It's time

for a family vacation!

(family Christmas pic)

Whew! Good thing we're going on one next week. We're meeting up with some of Andrew's family in Orlando, Florida for a week. So far we know we're going to Disney World for 2 days, Sea World for two days, and we want to go to the beach. If you have know of any must-see places let me know! We plan on making the most of our week.

"surprise date"

From time to time Andrew and I like to do what we call "surprise dates". By surprise we mean one of us plan what we're doing whether it be dinner and a movie, a double date, or flying kites (we have done all) and we don't tell the other what we're doing until we get there.

Andrew was in charge of this one and he chose archery lessons. We went to an indoor archery range in Chandler. This was a first for Andrew and he was so excited and nervous. I have done archery before, but never indoors. I prefer outdoors.

Andrew started out bad.

In fact, one arrow bounced back and another arrow

missed the target altogether.

By the end he was way better than me.

Next time maybe it'll be outdoors with

Andrew's own bow and arrows.

An Easter Declaration

If you're having a hard time getting in the mood for Easter this church video will help.

N & G engagement photos

My sister, Nora, is getting married on May 13 to this great guy, Garrett. I am so excited for her! She asked my sister and brother in law, Julie and James, to take their engagement photos and I sort of invited myself to come and take some too.

Here are some of the ones I took.

The tree has some significance to Nora.

It's a cute story.

If you know her you should ask her about it.

After the shoot I could resist snapping some shots of the official photographers, Julie and James. Julie is about 8 months along here. She is so cute with her prego belly!

I'm so happy with how the pictures turned out!

I bet you can't wait for me to post some wedding photos in a couple months!

DC Ranch half marathon

It's taken me a while but I'm finally posting pictures of my half marathon I ran on 3/5/11. I didn't forget - I've just been busy, but mostly our laptop is broken again. Boo! So I am posting from Andrew's work laptop.

So here is my cousin, Elizabeth, and me before the race.

(Sorry - a little fuzzy.)

Do we look nervous?

I look so nerdy when I run like in this picture.

This is us literally a few steps into the race.

That's probably why we look so good.

After the race Andrew showed me this picture. The race had a different computer moniter set up for each of the events where you can look someone up and it would tell you their time. My name was up for a long time. They must have punched in my running #123 as a test. Pretty cool.

So here's me at the finish.

What's that? You can't see me?

Is this better?

Andrew did the best he could with two wiggly kids

and no idea when I would finish.

I actually passed those two girls in front of me before the finish line.

This picture captures something of an emotional moment for me. You see, I ran the first 8 miles with Liz and it was fast and there were a lot of difficult hills. After that I fell back because honestly, Liz is much faster than me. Since the first half was so fast I had a very difficult time on the second half. I felt like I already spent the best of me so I had to pull all this energy out of nowhere. That's when long-distance running is a mind game. You know how they say running is 90% mental and 10% fitness. I don't know how accurate that is but there's truth in it. It was hard! The rest of the race was very hard. Fortunately I had enough energy to sprint really fast at the end - which is my favorite part of a race. It feels so good to finish a race strong. I felt great - until I stopped. Then my body went into a little shock. I was trying to catch my breath and I just wanted to cry. It wasn't an emotional thing, it was physical. I felt so alone in the world at that time even though there were people all around me. I just wanted to be with my husband and hear him tell me how proud he was of me and how great I did. As soon as I saw him I let myself cry a little. I was so physically overwhelmed. He told me I did great and just hugged me and I felt much better. I might have only run 13.1 miles but to me it was a huge physical and mental accomplishment. This will be a race I will never forget. In this picture my eyes are still a little wet from crying.

The times are posted here.

Liz finished in 1:56:49

I finished in 2:01:49

( Next time I want to run it in under 2 hours.)

Here is the most supportive husband in the world!

He wants to make it a new tradition to do this picture after all of my races. He's telling me I'm #1. We did this here too.

The funny thing is this race was kind of a big deal for me

but the rest of the day was just normal.

Life goes on.

p.s. Up to this point, this half marathon is the longest I've ever run . . . but not for forever :)

just you and me

With school, work, kids, and races Andrew and I don't have much time

to spend together - just the two of us.

But when we do, we have fun.

We play card games,

we watch movies,

we wrestle.

The other day we had fun editing

some photos of each other.

This first one is his favorite.

The next two became our profile pictures on facebook.

Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do . . . . . as long as you're together.

Del Sol Ragnar

I thought I'd better blog about the ragnar relay race last weekend

before my next race . . . in two days!

Aaaa! I'm excited to be running a half marathon for my first time but I'm also nervous. I've never ran more than 10(ish) miles and, as you know, a half marathon is 13.1 miles. At least I'll be running with my cousin, Elizabeth. She ran the ragnar with me.

Del Sol Ragnar: 197.3 miles

We had a lot of fun.

What makes a ragnar so difficult is the fact that you're

eating at weird times,

running at weird times,

and not really sleeping for two days.

I loved getting to know the girls in my van better.

They are all such inspirations to me.

In a Ragnar relay there is always one person running from each team (each team has 12 runners that each run three legs- or runs), so in the Friday picture Melissa is missing since she was running and in the Saturday picture I was missing.

My first leg was 4.5 miles. Running for Nie was in first place and I second place was right behind me during the whole 4.5 miles but I kept the lead at a 9.3 minute per mile pace.

My second leg was 6.5 miles. This was my only night run and I brought us to Anthem. This was my best run. My pace felt great at a 9.5 minute per mile pace.

My third leg was 5.6 miles. Having slept under 6 hours total over the course of the two previous days, the hilly terrain taking me into Fountain Hills was very difficult but I managed to finish with a fast sprint, which was a personal highlight of the race.

The team crossed the finish line together at Tempe Town Lake.

It felt so good to finish the race.

Almost as good as a shower felt.

Above is my cousin with her supportive husband and cute boys.

I feel so blessed to have a healthy body so I can run races.

I also feel blessed to have such an amazing, supportive husband.

(In the picture he's saying I'm #1.)

I'm such a lucky girl.