It's been an eventful month! Here's another posting of things I've been doing...
and this was all in a matter of three days!
Spring/summer has come and with that means some awesome thunderstorms.
I
LOVE thunderstorms (as long as I am not out walking in it!). And, I
happened upon this beautiful rainbow after a pretty big storm as I was
driving home from work one day!
So pretty! I had to pull over and take a picture to remember it
I wonder where the pot of gold is though... :)
At the end of May, I went to PA for a day to finish clearing out the
storage sheds we had used to stuff all the things from my mom's house
that were still in there when it sold. We had cleared out most right
after her funeral and had placed stuff in one bedroom that each of us
(my brothers and I) had wanted to save. But, there was also quite a bit
of *crap* that had just never made it to the trash. Well, when my little
brother showed up at the house an hour before closing and noticed all
the things still in there, he called a good friend and they loaded it
all and stuffed it in two storage sheds in town. Months later I got the
task of emptying out these sheds. It just so happened to be one of the
most humid and hot days of the season thus far. And, lets just say the
storage sheds had NO ventilation.
It was pretty bad.
But, I was so fortunate to have a good friend offer to take the day off
of work and drive with me. Thank goodness for angels like her! It was so
nice to have someone there to help sort and chat with as well.
She
happened upon a box of clothing my mom had saved from when we were
kids. And... look at what I found! My kilt from NDA. Happy to say that
it still fits! This must have been one I never wore though because I never had them this long!
We
cleaned out the sheds in time to also take a little detour and visit my
mom's grave. They had recently put the stone in so I wanted to check it
out. It had been such an ordeal to get it approved, etc., but I am
pleased with the way it turned out.
She's
buried next to her parents. The stone cost a couple thousand and we
honestly thought it would have been similar to theirs, but it's kind of
teeny in comparison. I need to contact them to make sure we got the
right one! Not that we would now pay for another bigger stone... My mom
would not want that! But, just to make sure we got the right one.
Cemeteries
are interesting places. I think they have a lot of beauty and it's neat
to think about the lives of all those buried there, but at the same
time I think they're kind of morbid and don't like spending much time in
one. We didn't stay for very long in this one :)
I
wanted to move on what the day and get to our final destination -
Annapolis!! We were going to spend the night in Annapolis in order to
run a half marathon the following morning! My brother let us use his
hotel points so we were able to get a suite in the Sheraton. Kate met us
up there.
The Sheraton treated us well. We were
privleged to get appetizers and dessert in the private club lounge and
the rooms were very, very comfy. We went to dinner at Macaroni Grill and
carb-loaded. I had a very yummy whole wheat pasta with a meat sauce and
was filled!
Race morning came way way way too early!
It was sunny - but hot and humid at 7 am when the race started! I told
the others we had to take a "before" picture because I knew I wouldn't
be looking decent at all after!
The
course was beautiful. Much more hilly than I had been informed, but I
did suprisingly well on it! The last two miles were truly hard since I
had never trained more than 7 or 8 miles... but I was determined to
finish and not to stop. I was all sweat. My music helped me a lot to
keep going, as well as pouring water over my head at every station. But,
I have no doubt the Lord helped me keep going as well :)
I
loved that they had inspirational quotes along the way. Mile marker 12
was one from Pres. Hinckley, even though they spelled "weeks" instead of
"weeds"! We passed this one three times. The 2nd time I really thought
it was mile 12, but I was shocked and saddened when I found out it was
only mile 1-.5 and we still have much more to go!
I
crossed the finish line and was SUPER happy! I needed food, which I got
right away, and then went back to the finish line to stretch and wait
for Miriam and Kate. We were all VERY happy to be done with the race....
and as you can see, we were still smiling at the end!
We did it!
On the way out we had to stop and take a picture of the naval academy stadium sign with our "Yippee! I did it" poses :)
After the race it was off to the pool. So much fun!! But, I can wait a few months before doing it again :)
