I've been afraid to write this post for about 48 hours now.
We had our first 20 mile run of the season on Sunday. And I'm not looking at my schedule for San Antonio right now, but I think it might be my one and only 20 mile training run. I know I have a 22, but this might have been the only 20. Our running program here groups people by what race they're doing (and by pace) -- there is an early marathon group for people running mid-Sept (the beginning of the marathon season) through early November, and then another group for people running the second week of November through mid-December (probably 90% of whom are training for our local early December marathon). So I'm on a short schedule, since my race is second week of Nov, but most the people I run with get to train for an extra 4 weeks (so they get at least one more 20 miler).
I ran and the cooler temps made a huge difference. I think it was low 60s when we started running. Afterward, I decided to get a massage, just to be safe. The chiropractor/sports medicine guy does massages for anyone who needs them after the long runs, and there's usually quite a line. I signed up and waited.
When it was my turn, he asked -- where does it hurt? I asked if I could whisper my answer so the nearby runners wouldn't hear me. We stepped aside and I reluctantly told him...
"Nowhere."
True enough, after my first 20 miler of the season, I was pain-free. I couldn't even believe it.
And more unbelievably perhaps, I ran with my group for the entire time. I didn't fall behind. I had to ask a few people up front to reign in the pace a few times, but we all stayed together and everyone in the group had a great run. That's kind of rare for a 20-miler. Usually someone doesn't feel well and has to call it quits early on a 20 mile run, but our group this year was solid.
The weather helped a lot I'm sure. I kept waiting for my calf to hurt, but it just never happened.
As usual, when I have a run at 20 or more miles, after a stretch and a recovery drink, I take an ice bath. Since it was a bit cooler this morning, I decided I could get away with only buying 20 pounds of ice. Mistake. Our water is still so warm here that 20 pounds plus all our freezer ice melted in less than 10 minutes. I wore a sweatshirt and drank hot espresso and read a book while I sat for 20 minutes and it wasn't too painful.
Then I went to meet hubby for Mexican food to get my sodium levels back to normal with a large serving of tortilla chips, and spent most of the day relaxing.
I thought maybe the soreness would set in on Monday at some point, but nothing happened. I woke up this morning and went for a run and unbelievably, I'm still feeling great.
Now I haven't tried to push the pace at all since a few weeks ago when I tried to run marathon pace and I had pain within a couple minutes, but at least I know I'm solid at my easy pace.
And better yet, if Sunday had been race day, I felt like I could have kept running for another 10k. No saying if I could have maintained pace, but I felt like I could have.
I think marathon number 14 is going to proceed as planned. Still not sure I'll be able to PR, but I should at least be able to run it -- good news considering how much pain I had in August in my soleus.
Very happy!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
Friend-Making Mondays -- Holidays and Vacation
So I don't really know what happened to me last week. I meant to post more, but our internet at home wasn't working one day, and I had to be at work very early one day for a day-long continuing legal education seminar once, so somehow the week just got away from me. Anyway, nothing particularly exciting to report!
I want to get caught up on Friend-Making Mondays, so I'm doing a double today since I never got around to doing it last week.
If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: http://www.alltheweigh.com/ so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!
FMM: What’s your favorite holiday? And why?
Well, as generic and common as it is as an answer, I have to say Christmas. I like Mardi Gras, I like the Fourth of July, I like Thanksgiving, but I looooove Christmas.
We go home to spend it with my family every year (I have younger brothers who still come home too, while hubby's brothers are all older and spend the day with their own kids, so that's my argument as to why we see my family instead of his). And besides that, staying here (with no family) isn't an option either because I can't imagine Christmas in Texas -- it wouldn't be cold enough or white enough! Growing up in the great white north, to me Christmas is white and cold (well, so is Halloween sometimes! but I'm flexible on that).
Of course there is so much great stuff leading up to Christmas. The holidays for me kind of begin the day after Thanksgiving when we put up our tree. Before Thanksgiving I try to start my holiday shopping and sometimes I even start on cards because I hate to be rushed, but really, I'm only ahead of the game about every third year. But we put the (fake) tree up so early (day after Thanksgiving) b/c some years I've flown home as early as the 18th of December, leaving not much time to enjoy the tree if I wait to put it up.
So the day after Thanksgiving, we put up and decorate the tree while listening to holiday music. Back in my single days, sometimes I'd sleep on the floor or couch looking at the tree for multiple nights during the holiday season. It's so pretty!
The rest of the season includes lots of parties and special dinners with friends, but most of this occurs after our big local marathon here, which is now the first weekend in December -- so many of my friends are runners and many of them don't drink (or eat crazy fattening foods) in the week or two before the race, so it's nice to have that behind us.
I always do a special day of baking, now with my next-door neighbor's help. We make a bunch of kinds of cookies.
I don't know how I pass the rest of the season, but it's always busy. Lots of wrapping, shopping and socializing, but my favorite part definitely starts the day I (or we) fly home. Usually I go a few days in advance of hubby, then he flies to Chicago to hang out with my brothers who are there, then they give him a ride home when they come up. It gives me extra quality solo time with my folks.
When I get home, to start usually, there's lots of time with my nieces and nephew. The last couple years even attending their school Christmas program. Sometimes last minute shopping for things I didn't ship or bring with me. Some wrapping. But mostly soaking up the kids. I'm not near them so they always seem to have grown so much from my last visit. They're tons of fun (well, in limited quantities, I'm not a big kid person and when they get cranky, I just want out...).
After a couple days of nieces/nephew time and last minute shopping and wrapping, It's about 5 hours' drive to my folks' house from Milwaukee, and when I get there it really starts to feel like time. Something about Christmas with your mama! She's cooking and baking up a storm for weeks. There's lots of time just hanging out, playing games, going for long walks in the snow, last minute baking, reading cards from family friends, etc.
Christmas Eve is usually the day everyone is finally home, my brothers, their girlfriends (well, this year I guess most of them will be wives!!!!). We have an appetizer-type dinner, sometime with fondue or something like that. And then we all get dressed up and take pictures, and head to church. It's about 45 minutes away (often more because the temps are usually well below zero, so roads can be bad), so we sing carols in the car (with the radio), and if we get there early, we stop at a bar for hot toddies (and sometimes if one of my brothers had to work, he'll just meet us there rather than driving all the way home and then doubling back). Then we stay at church and the last few years have been kind of fun since the priest at my folks' church is the priest who performed our wedding ceremony in Italy! He also just married my baby brother off in July. Kind of special. Then we drive all the way back home, and usually sit up late drinking, talking and eating Christmas cookies -- my mom is really strict and no one is allowed to consume a single cookie until after Christmas Eve dinner. Sometimes my mom will read A Christmas Story to us. It's so much fun.
Christmas morning we wake up and open presents together. We take turns, one person opening one gift at a time, so it takes a long time. Then my mom makes a very special brunch for us. She makes a German Christmas bread, called stollen, and we have eggnog. The main dish varies -- creamed chipped beef on toast (she'll hold the beef on mine) and some other things I can't really remember, but all delicious.
Early afternoon the car gets loaded up for a drive with hubby and sometimes an occasional guest (last year it was my brother's girlfriend who had to work Dec. 26) to Milwaukee for Christmas Part Deux. This one is with more family, and one of my brothers who doesn't come home is there with all of his kids. Santa Claus makes an appearance, which is fun, and he has a gift for everyone -- so we all have to sit on his lap. Hubby, grandpa, dad, nieces, etc. Everyone. Always fun. This Christmas is a little more chaotic -- everyone opens presents at the same time and especially with the kids, it would take forever if we went one at a time. Sometimes the kids have meltdowns, but they usually recover pretty quickly and it's always a lovely night.
While I love being home for Christmas, the cold weather and the many dogs in the family (due to my allergies) always make us happy to get back to Texas! Hubby and I do our own Christmas after the fact usually -- sometimes we bring something small with us to exchange on Christmas day, but usually we have so much stuff to take with us and to bring back that it's usually easiest to have a Christmas Part Trois together.
Okay, now on to this week's topic:
FMM: Dream Vacation
If you were given two tickets that you (and someone you chose) could use to fly anywhere in the world, where would you go? And why?
This one is really tough because the driving force behind many of our life decisions (choosing not to have kids or pets, job choices, retirement plans, spending decisions, lifestyle choices in general) is our love of travel. So basically, I've already taken my dream vacation many times over.
Initially, the dream vacation was Europe, then more specifically Italy. I went for the first time in high school and I knew I'd have to return, I loved it so much.
Then my horizons broadened a bit, and maybe I would have said the dream trip was somewhere in Africa for a safari, or somewhere like Bali. After I got out of grad school, I took those trips -- a safari one year, city hopping in Asia the next (including Bali!).
Then I came up with my final list as an adult: top priorities are Israel, Russia, mainland China, Egypt and India. We've recently done Russia, we have plans for China next year, and Egypt and India will follow, and we're deferring Israel for a while.
So basically I've taken my dream trip many times over. We go to Italy almost annually now, and about every other year, we take an exotic trip somewhere else. I know I'm lucky but realistically, being able to do this is a priority for us, and like I said, we make a lot of our lifestyle choices to make these trips possible. I obviously know there are many people who don't know where their next meal is coming from, but for many people with steady jobs, taking dream trips is possible, it's just a question of priorities, and for many people, it's just not a top priority, which I understand, but just isn't me!
To answer the question, I would think practically -- if someone gave me 2 tickets, I'd probably pick the most expensive destination on our travel list because money and vacation days are the biggest constraints on our travel life. Would that be Fiji or Tahiti or South Africa? All places we'd like to go, not sure which is pricier. Without looking it up, I think they're each around $2k, so calling it even, I'm going to choose.
Fiji. If I was given 2 tickets to anywhere, I would take my husband to Fiji with me. I could learn a little about the war, and we could stay on one of those private over-water cabins. I would choose Fiji because I'm not sure we'll ever go there if we didn't get free tickets. It's hard to justify spending so much money on a trip like that when we could do two or three trips to Italy instead for the same price, but I would love to see Fiji. But if there was an error in booking and we were sent to Tahiti or Cape Town instead, that would work as well. There's pretty much nowhere in the world I don't want to visit!
I love travelling and expanding my horizons, so two tickets to anywhere would be good (though my least fave places so far have been Chinandega (Nicaragua), Bangkok, and Berlin, so I'm not eager to return to any of those). Free tickets are free tickets! What a fun thing to think about!
I want to get caught up on Friend-Making Mondays, so I'm doing a double today since I never got around to doing it last week.
If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here at: http://www.alltheweigh.com/ so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!
FMM: What’s your favorite holiday? And why?
Well, as generic and common as it is as an answer, I have to say Christmas. I like Mardi Gras, I like the Fourth of July, I like Thanksgiving, but I looooove Christmas.
We go home to spend it with my family every year (I have younger brothers who still come home too, while hubby's brothers are all older and spend the day with their own kids, so that's my argument as to why we see my family instead of his). And besides that, staying here (with no family) isn't an option either because I can't imagine Christmas in Texas -- it wouldn't be cold enough or white enough! Growing up in the great white north, to me Christmas is white and cold (well, so is Halloween sometimes! but I'm flexible on that).
Of course there is so much great stuff leading up to Christmas. The holidays for me kind of begin the day after Thanksgiving when we put up our tree. Before Thanksgiving I try to start my holiday shopping and sometimes I even start on cards because I hate to be rushed, but really, I'm only ahead of the game about every third year. But we put the (fake) tree up so early (day after Thanksgiving) b/c some years I've flown home as early as the 18th of December, leaving not much time to enjoy the tree if I wait to put it up.
So the day after Thanksgiving, we put up and decorate the tree while listening to holiday music. Back in my single days, sometimes I'd sleep on the floor or couch looking at the tree for multiple nights during the holiday season. It's so pretty!
The rest of the season includes lots of parties and special dinners with friends, but most of this occurs after our big local marathon here, which is now the first weekend in December -- so many of my friends are runners and many of them don't drink (or eat crazy fattening foods) in the week or two before the race, so it's nice to have that behind us.
I always do a special day of baking, now with my next-door neighbor's help. We make a bunch of kinds of cookies.
I don't know how I pass the rest of the season, but it's always busy. Lots of wrapping, shopping and socializing, but my favorite part definitely starts the day I (or we) fly home. Usually I go a few days in advance of hubby, then he flies to Chicago to hang out with my brothers who are there, then they give him a ride home when they come up. It gives me extra quality solo time with my folks.
When I get home, to start usually, there's lots of time with my nieces and nephew. The last couple years even attending their school Christmas program. Sometimes last minute shopping for things I didn't ship or bring with me. Some wrapping. But mostly soaking up the kids. I'm not near them so they always seem to have grown so much from my last visit. They're tons of fun (well, in limited quantities, I'm not a big kid person and when they get cranky, I just want out...).
After a couple days of nieces/nephew time and last minute shopping and wrapping, It's about 5 hours' drive to my folks' house from Milwaukee, and when I get there it really starts to feel like time. Something about Christmas with your mama! She's cooking and baking up a storm for weeks. There's lots of time just hanging out, playing games, going for long walks in the snow, last minute baking, reading cards from family friends, etc.
Christmas Eve is usually the day everyone is finally home, my brothers, their girlfriends (well, this year I guess most of them will be wives!!!!). We have an appetizer-type dinner, sometime with fondue or something like that. And then we all get dressed up and take pictures, and head to church. It's about 45 minutes away (often more because the temps are usually well below zero, so roads can be bad), so we sing carols in the car (with the radio), and if we get there early, we stop at a bar for hot toddies (and sometimes if one of my brothers had to work, he'll just meet us there rather than driving all the way home and then doubling back). Then we stay at church and the last few years have been kind of fun since the priest at my folks' church is the priest who performed our wedding ceremony in Italy! He also just married my baby brother off in July. Kind of special. Then we drive all the way back home, and usually sit up late drinking, talking and eating Christmas cookies -- my mom is really strict and no one is allowed to consume a single cookie until after Christmas Eve dinner. Sometimes my mom will read A Christmas Story to us. It's so much fun.
Christmas morning we wake up and open presents together. We take turns, one person opening one gift at a time, so it takes a long time. Then my mom makes a very special brunch for us. She makes a German Christmas bread, called stollen, and we have eggnog. The main dish varies -- creamed chipped beef on toast (she'll hold the beef on mine) and some other things I can't really remember, but all delicious.
Early afternoon the car gets loaded up for a drive with hubby and sometimes an occasional guest (last year it was my brother's girlfriend who had to work Dec. 26) to Milwaukee for Christmas Part Deux. This one is with more family, and one of my brothers who doesn't come home is there with all of his kids. Santa Claus makes an appearance, which is fun, and he has a gift for everyone -- so we all have to sit on his lap. Hubby, grandpa, dad, nieces, etc. Everyone. Always fun. This Christmas is a little more chaotic -- everyone opens presents at the same time and especially with the kids, it would take forever if we went one at a time. Sometimes the kids have meltdowns, but they usually recover pretty quickly and it's always a lovely night.
While I love being home for Christmas, the cold weather and the many dogs in the family (due to my allergies) always make us happy to get back to Texas! Hubby and I do our own Christmas after the fact usually -- sometimes we bring something small with us to exchange on Christmas day, but usually we have so much stuff to take with us and to bring back that it's usually easiest to have a Christmas Part Trois together.
Okay, now on to this week's topic:
FMM: Dream Vacation
If you were given two tickets that you (and someone you chose) could use to fly anywhere in the world, where would you go? And why?
This one is really tough because the driving force behind many of our life decisions (choosing not to have kids or pets, job choices, retirement plans, spending decisions, lifestyle choices in general) is our love of travel. So basically, I've already taken my dream vacation many times over.
Initially, the dream vacation was Europe, then more specifically Italy. I went for the first time in high school and I knew I'd have to return, I loved it so much.
Then my horizons broadened a bit, and maybe I would have said the dream trip was somewhere in Africa for a safari, or somewhere like Bali. After I got out of grad school, I took those trips -- a safari one year, city hopping in Asia the next (including Bali!).
Then I came up with my final list as an adult: top priorities are Israel, Russia, mainland China, Egypt and India. We've recently done Russia, we have plans for China next year, and Egypt and India will follow, and we're deferring Israel for a while.
So basically I've taken my dream trip many times over. We go to Italy almost annually now, and about every other year, we take an exotic trip somewhere else. I know I'm lucky but realistically, being able to do this is a priority for us, and like I said, we make a lot of our lifestyle choices to make these trips possible. I obviously know there are many people who don't know where their next meal is coming from, but for many people with steady jobs, taking dream trips is possible, it's just a question of priorities, and for many people, it's just not a top priority, which I understand, but just isn't me!
To answer the question, I would think practically -- if someone gave me 2 tickets, I'd probably pick the most expensive destination on our travel list because money and vacation days are the biggest constraints on our travel life. Would that be Fiji or Tahiti or South Africa? All places we'd like to go, not sure which is pricier. Without looking it up, I think they're each around $2k, so calling it even, I'm going to choose.
Fiji. If I was given 2 tickets to anywhere, I would take my husband to Fiji with me. I could learn a little about the war, and we could stay on one of those private over-water cabins. I would choose Fiji because I'm not sure we'll ever go there if we didn't get free tickets. It's hard to justify spending so much money on a trip like that when we could do two or three trips to Italy instead for the same price, but I would love to see Fiji. But if there was an error in booking and we were sent to Tahiti or Cape Town instead, that would work as well. There's pretty much nowhere in the world I don't want to visit!
I love travelling and expanding my horizons, so two tickets to anywhere would be good (though my least fave places so far have been Chinandega (Nicaragua), Bangkok, and Berlin, so I'm not eager to return to any of those). Free tickets are free tickets! What a fun thing to think about!
Monday, September 26, 2011
Slow success
I would call Sunday's 18 mile run a success, though it was slow -- as it turns out, not as slow as I thought, but my group is speedy, so I was far behind.
I ran out 9 with my group and felt good, but my calf was a little tight -- but not painful yet. So at the u-turn, I slowed down a bit. My group slipped ahead, but not so far they were ever out of sight. I'd catch up to them at each water stop (every 2 miles), grab a quick drink, and head out with them and again have them slip away. But I was looking at my paces, and I was only about 15 secs/mile slower than we're supposed to be running. But they're running about 15 secs/mile faster than we're supposed to be running, so that widens the gap.
But I'll take it. I feel like I'd have no hope of doing the race if I didn't run an 18 miler. Ideally, I'll have at least one 20 (next week) and one 22 (later), but if things get worse with my calf and I have to take time off or something, at least with an 18 I feel like I could do the race -- though obviously it wouldn't be pretty. At this point, I kind of doubt it will be pretty anyway. I'm still at the point where speed is painful.
I jogged a bit at boot camp this morning -- nothing fast, and less than half a mile total, but it's a start. I think now that I'm completely pain-free when running at my easy pace, I can probably start adding some more miles.
I'll slowly build that up, and hopefully in a couple weeks the soleus will be patched up enough that I can start picking up the pace.
Anyway, I'm calling a completed 18 a success. Add in the fact that I finally got my brake fluid level checked, went to the Greek Festival, wrote some belated thank-you notes, and did some party planning for next weekend, plus laundry!, I would have to say the whole weekend was a success!
Feels like things are so busy lately, and I have the feeling it's not going to ease up as the holidays start getting closer and closer. I need to start shopping! The next 2 weekends hopefully I can make some progress on nieces and nephew and maybe even a sibling or two and take those home in a few weeks when we go for my brother's wedding.
I ran out 9 with my group and felt good, but my calf was a little tight -- but not painful yet. So at the u-turn, I slowed down a bit. My group slipped ahead, but not so far they were ever out of sight. I'd catch up to them at each water stop (every 2 miles), grab a quick drink, and head out with them and again have them slip away. But I was looking at my paces, and I was only about 15 secs/mile slower than we're supposed to be running. But they're running about 15 secs/mile faster than we're supposed to be running, so that widens the gap.
But I'll take it. I feel like I'd have no hope of doing the race if I didn't run an 18 miler. Ideally, I'll have at least one 20 (next week) and one 22 (later), but if things get worse with my calf and I have to take time off or something, at least with an 18 I feel like I could do the race -- though obviously it wouldn't be pretty. At this point, I kind of doubt it will be pretty anyway. I'm still at the point where speed is painful.
I jogged a bit at boot camp this morning -- nothing fast, and less than half a mile total, but it's a start. I think now that I'm completely pain-free when running at my easy pace, I can probably start adding some more miles.
I'll slowly build that up, and hopefully in a couple weeks the soleus will be patched up enough that I can start picking up the pace.
Anyway, I'm calling a completed 18 a success. Add in the fact that I finally got my brake fluid level checked, went to the Greek Festival, wrote some belated thank-you notes, and did some party planning for next weekend, plus laundry!, I would have to say the whole weekend was a success!
Feels like things are so busy lately, and I have the feeling it's not going to ease up as the holidays start getting closer and closer. I need to start shopping! The next 2 weekends hopefully I can make some progress on nieces and nephew and maybe even a sibling or two and take those home in a few weeks when we go for my brother's wedding.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Family Growing Again!
Crazy! Well, not too crazy, but exciting. One of my remaining single older brothers just got engaged! My family is growing by leaps and bounds these days. I got a new sister-in-law when my baby brother got married in July. I'm getting another new sister-in-law when another younger brother gets married in a few weeks. And now there will be another wedding to anticipate! That only leaves one unmarried sibling -- my next oldest brother. As far as I can tell, he's not even close to settling down and pulling the trigger. I could see him being a one-woman-man at some point, but not sure he'd feel a need to make it legal, and not sure when he'll find that one woman -- he may be having too much fun looking.
Anyway, this brother was planning to get engaged months ago on a trip overseas to see her family in Germany. But then his job got in the way, and he wasn't able to make the trip with her, so her sister went along instead. But he already had the ring and was just waiting for the right time and place.
They are on vacation right now in Sanibel Island, and that was the right time and place it turns out! Woo-hoo!
An interesting/odd thing is that my bro is older than me and she is younger than me -- they have a gap of over 10 years, just like my husband and I do. And my next youngest brother married someone older than me -- their age gap is more like 4 or 5 years, but it's still funny that they overlapped like that. On paper, someone would guess the older sister-in-law would be married to one of my older siblings, and the younger to a younger.
Of all the recent family additions, this one I know least of all but seems absolutely wonderful.
Let's see if I can paste a few photos of them:
So I was just pulling those off facebook, and in looking for a few pics to grab to share, what strikes me in looking at them is how happy my bro looks. Who could want anything more for her family? I love seeing my brothers happy and choosing wonderful women with which to spend their lives.
In my family, it's tradition for the guys to do a big grouse hunt in November, and the last several years all the women have met somewhere for a spa/shopping weekend. Hubby and I haven't ever joined in, mostly b/c we haven't had the spare vacation time, but also since so much travel would be involved for us (and we fly up there in Dec anyway), and hubby doesn't hunt (though he does love shooting, just wouldn't kill an animal). But one of these years we'll both join them. If the grouse hunt this year wasn't the same weekend as the San Antonio marathon, maybe this would have been the year. But by the time the dates were set, my marathon was already on the books, so maybe next year. But seeing a picture like this one from last year's girls non-hunt weekend makes me want to go. I don't know the person whose face is partially obstructed, but the two full faces on the left side are my sisters-in-law now, the third one will be next month, and the one on the end will be as soon as they set a date!
Anyway, this brother was planning to get engaged months ago on a trip overseas to see her family in Germany. But then his job got in the way, and he wasn't able to make the trip with her, so her sister went along instead. But he already had the ring and was just waiting for the right time and place.
They are on vacation right now in Sanibel Island, and that was the right time and place it turns out! Woo-hoo!
An interesting/odd thing is that my bro is older than me and she is younger than me -- they have a gap of over 10 years, just like my husband and I do. And my next youngest brother married someone older than me -- their age gap is more like 4 or 5 years, but it's still funny that they overlapped like that. On paper, someone would guess the older sister-in-law would be married to one of my older siblings, and the younger to a younger.
Of all the recent family additions, this one I know least of all but seems absolutely wonderful.
Let's see if I can paste a few photos of them:
So I was just pulling those off facebook, and in looking for a few pics to grab to share, what strikes me in looking at them is how happy my bro looks. Who could want anything more for her family? I love seeing my brothers happy and choosing wonderful women with which to spend their lives.
In my family, it's tradition for the guys to do a big grouse hunt in November, and the last several years all the women have met somewhere for a spa/shopping weekend. Hubby and I haven't ever joined in, mostly b/c we haven't had the spare vacation time, but also since so much travel would be involved for us (and we fly up there in Dec anyway), and hubby doesn't hunt (though he does love shooting, just wouldn't kill an animal). But one of these years we'll both join them. If the grouse hunt this year wasn't the same weekend as the San Antonio marathon, maybe this would have been the year. But by the time the dates were set, my marathon was already on the books, so maybe next year. But seeing a picture like this one from last year's girls non-hunt weekend makes me want to go. I don't know the person whose face is partially obstructed, but the two full faces on the left side are my sisters-in-law now, the third one will be next month, and the one on the end will be as soon as they set a date!
Love my family and happy to see that it will grow again. I started this year with 2 sisters-in-law and by the time all this year's weddings and engagements are done, I'll have 5!
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