Family Time

We had a wonderful 4 day Thankgiving together. There was a LOT of family time, which was exhausting for all of us. I was hoping that we'd just spend Thanksgiving Day with the extended family but we ended up spending Thursday-Saturday with them, but for good reasons. Tony's aunt, uncle, and cousin were in town from California and we hadn't seen them in 3 years I think. The girls got very little sleep but they had a blast hanging out with all the cousins (second cousins?) It was so great getting to spend some quality time with all Tony's cousins, we usually only see them a couple times a year.

Now if only I could replicate that with my cousins, it's been YEARS (I'm talking lots of years) since I've seen a lot of them.

Anyways here's some pictures from our crazy weekend. 

Girls busy coloring.

Tony's cousins.

The girls were really exhausted at this point, not really interested in more pictures.

Can you find the real cat?

Hilarious picture of Brynn.

In the picture frame is Tonys aunt's 3 boys sitting on that exact same horse over 19 years ago.

Madison's new favorite Amanda.

The whole gang (minus a few) at our house for the Badger football game.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. 

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for her,

and for her,

and ESPECIALLY for him,

and lets not forget about my first baby,

And I will forever and ever be grateful for my wonderful parents, they truly are the best, I hear so many stories of not getting along with your parents when you were teenagers but I can honestly say I never had those problems. They were and still are my biggest fans. They went to EVER single one of my cross country running races my senior year and I will never ever forget that, or will really ever be able to repay them for that.
I wish we lived closer together, not a day goes by that I don't miss them.

And I'm thankful for my homebrew club, which once again I can thank my parents for, my dad homebrewed when I was a kid so I decided to buy Tony a homebrew kit for this birthday. And the rest is basically history. I love planning events, and trying new beers, and learning new things, and meeting the Twin Cities homebrew community. It's a great niche of people.

I am thankful for a lot of other things and people that have passed through my life. Don't think for a second that I don't think about you. I feel like I am forever in debt for so many different things, people, and places in my life.

Anyways, I wish you all a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
Eat, Drink, and be Merry. Because really, is there any other way to be?!

Happy 2, Brynn!

My baby is 2!

Brynn is funny, and sassy, and insanely stubborn, but that smile.... it kills me. I can be so frustrated with her one minute and then she gives me that heartbreaking smile and I melt. She's ridiculous, I don't really have a better way to describe her personality. If you've met her you know. I can't wait to see how her personality grows.

 

Brynn and Madison now are sharing a bed, pretty much because Brynn refuses to sleep anywhere but with her sister. Brynn has went from the best sleeper around (sleeping for 8 hours straight starting at 2 months,) to a horrible sleeper. Once she's asleep she's does just fine, maybe getting up once a night. But it can take sometimes 2+ hours to get her to actually go to bed, and stay in bed. It's exhausting.

Her birthday was a blast though, she had a lot of fun playing with all her little buddies and opening presents and eating cake. Today she was running around the house singing, "Happy to You!"

She's a damn cute kid!

 

Thank you to all her Aunts and Uncles for this GINORMOUS dog!!

fail.

I failed on the running/roller skiing part this weekend but I ROCKED as a mom!!
Next week we'll continue to up the miles and the strength. There's snow on the ground which makes me PUMPED for ski season!!!

TGIF

It's been a good week... but also a LONG week.
I did great with runs this week, Monday did 3 miles, Wednesday did 3 miles, and today (Friday) I did 4 miles. I'm hoping to get a good long run in either tomorrow or Sunday and a good long rollerski in on the other day.
We shall see though, we have a lot going on this weekend. Birthday party for Madison's best bud from preschool, Liftbridge beer release party, friends in town staying at our house for a wedding, and then Brynn's 2nd birthday party on Sunday. Plus there's some football watching that needs to happen in there too.
I'll just need to get up early to get those workouts in. If I do end up cracking out the rollerskis that will be the first time I've used them in 11 years!! That's ridicious! Hopefully I don't crash and bloody myself on the pavement.
I keep reading about all these skiers going to West Yellowstone, Montana. I'M SO JEALOUS!!! I spent my Thanksgivings at West from the time I was 13 till I was 18, always a great week of serious skiing and serious fun times with skier friends that I didn't get to see that often. I miss it! Someday I hope to get back out there with my family and share that wonderful experience with Tony and the girls.
Happy Weekend everyone!! Drink Up and Be Happy!

workout with kid

Some days a great workout is just chasing after my kids at the park, pushing them on swings, and doing dips on the park bench and pushups between giggles.
It's a gorgeous November day, I hope you all are able to get out and enjoy it. There's nothing better for the soul than fresh air and sunshine when the threats of snow and winter are near.

Early Mornings

Got up at 5:30 AM to run this morning. Ugh, it's really hard to get out of bed, but once I'm out and running I'm really happy I decided to get up. I'm a much better runner in the morning, before I eat and get exhausted chasing after 3 kids all day. Plus I lose all kinds of motivation throughout the day and by the time TK gets home, all I want to do is grab a home brew and park my butt on the couch for some mindless reality television. So typically if I don't get my ass out of bed then I won't make it running, and then I'm cranky that I was so lazy, and I take it out on my kids and husband, not cool.

So yeah, I'm glad I did my 3 miles this morning, I just wish it wasn't so dark. East Saint Paul isn't my favorite place to run in the dark, even with my dog. But now that winter is coming no matter whether I run at 5:30 AM or PM it's going to be dark. C'est la vie.

I plan to run MWF between 5 and 5:30 AM until there's enough snow for me to ski. Then I'll have to ski at night when TK gets home, since I can't really get up earlier than 5 AM (and stay awake all day) and it's not like I can just strap on my boots and head out the door.

So as much as it sucks to get up so early it's really nice to get my run out of the way, and it makes me a better person and mother. And it forces me to take a shower. :)

Goals

Today I was thinking about my goals for this upcoming cross country ski season. They are pretty obtainable if I can stick to my guns and get out there and ski some season k's this winter. Obviously I hope it's another great snow season like last year, if it isn't than that will seriously affect how often I can get out there. I can always keep running but I'd much rather stay in shape by skiing during the cold months.

First off I skied the Birkie for the first time last year after an 8 year absence. I skied the Birkie two times in college, in 2002 and 2003. 2002 was a shortened course due to lack of snow and my time was 3:29:07 (4:28/km) and in 2003 I skied it in 3:30:14 (4:07/km.) Last winter I skied the race in 3:48:17 (4:33/km) I felt OK about that finish, I think I could have done a lot better but I was underdressed for the negative temperature start, I think when I finished around 1:30 pm it had only warmed to a few degrees above zero. So the whole race I was just trying to stay warm and my race suffered because of that. I was happy that I could still ski like I remembered I could.

So for this year my first goal is to move up a few start waves. Last year I started in wave 7, this year I'm in wave 5. I'd really LOVE to get into wave 1 but I know that's kind of a long shot. But if I can get some seriously great quality skiing in this winter who knows. I'd have to shave a good hour off my time, doable but I'm really just hoping to move up at least to wave 3, or at least improve my time by at least 30 minutes. I obviously will have to re-evaluate once I get closer to the race. But those are the thoughts I'm keeping in my head.

I'm also skiing the 35 km City of Lakes Loppet beginning of Feb. Last year my time was, 2:18:51 (4:13/km.) This year I'd like to break 2 hours.

We'll see how I do. I need to make sure I stay focused and stay motivated to get out and train. And I definitely will need to focus on interval training and get some serious LSD in too.

Family Run

We went for a nice relaxing and VERY windy 5 mile family run today. We must be quite the sight out there, since we didn't buy a double stroller we usually borrow our neighbors BOB and head out, 2 adults, 2 BOBs, and a dog. Sometimes Madison will want to ride her bike but then we can't go as far because she is notorious for getting to the farther point and telling us she's tired and can't ride anymore. There is nothing fun about getting 2 or 3 miles out and having to push a little bike back home. We saw 2 turkey on our way home, which is really weird to see in East Saint Paul.
We made a quick stop at the park so the girls could play a few blocks from home, I tried to make it all the way across the monkey bars, I suck! But since the Tough Mudder has a monkey bars obstacle I need to start working my upper body, I figured I'd give it a go. I'll have to keep doing those push ups.
I was going to take pictures along the way, but I forgot to put the camera battery back into the camera, oops.

Holding myself accountable

It has officially been 1 year and 8 months since I last posted. But that's not the point of this post so I'm just going to ignore my lack of blogging for the time being.

I'm starting over. This blog has normally been about my children and family but I'm going to go and do something that us moms suck at, being selfish. I need something to hold myself accountable, I need something to motivate myself. So I've decide to use this blog as a sort of training log.

I went for a 3 mile run today and it was GREAT! I have been down and out for almost two weeks with a terrible head cold, during this two week stretch I started reading, Run Like a Mother, and the way it motivated me almost killed me not to just put my shoes on that moment and head out the door. Unfortunately at that moment there were three sleeping children and another coloring like a crazy four year old in my house. So I just tried to bottle up that motivation for the day that I didn't feel like my head wasn't going to explode. Today... FINALLY!

So today begins my journey to get back to who I used to be. Some one who wouldn't make excuses and roll over in bed and go back to sleep. I want to feel like an athlete again.

I have signed up for two major cross country ski events, The City of Lakes Loppet (35 km) and the Birkie (50 km) both in February with maybe a few more smaller, local XC races in Dec and Jan. And I also signed up for the Tough Mudder in May, which from the sounds of it is going to KICK. MY. ASS. I can't wait! A little ass kicking is what I'm looking for, because really how do you know what your body can handle if you don't push the limits?

And if anyone out there in Saint Paul, MN wants to join me. Please don't hesitate to hit me up. I could use a good running/skiing/ work out buddy!