And nice spring day.

I have a great job where I am lucky enough to have a whole day off in the middle of the week. This gives me time to run errands, do things I need to do, make appointments and blah blah blah. I find this day busier than all the other days combined. Still, I am doing what I choose to do so that in itself says something.
Let me tell you what I did today. Unfortunately, I had to set the alarm and wake up promptly at 630 a.m.. I had to bring my old car to the shop because I accidentally tore off the right rear view mirror. How was I supposed to know garages are so small? Anyway, I dropped off my car and then my sister pick me up and I spent the morning with my mom and my sisters 2 great kids. Ruby was busy crawling around in cruising around everything and Malcolm was busy doing his yoga. 1 of the great things about moving to minnesota ( in the sad thing about leaving kansas city) is the day today things that I get to see/miss.
Aaron dropped off Henry at school and picked me up and I came home briefly and then Frances and I went to storytime. She loves this so much it's fun to see how much she participates in enjoys everything about it. After story time I picked up Henry and ran a quick errand and then brought Henry to gymnastics and then piano lessons.
After that, I'm excited to say, that I finally ran outside for the first time this season. Aaron did it this morning and I was quite jealous. It was still very cold and there's lotsa snow but after about a mile your body gets used to it and you can just enjoy being outside. After running miles and miles on the treadmill, it is so invigorating to go outside.
Once I get home Aaron was hungry so we went out to eat. And now tonight I will go to Community Band, which is something I've recently added to my life. Well, sort of. I was actually in this band about 10 years ago before I started med school and loved it tremendously. I had to stop playing trombone once things got more busy, but now I think I have the time. My lip is definitely shot and I will be working hard to get it to an acceptable level. Both my kids like it when I play trombone at home so that is good good motivation. Once I get home from band and I will probably watch comedy bang bang or something else and then go to bed.  Well, that's all. I'm not sure why I told you all this, maybe it's interesting, maybe it's not but you can decide for yourself.

On my phone

Ok ok . It's been about a year since I've posted and things have gotten a little busier. I find myself doing other things besides a computer at night and my internet is blocked for bloggers at work. So what's a girl to do?
I'll tell you what dot dot dot find a phone app for blogging. Right now my phone has the great function of turning voice to text and I'm trying it out. Maybe this keep the family updated a little bit more on things.
Well gosh what am I supposed to say that sums up a whole year? I could say so much but my mind finds so little.
Maybe I'll just start with something simple. Lets Start with Frances and my now. 2 year old girl . She is now have a crazy crazy age where she wants to do everything herself. I want something done I try to trick her to think it was her idea in the first place. For instance sometimes she doesn't want to go to bed and stands in the crib and jumps around. I ask her when she is ready to lay down and then leave the room. As soon as I start to leave she says "ready" and lays down. Then I can tuch her in and say goodnight. Also getting in the car is a nightmare. What you to take 3 minutes now drags out for almost 10 minutes. She has to decide which shoes to put on which coat to put on and if she's going to be putting on a coat and if she is able to be put in the car seat or if she has to climb up a and if she buckles herself or lets us do it. It's a pain in the b*** and I often turn to bribery such as a piece of candy or a toy or doll or even a dumb song. Henry was such a compliant kid, this throws me for a little loop.
Still we're doing ok. We are taking extra time, we give her choices if is one if available and let her cry if she needs to. And besides that she is great; she can be the sweetest thing on the planet in those moments make it worth it.
That's a pretty good start and I'll try to continue it as I can.

videos

Hi Mom! I occasionally post short iPhone video clips here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUSntdpI9G4mV-j_ty7BaAyg

A Good Guess

The stupid time change is still messing with the kids' sleep, but it spurred a pretty good quote from Henry last night. He was totally exhausted as I (Dad) was reading him his bedtime stories. I saw him squinting and trying to keep his eyes open before he said:

"I have to close my eyes while you're reading. Do you know why?"

Me: "Is it because you're tired?"

Henry: "I don't know, but that's a good guess."

My First Half Marathon

Laura and I have both been running relatively short distances for several years now, and have done a handful of races between 2—4 miles. Laura has had a goal to do one marathon in her life for awhile, but I wasn't sure I'd ever increase my mileage much beyond 4-6. But this spring, I had the drive to run more often and for longer distances. I couldn't wait for the seemingly never-ending winter weather to go away so I could run outside comfortably. When spring finally arrived, I felt strong on my runs, and slowly started adding miles. On April 27, I went over 6 miles for the first time. A month later, I hit 7. Laura and I both started considering the Twin Cities 10 miler on October 5. We weren't ready to sign up for sure, but I formed a goal to get up to a 10 mile run in the fall whether it was at an official race or just on my own.

I got into a routine of roughly increasing a long weekend run by half a mile each week or two. Things went so well that I hit my 10 mile goal much earlier than I expected (August 10), and I started considering signing up for a half marathon. The Kansas City half on October 19 looked like a great excuse to make a trip home. I was on the fence about it for quite awhile, but finally pulled the trigger and signed up in mid September.

my weekend training
(and race-day) runs

And now the race is over, and I'm still glad I signed up for it! It went great. I very consciously started slow, not letting race day adrenaline or the natural tendency to stay with the pack speed me up. After a couple of miles, I tried to speed up to my goal pace of 10:00/mile. I thought I did, and settled into that pace for a long time. It turned out I was running a little slower than that, but I only checked my pace on my Nike+ running app a couple of times, and both times I checked it said I was actually going a little faster than that, so I thought I was good. I was unfortunately closer to 10:30 between mile 3 and 10.

I got a mid-race boost by stopping to hug and say hi to my cheering family around mile 7, and Laura and Frances also cheered me on at mile 10. I sped up for realsies at mile 10, and my last three miles went 9:26, 9:12, and 9:07. A strong finish, but my overall time was slower than I expected. My official time was 2:17:29, with a 10:30 pace. According to Nike+, I did 13.5 miles at a 10:14 pace. For a recreational runner like myself, the time shouldn't really matter that much, especially for my first one, but there is still a little nagging disappointment that I went a little slower than I know I could have. But just doing it is all that really matters, and I'm still a little surprised that I actually did. Even less than a year ago, a half didn't seem possible.

Laura and I are already scoping out races for spring and fall 2014, and I definitely want to choose another half to push myself harder in next year.

Just A Little Franny Boogie

First Day Of Kindergarten

Big day for Hanky. It went well from what we can tell, though he doesn't really want to talk about it in much detail. It started out a little frazzled for me because we ended up running a little late. I didn't allow enough time for Henry to brush his teeth, forgetting how much he can dilly dally in the bathroom. I still thought we were OK on time until we hit the traffic lineup to get into school. My car showing that it was completely out of gas did not help my state of mind. It took forever to get in, and we walked into his classroom a few minutes late, which was no big deal, but I felt stupid. All the frazzledness kind of prevented me from getting too emotional about it all. I was nervous about stupid little procedural things, like if I was supposed to walk him all the way to his room or not, and how picking him up would work exactly. I'd gotten a little wistful about it the night before, so maybe I got it out of my system. I was mostly just nervous for him, hoping it would go fine and that the Spanish immersion thing doesn't throw him for a loop too much at the beginning.

His school day is only 2.5 hours long, so after Franny and I went to Target and watched Sesame Street, it was pretty much already time to pick him up. He told me had a good day and that he didn't use any of his school supplies. Trying to piece together his day, I know that the first thing he did was color this:

Then his teacher, Senorita Morsch, did a lesson that involved a calendar (perhaps going through the names of the days of the week), and drew a one on the board and said, "uno." Then they lined up, washed their hands, and played on the playground. I think a playground assistant went through the rules with them, because he said there are a lot of rules on the playground. And he can't remember what he did between the playground and me coming to get him. I asked if he had fun, and he said, "I wouldn't exactly call it fun, but it was OK."

He had a bit of homework in which he had to reflect on his first day by filling in some blanks. Here are his answers, in bold:

Today was my first day of school. I felt great. I wore gray pants and a colorful, plaid button-up. My dad brought me to school. My teachers name is Srta Morsch. My friend _____ is in my class (he doesn't know anybody in his class yet). The first thing we did was color. Then we watched a screen. The part of the day I liked the best was when we played on the playground but I did not like standing up. Tomorrow I hope we will play on the playground again.