Half Marathon

For the past four months, I have been training with my friend Tawny for our first half marathon. Well, it was this past Sunday in Austin and we did it!!! We finished in about 2 hours and 35 minutes, which is a little over an 11.5 minute per mile pace. What we weren't prepared for was the hills!!! We had been warned that this was a hilly course, but you just don't really get it until you are running 13.1 miles up and down hills. On top of that, Tawny had what equated to a stress fracture in her foot and had been in a boot the week before. She really wanted to run because she had trained so hard, but she had to run on her tippy toes the whole way to keep the pressure off of it. We made it, though! We were so happy to have accomplished this after all of the practicing we had done. Here are some pictures from the race weekend:


The night before we left for Austin we grilled out to kick off the weekend. This is Channing and Tanner. Channing had been pushing Tanner around in the play stroller. They play so well together, and Tanner gets so excited when the get to see each other.


Tawny with the kids
Tawny and Paxton at the expo. Channing's always posing. What a cutie!
Us at the expo the day before the race.
Bath time at the hotel. This was Tanner's first hotel stay. That night around midnight we heard a thud and a loud cry. Tanner had fallen off the bed!!! She and Clinton were asleep in one bed because I was trying to get as much sleep as possible. I moved to their bed after that, though. Scary!!
Our pre-race carb-loaded meal!
Pizza and pasta!
This was me at 4:45am the day of the race. I was ready to go!
Tanner was bright-eyed and bushy tailed too!
My game face. I'm so fierce, I know....
This was near the starting line around 6:30am. We were nervous! I was a lot more nervous than Tawny, though. I think she was just nervous about how her foot would hold up.
There were approximately 14,000 runners between the marathon and half marathon.
This was mile 6. I was still feeling great at this point and felt like I could run forever. I would have told you differently, though, around mile 9! Tawny's foot was hurting her pretty badly at this point. She was such a trooper!
Tanner and G-Paw waiting at the hotel near the finish line for us to finish.
Jaxson was tired of waiting!
I love this picture. That is the capital in the background.
Tawny about to cross the finish line.
Me about to cross the finish line.

After we crossed the finish line


Sofi came to see me! I was so excited!

I wasn't the only one who was exhausted!


Post-race meal. We were so hungry!
Tanner was giving her G-Paw "nose kisses" on the playground outside of the restaurant

Paxton and Jaxson
Haley, Jason, and Sofia

The Park

Well, I would have posted these pictures earlier but I was having some major problems with Blogger. I tried for an hour and it kept telling me "bad request". Last week, we went to the park in Jourdanton, which is like our Clute as far as proximity goes. We took a picnic and met our friends Tawny, Channing and Jaxson there. We had a lot of fun! The girls got so dirty, though, because it had rained the night before and there was standing water in one of the slides. They were wet and muddy. They didn't seem to mind too much, though.

Finally!!! I was able to get the pictures up. Yay! I had to use a different browser, but I'm glad that it worked.

Playing Outside

These days, Tanner LOVES playing outside so we try to go out for at least an hour or so every day. These are some pictures that I took of her with our new camera outside. We are loving having a camera again. Two weeks without one doesn't seem like a long time, but with a toddler it is an eternity! You can miss so much in just one day! Tanner is getting funner and funner every day! We are having so much fun watching her grow and playing with her. She is saying so much these days, and she is even speaking in two word sentences. She will say "Mama, dog" when she sees a dog or "Mama, down" when she wants down. She also says "Do doey!". We have no idea what this means, but we think it may be "okie dokie". I say that a lot, so that is our best guess! She says "hawaii" even though she has no idea what she is saying. She also says "Didi" for her GiGi and "Papa" for her G-Paw. She hasn't quite figured "Gammie" out but she says "Ma" for Mac. She says "eat, eat", "night, night", "mouth", "ear", "bye, bye", "buh" for book, "ba" for bath, "baby", and her absolute favorite word to say is "Daey!!!" for Daddy. She walks around the house pointing at his pictures and saying "Daey"!! It is really cute. Right now, he can do no wrong. She asks for him in the morning when she wakes up, and if he is not here to put her to sleep she asks for him then too. She loves him soooo much! Her G-Paw recently taught her how to howl like a dog and she thinks it is so much fun! He also taught her to "blow her nose". We put a tissue up to her nose and she makes the blowing noise with her mouth. It is funny! Speaking of that, this morning I sneezed and she copied me by fake sneezing. Funny girl! On to the pictures!

Tanner was cracking herself up at the dinner table that night
I told you she loves him soooo much!

Her two front teeth



I have no idea what kind of face this is!
She loves getting rocks from our flower bed and throwing them in the tree surround. Pretty soon, our we will have no more rocks in the flower bed!

Finding the perfect one to throw in the tree!
I thought this picture was funny

Walking the catwalk!



She was sticking all of the pins in the holes on the putting green and she thought it was pretty fun
She loves the water that sprays out of the hose
She was howling like a dog in this picture


This is an owl that Randy bought us to scare away birds in our back yard and she LOVES him!! She says "Ow!"!