My Menagerie

10.17.2010

Happy Birthday to Zoe!!

My baby turned 5... which is impossible to believe, but it's true. She is outrageous and full of life...unmatchable!

Top 10 things to remember!:

She likes to wrestle with her shirt off.. .and show her "guns".
She wears tutus to sword fight in.
Wearing dressup dresses to the store is normal.
She asked when we were having naked day at school.... hahahah!
She does NOT like to be told what to wear.
If I forget to clip her toenails, she tells me I forgot to take care of her body.
She calls little dolls, lego people, etc... humans... which sounds normal, but not coming out of a 4/5 year old's mouth.
Her rapunzel wig is a mandatory fashion accessory now.
Some sort of bling is always an accessory for dressing.
She climbs and touches EVERYTHING!!

Before....

10 days old...

Today!! (Disney trip... blog to come....)

I cannot in any way classify myself as a "runner"... especially since I don't even really run. I shuffle. Imagine an elderly person in pink fuzzy slippers with a walker "racing" for the best spot at the bingo table... they could probably out "run" me....

In in any case, I'm still dragging my behind out of bed at 5 in the morning 2 or 3 days a week to run, plus doing a "long" run on the weekends. My dad sends me a running schedule made by marathon pros or something, which he sticks to like glue.... I use it more as a guideline. I actually made it 4 miles... with a couple walk breaks... the other morning. My knee hurt the next morning and so did my hip flexers. He made it 6. Hmmm.... Let's hope I make it up to 6 at least before November 7... it's our first actual race that we are entering. The Phoenix 10K.

My dad also sent me a super cool website that lets you create running routes... then I use the "snipping tool" on our computer and just save them... Here's the site: http://www.usatf.org/routes/

... and here are a few of my runs..(I know this must be extremely exciting...):

2.5 miles

3.0 miles

3.2 miles - did it this morning actually

4.2 miles (did this the first time last Friday)

5.1 miles... I have yet to do this... next Saturday is the plan.

I have learned to plan longer runs with bathrooms along the route. Ha ha!

9.23.2010

It's On Like Donkey Kong

My dad says to me the other day that I should run a half marathon with him.... which not only sounds wrong coming from my 60 something year old dad, but slightly insane. I tell him I'll think about it... and in the mean time he says something like.. oh, I wasn't serious. I don't see how you'll be able to do it. What? Then, in an email he restates his concern.... "I really don't see how you'll be able to do this...." What.ever Old Man! It's On Like Donkey Kong!

So, guess what..?? I'm now running in a half marathon. For some, this is normal... running that is. For others, like me, it's painful and highly unenjoyable. However, I've been able to drag my a** out of bed at 5 in the morning about 3 days a week for the past 2 weeks and have gone running... I am happy to say that I can actually run 2 miles with relative ease. Now I just need to tack on about 11 more to that and I'm good to go. This weekend I'm supposed to run almost 4, so we'll see how that goes. I should wear some sort of tracker just in case I pass out.

I've discovered a slight hiccup in my 5:15 am running... Dude, I gotta go in the morning... and if I don't, you know... go... then I have to go in the middle of the run or cut it short. All I can say is, thank goodness Village Inns are open at 5:30 in the morning, and let in people only to use their restroom.

My aunt and uncle from Texas - my dad's younger brother - are now coming in for the race. They are actual runners... unlike me, who actually shuffles instead of runs. Family affair. Should be rather interesting.

9.08.2010

The Cinders

After years of Jonathan asking and me having excuses of why I couldn't go.... Jonathan finally got me to go riding with him. We went up to the Cinders in Flagstaff.... lots of dust, red necks, Hundred Dollar Hill, drinking, etc. The only reason he talked me into was because I didn't have to stay over night.. .thank goodness. We brought his Teryx... and, it was actually fun.

Old lava flow from Sunset Crater Volcano...

Zoe-isms

Yesterday Zoe told me that a girl in her class was... are you ready for this?.... "totally wack"!! Hahaha.... I laughed out loud, then quickly told her that we can't call people that because it's not very nice. Later in the evening I was retelling the story to Jonathan and Zoe overheard me... she quickly corrected me and said, "No! She's totally 'bwack'!" Hahahaha... oh. So then we quickly told her that that may be true, but we don't need to go around telling everyone what color they may be. Hee hee.... (side note... the said girl is actually a twin whose mom is Hispanic and dad is African American - to be PC... and one girl looks like the mom, and the other the dad... so perhaps that's where the clarification came in on what color she is.)

Another funny thing... Jonathan and Zoe went to Petsmart to buy random fish, which they let go in the pond behind our house. They will probably die... and it was the shortest time we've ever had pets.

8.29.2010

#41 - Camping

We visited the Blue Ridge Reservoir area.... I say area because Jonathan convinced all of us that we could camp right by the water.... notice the second picture below... there are absolutely NO places to camp right by the water. The closest we got was about 100 feet above with no accessible way to the reservoir.

We did end up making it to a nice place... if you don't mind that no one else is around to see or hear you murdered. Jonathan thinks that campsites are for wimps, thus we were subjected to a 5 hour truck ride to find just the perfect spot. Mind you we passed about 4 other perfect spots on the way...

Top of the Mogollon Rim

The Kids' tent... which ended up being the empty tent since they both crammed in with us. It was very warm and cozy.

Hayden is the cook when we go camping... seen here boiling water for Ramen noodles. (Did I mentioned it rained most of the time there... thus the bag on his head).

Zoe's practicing her casting with her new Princess fishing rod. Mostly she caught trees and sticks..which are sooo fun to unhook.

There's his Ramen noodles... a favorite.

The hike down the hillside to the Reservoir... the hike where I warned that it was too steep and there is NO way we would make it to the water. After about 10 minutes, they all started to believe me, and we ended up back at our camp site without having gone to the water.

What you should be looking at in this picture is our toilet, and maybe Zoe's cute butt, ... courtesy of Home Depot (the bucket) and our neighbor Jim who loaned us the toilet seat that snaps onto the bucket. What you should not be looking at is me... because I haven't figured out how to pull off the super model look while camping.