Race for Literacy Half Marathon

I decided that I wanted to try to run another half marathon before my full marathon in March.  Running has all of a sudden become so easy for me (not sure if it's the cooler weather or the paleo eating habits that I have adapted to).  The very first half marathon that I did was last April.  It was the Dismal Swamp Stomp in Chesapeake and I finished in 2hours 25 minutes and spent the afternoon throwing up.  The second half marathon I ran was this past August in Virginia Beach.  I finished in 2 hours and 21 minutes and still felt awful after I was finished running.  Third third half marathon that I ran was in Suffolk and it was called The Race for Literacy.  I am pleased and very excited to announce that I finished in 2 hours and 4 minutes!!!  I could not believe how much faster I had gotten.  The best part was that after I finished running I could talk normally and I was not really exhausted at all.  I also expected to be sore a day or two after the race, however I never got sore!  I was back at Body Pump the following Monday and back to running/training for the marathon on Tuesday.  It was a huge boost for me and makes me even more excited to tackle a full marathon!

Speaking of the Shamrock Marathon....it is only 3 months away!!  I have been training for a month now.  This past Sunday I ran my furthest distance (14 miles)  Next Sunday is 16 miles and then the following Sunday is 18 miles.  It seems almost impossible, but I am so determined!

Thank you so much for all the encouragement that many of you have given me.....it helps more than you know!

Thanksgiving

I am way behind on the blogs!!  I hate blogging with no pictures, however, I am always that person who has the camera at every event....I just never remember to take pictures!

Anyway, Jonathan and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family!  The night before Thanksgiving was spent with me cooking and getting the house cleaned for my family to come over for brunch on Thanksgiving morning.  Jonathan spent the night before Thanksgiving putting together the turkey fryer.  He was in charge of the turkey this year for his family's get together!

On Thanksgiving morning, I woke up at 5 am to do my morning run.  I had a race the following saturday, so I just did an easy 5 miles.  After I got home and showered, I began setting out and cooking all the food for the brunch.  The menu included chocolate covered strawberries, muffins, pancakes, bacon egg and cheese casserole, cinnamon rolls, and pilgrim hat cookies!  The food was delicious (special thanks to Laura for making the pancakes....I have no mastered that skill yet!!)  My parents, sister, aunt, uncle, and 3 cousins came over as well to celebrate with us.  It was a great time!!

After the brunch, I had to clean up real quick (again, thanks Laura!) and make some homemade macaroni and cheese for Jonathan's family lunch.  So, after stuffing my face that morning with breakfast, it was off to eat some more lunch!  We ate with Jonathan's family around 1:00.  Jonathan's turkey was AMAZING!!  I must admit I was a little nervous about him frying a turkey after we watched all of the you tube videos of turkey fryer fires!  He did a great job with it though, and he will be frying another turkey and a chicken for Christmas dinner!  The food at the Wetherington's was great and the fellowship was great as well!

Jonathan and I came home after a couple hours and took a short nap.  That night we went to the movies and saw Four Christmases (I highly recommend it by the way!)  Holidays are always so exhausting and they always seem to end so quick.  

We hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving........and a somewhat relaxing Black Friday! 

Savings!!

It might be too late for some of you guys, but in case you didn't know, Harris Teeter and Bloom are both having triple coupon savings this weekend. I have been clipping coupons for several months now and have really enjoyed seeing how much money we save! This past Thursday night at Harris Teeter, we saved $30 from coupons! Amazing!
We were also able to eat dinner last night at Max and Erma's for $12.00 due to a coupon and we saw a movie for $12.00 from using super saver coupons. It all adds up!! Not to mention I filled up my Rodeo this morning for $22!! I LOVE saving money! :)
Moving on....
Jonathan and I are both thrilled that there is no traveling required of us this weekend. It seems that every weekend for the past month or so, we have been driving up to DC/Charlottesville for UVA games and Redskins games. They games are awesome..it's the drive home that is always so long!! We finally have a break this weekend!
Laura and I are running in a race this upcoming weekend. I am running a 10 mile race and Laura is doing a 5K. The race is at Fort Story. I enjoy doing races with her..it's nice to have somebody else there. I have also registered for antoher half marathon the weekend after Thanksgiving. I am so excited to run another half marathon because I feel like my time is going to be a good 10 minutes faster than my last time. Since my last race, I have been eating Paleo. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with it or not, but basically you are supposed to eat only lean meats. fruits and vegetables.....no grains. I stick to it during the week...weekends I slide a little bit. I decided to get on this Paleo diet because it is supposed to incease your athletic stamina. Boy does it work!! The first week that I started on the diet, it was miserable. I was having bad headaches (probably due to the sugar withdrawl). But during week two , my speed in my runs had picked up remarkably. I have never been able to run so fast. I have also dropped 5lbs, so that helps as well. The half marathon will be a good way to see how I have improved. I also begin officially training for the full marathon in one week. I still cannot grasp the idea that I will ever be able to run 26.2 miles..it will be interesting! :)
Now, a quick house update...We were supposed to start last week, but it rained non stop. So, hopefully the weather will cooperate better this week. I will have pictures once there is some action on the lot!

Election Day!

Today is the day that many of us have been waiting for...Election Day!! Everybody has been saying the past couple days that you should get to the polls early to vote because the lines would be much worse later in the day. Well, I took the advice of these people....even after not getting back in town from the Washington Redskins game until 4:30 a.m. this morning. I slept for one hour and then woke up to go wait in line for......3.5 hours!!!! It was unbelievable.
I was scheduled to vote at Sparrow Road Intermediate. They had 4 computers running and only one check in computer working (the other one was already broken). Needless to say, the line did not move fast! I finally made it out of there around 9:45ish and made it to work around 10:00. What a morning!
Here is how I thought the morning would go in my head. I would wake up at the same time, go and maybe wait in line 30-45 minutes. Have time to go by Chick Fil A and get my free chicken biscuit for voting and then make it to work on time at 7:30. Boy was I wrong!!
At any rate, my vote has been placed.....and Jonathan and I went out tonight and took advantage of free Chick Fil A sandwiches and free Krispy Kreme Doughnuts...yum!!

Hallelujah Harvest

This past Friday night at our church was Hallelujah Harvest. This is a yearly event that our church has every year. They have horse rides, moon bounces, games, face painting, and trunk or treating! It's always so fun. I have volunteered to pass our candy at my trunk for the past 6 or 7 years. It is always so awesome to see the children dressed up in their costumes!

A lot of people decorate their trunks by theme. Jonathan and I have never really gone all out with the decorations (neither one of us are creative like that) but we had our football pumpkins out and we wore our Redskins gear. We even brough Einstein out with his Redskins bandana!

My sister in law Brittney decided to help us out at our trunk this year. She is an Eagle's fan, so to keep with the theme, she wore her Philadelphia Eagles jersey. She even brought her dog, Baxter, in an Eagles jersey as well!

The dogs were so well behaved and they were a huge hit with the kids...and their parents too!! Einstein was even caught shaking some of the children's hands :)

Some of you might be wondering why we did not bring Chubbs. Chubbs is scared of EVERYTHING!! When he gets scared, he gets defensive and mean. Therefore, we decided to leave him at home for the night. Before we left, Jonathan spent some one on one time with Chubbs and gave him a special bone to let him know we still love him! Well, when we got home, the bone was untouched.....Chubbs was mad at us!!!! We ended up putting Einstein to bed early and let Chubbs stay up with us. He was craving attention. Just like kids huh? :)

Friday night Auction

Thursday night, Jonathan and I were talking about our plans for the weekend. We were frustrated because there were no new movies in the theater that we were interested in seeing....Usually on friday nights, we do dinner and a movie.

Well, Thursday night I got an e mail from my dad that said that there is a surfer (pete smith) from virginia beach who was retiring and they were auctioning off some of his stuff that he has collected through the years. Now, you might wonder why we would be interested in going to this since neither Jonathan or I surf. Well, one of the items being auctioned off was a turtle shell from Costa Rica.

Let me back up just a bit. When Jonathan and I got married in 2007 in the Cayman Islands, we ate at a restaurant there. In this restaurant they had a HUGE turtle shell hanging up on the wall. Jonathan was fascinated by it right away (these turtle shells are beautiful!). He said that he wanted one, and was going to offer to buy the one right off the wall of the restaurant. When he talked to the waiter about the shell, he informed us that it is illegal for them to preserve the shells now. They are afraid that if people start demanding the turtle shells, then more and more people will be poaching the turtles to get them. They even have a turtle farm in the cayman islands where they just breed the turtles for food purposes....however, the shells all have to be grinded. After we heard this, we realized that it was unlikely that we would ever have an authentic turtle shell hanging on our wall.

Now, back to the auction. This guy had purchased his shell back in 1968, when it was still legal. Now he was auctioning it off....this will probably be Jonathan's only shot at ever owning one. When we got to the auction, the starting bid on the turtle shell was $1200 (silent auction). The shell was beautiful, however it had been cracked and you could see where it was replaced with some tape before it was polished up. Jonathan was a little upset at that, but figured he could probably get it fixed for a couple hundred dollars. We got to the auction at 7 and the auctions did not close until 10:30. So, after we ate dinner there we walked down to 31st street and had some coffee and desert at Starbucks. We decided to head back to the auction about 9:30. The bidding had gone up a little bit, and we had it narrowed down to the guy who was going to fighting for this turtle shell with jonathan. During the last couple minutes of the auction, Jonathan and his competition were just guarding this turtle shell. Jonathan, would write down a bit and right away the other guy would write down a higher bid. When the shell got up to $1750, Jonathan decided to stop. So needless to say, we came home without a turtle shell.....but Jonathan still had $1750 in his pocket :)

It ended up being a really fun night. I enjoyed the time that we had at starbucks to just sit and talk to each other in a quiet environment. I love my husband so much, and I always look forward to the time we get to spend together on the weekends!!

So, to end this blog...if you know of anyone trying to get rid of a turtle shell, let us know!! :)

Pumpkins-October 2008

This year for the fall festival at our church, Jonathan and I are going to have a football themed car for trunk or treating. Here are the pumpkins that I carved. We are hoping to out there in our Redskins gear....even Einstein! :) Should be a good time for all!