Baltimore October 16, 2010

In May or June my friend announced that she would be running the baltimore marathon. She encouraged me to run it with her. No way! I ran a marathon about 7 years ago and it was HARD! People correlate running a marathon with having a baby. It is hard, but all you remember is how great it feels afterward. I disagree. All I remembered about my last marathon was the gigantic mirage of people running uphill with no end in sight. Well I thouht long and hard about the marathon. I realized that now really would be the best time to train. I was in Utah for 3 weeks so I could get a lot of good runs in and then I knew David would have the entire month of August off so I could run hard, plus I would have someone training at the same time as me. I decided to do it! The most amazing thing happened. When I went for my first 10 mile run in a long time I felt great! I then remembered how great training for the marathon felt. True the marathon itself kind of sucks, but training is exhilerating and awesome! You can run for the fun of it for hours on end to cool places. Plus (and this is seriously a huge plus for me) I can eat whatever I want :) 2 weeks ago I ran a 21 miler with my friend and felt good, but unfortunetely I must have pushed myself a bit too much because I hurt my IT band. I looked online and it said that it takes months for it to heal, but I'll still doing the marathon even if I have to walk half of it! Wish me luck :) My friend Jenny that is running this with me is doing awesome! She had an original goal to break 4 hours, but right now is on her way to qualify for boston! Go Jenny!!! I am just hoping to finish :)
Oh and Rachel I have really missed training with you. I think of you often on my long runs!!

after a run the girls jumped on me while I was stretching, I guess they don't mind their sweaty mom:)

Texas Part 2

It's Sunday afternoon. Madeline is taking a nap, Gigi is watching Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, David is gone home teaching, dinner is in the crockpot and I actually have a few minutes to myself :) I thought I would use this time to finally finish the post about Texas.

David, the girls and I took a day and went to the stock yards. David and I spent our honeymoon in Texas and I asked him to take me to the stockyards. He took me to the actual stockyards where cattle are exchanged and because it was December we didn't see anything. This time around we made sure to go the tourist stockyards :) It was a lot of fun.


Gigi saw a few real cowgirls and some of the famous longhorn cattle.

I wanted to look at some cowboy boots. We went into a shop and saw this. Wow! They were beautiful. Then I looked at the price tag on a pair: $1295.00. I very gently put them back and then ever so quickly ushered my children out of the store.

David's parents refinished this rocking chair before our visit. Isn't it amazing? David's parents are so gifted at fixing things up. Madeline loved rocking in this chair!

We spent a weekend at David's sister's home (I never remember how to write this. I guess I fell asleep during that english lesson). It was really fun! They have a beautiful home that the girls nearly destroyed :)

Elle loves to garden. The girls loved following her around her garden watching her work. Gigi even came home with some seeds to plant, hopefully they will still work in a few years when we have some land to plant them in :). David's folks also have a fantastic garden, but of course we were too busy enjoying it to remember to take pictures of it. It was so bizarre to hear Elle and Don discuss what type of bug they had captured to see if they needed to kill it or release it back into their garden. I guess I'll have to get a bit more backbone before I start a garden.
Elle's husband Clint served his mission in Scotland and he taught Gigi the proper way to put on a kilt. She really got into it and tried to reproduce the look for quite a few days afterward.
David loved having some great business related discussions with Clint.
Elle is a great aunt. Madeline usually dislikes being cuddled, even by her parents, but Elle managed to put her to sleep 3 or 4 times. Amazing! Thanks for letting us get a break :)
We went swimming a few times with Elle and Clint. We all loved it!

We were also able to see David's brother Michael and his family. They have a beautiful new home that we got lost in and their kids are really adorable. Gigi fit right in. Too bad we don't live closer! (I forgot to take my camera to their house)



I found these picture while I was going back through the pictures of our trip. I love them. We spent so much time with David's parents, but hardly took any pictures of them. Next time I will do a better job!

The weather was perfect while we were in Texas. The girls loved playing outside. I love the picture of Madeline. Everything is better with food in hand. The above picture of David shows him doing the same thing. Like father like daughter :)


We barely managed to get everything packed up in our car on our way to Texas. While we were visiting David's parents gave us quite a few things for David to use in Chicago. David's mom taught me how to can meat and gave us about 20 cans of meat. For my birthday they surprised me with a new set of pots and pans. We have been using the same old set since our wedding and the non stick part has been coming off. Apparently that is dangerous and so his parents bought us a new set. It is SOOO nice. I think of them everytime I cook! The problem with all of the awesome new stuff was that we had to fit it all in in addition to our other stuff. We somehow managed it though and my legs only went to sleep a few times :)

Suzuki Violin

Last year I really wanted to get Gigi started on the violin. I searched and searched for a great teacher and finally found one....in Delaware. They wanted Gigi to go to weekly group and private lessons, which were on different days, which would mean we would be in the car for 6+ hours weekly. After much prayer we decided to not go this route.
I decided to teach her myself. For those of you who don't know my background I started taking violin lessons when I was 3. I always planned on going into violin performance or teaching, but when I graduated from high school I really felt like I needed to go into nursing. Anyway long story, but the gist is that I can play the violin, but don't feel at all qualified to teach it. Because I had no luck with teachers around here I felt like I could at least get Gigi started until we move next year. Our friends loaned us a violin for Gigi back in April and we slowly started. I met up with my old violin teacher in Utah and she gave me advice and tips to help Gigi. She also said that the violin I had was too big for her. So we bought a 1/10th size violin and since July have been practicing about 5 times a week. Gigi has finally learned her first song! It is still a work in progress, but she is doing great! It is amazing to think of all the little things that have to work together to get a nice sound out.

In other violin news I have started teaching other students. Last year a friend asked me to teach her daughter and after much hesitation I started working with her. Through word of mouth I am now up to 7 students, possibly 8 soon. I am LOVING it!!! I have felt such regret these last 10 or so years at not being able to play my violin and now I feel like I am able to dive back into music and to help others learn to love music too. I am starting to feel more confident in my teaching abilities. I am even thinking about persuing this after we leave here. I might certify to become a suzuki teacher and actually advertise for students. We'll see, but at least right not it has been the perfect thing for me and our family.