Monday Gumbo

Dare we even think about the warm temperatures that are fore casted here for this week? Could it actually happen?

Yesterday I ran my first race in ... well... let's just say a LONG time. It was an 8k in Raleigh to raise money for MS... VERY hilly, and it was HOT yesterday afternoon. Race start was 3PM... (it had to be after noon in order for them to serve beer I think! Tir Na Nog put the event on...)

Ran it in just under 48 minutes - which wasn't terrible I guess. I didn't like the first 2 miles (well, hell - really I didn't like most of it, with all the hills...) but the bodies and strollers and congestion kind of freaked me out!! I guess more experience will help. Or private races!

Amelia was home sick Thursday and Friday with just fever... nothing else really in the way of symptoms. Those are the times that the mama-brain goes into overdrive - because fever with nothing else makes my head go to places that it is better off staying away from. Saturday night the girl would NOT go to bed... literally screamed her ass off every time we put her into her crib - to the point of barfing. Nice. Ken took her for a drive at 11 and she conked out... got her into bed... then up again at 1:20. I was up with her until she fell asleep around 3 in my arms on the couch... so from 3AM - 7AM I sort of half sat, half laid on the couch with her so as to let her sleep. (Not great race prep...)

Last night was better - she went down with less antics around 8PM, and I went to bed at the same time. She slept until 5:20 this morning - still not great in terms of wake up time - but we'll take it over what happened the night before.

Matt and Ains both started spring soccer on Saturday and great games for both. Ainsley's team played really hard and had some moments of absolute brilliance in their 6-3 loss. Matthew's team rallied late to pull out a 6-4 win - Matt scored half their goals.

We test drove the new Sienna on Saturday... I know, I know... I can hear you all laughing from here. I MISS THE DOUBLE SLIDING DOORS. I miss them more than anything in this world. If you are a carpool mama - you know what I am saying... there is no bus for my kids - we *have* to do carpool... and there is literally 12 seconds to get them in and out. With the 3rd kid we drive - they just find it really difficult to flip the seat in order to get out. So it was a nightmare - and now I have been riding with Matthew in the front seat to avoid the 3rd row insanity - which is less than ideal in terms of safety. (Matt is still 25lbs from technically being big enough to not ride in a booster!) Add to this the fact that we really need ROOM - I just should have kept my van last summer. Lesson learned I guess.

In any case - we have decided that since I am in fact a car whore - I really should never buy, and Toyota has some pretty good promotions on right now (ha ha!) especially with their leases. So if everything comes together - then we'll probably do the switcheroo this week.

I finally got the plans underway for Ainsley's 7th birthday... we're going to do the drive way drive in, just like we did for Matthew's 7th - hopefully the weather holds!

Happy Monday everyone!