Vacation Update!

I am back now. Actually I have been back in town since Saturday morning, but my vacation didn't really end until I went back to work yesterday.

It all started after work Thursday Sept. 21. I finished work at 7:30pm, and was ON VACATION!! Woohoo. I have never actually taken a week off of work, and used my vacation hours, so I am pretty excited about this. Even though, I wasn't going to some exotic location....it was still a vacation for me. My plan was to spend a few days in Spokane, then head home (TC) and spend the rest of the week seeing all my family and friends.

Headed to TC on Friday afternoon. First having lunch with a new friend, Mark. I met him online, and we have been talking for some time now, just never met. So...we finally met at lunch. It was a good lunch. We had lunch at Red Robin, my favorite restaurant! Yumm! I like it because it is all-american, and it has lots of stuff to chose from. Enough about that. After lunch I was ready to go...car packed and everything. Even had Charlie waiting..I was literally ready to go. So, I went!

Got into town on Fri, and decided to stay with Jen. I was going to watch Grason that night so they could go play poker, or something like that. So Grason and I had a fun night at Nana and grandpa's. Went there for dinner...yum...salmon...freshly caught. :)

Saturday, headed up to Spokane to see Jeff. He had some games on Saturday, so I watched him ref football. It was ok, nothing too exciting! Had a great time with Jeff all weekend. Even got him to go running a little with me. That was a sight to see! Tried to go to Riverfront park to take some pictures, but, silly me, my camera needed to be charged. So, no pics. I was really bummed about that.

Sunday, he had to ump a couple softball (fastpitch) games, so I went along and watched. Those games, much more fun that football. Maybe because I like softball...I don't know! Any way, the second game I made friends with some of the moms on the winning team. We had a lot of fun talking, and watching the game.

Headed home Monday morning. Spent the rest of the week eating out, seeing friends, and hardly running. Monday night got to go out on the boat for a couple hours. I didn't get in the water, it was pretty cold. Joel had fun tubing, while I had Grason and played flag duty. Either way, it was a blast, and Jackie even got to join us for a little bit.

The rest of the week went by way to fast. Grason turned one year old on Wed Sept 27. So that was fun. I got some good pics of his party. I will try to post a slide show of all the pics I took while I was on vacation. (Update: see new slideshow to the right for some of the pics) I even played photographer, and got Grason 1 year pictures, and Kaitlyn 6 month pictures. Took a TON of pictures, and only about 50 or so was any good. Oh well. I am still new to the photography world. I hope to keep getting better. Even took family pictures. My family doesn't have any pictures of us all together (professional) since I was about 5 years old. We were in need of some family pictures. Got some good ones of those too!

I got to see all but just a couple people while I was in town, so I was very pleased with that. Even managed to make it to a CBC Health Careers dedication. There is a new building in Richland, and they were dedicating it. I really wanted to see all the teachers, so we decided to go. Why this is cool...well apparently, I am on the front page of the TC Herald. I was in one of the shots they took, and I thought it was funny.

Came home Saturday morning, so I could meet Suzy here (she came up to watch me run my marathon), and go to the expo (get race packet), and just relax. Well...didn't get much relaxing in, but i still had fun, nonetheless. My entire family came up too. There was Jen, Joel, Grason, Matt, Ashley, Kaitlyn, Mom, Dad, Uncle Jeff, Steve, and Suzy here cheering me on. Zoe, Jason, Isaac and Xander also came to see me finish! I am so blessed to have such great family/friends to come cheer me on! Thank you all!! You carried me through my marathon. Special thanks to Jen for running the last 7 miles with me! You are the best!

Marathon went great. I finished a LOT faster than I thought I even could. I finished 5:52:08. I was expecting a 6:30 marathon, praying I wasn't out there for 7 hours. I even beat my second marathon time, by about 14 minutes! Yeah! I felt great. The last 4 miles were really painful, but I made it through. I ran the whole way. Stopped to walk a few times, but only for about 10-15 seconds at at time. I think I walked one time for about 1 minute. It just hurt to walk, and hurt even more to start running again. But I had to run, and I knew that if I kept walking, I wouldn't start running again, so I limited my walking breaks.

The day was perfect for running. From beginning to end. It was sunny, but not too sunny. Warm, but not too warm. Just perfect I tell ya.

So, I am still considering running Seattle Marathon on Nov 26. I am definetely doing the Half marathon, but really think I can do the full thing. I am not making any final decisions until Oct 15 (when I need to register before the price goes up). So share your thoughts!!

Weight loss update: Doing great! 35 pounds total since the beginning of the year. I reached my marathon goal, and now I am ready to start the second half of my journey to make it to my New Year goal! I know that I can do this!