This is where I admit...

I spoke too soon.

This week has been cold and rainy



And soup-filled.

Rain, rain go away. Please come back...when I can fit my fat calves into some galoshes.

....

just kidding. Kind of.



These would be nice.

Spring is springing forward

I've been waiting for spring since New Years Day and this week, it finally came. It's been a long wait, but that's just how spring rolls, and with her, the annual war between the pollen and my sanity. Seriously, what button do I have to push to let my body know that spring is not the enemy.

Who else is loving the time change? Because, I do. I love the sunshine. I love that it's light outside when I wake up. I love the heat of the day. It's like a salve for my soul. I can feel the energy. The whole earth is gearing up for summer. It reminds me of running. When I was training for the half marathon, I would always try to sprint the last lap around the track. It was a way of proving to myself that I can always do more, that I could've run faster or further. Running distance is such a mental game. If I've learned one thing over the years, it's that my body is capable of doing so much more than I think it can.

Whenever I was running the second to last lap, I would think, "Here we are. It's the slingshot. I'm gearing up to sprint and the faster I sprint, the sooner it will be over." Maybe it's foolish, but it always felt that way and I could sense it coming around that last corner to the moment when I would start to sprint. The image of a slingshot being stretched back and tense, waiting to be free. Of course it was probably slightly less dramatic if you had seen it in person. It's hard to make a 10 minute mile sprint look dramatic, but I felt it. And I feel it now with the seasons. Pulling back the slingshot of spring before the sprint of summer.

So spring has sprung.

No more hot soup on cold days.

Grass and the kitchen garden have been planted.



And everything is growing, especially me.





I keep playing this song over and over

Ironic.
Our dog days haven't even begun.

You can buy this poster here. I've seen it going around and I am all for it. For a $25.00 donation (+ $5.00 shipping and handling), you get this poster and 100% of the proceeds go to the Red Cross in support of the crisis in Japan. People are putting them in their homes, at their workplaces, in their windows. It reminds me of when 911 happened and Englanders put American flags in their windows. It reminds me that there is love in this world. It's the second greatest commandment. "Love your neighbor as yourself." It's a good thing.

This is the face I get when she's done something wrong...

And I get it much more often than I would like, but she's learning quickly.

It's amazing how sweet she can look when she wants to.

We took her to the river for the first time. It's about a mile walk out to our favorite spot and the walk out there, wore her out. When we finally got there, she crashed underneath the picnic table while Clover played.

It was a beautiful clear day and the water was like glass.

Clover has always loved the water, and I suspect that Ginger is going to love it just as much. 

She was fascinated watching Clover play in the water.

I often wondered if she would venture in. 

Unfortunately she never did, even with a lot of prompting from her excited older sister.

Soon the dogs and Korey and I were worn out, so we gathered our things and headed back down the trail.

Ginger wouldn't stop running. She wanted to be right under Korey's feet until she finally ran out of steam and I carried her back to the car. 

When we got home, Ginger and Clover both got baths.

My sweet little burrito. If only she was this sweet all the time.

The post where you and I catch up.

Oh my. How to begin? It's hard to start a post when so much has happened in between this one and the last. First there was Valentine's Day, then my dad, my mom, and I all had birthdays. I have had a million bajillion things due for school. (Yes, million bajillion is a real number. I believe it looks like this 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.) Oh yeah, and Korey bought me something really special for my 28th birthday.

He bought me a puppy. The very puppy that is sweetly sleeping at my feet right now and that I have yet to spank into submission. Now don't think I beat my dogs. I'm usually pretty serious about the discipline, but she's always giving me that face.....

Who could not love this face? 

Clover wasn't sure about her at first, but they have quickly become best friends and partners in crime. 

And so our family is complete....for now.

On a completely other random note, I ran the Disney princess half marathon last Sunday. My friend and schoolmate, Destiny, ran it with me. We weren't there long, but we still managed to squeeze in a few hours at the Magic Kingdom.  Destiny had never been.

First, we went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

A Johnny Depp lookalike made an excellent edition to the Pirates experience. Isn't it crazy how much he looks like him!?

We rode all of the rides we could get on including the teacups and both big roller coasters. The line for Space Mountain said 70 minutes, but we waited anyway. Who can go to Disney for the first time and not ride Space Mountain? Sacrilege! Luckily for us, the wait must have not been updated because we did not wait more than 30 minutes.

This picture below is my favorite one. What a magical place. I can't wait to take my children some day.

So we took the monorail back to the parking lot at sunset after the street party and tried to get some sleep before the big race.

We had to leave the house at 3:00 AM to get to the race on time. If we weren't in our corral at 5, they would not have let us race. 

There were an amazing amount of people there. I was told 22,000 ran total and 17,000 ran in our race alone.

It was such a fun race to run. 

There were characters or some form of entertainment around each mile.

I ran with my little point and shoot camera.

There was even an epcot air balloon.

Also....please note that the mickey mouse men in tattoos and tutus also ran! haha. There were so many interesting "characters" running. One man, I kept trying to get a picture of, ran the entire race in a full green frog prince costume with a personal ad-esq sign on his back that he was looking for his princess. Well he came to the right place. 

It was such an experience. Who else gets to run through the park while the sun rises?

Or take pictures with characters that can't be offended by your sweaty smelly self? 

Or get entertained by the local fire department who dirty danced on their firetruck to the tune of "Shorty fire burnin' on the dance floor?"

Or get cheered on by the local "retirement community?" 

The run was so much fun, but it surely wasn't easy. I was so happy to see that finish line and know that we had made it. It felt like we were the last ones there, but we got our medals and I saw that I was number 12,007 to cross that finish line. 12,007 out of 17,000 aint bad....not bad at all.

Although it was nice to get away for the weekend, I must say the best part was coming home to my two princesses, and my very own prince charming.