Life is better with family

We had a great time visiting with Bill's mom and sister.  Evan loved being able to spend time with Nana and Aunt Nene.  

They watched him Thursday and Friday while Bill and I were at work.  I heard that shopping and eating out took place and Evan has the new toys to prove it.  

I took off a couple hours early on Friday since they were leaving early Saturday morning to head back to Little Rock.  Friday afternoon we headed to the park.  

I am so glad that we are headed to Arkansas this Friday for Labor Day weekend. Spending time with family really is the best. 

It's summertime and the living is easy.

I'm not even going to begin to make excuses for my lacking of posting around here.  It is certainly not because I don't have a cute subject to talk about.

I wish I could say it was because I have been too busy, but that isn't true.  Certainly, I could find 10 minutes to jot down the things that have been happening around here lately.  The truth is that I started to organize photos and make photo books and realized that I regret not blogging all summer because it is so hard to go back and remember all the little things that have happened.  So, I won't make any excuses, I will just say, it's good to be back. 

Oh, and before I get too far into this, you are probably wondering if I will keep this blog and Chasing-life.net.  The answer is yes.  While there will be overlap, the purpose of this blog is more of a public journal for me to record the memories of life with children because, lets face it everyone knows that kids zap your memory.  It is also for the few relatives that look forward to seeing pictures and hearing about what Evan and I ate for lunch (Hi mom!).   Chasing Life is where Ashley and I love to talk about all things health related and I spill the joys and pains of the runner's life. So, you should just read them both.  

OK, back to journaling blogging.  Which, by the way, is why I love to read blogs.  Its almost like you find someone's diary and are allowed to read it.  I am so nosy.  

This week, Bill's sister and mom are in town to watch Evan today and tomorrow.  We are so happy they are here and he is able to spend lots of quality time with them.  I'll be sure to take pictures to share with you. 

Lately, Evan has started becoming more of a toddler/kid and less of a baby.  Example 1: he tries to make his own breakfast.  Example 2: he talks in sentences and says things like "hippouptomous", "elphant", "monmower" etc.  The other day I was watching a show on Netflix when Evan started requesting Barney.  After several back and forths of me telling him no, he finally said: "Mote, I take it" while reaching for the remote.  I know you are not suppose to laugh at them, but good grief, how could I not.  Needless to say, we watched barney.  

He also has developed quite the attachment to his Blank-A-Lets.  Generally he likes to carry around three of them when he is tired or riding in the car.  

Has an adorable "say cheese" face.  

Hates taking medicine: 

The pharmacist told me to give him a Popsicle, then the medicine, then chocolate.  This picture was taken at 7:00 a.m.  For breakfast, Evan had a Popsicle, chocolate pudding, and no medicine.  FAIL!

Had his first haircut:

Can easily be bribed with ice cream: 

This picture was taken after he stayed with my mom for 9 days and was mad at me for leaving him.  Ice cream makes everything better. 

And prefers to be naked: 

So there you have it. Evan's intro back into the blog world.  See you soon! 

P.S. there are probably lots of typos in this post as I am trying to type fast before getting my hair cut, some thing else I have neglected all summer.  Please just ignore them. :) 

Spring

What beautiful weather we are having.  I love Spring.  Especially, the beginning of Spring.  It symbolizes a time of new beginning and a fresh start.  Plus, it makes me happy to do house and yard work, which lets be honest, only happens about one month out of the year -- April.

Today started out great.   I met my friend Carlie for a run and coffee at a new place in Edmond, the Coffee Commission.  We run together often, but have never had a chance to just sit and visit afterward, it was nice.  Plus the coffee was excellent.

Once I got home, I decided to put coconut oil in my hair for a deep condition. I had read about it often on Pinterest and actually tried it once or twice.  So, I figured, what the heck?  Its Spring, my hair could use a little refreshing too.  Only I seem to always forget that you are suppose to follow the coconut oil, shampoo, conditioner sequence.  Once again, I treated the coconut oil as the conditioner and have been walking around with greasy hair (in a bun) all day.  Oh well, my hair will be extra refreshed and spring-like tomorrow.

Then something very strange happened.  It was so rare.  I started cleaning.  And I didn't want to stop.  Rare, indeed.  I wasn't able to finish because my sweet little toddler turns into a not-so-sweet little monster when he is hungry so we headed out to eat lunch on the patio at McCalisters while Bill worked on his fitness at the gym.   This seems to be our usual routine and it is working pretty well, allowing both of us to get weekend workouts in before noon on Saturday.

Anyway, after lunch, it was shopping time!  It was SO hard not to buy every new thing in the store.  The bright colors are everywhere.  New front door rug, oh yes I definitely need that.  Bright striped umbrella, how have I been living without that so long?  These plants are beautiful, I should buy them.  I probably won't kill them like I have done to every other plant I have purchased over the last 4 years.  You get the idea.

With great restraint, I kept my eye on the prize.  This weekend was about cleaning.  You cannot possibly start "in with the new" unless you done "out with the old."  Armed with our spring cleaning supplies, the afternoon was designated as outside spring cleaning time - or wash the windows and tell the dirt dobblers that they are no longer welcome because Spring is here, summer will soon follow, and we need our patio back.

Evan loves being outside, so this was his favorite part of the day.  He "helped" scrub, "helped" sweep, but thankfully didn't ask to use the water hose.  He also played mailman and delivered the mail.  Speaking of which, he got the cutest Easter present from Dee and Papa.  Splash park here we come!

Evan and I have cleaned up, eaten dinner and are waiting for dad to get back with a movie for mommy after Evan's bedtime.  Days just do not get better than this!

I hope you all had a wonderful day.  I will be back tomorrow with some running chat - just an FYI in case you want to instantly delete tomorrow's post.  It will be my last 20 miler and I will let you know how I'm feeling about the upcoming marathon.

Happy Easter

Holidays are so much more fun when you have kids. Their excitement is infectious.

Bill and I decided to stay home for Easter and this is the first major holiday we have spent home in a really long time. I wanted to make sure Evan enjoyed his first real Easter (he was only 3 months last year) and planned an action packed weekend.

First up was an egg hunt at Bill's former college, the University of Central Oklahoma. Or as I like to call it, the egg free of all. The eggs were not hidden but instead dumped into a field, which was separated into various section for each age group. The kids were called according to their age and we arrived just as they were calling the 0-3 group. We decided it probably wouldn't be best to force our just now starting to walk toddler compete with 30 four year olds over 1000 eggs thrown in a very small space, so we did what any respectable parents would do and stole 5 eggs when the organizers were not looking. So technically it was our first egg hunt and we are already labeled cheaters, oh well.

After the egg hunt and nap, it was eggs dying (or egg flying) time. Evan understood the egg-in-cup concept, which he incorporated with the ball throwing concept, which made for a shell-cracking good time. Ok, ok, that was corny. :). Basically his goal was to throw the egg in the cup as hard as possible. Then he wanted to see how many eggs he could fit into one cup. Lastly, he decided to combine the liquids to make one rainbow egg dye concoction. Bill and I were thoroughly impressed with his artistic skills.

Sunday Evan woke to presents from the Easter bunny and the best waffle breakfast this side of the Mississippi (well, made from a box waffles). Bill realized that we forgot to put stickers on the eggs, so he decorated Evan.

In all the chaos of travel and relaying, I completely forgot,to buy Evan an Easter outfit. Fortunately for me, Evan is an astute business man and has several ties lying around for just such an occasion.

He knew he was so cute and LOVED the attention he got at church and the grocery store afterward. Speaking of the grocery, that is one good thing about having few people celebrating the holiday -- you get to eat whatever you want. Bill grilled me a filet and him a ribeye. We also had deviled eggs, shrimp, mushrooms, asparagus, mac and cheese, cantaloupe and crescent rolls (a must for a Hantz holiday), and pecan pie muffins for dessert (which were gross). I'm pretty sure that yesterday's meal cost more than a weeks worth of groceries -- it was awesome!

While we really missed our families, we had a great Easter. I hope you all did too.

Seven hours to go

And man it feels good. Lets see, why don't we recap the last 18 hours since my last post.

1. I ran 6 miles in the heat of the day. Oh yea, that was fun. Hardest run yet.

2. I shook my booty on the side of many highways to Peanut Butter Jelly Time, which is our theme song.

3. I took a military type shower, 30 seconds tops, in a high school locker room. There were several people taking really long showers. I have no idea what they were doing in there.

4. I slept one hour on the gym floor. I was expecting it to be so much worse than it was. Maybe I am ready for camping. Then again, maybe not.

5. I ran 6.25 miles starting at 4:45 a.m. through some beautiful suburb of Houston. Half of the race was in the neighborhood and the other on the trails in George Bush park. My favorite part was running over a .25 wooden bridge. So awesome! I tried to take a picture but my camera didn't have flash, so you will just have to take my word for it.

7. And now I need coffee. :).

I have one more 2.97 mile leg. No, I shouldn't have just said 3 miles, that .03 is substantial on these tired legs.

One down, three to go

Here's the thing about relays. You get to do things that are no acceptable in your everyday life. Like take a nap on the ground in small town texas. Or stop the van to foam roll in the middle of the street because your legs are getting tight. Yes, I did both of those things. BEST NAP EVER!!

All is going well in relay land. I've ran 5 miles, ate lunch, and am ready for round two. My picture did fall off the van within 5 minutes of the race, but luckily for my team I'm an artist and was able to replace it.

We are having so much fun and our team is killing it. This morning was perfect running weather, with temps in the low 50s. We started off in hill country and ran on streets lined in blue bonnets. There were several legs on completely dirt roads. Truly picturesque. Maybe Texas really is God's country.

All of the teams are so cordial and it is fun to cheer everyone on. I think we have made it approximately 50 miles. I will probably be running again in a couple hours, my first 6 mile leg, almost exclusively downhill. I'm really excited. :).

Now for the good stuff - pictures. We have a lot more on our Facebook page, which I will try to upload later, but that's a hard thing to do in the middle of nowhere.

And we're off

As of 7:50 this morning, Team Peanut Butter Jelly Legs has taken off. We arrived at the hotel around 11:00 last night and left this morning at 5:30, so we are running on pure adrenaline and excitement and little sleep.

After running the prologue together, approximately one mile, Ashley started with her first five mile leg.

Woo hoo, go PBJL!

Let the fun begin!

You guys, I am SO excited about this weekend! It's Texas Independence Relay time!

I have been waiting for this day for such a long time. My BFF Ashley (no seriously, since I was 2) organized a relay team of her, me, and ten of my favorite strangers to run 201 miles across Texas. Best part: my handsome husband (who still needs a blog name btw) is my driver. One of the rules is that you must have a runner on the road at all times. Basically we will be running/traveling for 30 hours straight. And I will be blogging about all of it.

So basically, here is the skinny. We start at 7:50 tomorrow morning. I have legs 2, 14, 27, and 37, for a total of 18 miles. My longest run is a little over 6 miles and shortest is 3. Since we will not have much time to rest Saturday night, we will be staying and showering at a local high school gym. Should be interesting.

So here are the details and half of our team aka van 1.

Little Rock Half Marathon

We are traveling back to Little Rock this weekend for my dear friend Ailini's baby shower and the drive has me thinking about the race a couple weeks ago. I haven't a chance to post about it and I am sure you all are on pins and needles, so here it goes.

I won't say much about the race expo or the race course because I didn't stay at the expo long enough to have an opinion and I think the half course could do a better job showcasing the city. I will say that the organizers and volunteers were SO nice! The race really has a small town feel, which I loved.

And now .... drum roll please... the race. First, lets talk about the goals I had planned for this race: 1. Negative splits; 2. stay positive; and 3. Finish under 1:55.

I am not sure how close I came to the first goal, but I managed to maintain even splits for the entire race, except for mile 12. During mile 12, I was beginning to be delirious and got confused on the race signs. I thought I was closer to the finish than I was and believed I actually had a chance to finish under 1:50, which resulted in me running my 12th mile in 7:40 - much faster than my pace during the rest of the race. It just goes to show that the mind is a powerful powerful thing! Once I saw the actual 12th mile marker I slowed back down to my planned pace. With the 7:40, I technically did have negative splits.

Hmm, did I stay positive?? At times. Other times I had to work really really hard to keep the negative thoughts at bay. I never wanted to stop and walk but I had to resist the constant "this course sucks" mentality.

Oh yea, and that last goal? CRUSHED IT!! Final time 1:50:46. I hope you guys don't think I am gloating over here, (OK, maybe a little), it's just that this is so much better than my previous times and I am not sure quite where it is coming from.

When it comes to running, I know all about things feeling too far out of reach. When I first started running again as an adult and one of my friends talked about running 3 miles at a 10:00/mile pace I thought, man if I could do that I would be happy. Then, my dad told me how he ran 6 miles at 9:00/mile pace and I thought, no way, that will never be me. Truly, that sounded so impossible. A year or so later I ran my first half and finished in 2:07, walking in the last mile. Second half, same result. Now here I am, running 13.1 miles at 8:30/mile.

Now lets be clear, I am by no means the fastest runner, or anywhere near the front actually. I'm a middle of the packer all the way. But to look back at where I came from and see what I have accomplished with running -what I thought was impossible- it feels good.

And there you go, now you know why it's so addicting. :)

Evan, Bill and Bill's mom did come down to watch, but I never saw them. The temps were in the thirties so I think they stayed inside at the coffee shop, but they swore they stood outside looking for me. Oh we'll, at least Evan makes a cute cheerleader.

My friend Ailini and her family came to watch and saw me three times on the course! Thanks for coming Lini, I loved seeing you,