South Africa

Chris and I are getting ready to travel to one of his old stomping grounds, South Africa.  He lived there during our Junior year of High School as an exchange student.  Needless to say we are eager to make this trip and anticipate a great adventure.  We are gearing up for our trip by contacting friends who live near Cape Town, making tour reservations, buying the necessary equipment and gathering information for our parents who will be taking care of our kiddos during our excursion.  Besides viewing the Big 5 and some, we have plans for these activities too:

Paragliding, quad bike safari, cycling the coast, hiking the Otter Trail and Table Top Mountain and great white shark cage diving.


I'm sure we'll find other activities to occupy our time...a day (or 2) at the beach, a township tour and spending time with friends.  Anyone been to the Cape Town area and have any suggestions of things we shouldn't miss?

Florida...

My sis and her man came to Florida with their friends Peter and Sarah. Chris and I coerced our friends Jona and Julia to watch our kids for 4 days while we went gallivanting.

Making mom proud :)

We had fun traveling to several parks and going on the "grown up" rides! We ate too much food and stayed up late and slept in.

Me and Lizzie

Thanks Lizzie and Alan for a fun trip! We sure wish you guys lived closer, hint, hint.

Visit with Grandma and Ursula

After the marathon I had the great opportunity to visit Grandma Hari and Ursula in Portland! They were 2 of the main reasons for running this marathon. Thank you Sherilyn for a great trip. We had a fabulous day eating breakfast at Bob's Red Mill, then touring the mill itself. We shopped at the mill and then went to Crate & Barrel to browse around. We had lunch at PF Chang's where we ate only appetizers! It was happy hour and we really only wanted the lettuce wraps (delicous) but ended up with a sampling of appetizers. We went home with a piece of the Great Wall of Chocolate! After lunch we went to see Grandma's new house (which is beautiful) and did some Target shopping. Then we went home to eat cake and my favorite ice cream of all times, Tillamook's mint chocolate chip!

My visit was way too short and I am going to miss Grandma's house on the river. Thank you for letting me visit Grandma and I can't wait to see all of you again!

I'm in San Francisco!

After a long plane day, we are here! Race packets have been picked up and we are ready to run!

We went to Nike Town and bought a few items...do you like the foot giving me a boost in the next picture?! Hopefully I won't need this much help! This is the map course and me pointing to where I am looking forward to being on Sunday...the finish line!

There is a huge wall with all of the Team In Training participants names on it. I found my name, there are a lot of them on there.


Tomorrow Cynthia and I are going to have a nice drive up to Santa Rosa to visit my great Uncle Fay and his wife Linda. I am looking forward to getting out and seeing some countryside!

Marathon

Thank you to all those who have donated for the marathon I am running in the near future for Ursula. I am very grateful for your love and support. For those of you still wanting to donate, you can do so by clicking here as I have a long way to go to reach not only my fund-raising goal, but also my running goal! If you have a loved one or friend you'd like me to run in honor of, please let me know!

Mother's Day

Another fantastic mother's day with breakfast in bed, a walk with the family and yummy dinner. It was a wonderful day thanks to my hubby and children. I received some beautiful flowers and great coupons to use sometime soon!.
  
  
  

Raleigh Rocks 1/2 marathon!

I did it! Finished the 1/2 Marathon that is.
Kids waiting for me to come. Sadie took some great pictures of runners passing by. Here I am, still running!
  
The finish line! It was a fun run as there were live bands along the way playing music for us. The rain held out until this afternoon.
  
I think I'll do another one. That is if Chris lets me:) Thanks honey for all the support.

Goodbye Crisco!

and hello butter! Chris and I were able to go to some baking classes put on by the King Arthur Flour company this weekend. We really enjoyed the classes and one thing I took away from the class was how to make a pie crust. Just look at the flaky perfection of this pie.
  
We couldn't wait for it to cool all the way to eat it and hence the messiness. We definitely have a winner here. Chris was very impressed and thoroughly enjoyed it. He said it was the best by far. Sadie asked if I could make it all the time. If your ambitious and want to make this pie crust, you can do so by looking here. Anyone want to come and eat?

Here we go!

Mom has arrive from Ohio to watch Sadie and Mason for a couple of weeks - Katie and I go in early tomorrow for "the event". WooHoo