Welcome, Baby Alex!

Peter's brother and his wife welcomed their second child, Alexander, in mid-February. We happily loaded up the kiddos for a whirlwind weekend adventure to Illinois to celebrate his Baptism in April. Bonus: the Oregon Marshes were all there, too--Nana and Pa, and Aunt Jenny, Uncle Rob and cousin Travis. We left Friday night, drove into the wee hours of Saturday morning, and spent Saturday with cousin Katie (the new big sister) & cousin Trav. Saturday night we had dinner with the new proud parents and the new little one. My kids love to travel, because they almost always get to take advantage of the hotel pool, so we did that on Sunday morning before the Baptism service. After Alex was dedicated, we enjoyed the reception for a little while (too short) and hit the road, arriving in the wee hours of Monday morning. Four hours of sleep, then back to work/school. Whew! That was a quick trip, but worth every moment.

Pictures from Cousins Day Out at the DuPage Children's Museum:












Swimming at the hotel:



The hosts at the Chinese buffet were smart to pile all of us into the back room so we'd have space all to ourselves and the kids could run around:




The Man of the Hour and all the people who love him:

The 30-Minute Mile

I have decided to run a half-marathon. No, I don't know why. Yes, I am crazy. No, I've never been a runner before. It is customary for me to question the sanity of runners: why would you run 1 or 5 or 13.1 or 26.2 miles unless someone is chasing you? And yet, I have decided to become one of them. At least temporarily. My plan is to run the St Jude Half next December--yes, that gives me a year and a half to prepare. I will need every day of that time, because I am chubby, inactive and clumsy. Some co-workers started this, and being the bandwagon-hopper that I am, I'm doing it, too.

I have set an initial goal of running (not walking) a 5K by this fall. I downloaded an App to my iPhone (a gadget about which I cannot wax eloquent enough, but that is perhaps another post) called "Couch to 5K," recommended by my friend Jen who is also going to start running. This really, truly describes me. Yes, I occasionally swim laps at the gym. But in general, I am lazy. Not lazy when it comes to work and parenting, but lazy when it comes to The Big E. I do not get that "high" from exercise that people talk about. I just get winded and sore. I have 100,000 excuses for why I don't/shouldn't/won't exercise. Blisters, sweat, lack of exercise clothing, bad shoes, no time, sore ankle, a cough, cramps, something good's on TV, etc. So, I am most assuredly starting from The Couch.

This "Couch to 5K" App is very similar to the program I found on runnersworld.com, a site I thought I'd never frequent, but now it's saved in my Favorites. It starts with running for one minute, then walking two minutes, then repeating this for a total of 30 minutes. The App gives me voice prompts for when to switch from one mode to the other and allows me to load my music (an essential element to movtivate me) from iTunes right in. What this App does NOT do is tell me to quit crying, to yell at me to keep moving, to urge me to breathe, to massage my calves, to still the jiggling parts of my flabby body when I run. It is still a great tool, though.

My first run was in our neighborhood, which is a bit hilly. Well, "hilly" might be an overstatement--it is slightly inclined in a couple of places. When you are starting from The Couch, hills/inclines are an unnecessary hurdle. Also, I was not interested in having my neighbors see me gasping for breath after running for less than a minute.

So I did the rest of the week at our little town's City Hall Park, where there is a blessedly flat trail. The sign there says that 4.5 laps equals one mile. On Day 3 of my training (if we can even call it that at this point), it took me 30 minutes to go 5 times around this trail. A 30-minute mile. At this pace, I would finish a half-marathon in about 6 1/2 hrs, assuming I kept moving non-stop. I'm pretty sure the race would be closed by then, all volunteers safely back at home, and the finish line dismantled. Nonetheless, I was proud of myself. Proud that I kept moving for 30 straight minutes, proud that I ran even though I had a little blister, proud that I got my booty outta bed that morning--and the two mornings before, proud that I'd made it through the work-out without cursing the clock for not moving faster during the running parts and moving too fast during the walking parts.

I may never be fast and fit and thin, but I WILL run 13.1 miles at one time, even if I am crying when I cross the finish line and even if there's something good on TV that morning.

Becca & Her Buddies

When I was a kid, we went on numerous field trips each school year. Parents volunteered to drive, and I loved it when my mom or dad came along, so my friends could all ride in our car. These days, there is one field trip a year, the kids all ride in a school bus, and parent chaperones just meet the class at the trip location. Rebecca was thrilled that I met her class at the zoo for their only field trip of the year.

Oh, Give Me a Home Where The Buffalo Roam

Smack-dab in the middle of the city of Memphis lies a true gem. Shelby Farms is an expansive natural park with forests, open land, ponds, biking trails, hiking & running trails, horseback riding areas, picnic tables, playgrounds, and...BUFFALO. I can remember occasional buffalo sightings as a child, usually 3 or 4 at once. But on Good Friday, those furry beasts were out in full force, right up against the barbed wire fence (which surely is not enough to protect us from these usually-gentle-but-capable-of-anything animals). There were about 50 of them--mamas and babies, big ol' papas curled up in the grass like house cats!

Lil Monkeys--in the Botanic Garden cherry trees

Easter Princesses--Pictures at Dixon Gallery & Gardens