Honest sweat

Since July, I’ve been training again for my half marathon in October.  I gave myself 3 more weeks of training this year to make it a solid 13weeks.  My friends, Cheri & Megan, agreed to do the race together just like we had last year.  After consulting our schedules, we decided we’d have to train separately during the week and do our long runs together on the weekends.

In the beginning, it wasn’t so bad.  I learned the joy of running by myself.  Quiet time to think and release the tension of the day.  Smelling the

Diva what, diva who, diva where? It’s B!

This past Saturday was the regional competition for Emma’s competitive cheer.  Her team had taken first at regional & state in the fall but the spring team had a lot of new girls.  Plus, their routine seemed incredibly complicated this time.  With both of those things factored in, we wondered if we stood a chance of making it to the state competition.  Dan & I were a little torn if we even wanted her to make it because it would mean leaving a day early from our B family vacation in June. 

Emma is the first one in the fourth line from the left.

The song that they danced to is ‘It’s All About Me’which was too cute.  They certainly were little divas out there with their tiaras and glitter.  They did a pretty good job and

April Fool’s

This was the first year that the kids realized the tradition of  April Fool’s day.  They had seen a commercial on Disney or somewhere with a suggested April Fool’s joke of hiding the soap in the shower so that when the next person went in, they didn’t have any.  I have never quite understood how pranks were very funny but I thought maybe Emma could play her own joke on Dan this year.

On the way to cheerleading, we devised a plan.  It went like this:

Run On

About a month ago, I registered for my next long distance run, The 5/3 Riverbank Run.  This one would be a 25k (15 miles) and would take place in May.  It’s a huge race here and I had heard great things about the energy and participation.  I was excited to train for a race and execute it without injuries this time.  How well could I do if I was able to train without an injury every month and a tiny bit of experience behind me?

I started training about 2 weeks ago.  An actual training schedule for a 25k  is harder to locate than you’d think so I just decided to go with the half marathon schedule but add in a couple weeks.  I figured out what days and times I’d be able to get my run in before the extra kids come or after and wrapped my brain around training for this thing almost entirely on a treadmill!  Big difference to me.

Then last Wednesday, I took Emma to register for her spring session of cheerleading.  I asked the coach if she knew their regional competition date and she gave me the sheet with all the dates.  Awesome…

The Mighty B

Emma started cheerleading back in September.  We originally took her to the local class but after being disappointed in the coach, we decided to drive her the 30 min to another city.  It might seem bizarre to some people but the coach out there is great and we figured if we could get a bad coach or a good coach for the same amount of money, why wouldn’t we take her to the good one?

Emma had her very first competition on Dec 14.  She did great and her team did too!  Here’s the video of them.  Be nice, they’re 4,5 & 6.  Emma is in the 3rd row and 3rd back.

Her team is the Middleville/Otsego team.  Here are the results

Whatever Martha!

Last night I was lying on the couch, flicking through the channels and not finding anything.  When there’s absolutely nothing on, I often find myself watching bizarre, obscure things.  It’s times like these when I end up watching the documentary channel or something else equally random.  This time, I stumbled across a show called Whatever Martha! on the Fine Living Network.  I pressed the Info button and read that it was about Domino Topping.  Hmmm… sounds completely inane.  I had to check it out. 

I flipped over and there were 2 women sitting at a table, watching Martha Stewart on a laptop.  Martha was showing how to glue seashells onto a picture frame and as the women watched and tried to copy, their commentary was funny.  They were ripping on Martha and the stupidity of this craft.  It was hilarious and I often found myself giggling out loud.  I watched for about a 1/2 hr before I had to go to bed but I resolved to find out more about this show in the morning. 

A little known fact about me would be my complete disdain for Martha Stewart.  It started

A huntin’ we will go

As I do every year, yesterday I joined all the other crazed shoppers for Black Friday savings.  I planned on going with Megan, Joy & Sandy to the various stores to claim our winnings.  The ads rolled out Thanksgiving day and we made our plan.  Megan & I decided that this year, we would have to play with the big dogs… Walmart.  They had their Leapsters for $30 and there was no way we could pass up that savings.  Add in the other steals and deals they were offering and we knew we had to brave it.  “We ran a half marathon, Megan.  We can do this!”  I assured her but I was nervous myself.  One of the Walmarts here in town made national news in ‘05 when a woman was trampled.  She ended up being ok thankfully but some othershave not been so lucky while shopping at Walmart the day after Thanksgiving. 

We decided that we would go to the one near Megan’s house even though that was a 28 mile drive for me instead of a 5 mile one.  We figured it would be worth it since the store was not in Grand Rapids, we would increase our chances of getting the coveted Leapsters.  Joy was going to spend the night at Megan’s house and I would make my drive out to pick them up early in the morning.  Sandy decided to brave one of the local Walmarts since they were the only ones carrying the TV on sale that she wanted.

3:15am arrived and I rolled out of bed. 

Baby blogger

Emma’s class has a small stuffed turtle that they get to take turns taking home.  Then at the end of the week, they get to write a story about what they did with “Timothy”.  The parent is supposed to write exactly what their child says and not add any words or correct theirs.  Emma finally had her turn and she was SO excited (are you surprised Emma was excited?).  She had been planning his visit since the beginning of the year.  It was a good week and we managed not to lose Timothy even though he’s a little bugger.  I typed out Emma’s story as she dictated to me.  I would like to think of this as Emma’s first (of many haha) blogs to come.

Emma & Timothy