Happy Memorial Day!

We had a pretty fun Memorial Day. It was a safe one, all of us were healthy, and this is the first time in 3 years that we did not have to go to the ER for something due to the long weekend. As I write this, I do worry since we have about 12 hours until our dr's offices open in the morning, but hopefully, we are in good shape. We started the day by attending the Novi Parade, which starts about 1/10 of a mile from our place, so it was just a short walk away. Keira enjoyed the children and the horses, but was a little nervous about the loud fire engines and sirens. She enjoyed collecting the TONS of candy that was thrown out at us, I am sure one of the benefits of being so close to the start of the route. Keira was also very excited about the large bundle of balloons that she received because they were too tangled to separate. We did manage to get them apart once arriving home, and they provided a great deal of entertainment. Keira is trying to count, and can say "one" and "two", and sometimes will say "three", but spent time rearranging the balloons and pretending to count them (up to 2).

We also were able to complete our patio/yardwork this weekend. We didn't have a ton of work to do on it, but it still took a while to complete. It mostly consisted of raking up leaves and putting down new mulch, as well as some pruning of the bushes. We did not need to do any planting- our hostas are taking over everywhere, and our rose bushes appear healthy this year as well. We just had the addition of two new baskets to complement the one I received as a mother's day present.

Ryan and Keira taking a break from their hardwork just outside of our patio. Fortunately this part of the yard is the responsibility of the association, and we do not need to mow or weed. We do have daylilies that are just to the left of the shot, but they haven't bloomed yet, and are not very exciting to look at.

Earlier in the week, Keira and I traveled to Kalamazoo, MI to volunteer in a Girls on the Run, event http://www.girlsontherun.org/as part of my sponsorship with Team Stayput. We passed out samples of all kinds of fun hair accessories and had a "Happy Hair" station, where we styled the girls' hair with the various samples they selected and sprayed their hair with glitter and colored hairspray. It was fun, and the girls were very excited about it. Keira really enjoys playing with hair accessories, so she enjoyed it. She even let me style her hair and kept it in until it was time to leave.
Ryan spent the day working at the farm at Maybury, building a pen to keep the turkeys and peacocks safe from coyotes, as well as performing other outdoor clean up work. It was part of Ford's program to allow employees to do service projects on company time with other members of their organizations in approved projects. Maybury State Park is a favorite of ours, so this was an obvious choice for him.

Finally, for this entry, I was recently featured for my running on Tyler and Minde's friend Nikki's pregnancy blog for my running and sponsorship. She is a fellow expecting athlete, and started her blog because it is really hard to find good information for women who are extremely active in their sports prior to pregnancy that would like to continue at some level during it. Hopefully my feature will inspire other women to keep doing what they love while they are pregnant, as long as they are sensible about it.

Check it out at:

http://afatlotofgood.blogspot.com/

Happy Mother's Day

We had a very packed weekend this week. Today was Mother's Day, so I was able to enjoy pancakes cooked by Ryan, and Keira made me a wonderful card in Nursery today. Keira has really small hands, but I am not sure if you will be able to tell from the picture. When I looked at it on my screen, it seemed bigger than it should have been, even at "actual size", which is 8.5x11. We also were able to spend some time with Tyler and Ryan's parents before he had to return from his short stay in MI. We had an excellent meal together before Tyler had to rush off to the airport.

Also, on Saturday, we attended a Bike Demo at Island Lake State Park in Brighton. It was a very fun event for all of us. Keira always loves being outside, and the highlight for her was probably when we saw a rider do a backflip on his bike using two ramps on either side of a truck bed. It was pretty hardcore of him to do it, especially in a parking lot on hard ramps, and not on dirt. Keira kept saying "Flip, Again", and the guys got a big kick out of it.

Ryan already has a very very nice mountain bike, but enjoyed the opportunity to ride bikes from other manufacturers. I had my first experience with a full suspension mountain bike, and really loved it. The trail designated for the test loop was pretty tame compared to what I would typically enjoy riding at Maybury or Lakeshore, but it felt great to be on a mountain bike again. Below is a picture of a bike similar to what I rode. It is the Specialized Safire Comp. I rode a Safire Expert, which is considerably more expensive, and it is also not pink like the one below. I know why the Bike Demo's are free- they want you to buy more stuff! We are not really in the market for any new bikes right now, especially for me since I won't be able to really ride until next year, but it was still fun to see what is out there.

Tyler arrived from NYC while we were finishing up at the bike demo, and we met up with him for food and introduced him to Guitar Hero later in the evening.

Brand New Baby Pics!

Here are baby #2's first baby photos! We had our first ultrasound today, I am about 19 weeks at this point. The top picture is a foot, the middle photo is the profile with the hand near the face, and the bottom photo is the hand. Technology is so wonderful. It was really comforting to be able to see the baby and know that everything is going well and looks fine. We did not ask to find out if we are having a boy or girl, although the temptation was there.

Also, we spent the weekend in Columbus with my family. We attended the Walnut Springs 5K, which went really well. It was race #4 for me, and I also managed to win my age group. The weather was not so great, but I was still pleased with my time, all things considered. I was also very happy with the age group win. It is nice to have 4 races done, which was my initial goal for the pregnancy. I have fortunately felt well enough during and after each race, that I may do one or two more to fulfill my Stayput requirement now, while I am feeling well, and not have the pressure of running two more races after the new baby is born hang over me. I am sure the end of the year will go quickly.

We had a great weekend being able to spend a lot of time together and enjoyed each other's company. We also had a lot of really great food.

On April 30th, I also attended another race, the Run Fit 5K. This race is in the evening in a shopping center just down the street from where we live. It is very close to the mall, and I joke that the race is at the mall, but it is across the street from it. This race went very well. I felt good during it, and also won my age group. I was really suprised with this, because I won my age group last year by 1 second, and was much faster! I also met up with Kim, a fellow Stayput athlete. Kim was second in her age group, but finished well ahead of me. It just goes to show that I must just be in a slow age group this year. We ran this race together last year as well.