Cheap entertainment

Teya had her little buddy Clayton over yesterday for a playdate. While he was here I learned that the most entertaining part of my house is not a toy or a snack or the t.v., it's my couch and it's seat cushions. I'm glad they had fun : )

Maple Grove Half Marathon

After 4 solid months of training we finally got the chance to put it all to the test at our first official half marathon.

We woke up Saturday morning to be greeted by a biting 37 degree temperature with winds at 20 mph. The cold didn't really faze me but the wind was daunting. Still, we've trained in all kinds of weather, including high speed winds so we added a couple layers and headed out to the stadium.

I was so glad I grabbed Taber's puffy warm coat before at the last minute to put over my warm up jacket because even in that I felt cold!
Before the race we stretched out a little and talked about our strategy and how we hoped everything would go. I ran down a list of different finishing times and told him how I'd feel for each one. If I finished in 2:15 I'd be okay. If I finished in 2:10 I'd feel good. 2:05-Great! 2:00-YES! AWESOME! Anything under two hours would be WOWIE WOWIE WOW!!!
I was fairly confident that I could hit the my 2 hour goal, especially because we were going to run with a pace group that was shooting for 2 hours. Still, a lot can happen on the race course (injury, cramp, blister, potty break, etc...) So I knew that even with the pace group it wasn't a done deal.
At the starting line, if you look closely you can tell that people were freezing their buns off! I shed my big puffy coat but kept my warm up jacket on because it was just too cold! Here we are just before we got going.

And we're off! Okay, so we were a little bit hyper and totally carried our camera with us through the whole race. It's really tiny and fits easily into our running belts. Anyway, so yeah, we have a couple fun shots from the race and some video as well. I'm sure the people around us thought we were so goofy taking pictures but hey, it's not like we have family out here to come watch us and take pics so we had to improvise!

We ran the first two miles with our jackets and then ditched them by a fence after we were warmed up. I think this next picture is from mile 5 or so, yeah I was cruising!

The course was pretty diverse. We ran on main roads, neighborhood streets and on trails. Here's Taber heading into one of the prettier sections on the trails. Those were definitely my favorite.
Here's another favorite trail. It wraps around Rice Lake and has such a pretty view. I wish we could've stayed on it longer but with so many people running I'm sure the streets were easier to avoid congestion.

Here's one I shot of Taber by the lake around mile 7. Nice form!

And here we are back in the neighborhoods coming up on mile 11. At this point my legs were getting tired but I felt good! I knew I had more left in me and as we ran through the last water station with just over a mile to go our pace leaders said, "If you feel like you've got more in you then go for it! Push it in hard!" So Taber and I left the pace group and starting pushing it in. It felt good to pass people as we made our last effort to cross the finish line. Taber was 7 seconds ahead of me but I still finished strong with my WOWIE WOWIE WOW time of 1:59:10!!!! WOO!

Here are the official results:
Becca:
1:59:10 time/9:06 minutes per mile/28th out of 80 for my age division/76th out of 315 women/
202nd out of 569 runners total.

Taber: 1:59:03 time/ 9:06 minutes per mile/50th out of 104 for his age division/124th out of 255 Men/ 197th out of 569 runners total.
Afterwards we felt a little beat up since we normally do our long runs at a much slower pace. Still it felt great to finish my first half marathon and definitely got me pumped up for the full 26.2 next month!

Why is this so cute to me?

Brinley's gotten really good at drinking with a straw and I don't know, something about seeing her there holding her cup all by herself and sipping away just makes me smile.

While I was snapping pictures of Brinley and her straw Teya wanted to be in on the photo shoot. She said, "Here mom, now take a picture of your two cute girls!" So there they are, my two cute girls. Boy do I love them!

I've got rhythm...Who could ask for anything more?

My girls love to dance. I mean, really really LOVE it. Whenever they hear a song with a beat they're both moving. Here are some fun videos of them cutting loose. The first one kind of shows you how Brinley's bootie bouncing has evolved. Teya got a Kidz Bop CD in her last happy meal and it was a huge hit with the Brinster.

The second video is from a couple different days. The fist section was from a Saturday morning when Taber was watching the girls while I was out. I guess he decided to have a dance party with them and Teya was really going nuts. She acts like she ate a bowl of pure sugar for breakfast the way she is hopping around in the video. I like it too because you can see Brinley just kind of rocking out on the floor in the background. The second part is more Kidz Bop dancing by the girls in their jammies. I think it's cute how Teya dances with her elephant and I love Brinley's final pose, she's just too cool ; )

Kidz Bop Boogie from Taber Rigg on Vimeo.

Girls dancing from Taber Rigg on Vimeo.

A Little Piece of Heaven

This Mother's Day I got spoiled : ) After an 18 mile run on Saturday, Taber surprised me with an appointment for an hour and a half full body massage. The whole time I just kept thinking, "This is what heaven feels like." He totally scored major brownie points for this one!

Going the Distance!

For Taber's birthday I thought it would be fun to get him some running stuff since that's what he's been into lately. While I was at the running store I saw a book called "Run your First Marathon: everything you need to know to cross the finish line." Taber had talked about someday wanting to go the full distance so I got the book thinking it would be something fun for him to research.

Well I guess the book got him REALLY excited and the next thing I know he's searching for a Marathon to run. I got caught up in his enthusiasm and said, heck, I'll run with you! Why not? I figured we could find something in October and that would give us plenty of time to train. We found some nearby marathons in Oct. but they were all being held on Sundays. So we started a new search for marathons a Saturday and low and behold, the Duluth Marathon (Grandma's) is on a Saturday this year! We were pretty excited, especially because Duluth is only 4 hours away. Only problem, the marathon is next month! Could we be ready that soon? We researched some training schedules and realized that with our half marathon training we were only one long run behind!

(picture from last year's Grandma's Marathon in Duluth)

Long story short, we decided to be CRAZY and we registered for the Marathon, booked a hotel in Duluth, and started calling babysitters. Our training has definitely jumped to a new level and I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little nervous! We did 14 miles last Thursday and when we were coming towards the end I thought, "Holy cow, this is only half way and I'm BEAT!" Still, I'm optimistic that if we stick to the training schedule, take care of our bodies, and PACE OURSELVES, we'll be able to cross the finish line.

Inspired by my awesome friend Tara, who is running the Park City Marathon this year, I started a running blog to chronicle our training and post about ups and downs, obstacles, triumphs, good ideas, motivation (and lack of motivation) etc... If you ever wondered what training for a marathon is like, well here you go! http://bittenbytherunningbug.blogspot.com.
Wish us luck!

On the Mend!

Just wanted to give a quick update on Brinley. Today she went in for her third shot of rocephin. That stuff is as thick as glue but it sure seems to work well! The Doctor said her ears have improved quite a bit and to my great relief her fever is gone!

Here's a picture of her in the waiting room. It was great to see her interested in playing and exploring. She was definitely getting back to her normal self. After her shot she went down for a long nap and when she woke up she was a new baby! crawling around, laughing at Teya, and smiling her big crooked teeth smile. We're so happy to see her feeling better again. Thanks for all the supportive comments and for keeping her in your prayers. Hopefully now that the weather is getting better we won't have any more ear infections!

Sad sick little baby

On Sunday night Brinley started burning up with a very high fever. I started giving her Tylenol every 4 hours but the fever wouldn't go down. By Monday night I was getting worried. At 11 p.m. she started crying. I went to get her out of her bed and I felt like I was picking up a ball of hot lava. Her temperature was 104.7 degrees. I called the nurse hotline and they told me to take her into the ER.

At the ER her temp was down to 103.5 but they were still very concerned. After 3 hours and some heavy doses of Tylenol and Motrin her fever came down to 101 and they let us go home but told us to see the Dr. as soon as possible. Her fever was above 103 when we went to the Doctor yesterday morning. It turns out that even after being on antibiotics for 9 days her ears have gotten worse and the right one looked like it was about to rupture. They gave her a shot of their strongest antibiotic and told us to come back for two more shots.

After our visit to the Doctor I brought her home and my normally happy and active baby continued to be withdrawn, lathargic, and completely out of it. Watching her suffer was torture. I wanted to make her better but I felt totally helpless. I knew the Dr. had done everything she could be I still found myself wishing I had a degree in pediatric medicine.

I gave her a luke warm bath to try to cool her down a bit. When Taber got home we spent the evening taking turns holding her because it broke our hearts to put her down. When we finally put her to bed I set my alarm to wake up every 4 hours to give her more medicine. At 4 in the morning I went to get her and for the first time in almost 3 days her skin didn't feel like it was on fire. I checked her temp and it was down to 101.8.


This morning her fevers have stayed under 102. We're going into the Doctor's to get another shot today and I'm optimistic that things will just keep getting better. Please keep her in your prayers, I know they help!

It's a family affair!

As we've been gearing up for our half marathon Taber and I have been doing a lot of running. Most often it is without the kids since we have to do some pretty long runs and they don't last very long in the strollers. But today we had the awesome opportunity to bring them with us for a fun 5K race put on by General Mills.

The race had a great turnout and it was such a fun atmosphere! They had a clown making balloon animals for the kids, a bounce house, lots of music playing and yummy food to fuel up on. We saw several people dressed up in costumes, Teya liked the pirates and ninja's so I had to take a picture : )

The starting line was a little conjested and we ended up stuck way in the back with our strollers. It took us a while to push through all the walkers and we had to make some quick stops for crying kids, but once we got past the first mile we were able to pick up the pace and finished in just over 30 minutes.

I really loved having Teya and Brinley there and letting them see what running is all about. Although next time I think I'll get a double stroller and let Taber push them because running with a stroller is HARD! : )

After the 5K they held a little Trix Trot run for the kids. Teya's new favorite movie is The Incredibles so when Taber told her she was going to run in a race she said, "I'm going to run like Dash?" And after that she was really excited to run!

As her mother, in my unbiased opinion she was the cutest runner on the track! ; ) She really did great and at the end she got a blue ribbon with the Trix bunny on it.

And now I leave you with a little video of Teya's run. Enjoy!