she is too much...

Man, that felt good.

Today I ran a half marathon. It was exhilarating. I had forgotten how much I really like to race.

It started at 7:00 am, the day was a little chilly, but perfect with respect to running. Lucy and Jimmy had determined to cheer me on at two spots along the course and at the end. I wasn't really nervous when it started, just antsy. I knew I wasn't shooting too high and I felt like my legs were ready.

The race went off, I started running, but forced myself to slow down for the first mile. If you know anything about my running style, I normally go out a little too fast and have recover for most of the race. Today I wanted to run evenly. And so I chose a few runners to follow and kept them in sight most of the race. Besides the last mile feeling like the longest mile of the race, everything else went by really quickly. The race course was beautiful, and it had rolling hills that almost did pass for elevation change. It was perfect.

My time was 1 hour 39 minutes with respect to the gun, and 1 hour 38 minutes and 55 seconds with respect to when I finally got across the starting line. I was pretty close to the front of the start, and there were only around 500 runners. The surprise of the day was that I came in 1st for my age division (20-29) 5th for women, 47th overall. I have my suspicions that the overall winning woman was in my age division, but because she won, they gave it to me. Regardless I was happy.

And then there was my cheering section. Jimmy and Lucy were fantastic. They saw me at mile 4, 10 and the finish. Lucy gave big smiles to all the runners and seemed to enjoy the event. Now for your viewing pleasure...

And I just took a nap, and Lucy is taking a nice long nap,  and I think we are going to have some really hardy vegetable soup tonight. Doesn't get any better!

Video overload

Blogger, you are making me happy. That last video only took me a few minutes to upload. So let's upload some more treasures...

Photography

I babysit a three year old twice a week, and today I let him play with our camera. He got some some nice shots!

And because the upload was so incredibly quick, maybe I will include a few videos. 

Here is Lucy "talking." It happens mostly when she is "reading." She is so awesome!

stepping...

I mentioned before that Lucy has started to take some steps. I wouldn't consider her a walker, but she is well on her way. It is pretty exciting to watch. 

There are a million other videos I wish I could upload, but our internet is painfully slow. This is a good one though. Short and sweet!

Events

Sometimes I feel like there are so many things I want to write about, that I don't want to write at all. I guess I will just work on summaries of all the highlights of the last couple weeks, that way I don't feel too bogged down.

I killed my phone -- I did it. It am all to blame. You know when you are putting your child in the carseat and you don't have anywhere, but on top of the car, to put the other things that you are holding? Am I the only one...?


Needless to say I drove over 2 miles before the cell phone fell off the top of the car, and I found it after I came home realized it was gone, and drove back to look for the pieces. I did not expect it to be whole, I knew it was a goner. I simply wanted to prove to Jimmy that I would be able to find it with my exceptional driving eyes (i.e. driving glasses). And I found it, and it was indeed in pieces, and I knew it was mine because it was right where I had driven, and it was a pathetically cheap phone that I am sure no one else owns. When I called about getting a new Sim card and phone, the lady asked if I wanted to upgrade to nicer phone (valued at $500!). I thought, NO WAY. Did you see what happened to my last phone? In pieces. 

Lucy tried to have blood work. I say tried because there was never any blood drawn, with the exception of the blood from where the needle went in. But when they tried to find a vein, they were unsuccessful and did the whole moving the needle around to find the vein while Lucy was hysterically crying in my arms. I am not sure they understood how traumatic it would be for her. I am sure we will find out when I have to go next week, when the actual lab technician who knows how to work with children is there.

Did I mention that we had forest fires just 30 minutes west of here? Well, if I didn't that is related to the last story. In Covington, near Clifton Forge (where I work by the way), there were reported forest fires. Reported on Monday at least. By Thursday they had moved into our country and right along the highway that I take to get to work. They closed the road (a main highway) on Wednesday, the day of Lucy's doctor's appointment, and therefore anyone from that area could not make it "over the mountain" as they say here in western Virginia. The technician who normally works with children was not able to make into Lexington and therefore we had inexperienced technicians trying to probe Lucy's little pudgy arms. Not cool. But back to the forest fires. I drove to work on Thursday, because the road had opened again, and I literally saw smoke on both sides of the highway, and char marks indicating the fire was still going.

We went to North Carolina. This has become a monthly activity due to one of our goals being going to the Temple once a month. We drive down to my aunt and uncles, we leave Lucy with them to go to the temple, and then we hang out with them afterwards. I think I have mentioned this before, but seriously it is so relaxing. Not to mention the temple is itty bitty, and very low key. We enjoy the trips. Lucy was a gem while we were gone, which wasn't the case last time. She played, she laughed, she smiled, and she didn't want to sit still in church so we spent most of the time in the halls. Part of this was due to the fact that she made a nice bite mark in her lip with one of her front teeth when she banged her chin against a chair. You wouldn't believe how fast I flew out of that room. That girl has a mean holler when she is hurt. The rest of the time she was yelling because she can yell, and she likes to vocalize herself.

Lastly, Lucy took FIVE steps today. Count em' five. It is pretty incredible to me how much will and attitude little children have. If they don't want to do something, they don't. If they do want to do something, they do. These last few weeks Lucy has been taking unassisted steps. One or two, normally on the verge of falling every time. Today, while Jimmy was on the phone, she decided it was time to make a little more of an effort and she started taking steps, balancing herself and taking more steps. She got up to five, almost six and we were pretty amazed. I guess mostly by the change. Just this morning we couldn't get her to take one step. Now she is almost walking around the house. What a little imp.

And those are the events of this week. I know I haven't mentioned Easter, or the newly cut lawn (it was finally mowed) or the wild flowers I planted, but I will maybe, possibly discuss them later. For now I feel like I did a good job of explaining some pretty decent stories. Go me.

Meltdown 2012

I am sure that Lucy has had meltdowns before, but yesterday sure was a doozy. And the funny part was it wasn't because I was leaving, or she was hurt or hungry or smelly. It was because the lady I tutor came into the house, and she was stealing her mommy away.

Literally, and I kid your not, said tutoree walks in the door, Lucy turns to see who it is and burst into hysterical tears. Jimmy had to remove her from the room, and when he walked by after her bath, he covered her face so she wouldn't see us at the kitchen table. She sobbed through her bath time, and cried while Jimmy prepared her for bed. She was miserable. And after I was finished tutoring, after she had been quiet a while she started to wail again, and I cuddled with her, sang her a song, and she drifted off to sleep again.

Is it bad that I giggled a little bit? Obviously I was sad that she was sad, but she has now completely associated the lady I tutor with trouble. I might add, she didn't take an afternoon nap, which may have heightening her emotional distress.

But today was a good day. And maybe I should write a little about other things that are going on. Though Lucy does account for most of my excitement. Let's see...

Jimmy has one week of classes left and then a week of finals. He is very excited. He is in the thick of Boy Scouts as well. He is acting as the scout master until we leave. It has been a lot of work, but it is something he enjoys.

I played volleyball yesterday. I am terrible. Just terrible. I was told that my serve is pretty good. Maybe it is because Jimmy and I try to do a few push up every night. I highly doubt that. Besides that, my skills are pretty minimal. Mostly I just run around hoping that I will hit the ball every so often. It is interesting, but really fun. The group I play with is very understanding encouraging. I think I will go back next week.

And that is us, hope you enjoyed the update.

Talents

Lucy is over 10 months. It is kind of ridiculous how old she is (to me at least!). She has many talents, which doesn't include walking, though from pictures you may have seen it kind of looks like she is headed in that direction. She can dance, which she did for almost every song of general conference. I may be able to get a video of that. She can clap when we say "yeah!" and now has started to wave. She can also grow teeth very rapidly. Right now she has six, with two more on the way. It kind of explains her lack of schedule lately. She can drink out of a water bottle, and get water all over herself. Basically she is awesome, and that is about all the is important.

She is also a very good hostess. Her Grandma and Grandpa Coop (and my aunt and family friend from Keene) were here this weekend, and she was thoroughly entertaining. In fact she thought it was rude that we tried to put her down for naps. It just wasn't as fun without her around.

So here are a few pictures of Lucy, working on her skills. 

And here are a few family pictures, because we haven't taken any recently. Figures that Lucy never smiles in these pictures...