April Showers?

Yes, that is snow on my bleeding hearts and it is almost May in Seattle!! I know for some of my blog readers the thought might be "Snow in April? What's the big deal?". Well, it is the latest it has snowed in Seattle since they began keeping records. Friday evening around 5pm it started to snow, not just a light, skimpy fall but a full force, big flake, snowfall. Amazing. You can see from the snow on the car that it was coming down. There was a baseball game going on across the street which continued until there was a very bright flash (lightening) and then a very loud crash of thunder. I am sure the lightening must have struck very close in the neighborhood somewhere because I have never heard thunder here that loud before. You've never seen such a fast exodus of players and fans alike from the baseball field. It is a very odd thing to have snow at this time of year. Of course the snow didn't stick around too long, but then we had a snowfall again on Saturday. It didn't stick either luckily. We had hail today and the weather is supposed to be cool until Wednesday. Weird weather. The rest of the world may be experiencing global warming but I guess we are getting global cooling. It has been a pretty wacky winter and spring here. I wonder what summer will bring??

Two Halves Equal a Whole

Sure we are laughing in this photo. But we definitely weren't laughing at the end of the race or the next day! This is our good friend Peg with us just before the start of the Whidbey Island Half Marathon. It was a torturous 13.1 miles all of it uphill! Okay I'm exaggerating it was probably only 11 or 12 miles of it that were uphill! Alright again I exaggerate, but it was definitely over half. I was not prepared for that. Still I managed to finish the race only 15 minutes slower than the first one I did in November. Thanks I have to say in large part to my sometimes, Greenlake running partner Clover who is also the Principal at Cooper's school. She ran with me from about mile 3 to somewhere between mile 10 or 11. At mile 3 she said only 3 more Greenlakes. That's how we broke it up. Every three miles we would think that it was starting Greenlake again. It pretty much got me through. We both had to do a bit of walking. Finally we reached a point where I just couldn't run at the point she was ready and she went on ahead--with my blessing of course. She finished 3 minutes ahead of me. Our friends the Roche's also ran in the race and finished before us all. They were there to cheer Dennis on for the last lap around the stadium to the finish. It gave him the inspiration to really pore on the speed which caused the whole stadium to erupt into applause. (Somehow I must have registered Dennis incorrectly because the "official" results on the website show him coming in 4th place overall for walkers and 1st place for men walkers. He said if he had known he was registered as a walker he would have gone slower.) The three of them also cheered me on vigorously. I did muster up a bit more speed at the end but I was pretty much wiped out. I was instantly sore and it lasted into yesterday. Today I could finally walk down the front step without out feeling like I was going to weep from the pain or possibly topple, stiff-legged to the sidewalk below. Yes, stairs particularly down have been a source of intense pain. Monday and Tuesday getting out of my chair at work wasn't so pleasant either. Then again neither was walking. I was pretty much a wreck.
Do I feel the need to do it again?? Heck no!! Although I will be out there again tomorrow taking on Greenlake while Tucker is in seminary. (So that's a no, Neal and Steph there is just no way I will be doing the Seafair Half with you in June!! You two have fun with that!) I've done my two halves and in my book that equals a Marathon. The fact that they were 6 months apart is irrelevant. Which means I can cross that off "the list".

Road Trippin'

If you have been to Karen's blog you already know a bit about our little Spring Break road trip. You know that it was a road trip in the real sense of getting on the road and driving, and driving and driving and...you get the picture. On my "list" was take the boys to General Conference. It just so happened that this year the last weekend of Spring Break was General Conference so I got tickets for the Saturday afternoon session. We didn't leave until the Monday before instead of the Saturday before because of the Young Women's Broadcast that day. (Being the Stake Young Women's Pres I kind of felt obligated to be around.) If you have no idea where my hometown is in relation to Seattle, lets just say it is an all day drive--12 hours on the road--not including stops. Tucker helped with the driving which he enjoyed immensely--me I enjoyed it in a seat-gripping, non-sleeping sort of way.

We spent Tuesday, Wednesday and most of Thursday visting my parents, which included some fun frolicking in the bit of snow they still have. It wasn't a speedy sled ride, but it did the trick. Unfortunately I had to make an unexpected visit to the local medical clinic (30 miles away) for a sudden bout of...something not fun. That wasn't much fun--including the medication I have to take until this Friday. It was nice to see mom and dad and spend time with them. Tucker and Spencer even made a visit to the school with their cousins at lunch time (Tucker to check out the local female populace of course.) Tucker was amused by the fact that there were only two hallways in the high school. How big of a high school do you need when there are only 80 kids?? (It's true)

Thursday I had a nice visit with my high school pal, Tonnie. She is one of the reasons why I always donate to various Multiple Sclerosis Societies. Tonnie & I went to school together from 1st through high school. She has always been a person full of sunshine, laughter and good cheer. She still is despite her current circumstances. She is back living with her parents in Mackay because her husband couldn't cope with the MS and divorced her (that's the nice short version--there's a much longer not so nice version of course.) She can stand but is mostly confined to her wheelchair now. She calls the climb up 13 stairs to her room each night "scaling Mt. Everest". If you aren't donating to MS causes I hope you will!

Thursday afternoon we drove to Karen's (a mere two hours compared to the 12 of Monday). We had a nice stay and played 3 rounds of Upwords. I blame bad letters for my two losses (of course). She was generous enough to go to Salt Lake with us despite not being on Spring break herself. Another 3 hours to Salt Lake City Friday night to stay with Tyson and his wife Angel. A fun visit.

General Conference was a cool experience. We did get there very early (enough to be on the very first row & the very first seats of our sections). We had fun riding the light rail train that was put in for the Winter Olympics there. This gave us some time to take turns taking the boys around the Conference Center. It is very cool. Cooper didn't manage to get through the whole two hours--he fell asleep on my shoulder. Tucker & Spencer stayed awake but it's hard to say how they felt about the experience. I thought it was great of course.

Sunday was another 12 hour drive back home. In all it was over 1000 miles traveled on our Road Trip. It was worth it!