Saturday, March 30, 2013

Lately...

Here's some of what we have been doing lately....

playing with birthday presents

painting  (I'll show you the finished product soon)

hiding

snuggling

doing homework

working out (we joined Crossfit)

playing with friends

playing baseball

telling jokes

and being sick :(

Friday, March 29, 2013

Addy's School Work

Addy has brought home a lot of cute work from school lately so I thought I would share some of it with you...

This is a Valentine's picture of Splat the Cat that she drew.

This is a picture of a bat, a nocturnal animal.

George Washington & Abraham Lincoln

This is from when they learned all about Texas and cowboys.

And so is this. It went with a picture of a tall cowgirl.

This is an Easter egg & when you open it, it makes a bunny with long ears.

And here is a cute little Easter bunny.

I thought this was so cute that I had to take a picture of it. Addy stayed home from school sick last week & she made her own school work! See if you can figure out what the pictures are.

And this is some of her homework that she did. She had to read a book & answer some questions about it. Doesn't she have great handwriting!

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Party Time

Alex is at that age where he is specific about what he wants. So this year he wanted to have a party at our house & to invite all his friends. But since we had already signed up to run the Gusher the weekend before his birthday & Nick's mom was going to have to work the weekend after his birthday, I decided that he would just have to have 2 parties... a family party in Lumberton & a friend party at our house.

So on March 9th (just 4 hours after running the Gusher half marathon) we celebrated Alex's birthday with our families with a Transformers party! (And yes, we were crazy to have those on the same day!)

And since it was such a long day, I made sure that it was a very low key, low stress party!

We sang 'Happy Birthday' to Alex 

and then everyone ate some cookie cake. 
(GACC won't draw licensed characters on their cookie cakes, so I looked online & found a way to make a  Transformer logo out of melted chocolate. I think it turned out pretty great, minus the cracks where Nick broke it!)

I think Chloe might have even had a little cake!

Alex opened his presents & loved everything that he got.

Especially his new Transformers bike!

The adults chatted, the kids played and everyone had a great time!

On Wednesday, March 13th, we had Alex's second birthday party at our house. We invited all his friends from his playgroup.

They played inside

outside, 

and jumped on the trampoline (that he got for his birthday.)

We sang 'Happy Birthday' to Alex 

and then the kids decorated & ate some cupcakes.

It was another successful birthday party!

Friday, March 22, 2013

We Ran a Half!

Nick & I ran in the Gusher on Saturday, March 9th. It was our very first half marathon!  (Btw, that's 13.1 miles for those of you who don't know!)

Here are a few pictures from the run...





And here we are after the run with our medals! (After all that hard work, I was pretty proud of that bad boy & was showing it off! Obviously Nick was not as proud because he has his in his pocket for some reason.)

I finished a little before Nick with a chip time of 1:56:46 which was a 8:54 pace. That's slower than my usual pace but I ran a much longer distance than usual. (And was running against a very strong wind!) And I met my goal which was to be under a 9 minute mile. I finished 8th in my division (out of 63), 24th female (out of 255) & 95th overall (out of 475.)

Nick did awesome & finished with 2:15:35 chip time & a 10:21 pace. He came in 26th in his division (out of 40), 145th male (out of 220) & 228th overall (out of 475.)

Nick and I had both said that this was probably going be our only half marathon, but after the extreme pain all over my body, even in muscles that I didn't know existed soreness wore off, we've agreed that we would be up for another one!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

San Antonio

Nick and I were planning on taking a cruise at the end of February. It was going to be our first cruise. But as I'm sure you all know, the Carnival Triumph had a few issues (such as getting stranded in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico & having to be towed back to shore) & so our cruise was cancelled. We still wanted a vacation but since I had to plan it last minute, flights were going to be so expensive. So we ended making a 3 hour drive to San Antonio.

Living in Texas my whole life (& Nick almost all of his life), we've both been to San Antonio more times than we can count. So we decided that for this vacation we wanted to do some fun activities that we had never done before.

Thursday night we checked into our hotel & then walked over to the Riverwalk. We walked around a bit, ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant (where I was attacked by a duck) and then walked over to the River Center mall where we did some shopping. And on the way to the mall, we stopped outside the Alamo & snapped a few pictures. (Because you can't go to San Antonio without seeing the Alamo, right!)

On Friday, we drove to Fredericksburg & hiked Enchanted Rock. I was a little skeptical when we got there. I mean how much fun could it be to walk to the top of a hill, right? Well, it was lots of fun. 

We took the trail that goes straight to the top. It was a pretty tough climb!  

But worth the stunning view!

Then we went ventured off the trail on our way down & climbed all over the place. We climbed over boulders & bushes & saw lots of cool cacti (or is it cactuses.) We had a blast!

We had to drive back through Fredericksburg to go back to San Antonio, so we stopped for a late lunch & walked around & shopped a little. And we stopped in the Vereins Kirche Museum. It has a replica of what the town looked like in the 1800s. And the docent inside was super cool. He had been a German interpreter during WWII and well he was pretty impressed that I could count to 10 in German. (Don't believe me, well I can...eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf, sechs, sieben acht, neun, zehn.) And when I told him that my mother's maiden name was Roeder, he told me that in German, that means "wheel man."

And while we were in Fredericksburg, I bought some chocolate covered bacon. I tried it that night back at the hotel. It was ummm... Not that great!

On Saturday, we went to the Natural Bridge Caverns. Again, I didn't know what to think, but I have to say that I was pretty impressed. It was a really cool experience.

And I got some awesome pictures.


And see this hole. This is one of the mine shafts that they originally drilled to find the cavern. And they have tours where you actually repel down the mine shaft into cavern & then you get to go in the restricted parts & look around. Sounds super cool! Nick & I definitely want to try that sometime.

When we were done at the caverns, we drove north to Gruene & ate lunch at the Gristmill (which Nick had never been to!) And then it was on the the Outlet Malls in San Marcos where we spent too much time & too much money!

It was late when we got back to the hotel & we were starving. So we walked over to Mi Tierra in Market Square for dinner. 

The food was yummy & the decor was groovy!

We tried to go on the zip line & Canopy Challenge obstacle course on Saturday while we were at the Natural Bridge Caverns, but someone (who was not Nick) was wearing flip flops and you had to have closed toe shoes for that. So on Sunday, we went back to the caverns before we headed home.

They don't allow you to have anything in your pockets when you're on the course, so we don't have any pictures of us zip lining. I'm going to be honest with you, I was a little scared to do the zip line. I was first & as I walked up to the platform, my brain was like, "There's no way I'm letting you jump off this thing!" But then the girl told me to sit down & the harness held me & I felt much better. I sat & she pushed me & then it was just like a ride. I don't think I would have been able to go through with it if I would have had to jump though.(Guess I won't be trying skydiving anytime soon!) 

Nick didn't really care for the obstacle course, so he got off of it early & was able to get a few pictures of me on it. I thought it was ok. A fun experience, but not worth doing it again. 

We had a great weekend in San Antonio. It was no cruise, but Nick & I always have fun together no matter what we do! (And that's why we're still happily married after 11 1/2 years! I sure do love that man!)