B-day recap and holiday weekend

What, Thursday already?  Seems I’ve lost quite a few days since my last post.  Post race weekend was spend gearing up for my son’s birthday celebrations.  Here’s a few pics to recap what happened for the big 10 year party-fest…

Birthday boy and friends had a great time at SkyZone!  They didn’t stop the whole 90 mins, and were a sweaty group of tweens when the event was over.

Enjoyed the Minecraft cake.  It was so delicious, and it turned out really good!  The cake was dark chocolate, with mostly dark chocolate frosting (some buttercream tinted frosting for the grass and between the layers).

Then they decided it was a great thing to go swimming in the dark, in the rain, in a 72 degree pool!  Luckily I got to watch from the sunroom and didn’t need to get wet 🙂

They played video games until midnight, and feel asleep around 1am I think.  I was a zombie by that time and had gone to bed already.  Luckily they woke up bright and early at 7am (what???) and I got them some donuts, to sugar them all up so I could send them home to their parents, under-slept and over-sugared!  Party success!!!!!

Then came the big storm.  It started out with some high winds, and then brought a whole day of rain.  I think we had 5 inches of rain.  Non stop, all day long, rain rain rain.  We didn’t have any flooding problems at our house, but many basements got flooded.  Our issue was the wet ground and the wind.  We lost a lot of landscaping.  First, the big tree in our front yard fell over.  Granted, this tree had fallen over a few years ago and we strapped it up, and just recently took the straps off.  Guess it never got it’s strength back!

Then we noticed a small ornamental tree was now leaning over too!  We strapped that one in place and hopefully it will come back strong.  The worst damage was to these bushes that formed a really nice privacy fence between the neighbor’s house.  We have a pool so we like our yard to be a little sheltered.  Those bushes were 11 years old!  No more.  Had to pull those out.  Hello neighbor!!

In my quest to help get the yard back in shape, I grabbed a hand saw and started cutting down some super weeds that were taller than bushes.  I was sawing along and had the blade going the “unsafe” direction when the saw blade came out of the plant and smacked me super hard in the knee!  OUCH!  Not only was I bleeding like I was dying, it also hurt like a #@$$%$##$.  After I cleaned up the blood, which was actually no big deal other than making little bloody puddles as I walked through the garage, I spent the rest of the weekend with my knee iced.  It was quite painful and swollen.  Didn’t I learn a few weeks ago, “avoid yard work”?  ugh.

I did lose a day of running because it hurt to bend my knee, but after it improved I got a really great run in this week.  It was a speedwork workout of 10 miles with 8 at half marathon pace.  I nailed it!

I had a fun smirk in this picture because I thought it was funny that my next door neighbor got their house toilet papered!!  Does that mean someone likes them, or dislikes them?  I’m not sure, but it’s funny none the less.  Funny that it wasn’t my house mostly.

This week’s running recap (and pre-cap?):

• Mon – 8 miles (Alan joined me!!  He probably shouldn’t have, his ankle hurt!)
• Tues – 10 miles, w/ 8 at HMP  (Booyah!!)
• Weds – rest!
• Thurs – 9 miles
• Fri – 20 miles  (why, oh why, does my 20 miler always happen on July 4th weekend?)
• Sat – Rest!!!  ice cream, fireworks, etc.
• Sun – 5 miles
• Total = 52 miles.  Whew!

And lastly, here’s what I find on my iPhone camera roll when the kids get a hold of it…

We are planning a long camping weekend for the 4th of July.  Hope you are going to enjoy the holiday too!  I also need to give a shout out to my husband Alan, who is a bit down in the dumps right now because his ankle is still hurting after his race.  🙁  As we probably all know, injuries suck and can be a big bummer.  Send some positive thoughts his way to help him get recovered soon, and find something else to do while he can’t run!!  🙂

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Q:  Confession time… have you ever toilet papered someone’s house?

A:  I vaguely remember doing it once back in junior high.  Peer pressure I’m sure!

Q:  Are you afraid of blood?  Your own, or someone else’s?

A:  I do pretty good with it.  I think when you have kids you have to be brave about it!

Q:  Any 4th of July holiday plans??