Charlottesville Half Marathon

New Year's Eve, Dan and I were sitting around watching the terrible TV options available on such a night (I think it was Ryan Seacrest's New Year's Eve or something) (we don't have cable), and I guess we got talking about things we'd like to do in 2014. We thought it would be fun to try another half. Charlottesville was perfect because it gave us enough time to train and my parents could hopefully watch the kids. After we called and made sure they were good with that, we signed up. (The price went up the next day.)

We trained all winter, which was pretty tough considering how cold and snowy this winter was. Dan ran outside all the time, but I mostly ran on the treadmill at the gym a lot until the past few months or so when the weather got much nicer.

Anyway, race day finally came and last Saturday we laced up our sneakers to run. Dan decided to run with me the whole way, which was really helpful. I had two goals: The first was to beat my time from last year (2:26) and the second was more specific - get under 2:15. (That would be approx 10:17/mile. I'm not very fast.)

Before the race.

Like I mentioned, having Dan run with me was really great. He kept me going. It was a pretty hilly course and there was a big hill at mile 11 where I walked for the last little bit, but other than that, we ran (shuffled, really) the whole way. For Dan it was a breeze, but it was tough for me. We finished with a time of 2:15:37. SO close. Guess I'll have to run one more someday.

 Big thank you to Mom and Dad who watched our kids and came to cheer us on.

Visitors Part 2

Dan's parents came the same week that Candice did. They flew in on Wednesday afternoon. We ate and visited.

Thursday Dan had to work. I took his parents to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which is actually a really great art museum. Plus, it's free! Dan's mom loves to paint, so she loved this place. Afton did alright for a while but then wanted to go sit on the orange swivel chairs in the lobby area. So we waited for them down there.

 On the same lot as the art museum is a Confederate Memorial Chapel. The whole block (and then some) was used as a big compound to provide housing and other amenities to destitute Confederate soldiers after the Civil War.

Some protesters were standing outside the chapel holding up confederate flags. (The city made them remove the confederate flag that hung at the chapel, so people come and stand there holding their own confederate flags.)

Friday I spent the day with Candice. Dan took his parents to the Confederate White House and Museum. 

Saturday we went to Busch Gardens. It was a rainy day, so we had the park to ourselves. There were so few people that we got to park in preferred parking and walk right up on pretty much every ride. We wore ponchos and the slight inconvenience of drizzle was worth it! We had a lot of fun. Dan talked his parents onto going on some roller coasters, which was the highlight of the day, I think.

Good times had by all.

Sunday was church and chillaxin'. We also played three games of Blokus, which Dan won handily. We kept playing hoping that someone else would win. Never happened. Monday Dan took his parents to another Civil War site and then on a scenic walk on Belle Island. I think he took pictures with his phone, so if he did, I'll add them soon. After Sam got out of school, we drove the Dursts to the airport. It was fun to have them visit!

Visitors part 1

As I mentioned before, we had a few visitors come last week.

Candice, Craig, Charlotte, and Millie all drove down from Chicago to spend Craig's spring break w/ my parents. We headed over Sunday after church and spent the day with them. See Dan and Craig bonding there?

 We jumped through hoops,

 assembled puzzles,

 shared our talents,

 embraced,

 dressed up,

 ate chocolate chip cookies with nutella in them,

 had a fabulous dinner, and went on a chilly stroll to rock rainbow bridge and beyond.

 Afton looks like she's licking Dad's head.

 Monday they decided to drive over and see us, since Sam had school.

Soccer in the backyard.

 Friday I went back over to my parents' house with Afton. Mom put on a fun Easter egg hunt for the girls and they painted some suncatcher things.

 I don't know how that tiara can be comfortable. I always try to show her the right way, but she insists on wearing it like this.

 Feature-less Charlotte.

A fun visit had by all!

Randoms before the visitors came

I've got a lot to catch up on. First I'll post the pics of things we did before the visitors came into town (Candice, Craig and kids, and then the Dursts).

Sam's school had a spring picture day. They had one in the fall, too. Spring is when they take the class picture, as well as another individual picture, which we thought was overkill. Since we figured Sam would be standing on the back row, we let him wear whatever he wanted. He went his usual route of elastic wasted pants and a random sweater on top. I love that kid. Since we weren't buying the individual pics, I took my own. His stance reminds me of a wrestler.

 Of course Afton wanted her picture taken, too. She dresses herself.

 I made a delicious pesto pizza. (Well, our half was pesto. The kids' was pepperoni.) The recipe is here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pesto-pizza-2/detail.aspx

 Sam drew this picture at church.

 Afton did her own eye shadow.

 And demolished her shoes by dragging them on the road while riding her motorcycle. Her toe is peeking out there.

 On that same outing, Sam ran into a neighbor's vinyl fence and it fell apart. Ten of the slats just broke off like twigs and the bottom horizontal piece came off, too. Dan went over there the next day with Sam to fix it.

Thanks to Mom hooking me up with crafts, I made this.

 And one of my big goals before the visitors came was to finish these beastly curtains. They're beastly b/c they're almost 10 feet tall, and I lined them with blackout fabric, which is heavy. I know this picture is terrible. It's hard to take a good picture because it's always so bright outside. I'll try tonight maybe.

Tried tonight. Here's a better picture.

Afton continues her dress-up love.

The end.