

We've had a busy month!  We brought in July by heading to Missouri for a family reunion.  It.was.hot.  Despite the sweltering heat, we had a nice time.  Pictured below are my siblings.  It's not very often we are in the same place other than at Christmas!

 This is my mom with 6 of her 7 siblings.

 These are the great-grandchildren of the family (a small portion of them anyway).

 Here's our clan!

 We checked out the paddle boats.  Luke was in heaven riding with Uncle Matt.  He still talks about how "fast" they were and how they won the "race".  Adam didn't really share his enthusiasm.

  Like I said, it was hot, so we were either in the water or in the A/C!  I'm glad we went and we had a great time reconnecting with family we don't see very often!

 

Mr. Clean

Adam loves to clean.  I mean, whenever I am cleaning anything, he MUST help!  Or, if someone's sock on the floor, he picks it up and starts using it as a rag to clean the floor.  Hey, I'm not complaining.  I'm hoping this enthusiasm continues into the tween and teen years.

 Luke likes things clean but generally doesn't share Adam's enthusiasm to do it.  Washing the car is more enticing though because of the water sprayer which is what he spent most of the time doing.  Spraying the car, spraying his brother, whatever. 

Cousin Fun

A couple of weeks ago, all the cousins (on the Eigsti side) were in town for the week and we had lots of fun!  On one very weather-perfect day, we spent the evening in Mimi and Papa's backyard playing on Papa's handcrafted swingset/slide.  Two summers ago, he spent many hours of labor designing and building this for his grandkids!  I believe he still intends to add a zipline to it.

  On another beautiful evening, his work had a "family" night, which included fishing and other fun activities.  We did not own any fishing poles, so Chad went out and bought two that day.  He set his pole down for a moment to get a fish off of Luke's pole, and in a moment's time, his pole was yanked into the pond by what must have been a giant fish!  Luke really likes to tell that story.  He calls it the "naughty fish".