Three years ago today...

An amazing little boy joined our lives. What a ride we've had...happy 3rd birthday, Spencer.

Spencer has become a funny, sweet, and full of life kid...always with a smile (and always jumping off something!). There's nothing more fun than hanging with him and now he can carry on a full conversation, usually making me laugh! He has become extremely affectionate with his sister and on the way home from school every day he talks about playng trucks with baby Shoshana (who now sits up and laughs a lot at her big bro).

I am drinking coffee, downloading the 240 pics from our trip last week and waiting for Spencer (and the rest of the family) to wake up. Instead of running with my group this morning, I woke up yesterday (Friday) at 4:30 am, met Kathy, Becky and Shelly outside just before 5am and ran 12 miles (and then worked all day!)...just to make sure I'm here when Spence wakes up.

Spencer doesn't know this but he's about to get his first bicycle. Shoshi will give him a new pair of goggles (Spencer is obsessed with wearing goggles....and not just in the pool). As for what we'll do, it's supposed to be warm so we may get our last day at one of the water parks.

Here's our little boy three years ago...

More pictures from our NY trip to come. Have a great labor day weekend!

Georgetown to Idaho Springs 1/2 Marathon

Last Saturday morning I ran the Georgetown to Idaho Springs half marathon. It may count as the most beautiful race I've ever run...it starts at about 8,500 feet in the mountains and runs downhill to a neat little town. Jon, Spencer and Shoshana, my friend Kathy (in the white hat below) all went together in Jon's extra large vehicle (which I have come to really appreciate!). The scenery was amazing and it was so much fun to have the family at the end...Spencer jumped in and ran the last few yards with me (and nearly took out a few runners - thankfully no one got hurt!). I shaved about five minutes off my Steamboat half time which was a little less than I hoped but there's still a lot of running to do before the marathon. This race was an official training run for the group I train with so it was great to have lots of people I knew (and many I didn't but wearing the same shirts). The group's coach stood at various places with his megaphone...that was quite the inspiration!

We are an hour or so from heading to the airport for our late summer vacation with my family. We're headed to a house on a lake in PA. We also will celebrate my dad's 65th with a party next Saturday night.

Love and running...

I start several of my weekday runs at 5:45 am when I walk out my front door and meet up with Becky and Kathy (Andrea is currently on pregnancy hiatus). Yesterday morning at 5:43 I heard little footsteps walking downstairs as I was lacing up my sneakers. Spencer - holding his puppy and wearing a swimshirt and underwear on top of his pull-up (outfit courtesy of the prior night's babysitter) - looked so sweet and said "where are you going, mommy...are you going runing?". Jon and I spent the prior night (sans kids) at the botanic gardens watching Marc Cohen play in what is probably the best intimate music venue ever. Since I was missing my little guy I altered the plan, put some "running sneakers" on him, filled a sippy cup of milk and off we went on a jog. We chatted the whole way and stopped for a few minutes at the playground which so early in the morning Spency had all to himself.

Big news...

I am officially signed up for the 2010 Marine Corps Marathon (yup...all 26.2 miles). I have been training with a local running group and was running all the mileage of my girlfriends training for Marine Corps. Since it's out east near my family and friends and Jon has never been to Washington DC I decided this is the year to re-enter the marathon world. I am so excited! If you're in the neighborhood, stop by on Oct. 31 and cheer me on.

In the meantime, here are a few pics from this past weekend. We had grandma Vonnie (Jon's mom) and his aunt Ruth Ann for a really fun couple of days.

Where's Shoshi?

After looking at my last entry I realized Shoshi appears in only one picture so we took a few pictures outside before grilling some dinner. Here's our little pumpkin, her adorable brother and our very sweet puppy who is always in on the action.

Summertime!

I love summer...and it's going way too fast. This year I decided to give myself a post-two baby present and join a running group with a few of my girlfriends...which in part is why I can't seem to keep up with posting pictures on my blog. My post-coffee late Saturday morning runs (which allow me to wake up early and work on the blog) have been replaced by crack of dawn long runs (the past couple of weekends were 8 or 10-milers). Tuesday mornings I set my alarm for 4:30 am for speedwork and then three other weekday mornings of 5:45 am with either runs or a yoga session with my running buds to make sure I can limber up to...well...keep on running. I love it! I'm signed up for another couple of half marathons this summer so we'll see if I can get any faster. The best part of all this running is that most of it takes place long before anyone else in our house wakes up so I don't miss any of the action.

As for the most awesome part of my life...our two adorable kiddos...they're doing great. Shoshi is 5-1/2 months and Spencer turns three in September. Both love swimming so we're doing a lot of that on the weekends and we cleaned up our backyard (complete with new grass and flowers) so we now spend lots of time hanging there. Shoshi rolls over (roly-polies as they're affectionately referred to in our house) and Spencer has taken a new liking to Jon's lawnmower.

And to top it all off we get to see all our family lots of the time. We were in Pierre, South Dakota a few weeks ago (pictures, below). I'm off to NY for work and since Jon also booked a work trip this week I'm taking the kiddos (yup...first solo flight with me and the two munchkins) tomorrow. Jon's dad visits us a few days after we get back from NY, I head to Louisville, KY for work, Jon's mom and aunt Ruth Ann are back to visit us and then the week after we're off to NY for my family's summer trip. Whew.

With all our activities (oh yeah, and I still work what seems like a bizillion hours a week) I admittedly fell behind on going through pictures. What tends to happen then is that I don't take any more for fear of never getting caught up. So hopefully I'll get someone to send me pictures of our adorable kids in their July 4 outfits (thanks Uncle Chris and Cathy) and Spencer in the neighborhood July 4 parade.

Fishing with Jon and uncle Charlie. Spencer liked the concept of fishing but not the actual fish.

Hanging out in grandma Vonnie's beautiful garden...

Halfway along our 10 hour drive to S. Dakota we saw a swimming pool and Spencer put his goggles on (in the car) and didn't take them off for about 48 hours.