Gettin my dirty Run on!!!

I have the opportunity to participate in a just a few fun things in the last few months.  In May, I ran the Urban Dash 5k in Dallas.  And it was pretty fun.  But in September I ran my third half marathon (my first in Texas!) with some very fun new friends!  I met a few of them at the last aerobics class (and only one I did last year) at the NRH campus in May.  So in September when they started up again, I was excited to get going!  I met some really great friends.  I found out they were running the Plano Balloon Festival Half and I wanted in!!  Except I only had three weeks to train for it.  But that's never stopped me before!  haha   In fact I think I'm becoming known for short train times.  I had been running, so it wasn't from the couch to 13.1 miles.  Overall I ran a faster time than my last half.  Or at least I would have had my knee not about exploded on me at mile 9.  The exciting thing though is that I actually RAN the first 9 miles!!!  Without stopping!  I could barely walk the last 4 but, darn it, I finished!  I plan to train for my next half the right way so as to not hurt anything and run the entire 13.1! 

Jill, Kendra, Tana, Jocelyn, Dian and me!

At the finish line! (ran for the picture...lol!)

So I rested my knee for the next two weeks, icing it, stretching and strengthening.  After only a few days with it taped, I had no more pain (and none since!).  At my workout class, I finally met someone who was willing to get dirty with me!!  So on October 19th, Jill and I along with her friend, Amber and husband, ran the Halloween Hustle Mud Run 5k!  I have been wanting to do one for a very long time.  And I'm telling you it was the most fun thing I have EVER done!!!  This company does 4 mud runs a year and I want to do them all!!!  We had the best time!!  It was fuh-reezing that morning, so swimming in the cold creeks and ponds was not exciting me, but it actually wasn't that bad.  I warmed up fast. 

Before the start... I was freezing!  I have a towel wrapped around my head!  brrr (that's Jill!)

The Start Line!!

 
These "spools" were pretty tricky to climb over and under.  I was proud of myself!!  hehe

 

This was the second to the last obstacle and I was VERY nervous!  It was the only thing that scared me!  We had to climb up the back of that structure (no ladder and no safety ropes!) 25 feet or so!  And then fly through the air on the zipline and drop off before an abrupt stop in the middle of the pond.  It was a 20 foot drop!!  Let me tell you, I don't like high dives!!!!  I had so much water in my sinuses!!!  And yet, still, SO fun!!

This is where you actually, finally, got really dirty!  The last mud crawl!

Amber, Jill and me!

 The toughest girls around!!!!

Catching up with Emery...

Ok... I'm SO bad at this blog thing!  I just haven't been motivated at all lately.  So much is happening and I'm not getting any of it down.  Emery is changing so much every day and yet... this post has sat started, but empty, for 2 months (yep I actually attempted to start a new post and left it a blank page!!).  So here we go, with a little kick in the butt from my dear friend, and expert blogger, Lisa!  ;-)
What have we been doing all summer since my birthday??  Well, not much.  But I have been keeping up on yard work... lots of hedges to keep in shape and I'm mowing the backyard to help my hardworking husband out.  Its actually really fun and only takes me 15 min.  I have the easy job vs doing the front yard.  But HEY, its something!  And keeping our fish alive which we both would say is more of a nuisance than a joy given that there are so many mosquitos that we can't even sit out there and enjoy our pond!  But hoping with the cooling of the weather that the end of them is near!
Emery is changing so much every day!  Its crazy!  Even just today, as I gave in and let her watch some Cars before taking a nap, we were snuggling on the couch and I looked down at her and started to cry.  It still hits me every now and again how far we have come and how extraordinary she is to our lives!!!  She is the most amazing little person I've ever known!  Don't get me wrong, she can be feisty for sure and definitely tests my limits, but its all part of her growing and learning and experimenting and building her character.  I just hope and pray I do, at least most, things right so she becomes the person God has created her to be.  It is my daily prayer!
So this summer she's been swimming... a lot!!  I've taken her swimming every summer since she was 6 months old.  And in the winter, I continued to splash her and pour water over her in the bath tub.  LOL  But it was all for the good because she has never been afraid of the water or getting her face wet.  And now, with almost weekly swim times, I have personally had the honor of teaching her to swim.  She is on the very brink of swimming on her own!  I'm sad that summer is coming to a close.  I hope to get in one or two more at the very least.  This girl is a fish!!!!  Just like her mama, I might add!  She is now, jumping off the step or the side of the pool all by herself and swimming to me under water until she finds my arms and pulls herself up.  I usually stand about 3 or 4 feet away from her!  She will swim under water for as long as 8 seconds so far.  Its crazy!!  Last swim we did, she would swim to me, come up and take a breath, I would count to 3 and let her go and she would swim to me again.  We would do this all the way across the pool!  She just can't get enough power to kick her way above the surface.  So we have been working on just kicking as well as swimming out and turning around back to the steps.  Her least favorite exercise is when I roll her on her back to 'float'.  She will cry and cry!  But she finally started letting me do it without fighting me, but will still cry.  hahaha   But she is an amazing swimmer so far!!  She's gonna go crazy next year!

Two months ago I had to bring her with me to my 4 hour hair appointment (little did I know it would actually take that long!).  But she did awesome!  Luckily its a very low key salon and all the girls loved Emery.  She just hung out with us the whole time and played on "her rug" with her toys.  Then at the end, she finally got to climb up into the big girl chair and got her first, official, professional haircut!!  My stylist said it would help her hair grow out by cutting a bob (eek!), getting the unhealthy stuff off, and would prevent it from continuing to break.  I'm happy to say I think it really has helped!  Her hair is finally growing longer and starting to look more like a kid rather than baby hair.   Again, she did awesome as she sat there quietly letting Amber do what ever she wanted! :)

My friend Tyranie watches Emery on the days I'm at work.  I'm always begging to take her kid(s) to help her out in return and also give Emery play time.  So finally she asked me to watch her youngest, Meagen for the day, who happens to be Emery's little best friend and "sister".  We had a super fun time picnicing at the park, playing, eating ice cream and then naptime (yeah for mommy!).  It was so fun watching them play!!  They crack me up!

Meagan and "mini-me"

I scored BIG TIME on this one!!!  A coworker told me about this classic car showroom not far from where we live.  So one Saturday morning I took Sean there.  I'm not sure who was more excited.  Probably him... but I was pretty darn ecstatic and also so proud of myself!!!  This place was crazy cool!!  Over a hundred classic cars!  Sean was in RPM heaven!

We had a family date night one night and went to Las Pinatas.  Its a restaurant just down the street from our house and up on a hill.  Really cool location and really yummy mexican food!  We were not disappointed!!  Tonight... Emery had her first full plate dinner ordered for her... aaaaaaallllllll for her!!!  Just another small show of how she is growing up!

Just had to share this because she is just sooooooo cool even when 

she is going potty in a public restroom!!!  hahahahaha

.....And at Target...... and..... 

I'm gonna stop for now or this will never get published (still took me a week to complete!)  But I will share more pics very soon!  Tomorrow Sean leaves me for California to go get our house ready to list and sell!  I will be on my own for a week!  But not alone.... I'm leaving on Friday and making my first road trip in Texas (and first road trip alone with Emery and only my second road trip by myself ever! ha!).  I'm driving to the other side of Houston to Baytown to visit a long time friend from high school.  We are so excited to see each other as its been 5 years maybe (?) since we saw each other last!  I can't wait to meet her whole family and for her to finally meet little Emery!  Gonna be a blast!!

Turning 40 Ain't So Bad!!!!

My birthday has come and gone.  Like the long anticipated wedding date that you stress and worry about and build up in your mind.  And in a day it's done.  Well, I was, sad to say, stressing about this birthday for the past year.  I think a big reason for that is because of our move to Texas.  I think it may have been different had we still been in Fresno with all our long-time family and friends.  I always said I would embrace 40 with grace!  But here we are and so I have been a slight bit insecure about this one.  But despite all the worry and stress, it came and went, and I still feel the same as I did a week ago!  LOL  As if 40 would really change who I am or how I look.  I think there's grace all over it!

Well it came and went, but not without a lot of celebration, lots of memories and fabulous friends who are like family!  I had an absolutely wonderful birth-week! (yes, Sean and I celebrate the entire week!)  Sean set out to surprise me with a super fun weekend.  He asked me what I wanted a while back and he did all that he could to see that it happened down to every detail!  He told me only days before that I needed to pack my bags.... We are staying over night!!!!!  

My Saturday started out with getting my hair done.  I think I set a record with a 4 hour hair appt!!  It was the first time seeing this girl, Amber, who is a sister and cousin of a couple of my friends at work.  But more than that, my hair color was awful!!!  It was a year of boxed home hair color!  Like layers of paint on a wall.  And so she went to work gently stripping it down to shades to reveal the natural highlights underneath.  We will do this one more time and then it will be on to beautiful color!!!  I felt bad that the appt went so long, but Sean was so gracious saying this was My Day!  I got home and we were instantly off to Dallas (he had already dropped Emery off a couple hours earlier)

Hello Dallas!!!  Hope you have your party hats on!!!

I was "Wowed" as we pulled up to our hotel... the Hotel Zaza.  It is a very trendy, hip, artsy hot spot of a hotel in the Arts District in downtown Dallas.  It is beautiful!  Definitely not like anywhere we've ever stayed before!  And he found it all by himself! :)

 

That's Sean standing in front, in black. :)

The Lobby

Beautiful Art everywhere!

The pool... which reminded me of the Roman Baths! 

I couldn't believe how 'live' it was at 4 in the afternoon.  At night it closes and becomes one of the hottest poolside nightclubs from 10-2am.

Just a little pre-dinner drink at the hotel!

Our room

We set off for dinner, taking the hotel shuttle (a black Escalade... I kind of felt like a Kardashian! lol)  I felt so alive as we drove through the city to the restaurant.  It's confirmed time and time again that I am truly a city girl!!!   I just looked at Sean and said "I'm in heaven!!!"  As we waited for our friends to arrive, Sean and I even discussed that maybe we bought a house in the 'burbs' too soon and should have moved to the city! lol  But we both need new jobs for that!  So back to the 'burbs' we go!!!  hahaha  But I LOVE the fact that we can drive 35 min and be in the city!  I love that about the DFW area!!  

We ate at Del Frisco's.  It's a high end, trendy restaurant about a mile from where we were staying.  Sooooo very yummy!!!

The best part about this night together was the time we spent sharing wisdom. It started with Steve stating that 40 is the year of wisdom and so I needed to share 3 words of wisdom that I've learned over the years.  I shared a bit about marriage... about how it is the hardest and yet best relationship you'll ever have.  We talked awhile about that, digging deeper, and then I was like "wait a second!  You all are already in your 40's... YOU need to share your wisdom with me!!!"  It began a time of sharing with me.  It was a priceless, beautiful and rich time of sharing wisdom, encouragement and really speaking into my life.  Given that I had been sad, since we moved, that I would not be celebrating such a huge milestone in my life with my closest friends and family back home , God truly came through and has provided the most wonderful friends, both old and new!  (and the fact that we have such rich and long history with these two couples is the icing on the cake!)

I feel like every next picture like this that Sean and I take shows more and more depth, beauty and maturity in each of us and together as a couple!

(dessert on the house... the best Coconut Creme Pie!!)

On the upper deck/balcony of the restaurant.  

We wish we would have known about this before dinner!

At night, the street comes alive with lights, music and people!  After dinner we ended up at this Irish Pub, Idle Rich (I have a thing for them, being that I'm Irish!  Someday I'll get to go to a real one! lol)

Luke and Kathy

Steve and Tyranie

The Carlsons left around 11pm (they just drove home from Colorado that day so I let them go home), but the rest of us party animals stayed out.  We found this cute little house called BrokenTree Coffeehouse and chilled for awhile with some cappuccinos.

Me and My Cappuccino!

We walked back to our hotel and Steve and Tyranie met us there.  The Dragonfly Nightclub was open and the place was hopping!  They came by to check out the hotel and then left for home a short time later.  It was the best night in the city with great friends!!

The next day we slept in (as best we could) and then headed out for breakfast.  I got a few recommendations from people at work and we ended up at Breadwinners.  From the outside it looks like a big house, but when you get inside you realize just how big it is as it goes on and on and on (the host must have led us through 4 or 5 different rooms and lush patios before we finally ended up in an upstairs room off the bar-room.  It filled up quickly.  

 

THIS was the highlight of my weekend!  Up!  I said it!  In 22 years of being together, I have never been able to get Sean to take these silly booth photos with me.  I love them and he never got it.  So guess what was right behind me in the restaurant but a photo booth!  He easily agreed to take pics with me.  I was SO excited, grinning ear to ear!!!!  (I can be such a school girl sometimes... it really is pretty easy to make me happy)

We chose to walk it back through to our hotel after breakfast.  It was a beautiful mile long morning walk through the city, but it was warming up fast!

And let me not fail to mention Emery at least once.  It was a big deal for us because this was the very first time we have left her overnight with anyone.  She stayed with the Caughrans, who of course were with us for the evening.  But their oldest, Josh and Elizabeth, watched all the young ones (four in all including Emery!).  That was kind of weird to think of too.  But we trust them so much and she really is part of their family as she is watched by them twice a week while I'm at work.  So we were able to have a wonderful time away without worry.  But it definitely was weird to not kiss her goodnight or good morning!  I won't be longing to do that again for a little while. :)  And of course, we had to bring her back a little something yummy from the Breadwinners' baked goods counter!!

Sean did awesome in planning this weekend!!!  We had invited three more friends of mine but they were not able to make it, so we all celebrated another day.  But it was so much fun and SOOOOO what Sean and I have been needing!  I was amazed at just how much MORE we needed it than I had even thought.  It was rejuvenating for each of us and our marriage!!!