Leprechaun Chase 10k

On March 15th I participated in the Leprechaun Chase 10k with three other friends.  The big issue here for me was the 10k.  I had NEVER ran a 10k before and was super nervous about pacing myself so I could finish.

It wasn't too warm-I think in the range of 35 to 40 degrees, windy, and a little overcast.  We dressed all in the green and Heidi picked up some fun St. Patrick's Day goodies for us to wear.  The premise of the race is to give the ladies a 5 minute head start and then the guys get to start and whoever comes in first, that gender all received a free drink at the after party.  I hadn't even reached the 1-mile mark before the first guy passed me.

And we are off! 

Going into this race I set my goal at an 11 minute mile pace.   I just didn't know how I would do come mile 4,5,6 so I wanted to not push it too hard so I would finish without walking.  Well as we were running my program kept telling me my pace was coming in around 9:30 minutes/mile.  I guess the adrenaline of the race got me going ahead of pace.  I told Heidi at Mile 4 I was going to walk and slow down but Mile 4 came and went and I kept on running.  Finally, right around 4.5 miles I told Heidi I was going to slow down-thinking I would walk a bit but I didn't-I slowed down but never walked.  At the end of the race I came in at 10 minutes 4 seconds a mile-well below my goal.  My final time came in at 1:02:33.  5.5 minutes below my goal time of 68 minutes.  I was pleased.

These pictures were thanks to the race organizers.  The posted tons of pictures for us to download and share as we would like. 

After the race we stayed downtown for a little bit grabbed a few drinks and some yummy food.  It was a fun morning/afternoon with some friends!  I am so thankful for my little group of friends.

I did it! 

Life in February

I know March is over but life has been busy and I am behind...not a big shock is it?  So this was what we were up to in February.

February started off with a trip up to Minnesota to go visit family, meet Randi's new little baby girl Clara, and have fun at the Mall of America.  It was a wonderful weekend!

Baby Clara...SO ADORABLE!!

We also decided to schedule Tally's appointment to be spayed.  When picking her up they told me she needed to be "quiet" for 21 days!!!  How do you keep a puppy from jumping, running, and playing for 21 days.  Poor Tally spent a lot of time in her little hallway nook so she wouldn't jump up on the counters or (a terrible, annoying things she does) or up on the couch. 

We hosted our annual winter game night.  Once again it was a blast!  

Elsie went bowling for the first time!  We had a little get together with all the daycare families on a Sunday night.  It was a lot of fun to get together and for Elsie to try out bowling.  She loved it!  

Valentine's Day 2014

Our Valentine's Day was pretty low key this year.  We just ordered pizza and had a "Pizza Picnic" that night.  We got Elsie this gigantic card card and she loved it!  She also got a few little items such as a new Valentine's book, Dora band-aids (why do kids like bandaids so much?) and a Dora puzzle.  

In February we went to watch Emma and Olivia's basketball game, their first grade music program, and they participated in a half time show for the high school which was broadcast live on the computer.  So that one we watched from the comfort of our bed :)  Elsie loved seeing her cousins on the computer screen.  

Mission Starfish 5k

On February 15th I ran my first race of the season.  It was a beautiful 10 degrees out with some gusty wind and snow that started right as we began.  This race was pretty grassroots put on by a local high school girl who was raising money for Haiti.  There was maybe 100 runners.  It wasn't timed but I did run the whole thing in my Yaktrax because it was pretty slick out.  

Heidi, Sue, and Me at the end of the 5k.  

On February 20th we had our first thunderstorm of the year with thunder, lightning, and some small hail.  Following the thunder snow we got some snow too.  They were forecasting a major blizzard for us but it didn't turn out to be much.  

Unlike Cinder, Tally was not phased at all by the thunderstorm.  

Elsie LOVED the big snowflakes and thought it was so funny that my hair was all white from the snow.  

And of course we had to play outside in the snow and make snow angels.  

Where is Elsie?  Oh here I am!!  She LOVES to play hide and seek these days.

The weather wasn't especially beautiful this month but I had signed up for a 10k that was taking place in the middle of March.  So, despite the fact that it was a balmy eight degrees out I bundled up and hit the trails.  My goal was to make it three miles.  It ended up being a GREAT run and I made it just shy of five miles-which is the farthest I ever had run and it gave me confidence that I could make the 6.2 miles in March.  

Some Random Pics

You can't really tell in the picture but the sun was reflecting on the steps to create a "rainbow" effect on the stairs.  Elsie came down the stairs and exclaimed "Mommy, there's a rainbow on the stairs!"  She was really excited.  

Elsie with Daddy in a fort under the Dining Room table.  

She found her winter gear that I bought for next year-she really wanted to go outside.  

Of course, a lot of our month looked a lot like this-packing boxes!  

Elsie is REALLY into her babies.  She had to "brush" baby's hair before leaving for the day :) 

And finally, we ended the month like this:   

Snuggling together on our last night in the house on 17th Street

Closing on our house!  

(you can check out the moving post here.)

And the last night of February looked like this! 

Priority List

I had mentioned in previous posts about creating a priority list prior to moving in.  I made this list based on photos, what we saw during inspections and one of the many times we looked at the house before finally closing on it.  Here is our list-looks like we are going to be pretty busy :)

Living Room

• Pull up carpet and check for hardwood floors
• Refinish hardwood floors

Powder Room 

We are hoping down the road to totally change this space in some way, remove the shower/washer dryer area and add that space to the kitchen so we hope to not spend a lot of cash in this room.  

• Remove Wallpaper
• Paint Walls
• Paint Tile
• Remove carpet and replace with new flooring (we found some vinyl planks that look like wood that we are going to go with for this project)
• Change out vanity/sink 
• Change out bath fixtures (faucet, towel bars, and toilet paper holder)
• Change out light fixture.

Dining Room

• Remove wallpaper
• Texture/Repair walls and ceiling-we have someone working on this as we speak
• Paint Wall
• Paint Ceiling
• Spray paint light fixture-we purchased the paint this past weekend and am just waiting for it to get a bit warmer outside before spray painting it.  According to the forecast it sounds like that might be sooner than later :)  

Family Room

• Remove Wallpaper
• Paint Walls
• Add a desk to create a "command center" area.  

Main Floor Closets

• Add shelves to small broom closet to make pantry
• Add shelves and organization to hall closet to create coat closet
• Remove carpet from the floors

Master/Guest Bathroom

• Remove carpet 
• Add new flooring
• Fill holes in shower where door was removed.  

Kitchen

• Replace door knobs and pulls
• Remove Wallpaper
• Paint Walls
• Fix hardware on doors that are not working properly to keep doors shut
• Remove saloon doors
• Remove doors on the little window above the sink

Upstairs Bath

• Remove carpet from floors and replace with peel and stick vinyl tile planks
• Remove shower door and replace with shower curtain
• Add "S" arm to shower head to increase the height of the shower head
• Remove wallpaper
• Paint Walls
• Remove hardwater stains near drain in bathtub or refinish tub
• Re-grout the tile (there is a lot of loose grout in the bath tub area)

Elsie's Room

• Remove carpet from closets and replace with a new flooring (we didn't end up having to replace it because we discovered hardwood floors underneath the old carpet. 
• Add additional hanger bars and shelving in both of her closets

Our Room 

• Add a closet system to large closet.
• Remove old carpet from the large closet and add flooring. (There is no hardwood floors under this carpet).

Miscellaneous

• Replace thermostat with new programmable one
• Purchase and Install Carbon Monoxide and smoke detectors throughout the house (one in each sleeping area and in hallway and one set in the basement.  

Outdoors

• Rake Leaves-there are tons of them
• Powerwash Front Porch, Back Deck
• Stain and Seal Front Porch, Back Deck
• Tear out steel edging around flower beds (This scares me.  Super dangerous with a little kid running around.  Those corners are sharp!)
• Weed out the beds and figure out what the heck is our there.  It definitely needs to cleaned out! 

Second Annual Winter Game Night

Back on February 8th, John and I hosted our annual winter game night.  Last Year we had our first game night and we thought it was a blast.  One of my favorite get togethers ever!  This year was just as fun although, we did miss some of those that came the year before.

This year we ended up with 7 couples total with some that came last year (John and Tanya, Marc and Amber, Nick and Hillary, Jeff and Robbie) and a few new faces too (Kedra and Mathew, Heidi and Jason, Shanna and Mike).  It was fun.  For food I served shrimp cocktail, a taco dip, jalapeno popper dip and baguettes, meat and cheese, pickle wraps, and bacon wrapped smokies.  Some of the guests brought yummy food to share as well :)  We had more than enough food to go around.

I also decided to change up the way I did prizes this year.  Last year if you won, you got a prize right away-and I had more variety of prizes.  This year, if you won a game you got a scratch off and then your name went in a drawing for the prizes which were drawn at the end of the night.  The bigger prizes were a $25 BWW gift card (which was won by Shanna), a $15 iTunes gift card (won by Amber), a $10 Subway gift card (also won by Amber) and a $5 Starbucks gift card (won by Hillary).  I think I will probably do the prizes this way again next year.

For games, after reading back from last years were actually the exact same games and the same order as we played last year:  Left, Center Right, Crap on Your Neighbor, Spoons, and then Pictionary.  After pictionary all but Marc, Amber, Jeff and Robbie left and the guys played cribbage and Amber and I taught Robbie how to play PNA-oh does that game bring back memories from high school haha!

Here are some photos from the night!

Thanks again everyone for a wonderful night!