Mamas dusting off her running shoes

Pre-race

I haven't ran in years...so this spring a group of girls from church decided it was time to get out heinie's in gear and put some miles behind a us. A few had never ran before in their life and the rest of us were rusty so we put together a face book group to make us accountable to each other . I still don't run much, around 3 miles two or three times a week, but I am remembering why I loved it so much (at least until it hits 90 degrees).

Last Saturday we all did a local 5K together, Yuri's night run (even though it was at 8am) to celebrate manned space flight (which is ironic since the program is killed this year). Alot of our kids also ran the 1K. The weather was beautiful, the course was beautiful and there were even a couple of random storm troopers to help you off the finish line!


Erin is an awesome runner, she came in first in her class and fifth overall for the 1K (ages 12 and under). Erin is not competitive in nature but put her at a starting line and she gets her game face on! She was dang proud that she beat Stevie (yes they are holding hands, Stevie is a hot commodity with the kinder girls :). We all survived! My goal was to make it in under 30:00 and I came in at 29:18 and placed 13th out of 54 for the 20-29 age group. I feel like I am in a good trend, I can now outrun the stupid, yet incredibly swift and mean geese around the pond trail, hopefully I can keep up the momentum!

Double Trouble

These two have a love hate relationship. When they find common ground it typically involves mischief.

Truck, Truck!

Friday night we went to a birthday party. Our city fire department has a really great program where they will come out to your party with the trucks and let the kids climb in them. Erin was not amuzed at all, Eliza had fun but Ike was in Heaven! He just stood there pointing at them and yelling TRUCK!!!! TRUCK!! The fire woman gave him a hat and badge and he was just beaming! They had two trucks and he spent twenty minutes going through them...then they had to leave early for a car fire.

Eliza decided they were okay as long as she got the drivers seat ;). The weather was beautiful and just a great night to be outside....our nice days are numbered.

Project Weekend - Emm meets electrial for the first time!

Projects # 2,8, 18 & 26

Jared was out of business for part of the week and I had some time to crank out some house projects. I actually pruned my trees a few weeks ago, our neighbors had an electric pole saw so we thinned out our large red oak in the back, pruned the peach tree, and nubbed down the crape myrtle.

I finally got all the woodwork in the kitchen caulked...yay!

And this weekend I had my big first....I learned to wire in electrical stuff! I don't know why I have been so timid to do it, (probably because I HATE electricity) and even though I shut off the power to the whole house, I still think I am going to die of electrocution). I can't believe I didn't tackle this sooner, walk in the park...White to white, black to black, ground to green....(except for the back light which were all white and I got lucky). twist, cap and walah! I am proud to say they all worked on the first flip of the switch! And I am sad to say I had to take the back one off and return it to Lowes because the screw that lets you set the light was stripped, so I got to install that one twice, lesson learned.

Our front garage light is UGLY! It once was a lovely cheap looking shiny gold, no doubt from the early 1990's. At first I was just going to buy one, but even the new ugly gold ones are $30.00 plus dollars. We rarely use it and while walking through Lowes clearance section they had a can of hammed bronze Rust-oleum spray paint on sale for $2.00. That was more my price range. The paint is amazing! I got a little spray happy and also did our flag pole holder which was rusty and our fuse box and meter (they are outside). Now I want to go back and buy the brushed nickel spray paint and paint all our uggo gold fixtures. I cleaned the glass (for probably the first time in twenty years) and wow the thing lights up the whole neighborhood now! So ya its still ugly but at least it a new, bright ugly.

And I never realized our back light they put the junction box on the outside of the siding. Whatever, I am not going to mess with the last guys laziness. It has not shorted out in five years so I slapped that new puppy on and for the first time in a year we have a back porch light. The girls we all excited until I told them it was so they could run things out to the compost pile after dinner...the excitement faded quickly.