On March 16th I ran my second half marathon. It was the Washington D.C. Rock N’ Roll half and of course I ran it with my bestie Kami Eng. I really couldn’t have a better running partner- she rocks!! Things were interesting this time around. We got lost trying to find our V.I.P parking that my friend Mary scored for us. When we finally found it we had to run to the metro so we could get to the start line. (The parking was at the finish line.) When we got to the metro we realized we didn’t have money to pay for the metro tickets so we ran back to the parking lot to get some cash. After all that running we flagged down a car hopped in and got a ride to the metro station. When we got to the starting line the bag check was ridiculously long. Then it was time to hit the potty. Suffice it to say we started about 50 min late. But that was okay, right? Wrong. That meant we spent the ENTIRE race passing people and weaving between people. It really slowed us down! We also stopped at one point for me to get a rock out of my shoe and Kami to use the bathroom. The race really was too crowded. I will never do this particular race again. I believe they said 30,000 people ran this race. It was too small of a course to have that many people running. Really the neighborhood streets of D.C. are not that wide! Kami and I had set the goal of beating our last half marathon time of 1 hr 59 min. We were on track to blow it by 7 min while we were training. With all of the weaving and stopping for people at the race it was slow going. As we got to the 12 mile mark we checked our watches and knew that we weren’t going to blow our past time but we wanted to at least get our 1:59. That meant sprinting!!! Literally! That last 1.1 mile was our fastest. Which sucks because really if you can go your fastest on the last mile then you obviously held back during the race. Anyway we came in at 2 hours flat. We were happy to be done but sad we missed our last time by seconds. For days I kept thinking about all the ways we could have saved time, but alas it was over and at least I had Kami by my side the whole time.

Until next time….

Thanks to my mom the kids had a great St. Patricks day. She sent us a wonderful package from over the rainbow. 🙂

Our winter here in Virginia wasn’t too bad this year. I say that and laugh a little because winter is such a trail for me. My mood is directly linked to the weather and so winter is really hard to push through. However, I will say that if it is going to be cold is might as well snow! Hallie and Kyle waited anxiously for snow for months and finally got enough to play in. Because it snowed so little we didn’t have all the right gear. We made due with some clever fixes. Hallie said snow is one of her favorite things to eat and she wishes we could live where it snows everyday but….she hates wearing coats because they are annoying and get in the way. lol

Hallie is just like Ben when it comes to the cold. She can handle it. Kyle is like me…he wusses out after only a little bit. hahah

My Grandpa “Pop” was a wonderful man. He was hard working and tough yet he loved to kiss us and call us ‘dreamboats’ whenever we came to visit. This last summer while in Utah he went camping with us and I was able to take this picture. With me living so far from home it doesn’t really feel like he is gone. It just feels like I haven’t seen him in a while. I am grateful that I will see him again. I know he is in heaven watching down on us. (And going cross-eyed with jealousy when anyone drinks a coke.)  One of my favorite memories of Pop was when he and I drove to Idaho together one fall to take me to school. We were able to talk the entire 4 hours. I will always cherish those hours I had him all to myself. 🙂