Spoiled

The girls and I have been mightily spoiled this week. Daniel, since his superiors are not giving him any work to do, took this entire week off! So he's been home, hanging out with us, without going in to work or working from home at all, for an entire week. And it's been the most wonderful week of my life!! I was commenting to Daniel at the start of this week that I'm so lucky that I like my husband and enjoy spending time with him. Many wives, when they learn that their husband is taking a whole week off of work, complain about it and say how the husband is just going to interrupt their routine and that it'll be miserable. I feel so fortunate that I am not one of those. Having him home this whole week has been like a dream! And we've done some fun things!

Unfortunately, I got sick a little over a week ago with a mild cold, which I then gave to my whole family. Daniel has been feeling mildly sick for weeks, it seems, and right when he was starting to feel better, he caught whatever I had and is feeling sick again this week. I was lucky in that my cold didn't last long. It seemed to peak on Monday or Tuesday, and by Wednesday, I was feeling pretty much as good as new. Poor Camille has gotten the worst of it, I think. She's been stuffy and her nose has been runny all week. None of us seem to have a bad cough, which has been good. Just nose stuff, and sore throat.

Anyway, despite that, we've done a little shopping, we've arranged for Christmas presents for the girls, we've watched some tv, we've played some games.... We took the girls to the library one day. Daniel and I even started a puzzle this week that we're close to finishing.

On Tuesday, we dropped the girls off at the Mapps house and Daniel took me out on a lunch date. We picked up pizza at Pizza Rev, and then went to a local park to make a little picnic of it. It was so fun! It was a nice, cool Fall day; the leaves were turning and falling, but it was bright and sunny and blue-skied outside. A perfect date!

    
We had sort of been expecting Aunt Liz and Uncle Bob to invite us for Thanksgiving ... because that's what we've done every other year. But ... Tuesday before Thanksgiving rolled around without hearing from them, and we figured they weren't going to invite. Which was fine! We weren't hurt or upset at all! But, we did need to figure out what we were doing. The Hills in our ward invited us to spend Thanksgiving with their family, and so Wednesday morning we finally got back to them and accepted their invitation. What's funny is that a few hours or so after that, Aunt Liz texted and asked if we would be able to come! And we laughed!

We could have done both dinners. The Hills were scheduled to eat around 12:30pm, and Aunt Liz said their dinner was at 4 pm. But ... Camille was really sick and obviously not feeling well. And by the time we got around to eating at the Hill's, it was after 2pm. We had a nice time with the Hills, though we felt a little bit out of place. The family is huge and crazy, which is totally fun. But we don't know every one of them. The dinner was delicious, and we were very grateful for their kindness and generosity.

We finished eating by around 3:30, so we texted Aunt Liz and told her we wouldn't be coming. Camille was clearly not feeling well and she was tired. We hung out at home for a little bit, the girls played while Daniel and I snoozed a little bit, we fed the girls a little bit, and then they went to bed a little bit early. It was a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving day!

Yesterday was our day to decorate for Christmas! Before Camille and Brooke went down for naps, we got down the Christmas boxes and put everything up. Then after naps, we went to Wal-mart to buy a Christmas Tree and a few other things. We came home, rearranged a few things, and put our tree up. Daniel and I were both pleasantly surprised by how pretty it is. It was all wrapped up at Wal-mart, so we couldn't really see how it looked and it was a shot in the dark as to how it would turn out. But it's beautiful! There aren't any bald spots in the branches and it's all very uniform looking. We have never had a real tree, in all the time we have been married. The first year we were married, we didn't get a tree because we didn't want to spend the money and because we would be spending a couple of weeks in Oregon and figured we wouldn't enjoy a tree for long enough anyway. But right after the season ended, Daniel got a fake Christmas tree for free that we used every year until this. It died last year. It was looking really sad, and parts of it were breaking off. It's so nice to have a real tree! It smells delicious in the house, and it's so beautiful! Our old tree served it's purpose, but it sure was ugly. :)

After the tree was up, Daniel strung the lights while I fed the girls a little dinner. When he was done, we all helped to put the ornaments on the tree. And now it's all complete! Christmas-time is officially here!

Millie's (Half) Marathon

A week after Halloween was the date for my Half Marathon. That whole week was a little different than usual, a bit of a recovery. Mom left that Sunday after Halloween, and the week was spent working on some things at home. I didn't do too much running. We were resting up for our race, although Heather and I both did a few runs, a 3-mile run and a 5-mile run. Two days before we stopped doing any kind of exercise. I did stretch really good Friday night, though.

I tried to go to bed early on Friday night, but it was a little difficult. I wasn't in the habit of going to bed as early as I needed to, and I was nervous and anxious and excited, so my mind just wouldn't rest. Daniel read a little bit of Harry Potter in Spanish to me to help me fall asleep. And that worked pretty well.

I had to wake up at 3 in the morning to start getting ready. I got dressed and made a bit of breakfast for myself, gathered the stuff I thought I would need, and then Heather came to get me and we drove out to Azusa. It took about an hour to get there and another half hour at least to park and get on the bus. The bus was to take us up to the starting point of our race, 13 miles up the canyon. But our bus driver did not apparently know where he was supposed to go, because we drove around, a bit aimlessly, and he turned around a few times before we got on the right rode. We rode around like that for at least 20 minutes before we started up the canyon, and I was dying because I had to go to the bathroom so bad. The whole ride was a little nerve-racking, on top of which I was anxious about the race already.

We finally got up to the starting line around 5:30am or so. And it was crazy up there! And FREEZING! There were at least 50 little port-o-potties up there, and Heather and I estimated at least 200 people milling around. We picked a spot against a rock wall to hang out, and just watch what was going on. Everyone was wrapped up in sweaters and emergency blankets that the race company provided. People were sitting and laying down; there was loud music playing; some were walking and jogging around, eating, talking to people, getting ready. Heather and I just sat and watched and talked a bit.

When it was almost time to start, we took some pictures and followed the herds of people heading out to the Starting Line. We threw our Drop Bags onto the truck and swung around with everyone else to start. The gun went off, and we were still trying to get to our place; we didn't officially start the race until about 4 minutes after it started, but ... we weren't in any rush. There was a chip in our bib that tracked our time from when we crossed the starting line to when we crossed the finish line; so it didn't matter too much that we didn't get out right away.

The first mile was weird, because we were so cold, and our bodies had to warm up to running. Plus, everyone was so bunched up at the beginning, for at least the first few miles, that it was a little hard to navigate through the crowds. After that first mile, we started shedding our layers. I was surprised how quickly I warmed up and started feeling warm. So after about 2 or 3 miles, we started feeling really good. We were going along at a fairly good clip, and we both felt strong and energetic.

Heather and I stuck together for most of the race. There were a few slow and steady, but long, hills where we got separated for a short time. And we did take one bathroom break around mile 7. But other than that one stop, and the few real short ones to get some water, we ran the whole time. That was my main goal: to run the whole thing without walking. I was surprised with how many people would stop and walk for a while, especially up the hills, and then start running again. I felt really good that I was running the whole time, and very consistently, too.

We did the first 10 miles without really any difficulty. We felt good! We were doing it! It was wonderful and so fun! It was around mile 11 that we started to feel it. Heather's knee started giving her grief and I was just all around tired. I noticed that my lungs and heart were doing just great; but ... the rest of my body was getting tired. The road that we were running on was slanted to one direction or the other, and my ankles were really sore and tired. On top of that, my hip flexors were getting really tired, and my quads. That's about the point that we separated. I tried to keep constant, and even pick it up a little, though I was tired. I knew if I slowed down, it would be difficult to keep it going. But Heather fell behind a little bit.

The last mile was -- Killer! Right at mile 12, we turned a corner, and as I turned it, I saw the last mile ... climbing a little hill. What?! A hill, right at the end?! It was so sad. But. I picked up and finished, passing people on the way (which felt SO good) and it was so exciting. There were a whole bunch of people at the finish line yelling and cheering, and I saw Daniel and the girls there cheering for me. I finished in 2 hours, 18 minutes and 14.10 seconds, at about a 10:33 min/mile pace. I crossed, they gave me a metal, and then I navigated the crowds getting food and water. They had a ton of stuff: granola bars, water bottles, energy drinks, bananas and fruit, pie ... It was intense! So loud and crazy. I grabbed what I could, but I was more anxious to see my family and then find Heather.

It was such a good feeling! Heather and I were so proud and happy! It felt good to finish. And we were so tired and sore for days afterwards.



*Freezing up at the top! It was pretty cold.*

*At the Starting Line with about a million people. It was very exciting!*



*Beautiful race*

*Crossing the finish line! So cool!*

 

Daniel let me take a long shower and a long nap when we got home, which I sorely needed. It felt so good to sleep!

Stats:

Bib #	4474
Event	Half Marathon
Chip Time	2:18:14.10
Gun Time	2:22:27.59
Start Time of Day	7:04:33AM
Finish Time of Day	9:22:47AM
Pace (min/mile)	10:33
Overall Rank	686
Gender Rank (Female)	367
Age Division Rank (F25-29)	32

Halloween!!

We had a wonderful Halloween. Mom was still visiting with us, and we had a nice little family dinner. She stayed home to man candy duty while we took the girls out around the neighborhood. We had a good time. Brooke was so excited about it, and Camille seemed not to know what to think about it. She was clinging to me the whole time (but she may also have been a little cold). They sure looked cute. 

I do wish our neighborhood was better about Halloween. Most people don't participate, which is just lame because our little complex here has so much potential. With so many houses so close together, they could make it really fun. But the houses that have candy are so few and far between, it's kind of sad. The girls had fun anyway. I took Camille back before Brooke and Daniel were done. She was tired, poor baby, and it was certainly way past her bedtime.

Halloween was fun!