This is Eric's favorite saying!

Nashville Rock N Roll half marathon

Yes, you read that right.  Half marathon!!!  Above is my lovely self portrait as I sit on the curb watching everyone coming to the race.  There were thousands of people running this race.  They started them in groups.  Maybe of 100 people.  So, I sat at the beginning of my corral waiting for my friends to show up.  I kept thinking, "What the heck did I get myself into!  What am I doing here?"  I was really thinking I was nuts to have even thought I could do it!!



Here is a picture of the crowd of runners waiting for their corral to start.  As my friend, Wendy (thank goodness she made it in time!) and I got to the start line.  The announcer says, the winner of your race (who started 45 minutes earlier), has now reached the halfway point!  Ugh!



Wendy and I stopped for a photo op with friends...then we were off again!

I love this picture of us!  You can see Wendy running to give her daughter a hug!

Yay!  Yay!  I did it!!!  I cannot believe that I finished a half marathon.  I ran 13.1 miles!  I could not have done it without Wendy.  She was what kept me going when I was ready to quit!  Horrible pic, but I love the medal!!

We finished it with a respectable time of 2:35:02.  My goal for the race;  they have a van that drives at the end that picks up people that are too slow, so they can open the road again.  My goal was not to be picked up by the van!  I beat the van by at LEAST an hour and a half AND I actually ran the whole darn thing!

Gramps, I wish I could've ran it with you, but you were there with me every step of the way!

That night after a nap, shower, and a deeeelicious dinner at The Cheesecake Factory.  Katie, Julie, and my friend Karen, all went out to hear some tunes in Nashville.  I mean, isn't that what you are supposed to do in Nashville.  We could've heard the next new star!  I couldn't believe how packed the streets were!

I had ALWAYS wanted to go to Wildhorse saloon since I watched it on CMT.  I finally got my chance.  It was fun to sit back and watch everyone line dancing. I even got out there and tried it! 

Such a great "girls" weekend away.  Just what I needed!!  Thanks Eric for holding down the homefront in my absence!

April Mops Craft

I'm not sure why my pic is loading upside down.  But, at least you can still see it.  Our last craft of the year was a recipe book.  Since each meeting is a potluck, we all taste some YUMMY recipes.  I loved all the "pinterest" recipes that have been showing up this year!  So, we had everyone send in their recipes and Lisa put them together and sent them to the printers.  Then my job was to design a cover and make a "CRAFT" out of it.  I think they turned out cute!  I always love to see what everyone else comes up with at the meetings.  There was some very detailed covers and some really cool ideas!!

Annual Strawberry picking

Last year we missed our annual strawberry picking, but we found a local farmer that sits about 1 mile from our house selling his strawberries.  They are some of the best berries I've ever tasted!! 

But Jacob and I wanted to introduce Josh to strawberry picking!  This was the first year that he was actually able to help!

My big helper!

So, part of strawberry picking is tasting "samples" of your produce!  Jacob and I both tasted them and decided we'd ditch these and go buy from the local farmer!  Yep, he spoiled us!

We picked about a bucket full when we decided to ditch our efforts for the sweetest berries we'd ever tasted.  So, we carried our bucket up front and when I went to pay, I'd lost the $50 bill I had to pay them with!  Thank goodness Jacob has good eyes AND the wind didn't blow it away!  Jacob found it and we ended up ditching the strawberries since there was a huge line of people checking out and rain on the way.  It just wasn't meant to be....

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skeletal shoes

I haven't gone shopping at the mall for a LONG time!  But we had looked ALL over for sandals for Jacob that didn't look too
baby-ish in his size.  Which shouldn't be hard since he wears a size 5!!  But we found these awesome skeletal shoes.  Neither of us could wait to try them out.  So we put them on as soon as we left the store.  I wore mine half way across the mall and couldn't stand the shoes touching my toes.  So we turned around and took them back.  But we had a fun evening at the mall!

First grade chapel

Each class puts on one of the chapels during the year.  At Jacob's school, they have chapel each Thursday.  It worked out that he was learning the 23rd Psalm in his class this spring.  At the same time that they were having a contest at church for learning the 23rd Psalm.  Which he earned a trophy for at church!

His class sang Jacob's favorite song, Never Let Go.  There is nothing sweeter than listening to a group of 1st graders recite the 23rd Psalm. 

They also did a cute skit.

This was a great little song,  I will "Dwell in the house forever".

The raingutter regatta

For cubscouts, Jacob had to build and paint a sailboat.

Then the boys put them in raingutters, and used their own hot air power to push the boats down the gutter.  First one there wins!!

Jeffrey could barely get up to the raingutter....poor kid!  But he ended up 1st in his den. 
Jacob was 3rd in his den!!

The fairy/pirate party

My friend, Kristy had a birthday party for her daughter Adalyn.  She had seen this adorable sign for above the cake on pinterest and asked to borrow my cricut.  I think it turned out really cute!!

Kristy was very brave letting these 2 and 3 year olds paint in her kitchen.  But Josh loved it!!

Here's Adalyn checking on Josh's "fairy house".

The girls had fairy wings and the boys got to dress up like pirates.  So cute!!

She had a girl come do face painting on the kids.  I couldn't imagine how they would paint the boys faces....but Josh seemed to enjoy getting his face painted.

So stinkin' adorable!!!

Then they played pin the wand on the fairy.  Josh peeked, but then again, what do you expect from a 2 year old?!

This was my best attempt at the group shot of the birthday guests!

Josh's daddy

Josh has this new found independence.  Ok, so it's not new found, but he likes to enforce it more than ever now!  So, as we were meandering through walmart (cuz with a 2 year old you don't walk faster than a meander), Josh stopped at the underwear display to look at Micheal Jordan.  Then he started insisting that it was a picture of his daddy!  Oh my!!  He had me cracking up as I tried to convince him that this guy was not his daddy.  Now, we really sounded like we belonged on the people of walmart page!!

Daisy

This post has taken me awhile to write about....Daisy has been very sick since January.  I had been treating her with meds about 2 to 3 times a day. One weekend after returning from Indiana, She stopped eating.  Then on Monday morning when I got up, she just wanted to go outside.  So I let her out.  Then she wouldn't come back in.  She wouldn't even raise her head to look at me.  Thinking she was just sleeping, and couldn't hear me because she was hard of hearing I let her sleep a bit.  I finally a short bit later went to check on her.  She was so hot to the touch and her nose was dry.  Unfortunately the 2 vets that she has seen recently for her illness were both off on Monday.  So I called Dr. Gant.  Her son is in class with Jacob.  She was sweet enough to switch her surgery schedule around so I could bring her in right then.  She said her temperature was 105 degrees.  She said usually if someone brings a sick dog in, they are 102 degrees.  So she was burning up!  She felt her and said that ALL of her lymph nodes were swollen and could almost guarantee that she had lymphoma.  With her high liver counts and everything we'd been treating her for.  =(  Now the choice was mine...put her in the hospital for IV fluids and hope she will "pop" out of this, or face the inevitable.  The poor thing had been sick for so long, so I chose that it was time.  It was so hard to make the decision and then hold her as she slowly faded away.  My assurance is that she was cradled in my arms.  Now, I would never suggest taking a 2 year old with you to the vet for an appt. like this.  I felt like I had to constantly tell him to be nice.  Don't touch.  But we made it.  We brought her home and laid her to rest next to Hickory.  Josh asks about Daisy and why we left her at the other vet office.  But someday he will understand.  Dr. Gant sent this sweet poem with Daisy's paw prints.

"Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only TRUE FRIENDS leave footprints in your heart." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Or in this case, paw prints!

Easter picnic

Jacob decided on Easter that he's never been on a picnic.....

So we packed up the cooler with sandwiches, chips, and drinks and headed for the park.  We had fun "picnicking" and then we played some tennis.  Hopefully he remembers THIS picnic!  =D

Happy Easter!!!

The Easter bunny had prepared to give the boys their baskets at the campsite.  Sure glad the bunny found us at home!  So this year, the boys "basket" was a joint gift bag!

I love the big pile of Easter grass in the background!  The kids had fun dividing the goodies up between them!  What a great idea the bunny had too!  They BOTH got a joint gift card to the movies.  A family night in the making!

The boys in their matching Easter outfits.  I wonder how many more years I can pull this off?  Josh's shorts are WAY too big.  But he was wearing them.

Finally, a picture of Eric and I.  Thanks Jacob!

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One more cookout

We had planned on cooking hotdogs over the fire Saturday night.  Who said it had to be at the campsite.  So we lit up our campfire at home and roasted some dogs!

The final Easter egg hunt



I'm not sure why, but our Easter bunny has never done an Easter egg hunt at our house.  Well this year,  our Easter bunny had planned on doing it at the campsite.  But Josh had SO MUCH fun camping, and wouldn't rest, nap, or listen to direction.  That we had decided to come home after just one night.  So, the Easter bunny hid the eggs on Saturday night for the boys.  They had a blast finding the eggs in our own yard too!  Almost as much fun as the Big hunts they did this year.  I think our Easter bunny just found a new activity!