Alli's Big day

Today was a big day for Alli. She had her preschool graduation tonight and she lost her first tooth. Her tooth has been loose for a few weeks and this morning she woke up and ended up pulling her tooth out, she was so excited.

Tonight they had a program for their end of year and she got a certificate for her completion of level II preschool. She is so excited because next year she gets to go to "Big School". Unfortunately for her she has to wait until August to go to school. Give her a few years and she won't be looking forward to school! I can't believe she will be in Kindergarten next year, where does the time go?

Alli's Playing Softball

Dawn couldn't wait for Alli to start playing softball because she wanted to be able to coach her. Well this year Alli is old enough to play softball. She is playing at Irvington in the 5 to 7 year old Rookie softball league and they are so cute. They had their parade on Saturday, April 25 and Drew and I watched for them at the parade route. It was so cute because as the kids came by Andrew would just clap and smile, the guy standing next to me said "wow he really knows what to do" and then he said "I guess he figures if he claps the kids will throw him candy", little did he know how right he was.

Alli didn't have a game on opening day but Adam is coaching Nicks baseball team because Adam had really been looking forward to coaching as well. Nick and Alli practiced before Nicks game.

Nick did really good and even slid home a couple of times.

I went to watch Alli's game this past Saturday and she was cold and tired and so she had a melt down so we left the game and she went home and went to bed and slept for 3 hours - she was really tired. Well tonight was a much better night and I got to see her play. For a bunch of 5, 6 & 7 year olds they are actually pretty good and made quite a few outs. Alli just looks so adorable in her little softball outfit. Hopefully she will stick with it and we will have many more years of watching her play ball.

Happy Mothers Day 2009

What a wonderful Mothers Day! We had the Dwenger's and the Graham's all together to celebrate Mothers Day. I think I have said it before, it is just so nice that Ron's family and my family get along so well together because that way I can celebrate with both of my moms and all of the other moms in the family. We all went over to Dawn & Adam's for a cook out (thanks Dawn & Adam for hosting) and then we had a couple of cornhole tournaments. We drew for teams and had 8 teams playing. The first tournament Adam & I won and the second tournament Cathy & Adam won. The thing I loved the most was to see my mom, dad, and Ron's mom all played. The second tournament my Dad & Jeff were the runners up and dad was so cute, at one time he put all four of the bags on the board on the same pass but he was upset because he didn't get any in the hole, what a perfectionist.I received a very nice card from my mother-in-law and one from my son-in-law which both almost made me cry, they were very nice - thank you both!

I received a hand print T-shirt and a hand/foot print canvas print from the grand kids that I just absolutely loved.

We had such a great day and I'm just excited to have many more cookouts over the sping/summer.

Happy Mothers Day to all!

500 Mini Marathon May 2, 2009

On Saturday, May 2nd I ran the 500 Festival Mini Marathon. I signed up for the Mini back in October long before I knew I was going to have my surgery. I had a fractured disc in the C6-C7 area and had it removed and had a disc replacement and so therefore I was out of commission for 6 weeks but I was determined to still do this undaunting task. I started running just a little bit towards the end of March and ran a little bit in April. Because of surgery I did not train like I really needed to in order to run a half marathon. In total I probably had run about 25 miles since the first of the year and yet I was signed up to due 13.1 all in one day. I had figured that there was no way that I could run the whole thing so I made another goal. I wanted to run at least the first 1 1/2 miles and then run the 2.5 miles on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Track and then run at least the last mile.

I had a vacation day on Friday and so I went to the Expo downtown and picked up my packet and visited the booths. Friday night Crystal, Hudson, Alli, Andrew & I went to Fazoli's so that I could carb load before Saturday. I wanted to go to bed early Friday night but ended up not getting to bed until about 10:30. I got up at 4:50 am on Saturday morning and ate an english muffin and a banana and drank a lot of water. Tina was running the Mini with me and she picked me up at 5:45 to go downtown, we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to get down there and get set. Everything went very smoothly and we had plenty of time and got to our corrals (Tina in G and me in H) and got set for the start of the race at 7:33. The atmosphere was great, music playing, beach balls flying and people getting psyched for the start of the run. I was so afraid it was going to rain because all day Friday they said that it would more than likely rain at some point during the race. When we looked west it definitely looked like it was going to rain. It was a little cool, about 48 degrees, but it was great running weather. Once we started it took about 11 minutes to cross the starting line. I wasn't sure what to expect with 30,000 people running. We took off and I ran with Tina for the first mile but then I had to stop for a quick "pit stop" and unfortunately so did a lot of other people so I waisted about 3 or 4 minutes but then I got right back on track. I felt pretty good up to mile 4 and then I got a little tired, partially because the most I had run at one time since October was just a little over 3 miles. I did walk for about 100 feet but then decided that I had to mentally get myself through it because I wasn't really hurting or anything, I just let me mind think that I couldn't do it, so I started running again. We got to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at about 5.5 miles and I thought that this was going to be the really cool part but I was just a little disappointed because the grandstands were empty and it seemed very quite in there. They did have a few cheerleading squads in there but other than that it was quiet. The rest of the course had various bands playing and people along the course cheering you on. We got out of the track at about mile 8 and I walked again for about 100 feet but then started running again after catching my breath. I surprisingly still felt pretty good. About mile 10 my feet started hurting but I figured I had made it this far and I only had 3.1 miles to go. I have to say that the last mile was probably the hardest part of the entire race. When I saw the 3/4 mile to go sign I was just so ready to be finished. When I could see the 1/2 mile sign and the 1/4 mile sign they seemed to move further and further away the faster I ran. It felt so good to cross the finish line and realize that I had just ran the whole thing. My time was not quite as good as the half in October but since I hadn't been training at all I was very pleased. I finished in 2:29:04 and Tina finished in 2:10:19 (AWESOME JOB TINA!). My 5 mile split was 54:25 and my 10 mile split was 1:52:41, my pace for the 13.1 miles was 11:23. The weather ended up being absolutely perfect and it didn't rain at all. By the time we finished the race the temperature was about 56 or so and it was perfect running weather. Crystal came down to pick me but didn't quite get there in time to see me cross the finish line - she didn't think that I would finish as soon as I did. We went to Military park for a little bit and then headed home. Unfortunately my day was just beginning because we had our bowling banquet that night and then after the banquet we went to Big Daddy's for a few hours and then we went to Indiana Live and so I didn't get home until about 2:30 in the morning. After getting up at 4:50 in the morning and running 13.1 miles and then not getting home until 2:30 the next morning I was totally exhausted and didn't get up until 11:45 on Sunday. Boy did it feel good to sleep in. Well I signed up for the half marathon in October so my goal is to better my time and maybe try to do a little more training!

Race for the Cure - April 18, 2009

My 2nd run of the year was the Susan G Komen Race for the cure. It was a beautiful day and was about 58 degrees so it may for nice running weather. My sister-in-law Cathy, her son Brian who was home on leave from the Navy, and I decided to do this run. Ron's Grandma was diagnosed with Breast Cancer when she was 88 years old and so we felt that this was definitely a good cause. I did actually end up running the whole 5k and did it in 32:08.9 which was a 10:20 pace so better than my last run but I was a little disappointed because I actually ran the whole thing and only finished 2 minutes sooner than the Will Power Run. Brian actually did very well and finished in 26:50.04 which was an 8:38 pace (he is only 24 years old so he should be able to run faster than me - right?) Cathy did not do the competitive run but she finished in about 50 minutes or so. I was glad that Brian and Cathy did this one with me, it was a lot of fun. My next run will be the mini in May and I can't say I'm going to be doing very well on that because I haven't been doing the training like I need to be, I have only ran a few times but I will just do the best I can.

Will Power Run - March 21, 2009

On March 21, 2009 I started my runs again. This was the first race that I started a year ago and so I figured it should be the first one that I started with after my surgery. Meijer was a sponsor again this year so we decided to do it again. Ron ended up having to work so his brother Dave ran in his place and then Dawn & Adam also ran as well as a few others from Meijer. I wasn't sure how this race would go since I had just had surgery just shy of 6 weeks before. I don't think the surgeon wasn't big on fitness and said I should be careful starting back with running but I was feeling pretty good so I figured if I took it easy I could do it. It was rather chilly and was about 38 degrees so if we wanted to keep warm we needed to run. I ran the first mile and then when back and forth between walking and running. I ended up finish in 34minutes 13 seconds which was am 11:02 pace - not bad for my first race back, I actually felt really good after the race - no pains in my shoulder or neck at all. Dave finished in 40 minutes 30 seconds a 13:04 pace and Dawn & Adam finished in 43 minutes 53 seconds a 14:09 pace. This is the first of many runs for this year. I will be doing the mini marathon in May so we will have to wait and see how that goes.

Happy 5th Birthday Alli!