My First (and probably last) Marathon

Well.... the LONG awaited LONG run I wanted to try and defeat, came and went, and I'm not sure if I will ever try again. But it was quite the workout. I can now say that I have ran a Marathon. It was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I'm proud to say that I finished. My goal was to finish in 4 hours and 30 mins. I thought it was a reasonable time, for changing my training program from a half marathon to a whole marathon 6 weeks ago. I originally was going to just do a 1/2 but it was full... so I said I'll just do the full. HA! I came out strong... maybe even a bit too strong, doing the first 1/2 in 1 hr. 58 mins. I had another 13.1 miles to go. I was still going strong until I couldn't feel my lower body. My quads were in the most pain I have probably ever been in, and I'm not exactly sure how they were moving to be honest, and I was only at mile 18. That's when I really felt the pain... I slowed down quite a lot. I didn't stop, which a lot of people around that time did, I kept going, and around mile 23, I found some deep energy that carried me through to the finish... Finishing in 4 hours 22 mins, which was under my goal time! Todd was there to be the supportive husband, watching and cheering me do the long 26.2 miles. I'm adding some of the photos from the long haul that he took. After the race, I couldn't really move my legs. My quads were so tight that I am having a hard time walking. I heard that I'll be sore for about a week, and I totally believe it. I can only walk a little bit, and the strain that all the miles had on my legs were quite something. I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, but I will make sure to train a bit longer for it. But YEAH.... I FINISHED 26.2 MILES!!!!



This is at the start, as you can see I'm smiling... haha!



When I was booking at mile 7.



Finishing on the track with TONS of people cheering for you. It was awesome!



That's me finishing! (My actual finish time was 4:22, they didn't start your time until you crossed the starting line and I was in the back)



I got a medal!! Just for finishing... how cool! I'm gonna sport that thing for a while- JK!!!

Thanks for all your prayers and encouragment! Love you all!

Our Remodeled Bathroom

I wanted to post this for awhile now, but have been quite lazy in this area. Lots of other stuff is going on... since it's been nice out we've been working our evenings outside instead of inside in front of the TV... it's actually been kinda fun being able to enjoy the outside. But a bit tooooo hot for me. I'm good with 70 degree weather. But it's been hitting 90 a bit too early for me. But oh well.... We decided to change the old bathroom from a dookie brown... as you can see here....





But we did a lot of work to get to the end. They had these soap dishes that were built into the wall and also medicine cabinets built into the wall as well, so we tore them out. We found some old newspaper in the wall from 1959, Crazy! We're not sure why they used newspaper back there... maybe cheap insulation? No clue... But we tore it all out, and sanded it all down, patched the holes, added 4 outlets because it originally only had ONE, and painted the walls and cabinets.




So in the end... it looks something like this.... the blue looks better in person, I couldn't get a good shot of the actual color, but it's a nice lightish-aqua blue.






Lots of work... and I've decided that I really hate painting. HA!

Love you all!!!

Owl on our Balcony

This was a few weeks ago, but I wanted to post this because I thought it was VERY interesting. Todd and I were sitting in our apt one Sunday afternoon and I thought I saw a cat on our balcony. It caught me off guard, and I said... "NO WAY!!! It's an owl!" It was very odd. It was really cute and we wanted to pet it, but didn't want to scare it away. So we got the camera out and took some photos. It sat there very calmly for probably an hour and a 1/2, then it just flew away. We did try and throw some lunchmeat out there, but don't think he likes turkey. Haha!! Oh well... it was very cool!

Alright... I'm going to get the bathroom photos ready to post. We are finished!!! So they will come next!

Love you!!! Mwaaaa....

Family Photo Shoot

We had a wonderful photo shoot this past week with a couple of our friends here in Michigan. Trevor and Michelle Prisk, and the rest of the Prisk kids all wanted to do something special for their Mama for Mother's Day.... so Todd and I went out and took some photos of them. It was a beautiful day and the sky looked absolutely amazing! They were great models, and had fun as well! Here are some of the shots we took. We had also had a great time... it was good to see our friends! We hope Mama Prisk enjoys those photos :)

Lots of Love to you all!!!