Running in the Big Easy

When we were lucky enough to get all of the Heatherly side of the family together at Thanksgiving, my cousins Sarah and Emma and I talked about getting together to run the New Orleans Rock and Roll Half Marathon.  Ian and I decided it was a great idea: a great way to see our family and a great way to get to check out New Orleans.  So, we trained for months, bought our plane tickets, dropped the boys off in Charlotte and headed down to the big easy.

Now, it turns out that the training runs had been a bit much for Ian's knees, and since he doesn't like the crowds in races and running for 2 hours straight, he wasn't too disappointed to sit this one out.  When race morning rolled around Sarah, Emma, and I were ready to go.  Sarah was able to find a great hotel for us only a few blocks away from the starting line so we were able to get dressed and walk right out there. 

There were 15,000 people in this race, so the crowds were definitely out.  We walked pretty far back in the pack to find our starting "corral".  They put us all in groups based on our projected finishing time, so none of us slower people slow down the Olympians at the front of the pack.  The sun came out, and they started the race.

I started the race with my fabulous cousins, and a little singing from Emma got my Rock and Roll race off to a great start.  Pretty soon we all settled in to run our own race.  There were so many things to watch along the way.  The Rock and Roll races have bands placed every couple of miles along the race which were fun to watch.  Plus, there were people cheering with signs every step of the way.  We were also running through some great New Orleans scenery including St. Charles Ave and the French Quarter.

A few miles into the race we were lucky enough to see the leaders of the race running past us because that section was an out-and-back street.  There were several Olympians who whizzed by us on a 4:40 per mile pace.  It was fun to watch and everyone at my point in the pack cheered loudly for them. 

My race went really well.  I felt good, and I kept surprising myself with continuing to feel good even though I was keeping a fairly fast pace for me.  Lots of people in the race were wearing silly outfits like tutus and wings or were wearing shirts with silly sayings.  I passed the time during the race by trying to catch every silly outfit or tutu that I could find.  It was actually lots of fun.

It's always such a great feeling coming across the finish line.  You've worked so hard and it's such a sense of accomplishment.  This time, I crossed the finish line at 2 hours 8 minutes and 53 seconds, definitely my fastest time yet.  I was pretty proud of myself, and I was so happy to get to share it with my cousins and cheer them on as they crossed the finish line. 

Don't worry, there was more to our weekend than just running.  We did manage to have a little fun while we were there, but that's a tale for another post...

(We all pick up our race packets the day before the race.)

 (Sarah, Emma, and I wait to start.)

 (Cousins in the crowd)

 (We're off!)

 (About to cross the finish line)

(So glad to be done)

 

 (Emma finishes the race.)

(Sarah crosses the finish line.)

(My wonderful husband and I)

(Yay, we did it!)

Little Fishies

It's been cold here!  We haven't been able to get out and play outside as much as we would like recently.  However, Ben and Evan still need to get their energy out.  So, I signed them up for swim lessons this winter.  Now, it couldn't be easy.  All of the swim lessons at Durham's indoor pools said that they did not have any lessons for kiddos Benny's age.  They had parent/baby lessons for kids under 2 and preschool lessons for those 3 and up.  Ben was out of luck.  However, we found a pool about 30 minutes away that did offer lessons for both Ben and Evan.  The lessons were actually 50 minutes apart, but we decided to go for it anyway.

So, for a month, twice a week, we've been driving half an hour away, sitting through two lessons and a 20 minute break in between them.  Then, changing and driving home.  For me, it's exhausting.  After the first lesson, I was about to give up, but I saw how much the boys were getting out of the lessons, so I tried to make them as easy as I could by bringing good snack and toys to play with and we persevered. 

I noticed how great the lessons were for Evan on the first day.  I was worried because I registered him for "preschool 2" lessons.  This meant that he had to already be able to swim a little.  He was nervous already because he had always refused to put his face under water without his goggles that cover his nose, and he knew that he had to just use regular "eye goggles' for these lessons.  We went out and bought some cool new ones and hoped for the best. 

His teacher is a man that Evan says looks like Santa Claus, and the kids call him "Mr. Bear".  He's a fairly surly Santa Claus look-a-like, but it turns out that he's the perfect temperament for Evan.  He's calm and patient and he doesn't put up with Evan's drama when he gets nervous.  Mr. Bear is also a great teacher.  After the first lesson he was already able to put his face all the way underwater and get a ring off the bottom of the pool.  Now, he's even using arm strokes and swimming a little.  He loves it and his confidence is sky rocketing. 

After the first lesson, I wasn't as sure about Benny's lessons.  He is in parent/child lessons again, so I get in as well.  He just didn't seem very enthusiastic about them.  However, now, he's jumping in and going completely underwater, practicing his bubble blowing, and laying on his back in the water.  His favorite parts are grabbing all of the toys that the teacher keeps on the edge and pretending to have them "jump" in the water too, and singing all of the songs that we sing as a class together.  He looks forward to his lessons, and they've definitely made him more comfortable in the water. 

So, even with all of the inconvenience, I'm enjoying watching the boys have so much fun in the water.  I was even going to sign up for another session, but they changed the times on us.  These boys will definitely be ready when summer arrives!!

 (Mr. Bear teaches the little group.)

(Mr. Bear teaches Evan how to swim.)

**I wish I could have some pictures of Ben from the lessons, but I'm in the water with him, and I don't trust Evan taking pictures near a pool, HA!

A Little Valentine's Treat

Wow!  I can't believe it's been a week since I've writtn about out little family!  I can blame our busy schedule, out of town trips, or even my lost camera, but regardless, I promise, I'll be better.

Since it's been so long since I've done a post, the boys still wanted to send everyone a little belated Valentine's Day love. 

Happy Valentine's Day!  (and yes, these boys have had lots of sugar in this picture.  What else are they supposed to do on Valentine's Day?)

Tantalizingly Close

So, here we are, about 4.75 years after it all began.  That was the first time we purchased those big packages of diapers and wipes from Costco.  For years, they've been adding on to our bill and blowing our budget, but that time is almost at an end. 

A few weeks ago, we decided to change Ben over to big boy underpants, and at first it didn't go too well.  He didn't really seem to care if he peed in his pants, or worse, pooped!  This was a change for me because while Evan was hard to separate from the diapers, he never pooped in his pants.  I think it happened once or twice-total.  This was not the case with Benny.  I had quite a few poopy pants including one unfortunate incident with some artistic smearing on the furniture.  He just didn't seem to be getting the message that he should be going in the potty.

But I was determined.  I wasn't going to go back to diapers, so we persevered.  Then, suddenly, like it normally happens, something clicked.  Suddenly, he would actually tell me when he had to go.  Then, he would happily get his candy potty treat.  (Evan would also get one "just for being cute".)  Finally, he actually started pooping in the potty.  Now, this took Evan months, so maybe, just maybe the moments of pants-pooping were worth it to have him at this point so quickly.

Now, he is actually wearing his big boy underpants all day long, even during his nap time.  Most of the time he remembers to tell us when he has to go, in fact, he gets very upset when he realizes he has to go and is not near a potty.  He wears them to preschool, and is fine.  However, the first time he tried wearing them, he immediately walked in to his classroom and peed his pants.  I thought it would set him back for months based on the hysterics that ensued, but it all turned out okay.

Now, we're not quite there yet.  He is usually dry in the mornings now, so we decided to try underpants all night one day last week.  Ben didn't make it, and that made him pretty upset, so we're waiting a little on that one. 

Regardless, I'm so proud of my little Benny.  He's really getting to be a big boy.  That box of diapers sitting in our closet and all of its friends better watch out because they're an endangered species in his house and will soon, thankfully be extinct!

A Little Spacy

Recently, Evan has been learning about space in preschool.  He's been coming home and singing a song about all of the planets while he points them out on his planet placemat.  It was all in preparation for a field trip to the UNC planetarium which was last week.  He loved it and has been all about planets ever since.

This weekend, Evan and I pulled out the play dough while Ben was sleeping and Ian was out.  We started by making a sun, copying in a picture on the play dough box.  Then, we continued from there.  We discussed what color to make each planet, what size, etc.  I might have helped him with some rings and other details, but he worked very hard.  He also sat and played with play dough for several straight hours that day!

Take a look at our little solar system:

Old Friends

When we moved to Durham, before Evan could even walk, we somehow got lucky enough to fall into a fantastic playgroup with a wonderful group of moms and kiddos.  The boys grew up together until, unfortunately, many of our great little families have had to move away-to St. Louis, Virginia, Arkansas, and even Yosemite.  We miss everyone and love seeing the updates as the boys and girls get bigger on facebook, blogs, etc.

A few weeks ago, we were lucky enough to have one of our playgroup members come back to visit.  The Hopkins Family who moved off to Virginia last year came back to say hi.  While an ice storm shortened the time we got to spend together, we still got to have a great brunch together.  It was so nice to talk to the adults and to watch the kids hang out together again.  The little brothers even got in on the fun.  The kids all picked right up where they left off, climbing over the seats, playing with necklaces, and blowing bubbles in other people's drinks.  Love those boys!

While we are sad so many families are so far away, it's so nice to get to see them and catch up every once and a while.  Good friends are always good friends!

(The boys: Jonas, Evan, Nathaniel, Quin, Ben, and Josiah)

Made of Ducks...No Really!

So, if you remember, a few months ago, Benny made the comment that he wished he was "made of ducks".  It made us laugh for days, and Ben likes to repeat it just because he knows it gets such a rise out of us.  After that fateful comment, Ian actually created a little picture on the computer to demonstrate what a Ben that was made of ducks would actually look like.  So, here's the picture, look closely and you'll see all the tiny pictures of ducks.  Enjoy...Quack!

Hitting the Slopes

So, the newscasters were all over the television talking about one of North Carolina's famous ice storms that was hitting our area.  The storm thoroughly coated all of the roads with a nice layer of ice leaving it impossible for us to go even a mile down the road Friday evening.  The temperatures were way below freezing so nothing was melting that night.  So, what did Ian and I decide to do the next morning...why, go on a 4 hour drive to the mountains to go skiing of course.

We knew that the freeway conditions would be okay if we could get to them, so we just plopped the chains we had purchased in Seattle on Ian's tires and hopped in the car.  The chains got us safely to the freeway where we could take them off and continue on our way.  The drive was fairly uneventful, only a few stops for our little potty training boy.  (Even though we put him in diapers for ease of driving, he had to stop to use the potty...he's really learning!)

We arrived at Beech Mountain ski resort about 4 hours after we had left home, and we were ready for an adventure.  The first part of the adventure we really hadn't anticipated.  Getting out to the slopes was an hour -long adventure that completely wore Ian and I out.  We had to lug the boys and gear to the rental place, then get the boys and ourselves' gear rented, then dress the boys, then undress them so they could go potty, then buy lift tickets, then get to the slopes and get skis on.  Ian and I had dressed warmly because we thought we would just be standing around on the slopes, but after that workout, we were sweating when we got to the bunny slope.  (Oh, did I mention that we managed to forget the boys' coats at home, so we also had to stop by the coat rental room, sigh.)

At that point, we were all in our skis on the slope and Benny decided to have a meltdown.  He was done.  So, I sent Evan and Ian off to try some skiing while I worked with Ben.  We walked up to the top of the bunny slope and just sat and watched everything for a while.  We picked up some handfuls of snow and just took it all in.  We watched Evan head down the slope a few times with Daddy.  First, he went down with Ian's assistance.  Then, he did it a few times all by himself!  He even managed to get the hang of the towbar lift after one wipe out and took that to the top of the hill a few times.

Ben watched Evan's success and eventually decided that he needed his turn.  He said he wanted to go down the hill.  So, the first time, I didn't even bother to put on my skis, a just walked him down the hill in my ski boots.  He enjoyed that, so we walked back up to the top and tried it again with my skis on.  I took him down, holding hands, and guiding his skis with mine.  Then, he wanted to do the towbar lift.  Oh goody, I thought.  There was no way my little 2.5 year old could grab on to that bar and hold on while it jerked him up the mountain, but he was determined to try.

So, just as we got up to the front of the line we got some advice from a ski instructor standing nearby.  He told me to try to hold on to the bar myself and Ben could hold on in between my legs.  Ok, I decided to give it a try.  I grabbed on, and he just grabbed on to me.  That was okay, I hung on to him for dear life and we made it up.  He had a great time, and of course, we had to ski down and do it again.

Meanwhile, Evan and Ian headed off to ride a chair lift.  They had a great time, and as Ben and I were exiting the bunny slope, we meet up with Ian and Evan careening down the green slope with Evan in between Ian's legs.  Both of them were thrilled, but the boys were tired and ready to go.  We stopped off in the lodge to get some hot chocolate and did the return trip of lugging all of our equipment back and getting to the car.

You might think we were done adventuring, but oh no.  We got back in the car and headed down to the free sledding hill in the town center of Beech Mountain (which, by the way, is the highest city in the eastern half of the US).  When we got there we had about 45 minutes until they closed, but that was enough time to get some sledding in, so we grabbed our sleds and headed out.  The first time we went down, we only saw some really steep hills.  I managed to get myself on the sled with Ben and we flung ourselves off of the hill.  To try to slow us down a stuck my foot out of the sled and dragged in on the snow which gave us a faceful of snow.  Benny really didn't appreciate that.

After our first trip down the mountain, we saw a slightly less steep hill off to the side.  We headed that direction and had a ball.  Ben loved going down the hill with an adult, and Evan would throw himself down on his own.  We were really sad when they called closing time and said we had to go home.

So, we reluctantly hopped back in the car to head home from our winter adventure.  Almost before we left the parking lot, Ben had passed out, and Evan was not far behind him.  It was a great day, and Evan has been continually discussing going back and trying out snow boarding.  Sounds like a great family trip...maybe next year?

(Evan readies his skis.)

(Ben is not too sure of everything.)

(Evan tries out his skis.)

(toddler on skis)

(My little skier and I)

(Look at those big smiles!)

(Evan zooms down the sledding hill.)

(Our beautiful view on the way home)

(Poor little tired skiers)