Random ramblings...

Many, where does the time go.  I can't believe it's been over 3 months since I've put up a blog post.  Let's just say the summer went by way too quickly.  I had a huge list of activities that I wanted to do with the kids over the summer.  We managed to cross nearly everything off the list so that was fun.  We took some great camping trips over the summer, including visiting a couple of new campgrounds.  The kids really enjoyed our Waterloo camping trip because we stayed at a KOA for the first time.  We also tried a new campground for our week-long trip to the Des Moines area and loved it- right on the Saylorville Lake and it had a great running/biking path that stretched for miles in each direction.

Bumper Cars were a favorite at Adventureland

Haden imitates a gecko - at Blank Park Zoo

Haden pulling James in the bike carrier

As sad as it was to see summer come to an end, it's been really nice to get back into a routine again.  Haden started 1st grade this year and James is in Jr Preschool 2 afternoons/week.  Haden continues to love school, but in typical male fashion I get hardly any info from him about day-to-day activities at school.  He even had his first spelling test this week.  Is it strange that I was really excited about this??  They were all color words and the only one he missed was "orange."  Fall sports are beginning to start up.  Haden will be doing all new activities this year.  He's currently doing a two week trial of taekwondo and is enjoying it so far.  He also begins ice hockey and flag football soon.  I'm never really sure how much is too much at his age so hopefully he doesn't get burned out.

Well, after running my half marathon in the spring and another nearly 1/2 with some friends in June, I decided this would be a good year to cross "run a marathon" off my bucket list.  I was already half way there in regards to the training, so why not??.  So, I've been training all summer to run the QC Marathon on Sept 22nd.  I've had my moments where I've wondered why in the world this ever sounded like a good idea.  And then I've had other times when I've finished a long run and thought that this is totally possible.  This past weekend I completed my longest training run (20 miles) and didn't feel too bad during or afterwards.  I'm kind of ready to get past the marathon and be done with training because I've basically been in training mode all year long.  It'll be nice to just do whatever workout I want on any given day and not feel the pressure to run a certain distance.  On the other hand, I'll miss being able to eat whatever I want.  Running many miles has allowed me to indulge my sweet tooth without the scale showing it!






Kye and I celebrated our 8th anniversary a few days ago. (It's strange in some ways to say only 8 years because we've been together for nearly 14 and just took us so long to get married) We kept it low key and just celebrated with a DQ ice cream cake!  It's hard to explain our wedding to the kids.  They don't seem to understand that mom and dad had a life before they came along.  The see a picture of the wedding and ask why they aren't in the picture.  So, 8 years ago Kye gave me a motorcycle as a wedding gift.  It was unique because it's an automatic, so no gear shifting.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to ride it very much and then I had Haden a year later.  I mention the motorcycle only because we finally sold it today.  Maybe someday when the kids are grown I'll get back into riding motorcycles or maybe I'll just be content to be the passenger on Kye's bike.