All in just three days!

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 :)