Outdoor Fun

Ella has been bugging Ryan about sleeping outside, so yesterday he got the backyard mowed, removed the decomposing frog from the tent, and got it all set up so Ella and Ava could sleep outside. They lasted until about 10 and then moved inside. It must have tired them out because for once they didn't get up at 6 to jump on the trampoline. Ella and Emilia had fun in the tent before Ava came over.

Emilia's Dream Come True

Unattended ice cream.

Last Day of School

It's finally the last day of school...it's hard to believe Ella will be in 2nd grade next year. She's been so blessed with fabulous teachers! She's grown up so much since the first day of first grade and even more since kindergarten.

Rock Your Socks Virtual 10K

I participated in Racing With Babes's Rock Your Socks Virtual 10K this morning. And while my 10K was not the speediest, I think I did rock my socks. Here's the deets:

I intended to run my 10K Saturday morning, but Little Baby Naughty Pants was not too keen on me getting up early, and by the time I finally got out the door, it was 9:30, hot, and windy. And my legs were still killing me from an ill-advised interval work-out on Thursday. So I stopped after 3 miles on Saturday and decided to try again this morning. (The race was supposed to be completed by Sunday, but I'm a rule-breaker like that. Actually, I'm not. I feel totally like a slacker for not being able to do a totally flexible race in a three-day time period, but at least I got it done.)

I got up at 5 this morning, slipped into my rockin' socks, and headed out the door. This is the first time I've ever run further than 5 miles, so I treated this like a long, slow run and didn't try to be speedy at all. Except for once over by the grade school, I thought I saw a loose dog and picked up the pace to avoid it. I then missed a curb and totally wiped out on the concrete. Total pratfall. Picture me, face down on the sidewalk, right outside my daughter's classroom window. Luckily no one was around to see it. And it turned out to be a tricycle and a Wal-Mart bag, not a dog at all. Hey, it was dark and hard to see. And if you'd been bitten by a white trash dog and had to get stitches in Chris Gardner's dining room (luv ya, Chris and Cathy), you'd be paranoid about loose dogs, too.

As I was finishing up, it started to drizzle and then rain, which felt wonderful! Final time: 1 hour, 9 minutes, 23 seconds.

Gimme some sugar

Dorky love

Ella really is a nerd, just like her mama. Want proof? Just watch her…

· Flap her arms when she gets really excited (although that is clearly a Burrows trait, not one from my gene pool),

· Fall down 47 times in 10 minutes,

· Wear goggles and nose-plugs to run through the sprinkler,

· Worry that someone is faster than her at addition,

· Or become super competitive about AR points.

Yet sometimes, I look at my nerdy girl and think, “Wait a second, she’s not acting like a nerd. At all.” Case in point: she has plastered her walls with pictures of Justin Bieber. Now, I’ll admit, I plastered my walls with pictures of Kirk Cameron, but that wasn’t until 4^th or 5^th grade. Isn’t 1^st grade a little early for celebrity crushes? Ella knows all the popular songs and wants them downloaded to her iPod. She’s conscious of fashion (and name-brands) in a way that I wasn’t until late grade school (if ever). She knows to pair her skinny jeans with ballet flats without anyone telling her to. She gets excited about the release of stores’ “spring lines” (her terminology). She obsesses about wearing the right shoes (and hates PE due to the restrictions it places on her shoe choices). She does her own hair, wears lip gloss, and often applies way too much perfume.

Where is this coming from? Is my little girl not as dorky as I thought? Is this a different form of geekiness? Is there such a thing as a fashion geek? Is she growing up too fast? Is it the influence of an increasingly global society and the over-sexualization of children and too much Disney Channel? These thoughts race through my mind as she pores over the Justice catalog. But then she falls down going up the stairs, pretends to be homeless, and takes her embroidery kit to school for Show and Share. Her glasses slip down on her nose, her hair falls in her eyes, and I know that no matter how hip or stylish she may become, she’ll always be my little dork.

Tough Enough to Wear Pink 5K

I ran this morning in the Relay for Life Tough Enough to Wear Pink 5K in Ulysses. Participants were encouraged to wear pink, so I wore a pink hat and shirt, black polka dot running skirt, and pink and white striped knee high socks. (Sorry, I didn't get a picture. You'll just have to trust me when I assure you that I looked hot!) There was a (ginormous) man wearing a pink kilt and a girl who had painted her body pink, so in comparison, I wasn't really that pink. I finished in 26:40 and was third in my age group! I even won a medal (but their medal order got messed up, so they'll have to mail it to me.) Yay me!

Smoothie Love

I am obsessed with smoothies. Obsessed. Generally I blend plain or Greek yogurt with frozen fruit, honey or agave nectar, and ice. Sometimes, though, I want something a little less fruity but still cool and refreshing. Here are three of my newest favorites:

Chocolate Milkshake Smoothie (I've also added peanut butter to this one)
Vanilla Lime Smoothie (the recipe doesn't call for any sweetener, but I added some agave nectar)
Lemon Zest Drink

Enjoy!

Ella's Spring Concert

Ella did a great job at her concert tonight. She had a speaking part, and she spoke very clearly and confidently. The audience behavior was terrible...lots of loud talkers and screaming babies. At least it made my wild baby look like an angel in comparison! Emilia did try to charge the stage after Ella's speaking part, but luckily I caught her in time.

Dancing with the Stars

Fun in Rolla

More Satanta Day

Ella and I got up on Satanta Day for the Fun Run, which was indeed fun. It was a little cool for standing around but perfect for running. Then we got pancakes to go from the Satanta Day breakfast and got ready for the parade. Ella rode her bike in the parade (see pictures from previous post) and then walked with the Girl Scouts. (The Girl Scouts weren't too impressive; hence no pictures. In fact, I was the only one who even saw Ella walk through with the Girl Scouts; everyone else missed it.) The parade was a little chilly, but there was little wind, so it wasn't too bad at all.

After the parade, we headed to the park for the barbecue. There was a trampoline bungee jump set up. Ella couldn't wait to try it out; she really wanted to do this when we were in the Topeka mall over Spring Break, but the line was too long and slow moving. As we were waiting in line for Ella and Jaxon to jump, Nicole and I were discussing whether or not we would try it out. The guy running it overheard us and offered to let me go for free as the first adult. So Ella and I jumped at the same time. Ella went crazy, doing eight back flips. I was a little more conservative. I finally did one back flip to appease the crowd, but that was done reluctantly. I liked jumping, but I'm not so big on being upside down. It was fun, and I'd do it again, even though my arms are still sore.

Satanta Day Parade

3 High Fives Virtual 5K

Tall Mom on the Run is hosting a virtual 5K today to raise money Marathon for the Cure, so I got my hiney out of bed at 5 this morning to run. Now, if you've ever set foot in Satanta (or even looked at a map), you know how crazy our streets are. So mapping out a course was a bit of a challenge.

The perimeter of town actually is 5 kilometers (weird, huh?), but no way was I running on the highway in the dark, and I've had a few nasty run-ins with aggressive dogs over by the high school, which makes me want to avoid that stretch of road. (What is it about Satanta and mean dogs?) So I ran the loop around the grade school. (This is where I usually run anyway, especially in the morning. It's close to home and well lit, and I don't have to worry about angry dogs, just Jewell Swift wanting to talk.) I used MapMyRun to verify that the loop actually is half a mile like everyone says it is. This was more difficult than I anticipated because Google Maps doesn't recognize the sidewalk that goes by the softball field and thinks that the blocked-off alley that runs between Edna's and Papa's houses is a street. Anyway, I eventually figured it out, and it really is half a mile around the school. So I ran the loop 6 times, running the length of the front of the school at the end for the extra .1 to make it 5K. My time was 25:46, which isn't great by most standards (especially compared to some of the serious runners doing the virtual race), but for a beginning runner like me, I think it's pretty decent.

Next up...Satanta Day Fun Run.

Fashion statement

Knee socks pulled over pants+flip flops+oversized coat+Sublette Coop ball cap+dirty shirt+dirty face+a little bit of attitude=one stylish baby!

Walk Away 5K Report

I ran my first 5K this Saturday, the Walk Away 5K in Hays benefiting the Northwest Kansas Domestic and Sexual Violence Services. Technically, it wasn't a full 5K (the guys wearing Garmins reported it was about 2.75 miles), but close enough. I finished in 23 minutes, 48 seconds. Had it been a full 5K, I probably would have finished in about 27 minutes, which is about what my goal was. Originally, my goal had been anything under 30 minutes; then I lowered it to 27 1/2 minutes based on my training runs. So I guess I came in about 30 seconds under my goal. I think I could have run a little bit faster. I held back a little because I was afraid of running out of energy and then getting passed by all the people I had passed earlier, which would have been totally humiliating. When I finished, I felt like I could have kept on going for a while, which I think means I was holding back. I was in the top 20 out of 70, which I consider a success, even if I did get totally smoked by a guy in his 50s or 60s. And several women in their 60s. Oh well, not bad for my first race.