Some serious props for my man!

Tomorrow Taber is running the Hartford ING marathon. Any time anyone runs 26.2 miles they deserve some serious props, but today I'm giving him props for the incredible effort he's made just to get to the starting line. I signed him up for this marathon as a Christmas present. Merry Christmas honey, you have to run 26.2 miles! But first you'll have to log hundreds of training miles, give up sleeping in on Saturdays, and dedicate what little free time you have to get ready to do it. I'm such a nice wife : ) Seriously though, I think he was a little scared when he unwrapped the training schedule I printed out for him and started to process what I had just committed him to.

I gotta hand it to him though, he took up the challenge and went for his first run on Christmas day. He built up his base all winter and ran a half marathon in the spring. Then in July he really got serious and for the last 18 weeks has dedicated himself to the intense training required for a marathon.

Because he works so much and has limited time with the kids he made a conscience effort to avoid running if the kids were awake. As a result there were many days when I watched him come home from work after a long tiring day, play with the kids, help put them to bed, then fight past his exhaustion to lace up his running shoes and put in a run. He didn't have time to just sit and unwind. no time for TV, no time for surfing the net, just work, eat, run, sleep.

Saturday mornings were dedicated to long runs. Sunday's we have church at 9am so no sleeping in for him. He had to carve out time for runs on business trips and vacations, he had to run in the rain, in the heat, in the dark hours of the early morning or late at night. It was not easy and there were days he was ready to quit. But he never did. He kept at it, averaging 150 miles a month for the last 3 months. Surviving on 5-6 hours of sleep a night. If that doesn't deserve serious props then I don't know what does! I have been completely inspired watching him. He probably doesn't know this but when I'm up against a challenge in life that seems too daunting to tackle, sometimes I'll chant to myself, "Just BLT. Be like Taber!" (true story) : )

So props to you Taber. Can't wait to watch you get out there and kill it tomorrow!!

Cape Ann Whale Watch

Thanks to Groupon and the fact that we didn't have to do major long runs last weekend,

 we were able to cross another big one off our New England bucket list;

Whale watching.

In my 30 years of life before this trip I had never seen a whale in the wild before. 

It was awesome, like, literally filled me with awe. : )

We brought the kiddos because they're cute and funny and we figured if people got bored of looking at whales they could stare at our kids and be entertained. ; ) 

As we headed out to sea I had a smile on my face and was feeling good. 

I probably should've brought some Dramamine though because after a few minutes on the boat I started to feel some sea sickness coming on. During the hour ride to where the whale's feed I definitely struggled.

Luckily the kids didn't get sick and enjoyed the sea breeze and the gorgeous weather on an unusually warm and sunny October day.

They brought one of their favorite books, The Snail and the Whale to keep them entertained on the boat and to pump them up for whale sightings.

Mostly they just liked hanging out on the deck and watching the ocean whiz by.

About an hour out to sea the captain spotted some whales. The boat slowed down and everyone clambered out to the deck to see.

Sure enough, out in the distance we saw whales! 3 humpbacks swimming towards our boat.

They got closer until they were only a few yards away.

The girls were FA-REAKING out! Every time a tail popped up they squealed and screamed. Taber actually caught a little video of it and it's the cutest thing! I posted it below so you can hear their excitement and also if you listen closely, some of Cam's non-excitment. He was a little tired and cranky at that point. The first 30 seconds is the girls freaking out and the last 25 seconds shows a few shots of the whales.

We watched the humpbacks for close to an hour and also saw a minke whale, a molo molo (which is a huge fish that looks like a shark) and some big crazy tuna's that were doing wild flips and jumps out of the water.

All that whale watching really wiped the girls out and they crashed hard on the ride back to shore.

When we got back on land and my stomach had a chance to settle again, we stopped at a really yummy restaurant called Passport for a late lunch/early dinner.

Taber ordered a lobster roll (which normally I'm not a fan of) but he let me try it and it was AMAZING. Finally a lobster roll that lives up to the hype!

And then we ended our excursion with ice cream because that always just feels like the right thing to do. : ) Definitely glad we bought the Groupon and got to see such amazing animals in the wild. I would highly recommend it to anyone but if you're a motion sickness light weight like me, don't forget the Dramamine ; )

B is for Brinley

Brinley's preschool teacher sent me these pictures from school and they were too cute not to post.

B is for Brinley. 

C is for Carrot and Cactus

Using shapes to make "Mat Man"

And Brinley's impressive drawing of Mat Man 

(or Mat girl, she later told me, since she put a bow in his hair)

And one more drawing just because I think she's got skills for a 3 year old! This is one she drew of President Monson during conference last weekend. Love that she totally gave him a tie : )

Applefest Half Marathon 2011: Post-baby comeback race!

For the last 6 months I've been slowly but surely working my way back into shape after taking a 9 month break from exercise and responsible eating while I was pregnant . : ) I signed up for the Applefest half marathon back in April to give myself some extra motivation to get out there and run. 

Last year I came with "big baby" (AKA my prego belly) to cheer on Taber, my sister and a bunch of friends that were running it. This year it was pretty awesome to be pinning on a number too.

 After watching everyone run it last year I knew the course was insanely hilly with the worst of the hills coming in the back half. Those hills really freaked me out and I was hesitant to set a time goal for myself. But then my running buddy Kendall told me that every time her sister races, no matter what, she always goes after a PR.  I was inspired by that and it made me think of that quote, "It's better to aim high and miss than aim low and hit your target." So I decided to aim high and set my sights on finishing under 2 hours, which means I would need to sustain at least a 9:10 pace for 13.1 miles.

To prepare for race day I ran the Applefest course twice in training so I could get a feel for those hills. Both times I pushed pretty hard but couldn't get it under 2 hours.  I was nervous, but hoped that with good weather and race adrenaline I could get there.

Then the day before the race Taber did something unbelievably awesome. He told me he was going to forget about his own time goal and run as my pacer to make sure I got my goal. I seriously could not believe it. I was literally jumping up and down and squealing with excitment. It was like being handed a secret weapon with superpowers. Once he told me that I was like, "Bring it on you big scary hills! I'm running with The Taber! You got nothin'!" 

Seriously though, knowing that Taber would be running with me was the best confidence booster I could've asked for.  He also volunteered to run with the fuel belt so I could stay hydrated (water stops are only every 2 miles at the Applefest.) I was so pumped to have my own personal one man entourage. Pacer, water boy, motivational coach and even camera man. With Taber by my side it was going to be a good race.

We woke up that morning to cool weather with drizzling rain. Perfect running weather. I ate some toast with peanut butter and banana then we loaded up the girls and drove over to the high school. Taber and Joseph dropped me off with Teya, Brinley and Brielle and went to park the car. We had only 30 minutes before it started and I still had to drop off my bag, find my friend who was watching the girls to do a kid pass off, meet up with a running blogger friend for some pre-race pics, stretch, and most importantly, do my port-a-potty routine.  Navigating the crowd with 3 little girls who walk slower than worms crawl was going to be a problem. Luckily I bumped into Taber's training buddy Rob and he offered to watch the girls so I could drop off my bag. 

I ran up to the gym and checked my bag, met up with my blogger buddy Lauren for a quick picture and good luck wishes on the race (I'll post more about our meet up on my running blog) and squeezed in a trip to the port-a-potty with not a minute to spare. Taber got the girls situated with the babysitter, we took a quick picture and then we lined up with Rob, Ricky and Joseph near the front.

The race director said "GO" and we took off with the crowd.  Rob, Ricky and Joseph pulled away from us pretty quickly. I could see Rob and Ricky in the distance but Joseph was long gone. I worried that we might be going too slow but Taber told me to hold back and stay with him. We finished our first mile in 8:11, well under our goal pace. Mile 2 brought us to Merrill hill which we plowed up no problem and clocked an 8:30 pace for the 2nd mile. We saw the girls at that point and they were screaming and cheering and reaching out for high fives. We slapped them some skin and the lady next to me said, "Aw! How motivating!"

We finished mile 3 in 8:32 and took advantage of a nice long downhill to pick up a fast 8:08 pace on mile 4. I felt strong, energetic and awesome during those first miles. Taber had his phone and was taking little videos while we ran. He would tell me when to speed up or slow down and do form checks every once in awhile.  He also told me I looked awesome and made it look so easy. I was like, "Man I should run all my races with this guy! I'm lovin' this!"

Here we are at mile 4 all smiles and thumbs up.

We hit a good hill at mile 5 but luckily there was a guy there playing the bagpipes for some motivation. We finished that mile in 8:38 and stretched out our legs to pick up some speed on the downhill at mile 6. Since the worse hills are in the second half our strategy was to run the first half under pace and pick up as much time as we could on the downhills so we'd have a buffer when we got to the big hills from miles 8-11.

We saw our friend Kemper cheering at mile 6 and then we saw Rob's wife Darby a half a mile later with personalized signs for us! We clocked an 8:22 pace for that mile and felt good as we got close to the halfway point. Mile 7 was mostly flat and we were well under pace so didn't push hard and kept it steady at 8:47. After mile 7 we downed our chocolate GU's and geared up for the long stretch of hills I call the gauntlet.

The gauntlet is brutal but I had run it in my training and knew what I was up against.  We jogged, we shuffled, but we never stopped to walk. It started raining pretty hard right as we were heading into the first hill but I didn't mind because it kept us cool. At mile 8 we caught up with Rob and Joseph and ran with them for awhile. Joseph hadn't been able to train since he started MBA school at the end of August and even though he flew through the first 8 miles, the hills started to take their toll and he fell behind. Rob fell back too but I knew we had to keep going because if I stopped I wouldn't be able to start again.

The rain made my feet wet and soggy and my legs felt heavy going up the hills. Taber told me to dig deep and started talking about all the people and things that motivate us to run. I blocked out everything but his voice and forced my legs to keep moving. Our splits through the hills were 8:59 for mile 8, 8:40 for mile 9, and 9:35 for mile 10.

When we got to the top of the last hill in the gauntlet Taber was celebrating but I was spent. He was ready to pick up the pace and coast in for the last 2 miles but I was starting to break down.  Mile 11 was 9:15. My legs were so tired and even though Taber said run, all I wanted to do was walk.

"Come on babe, you got this! Just stay with me and you're going to PR!" 

"This is all I got." I told him.  "It's all I can do not to walk right now." 

"15 more minutes of hard running and you're done. Think of why we run. Think about Cam. Don't stop."

That must've done it when he told me to think about Cam because I picked up my legs again and finished mile 12 in 9:02. Then we were back to Merrill hill. The cruelest part of this course is a 75 foot climb on the last mile. I wanted to cry. Taber started to pull away from me and I finally gave into my screaming legs and stopped to walk. Taber was having none of that though. "Stay with me and you're going to like what you see at the finish line, we're almost there, just stay with me!" I grabbed his arm and told him to pull me but he said, "no, you're going to do this yourself." I knew he was right, so I summoned every last ounce of will power and commanded my legs to run. I got to the top and it was all downhill from there. I ran as hard as I could. I heard Taber shouting, "Yeah! you're doing it! YEAH!"

 We rounded the corner back to the high school and saw all our friends and our girls shouting and cheering for us. Someone was holding Cam and ran him out to give me high five as I was passing. Darby took this picture right then. I could see the finish line and knew I was going to PR, I saw my girls and my sweet baby boy, my friends were there cheering for me and I had Taber by my side. It was an amazing moment.

 My official time was 1:56:15. Smashed my 2 hour goal and set a new personal record. My average pace was 8:53 min/mile and I placed 19 out 70 in my age division.  Not bad for my post-baby comeback!

Huge congrats to Kendall my running buddy for a strong finish on her first postbaby race. She had her baby a week before Cam so it was awesome training together with so much in common.

Also congrats to Joseph for finishing his first half marathon ever in an unbelievable time for a guy who literally has not run since August!

Many thanks to Darby, Melinda and Teresa for braving the rain to cheer us on and helping out with the kids during the race. 

 And many thanks to Taber for being the best pacer, water boy, coach, motivational speaker and friend I could ask for. He is my real secret weapon. So grateful to him and the kids for all their support (even though Cam and Brinley don't look super supportive in this picture ; ) I couldn't have done it without them!

And I'll end with a little video of the clips my personal camera man took while we were running. : )

Foodie Fanatics

So our friends the Draschils may possibly be the most fanatical foodies I have ever met. They've been in Boston for  2 months and they've already discovered more amazing places to eat than we have in 2 years. They actually check out foodie movies from the library and research places to eat! (true story.) They also know all the little joints that have been featured on the food network and make it a point to eat there.  If you ever need advice on cool places to eat, ask the Draschils, you can't go wrong.

Case in point, last weekend we were hanging out at the Boston children's museaum and they were like, "Oh there's this super famous bakery just around the corner with the most amazing sticky buns ever!" (apparently the sticky buns won some food war thing on some foodie channel) Anyway, we go to the children's museum all the time and I never knew that little gem of a bakery was just around the corner! Sadly they were out of their signature sticky buns, but we did load up on tons of other yummy desserts and devoured them before I could even take a picture. They were that good.

After dessert we decided we should probably have dinner, so they led us to this amazing food truck called Roxy's with gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches that are out of this world!

Everyone was taking pictures by the truck (apparently it's going to be featured on a food network series soon) So we jumped in and got some pictures too. 

The sandwiches came out piping hot and they did not disappoint. 

Best grilled cheese I've eaten In. My. Life.

It was a very cool "Boston Moment" to be on some random street on the west side of BU, eating gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches from a famous hipster foodie truck, and we owe it all to our fanatic foodie friends. Thanks guys! 

Brinley's 1st day of preschool year 2

Brinley started preschool again with Mrs. Darby and I think it's been really good for her to have her own special thing that she does without Teya and Camden. She goes once a week for 3 hours and always comes home with the most adorable projects. The other day they went apple picking and made t-shirts with apple stamps that were so cute! Next year I'll put her in something that's 3 days a week to get her ready for kindergarten but for now this is just perfect.

My sister Naomi did a cute preschool interview with her daughter on her first day I decided to copy her idea . Her are some of Brinley's current favorites as a 3 year old preschooler:

Food: Corn

Wish: To be a rainbow unicorn

Color: Blue (I don't think that's really her favorite color but when I asked her, Teya whispered "pink" so I think she said blue to be different. She's funny like that. ; )

T.V show: Wild Kratts

Treat: Chocolate (for real! This girl is JUST like me!)

Activity: Play with Teya

Frog Catchers

My girls may be girlie but that doesn't stop them from catching frogs. 

It took a lot of squealing (see clip here) but they caught Mr. slimy speckles and were pretty pleased with themselves.

 Who knew a squishy frog could make a kid so happy?

Teya wants to be an animal rescuer like Diego so even though she caught him, she wanted to be sure we were planning on letting him go.

But not before she tried to turn him into a prince. 

(Don't worry, I stopped her before her lips actually made contact with Mr. slimy. ; )

Apple Picking at Smolak Farms

Even though it's been freakishly warm lately (80 degrees yesterday and today with lots of humidity!) We did have a somewhat cool Fallish day last weekend and it put us in the mood to go apple picking.

We went with our good friends the Knutsons. It's always fun hanging out with them because we have twinner families. 2 girls and a baby boy for each us. 

Our girls love their girls and it's non-stop giggly happiness when they're together.

We went to Smolak farms in North Andover and started off with a hay ride around the giant orchard.

After the hayride the girls got right to work apple picking and Cam got to work being ridiculously adorable in his little man outfit.

Teya made good use of the Daddy ladder to get all the "beauties" that were up high.

Teya probably picked over 90% of the apples in our basket. Brinley was too busy eating them to bother with picking more. ; )

Cam really wanted an apple but he had to settle for his Gerber apple wheel.

And maybe a little hay too : )

Riggies in the apple field. 

And we'll end with the classic bale of hay and pumpkin pic.

(Just ignore the remnants of hay dangling of of Cam's lips. He still hasn't learned what does and does not qualify as food ; )

Run to the Rock Half Marathon 2011

A couple weeks ago Taber thought it would be fun to do the Run to the Rock half marathon in Plymouth, MA as a warm up for the big races we've been training for this fall. (I'm running the Applefest Half marathon on Oct 1st and Taber is running the Hartford ING Marathon on October 15th)

We decided to do it very last minute and since we really didn't have time goals or big expectations for the race we stayed up WAY late the night before playing Settlers of Catan with some friends. By the time they left and we got ready for bed it was 1am. Our babysitter was coming at 6am and our alarms were set for 5. Naturally in that 4 hour block of time that I was supposed to sleep, Cam woke up twice and needed to be nursed, Brinley woke up and needed help going potty, and Teya woke up with a bad dream. When my alarm went off at 5am I was seriously so tired I thought I was going to puke. I looked at myself in the mirror with my bloodshot zombie eyes and thought, "Girl, you must be straight up out of your mind if you think you're going to run a half marathon this morning."

And apparently I was straight up out of my mind because I then proceeded to put on my running clothes, lace up my shoes and pack my running bag to head down to Plymouth. 

Our babysitter showed up right on time. I went through meticulous detail describing Camden's routine and then handed her the page of instructions I had typed out just in case she forgot anything (I was a little freaked out since this was my first time leaving Cam for longer than 3 hours and I wasn't sure how he was going to do without his favorite milk lady.)

On our drive down I was still super tired and delirious.  We talked about our game plans. Taber wanted to beat his time from last year (he ran it in 1:49:28) and I wanted to finish it without injuring myself. I figured I would run a 10 minute pace and probably come in around 2 hours and 10 minutes since my 11 miler the week before was exactly a 10 min pace. I was nervous though because of my lack of sleep. 

The nerves continued once we got to the starting line. Basically I got in the port-a-potty line and when I was done I got right back in it. By the time it was my turn I had to go again. I rotated through the line about 3 times before the race started. Taber took a lovely video interview of me doing my nervous pre-race port-a-john ritual which can be seen here.

Finally it was time to go. We took one more little video of ourselves at the starting line, (click here.) and then we were off.

Taber ran the course last year so he prepared me for the hills and told me that the first 6 miles had the worst of them. He said the course was like a roller coaster with lots of ups and downs but virtually no flat running. Knowing what I was up against helped me take it all in stride. I pushed through each hill with steady focus and took advantage of the downhills to pick up speed. My legs felt great and the weather was nice and cool so I decided not to walk through the water stations and just kept pushing ahead. Soon the first 6 miles were behind me along with the worst of the hills.

There was another big climb at mile 10 which almost broke me but I managed to shuffle my way to the top. Then one last hill at mile 11 and I was on the homestretch with just two miles to go. My legs were tired and heavy and the sleepless night was starting to catch up to me but I forced myself to keep moving. I didn't think about anything but putting one foot in front of the other. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, until I was running towards the finish line where Taber was cheering me on.  

I crossed the finish line in 2:00:53. 10 minutes faster than I had expected and less than a minute away from my Applefest goal. I was so shocked I involuntarily started crying. I did not expect to react that way at all but I literally couldn't help it. It's just kind of amazing that our bodies can go from barely being able to run one mile 6 months ago to being able to run an entire half marathon. 

The race was empowering and it gave me the confidence that maybe I can hit my sub 2 hour goal for Applefest in a few weeks. Also Taber dominated and beat last years time by 3 minutes! He finished in 1:46:30, a new PR for him. Total rockstar.

When we got home we were happy to hear that Cam did awesome with the babysitter (even though he refused to take his bottle, he filled up on rice cereal, sweet potatoes and baby puffs : ) The girls did great too and were so excited to see our medals and hear about the race. Teya snapped this lovely picture of us rocking our race t-shirts. 

And then, being the adventure seekers we are, we decided to top off our crazy day by babysitting our friends' 5 kids, (including their 4 month old twins) so they could go on a birthday date. With our kids + theirs we had 8 kids under 8 and 3 of them were babies. If the half marathon didn't wipe us out that sure did! We hit our pillows before 10pm and welcomed our hard earned sleep. ; )