Race for Sight

This past Saturday Wes, and the people in his clinic, had all signed up to run the Lions Eye Foundation Race for Sight 5K. Since my Mom was in town, and could come to the race and sit with Noah, I signed up to run too! We all woke up early and headed over to the race before the sun came up. It was a really small 5K - which was kind of fun considering the last race we did had thousands of people. Wes and I did not run this one together. We each wanted to see how fast we could go and Wes is definitely faster than me so we decided to run separately. It was interesting to run a 3 mile race after all the training for 13 miles that we have been doing. It was a shock to my system to have to start out so fast, but I really wanted to beat my previous time so I picked a guy in front of me who had a good pace and stuck with him the whole way. I'm sure he was wondering who the heavy breather was behind him! I saw Wes a couple of times during the race (the course kept doubling back on itself so you would occasionally catch glimpses of the leaders). He was doing really well. With the exception of few long, lanky, obvious runners, Wes was right in front! He ended up running it in 23:15 and got a trophy for second in his age group! I finished in 27:50 and actually got a plaque for third in my age group. (A small disclaimer: in tiny races like this it is not hard to place in your age group. In fact, there may only have been 3 girls total in my age group - so don't be too impressed!) Despite the disclaimer, it was fun to get an award and even more fun for both of us to get a PR. Noah enjoyed watching. My Mom said he got really excited when he saw Wes come around the corner to the finish line and then really mad when he couldn't run with him. But a post race cookie solved any crankiness! He also really enjoys carrying Wes' trophy around the house!



Me at the beginning of the race - sticking with the guy in the red shirt!



Noah watches Daddy down the final stretch.



Wes sprints to the finish. He says the picture is blurry because he is so fast!



Noah trying to steal Wes' trophy.

Bebe Visits Florida

This past week was my Mom's spring break, so she drove down to sunny Florida to see us. Well, to see Noah! Noah was very excited that his Bebe was in town - he always gets the royal treatment from any grandparent. We did all sorts of fun things during Bebe's visit. She went to Gymboree with us, we took Noah to the park, and most fun of all - we took some trips to the beach. Noah has not spent much time at the beach (despite what you would think,all the beaches are pretty far from us). He was very unsure of it at first. He hates to be dirty so the sand really bugged him and he was very upset about getting any part of himself wet. He kept running back to our towels and grabbing his stuff and saying, "go car, go car?" It wasn't until Bebe taught him to throw the sand that he decided the beach might be cool. Pretty soon he was scooping up big handfuls of sand and running down to the water and throwing it in. He even ventured in to the water up to his knees and ended up having a great time! He also enjoyed chasing the birds (an activity he did not learn from his mother!) and was very upset when we had to leave. All in all, Noah had a great time playing with Bebe, and Wes and I enjoyed a few outings just the two of us. So, we all had a great week!



Noah trying to decide is he should follow Mommy into the water.



Noah and Daddy watch the boats.



Noah throwing sand into the water.



By the end of our second day a confident Noah leads Bebe out into the water!

Our New House

We just got these pictures of our house from our realtor. They have painted the outside - very exciting! - put in the cabinets, and are working on counters and flooring. We are all set to close on May 21st and we are very excited to move in to our new house. We can't wait to have a yard for Noah to play in and a kitchen bigger than a closet!

Here is the view from the backyard. Also, here's a fun tidbit: We are smack dab in between the two loudest colored houses in the neighborhood - the bright blue you can see and on the other side is bright red!

We Did It!

Are we the stupidest people in the world? Those were the words I asked myself as Wes and I stood in line for the port -a -potty in the 43 degree weather at 6:50 am this past Sunday. I decided the answer was quite possibly yes, but at least we were in good company - there were 14,998 other crazy people out there with us!

That's right, we headed to the starting line of the ING Georgia Marathon/Half Marathon on Sunday in the coldest weather we have experienced in 3 years (hey, we live in South Florida!), and the huge possibility that it might start raining at any moment. I wore 4 shirts and my teeth were still chattering at an alarming rate. A funny thing happened though. The gun went off, we started running (well, technically we walked for 18 minutes until we reached the starting line), and pretty soon I forgot to be miserable. We were starting the beginning of a 13.1 mile journey through downtown Atlanta and it felt good! It is so cool to be running through city streets usually filled with noise and chaos and hear nothing but the sound of thousands of running shoes hitting the pavement simultaneously. Wes and I had a blast doing this run. We saw parts of Atlanta that were beautiful and we had great conversation and before we knew it we were seeing signs that said 1 mile to go. Now, I'm not saying it wasn't hard (it was), but the satisfaction of completing something we had been working so hard for was really cool. We finished in exactly the time we estimated when we signed up: 2:30:02. We would have been under 2:30 easily, but the hills threw us for a loop. I had ended up walking a good bit around mile 11 as my calves were screaming for mercy. Next time, with a little less walking, we will be faster!

The cool thing about this race was that I finally realized what it was that made me decide to like running so much. For those of you who don't know, I used to detest running. I only started doing it after Noah was born to lose weight. It wasn't until I entered a race that I began liking the sport. This Sunday I realized that it is the sense of community that running offers that I have fallen in love with. It is amazing to wake up and go join thousands of strangers in the pursuit of a common goal. It doesn't seem to matter who you are or where you come from - as long as you have pinned on your bib number and rubbed on your body glide you're in the club, no questions asked. People you would ordinarily never speak to suddenly become like brothers and sisters on your journey. People help each other, and cheer for each other, and celebrate together at the end. Because of the one commonality, all the other glaring differences cease to matter. It is what I imagine eternity will be like with other believers, and something I wish that I saw more of on a day to day basis here on earth.

Besides, if that doesn't convince you running is great, this might: I burned 1300 calories on Sunday morning and ate pizza, ice cream, doughnuts, and fries guilt free! How's that for a good reason to run!

PS - A big shout out to my friend Priscilla (the one who got me hooked on running last year). She was running the Knoxville Marathon (26.2 miles!) the same time that Wes and I were running our race, and she did an amazing job! I can't wait to get together and run a race Priscilla!

Here are the runners at the starting line. Because there were so many people, and we were near the back, it took us 18 minutes after the gun went off just to get to the starting line.

Here are the leaders of the marathon. They passed us - we were on mile 9, they were on mile 22- like we were standing still!

Happy Easter!

This year we stayed here in Tampa for Easter and none of our family came down. Even though we missed being with family, we know that this is the last holiday where we will be far away from everyone, so we took the day to enjoy it just the 3 of us. We went to church of course, but only I got to enjoy the whole service. Because it was Easter, the nursery (which is the smallest room I have ever seen) had 14 children in it and poor Noah had a complete emotional breakdown. He tends to get overwhelmed when he is around a lot of kids he doesn't know. Anyway, Wes ended up outside on the playground for the last half of the service...oh well. Afterwards we went to some friends' house for lunch. They had invited several couples who weren't near family and everyone brought some food and we had a great time. They have a little boy very close to Noah's age - who is also obsessed with Cars - so Noah and Grantham played with cars together. Wes and I got to eat and visit without being interrupted, it was great! It was 3:30 by the time we left, so we decided Noah could just skip his nap (a risky move, I know!) He was quite sleepy on the way home. He fell asleep a couple of times and I tried to take his picture, but every time he heard me turn around, he would open his eyes and grin for the camera. He is quite the little ham these days!

A drowsy Noah mugging for the camera!

When we got home we gave Noah his Easter basket. It was filled with all sorts of goodies, but the biggest hits were Cars stickers from Bebe and the Cadbury Mini Eggs. Since we wanted to keep him distracted from the fact that he was really tired we decided to do an egg hunt. Now, I really thought it would be an exercise in futility. I was sure he would not understand what he was supposed to do, get bored, and run off. But to my surprise, he caught on really fast. We hid the eggs in his room and he walked around and filled his basket. He would look very intently and get so excited when he spotted one! He found all 10 eggs that I hid and had a blast doing it. He also had a blast eating the candy that was in them! All in all, it was a really fun day (despite no nap) and we really enjoyed spending it with our little guy! Hope you enjoy these pictures from his egg hunt!

Noah with a mouthful of candy.

Zoo Trip

On Friday Noah and I joined some kids in our playgroup for a trip to the zoo. We went early in the morning and were surprised to see how crowded it was. Because it was Good Friday, lots of kids were out of school and apparently all of them were at the zoo. I wanted to push Noah in the stroller because it was so crowded but of course he wanted to walk. I can't say that I blamed him though, you can only really see the animals if you are walking or being held up by Mom. Needless to say, it was a bit of a disaster because of the crowds and because, as usual, Noah was in hyper speed mode as he made his way through the exhibits. Most of the other kids would take their time and look at the animals. Not Noah! He would point say, "Wow!" and then take off down the path yelling "More, More!" He did enjoy the tigers and the chimps and some disgusting wart hog thing. I was very happy when 1:00 rolled around and it was time to leave!

Noah looks at the elephants with Grace.

Noah giving me the look that says, "I saw all there was to see - lets move!"

Noah was very happy to be back at home where he could play with his cars (i.e. line them up in weird places)

Time is Flying!

I realize that we have been very bad about updating our blog. In fact I had a special request this morning from my friend Julie to please update it so, here we go!

Speaking of Julie I will start by telling you about her wedding. I flew to San Diego at the end of February to be a bridesmaid in her wedding and it was so much fun! Both Julie and her husband Devin have great groups of friends (and family) who made their wedding weekend really special. The rehearsal dinner was awesome - great Mexican food and margaritas! - and the reception was beautiful. Cocktails, dinner, and lots of dancing. Plus,it was kind of nice for me to have a whole weekend kid free. I slept in a huge king size hotel bed without having to keep one ear open for the kiddy whine that turns into a scream - it was very nice! While I was in San Diego Wes was in Charlotte at an eye conference and stayed with our friends the McKees. He got to spend quality time with Baby Maggie and I am very jealous, as I still have not met her! He did take some pictures of her (she is adorable!) but we are still having camera trouble so you can click on our link to the McKee blog to see pictures of Maggie - Noah's future girlfriend!

Speaking of Noah, he is doing really well. He has just recently had a huge burst in his communication skills which makes my life easier and him a lot happier. His new favorite thing to do is to color (if you can call it that) in his Finding Nemo coloring book. We have to flip through every page and name all the characters. His other favorite thing to do is go for our afternoon walks with Baby Sydney and her mom Claire. Sydney is his first crush as far as I can tell. He loves seeing her and he always gives her hugs and kisses (with remarkably un- Noah -like gentleness). Whenever we are in the vicinity of her house he says, "Sydney, play Sydney?" I think he will be very upset when we move in May.

Noah giving Sydney a kiss!

And here is a running update for those of you who care. Wes and I are deep into double digit runs on the weekends and it is not all fun and games! Our first 10 mile run was a disaster. Lets just say we got lost, had a huge fight, and one of us had an emotional breakdown - all while running! It was not pretty! But, we redeemed ourselves this past weekend with our second 10 miler. We stayed on course, did not fight, and finished in 1 hour and 50 minutes! You can think of us this Saturday as we go for 12 miles - our last long run before the half marathon in 2 weeks. Time is just flying for us right now - it will be time to go to Charleston before we know it!