Thanksgiving recap

Where to start. I guess from the beginning.

First of all, here are some pictures of Reese's Thanksgiving celebration at school. The kids dressed as indians and pilgrims for their program and then we all ate a traditional Thanksgiving feast together.

Last weekend we celebrated with my family at Pops and Nana's house with the added bonus of having Danna and Trey with us! It is always such a blast when the whole gang gets together. Click here to see our latest family picture

all of the little ones being tortured for picture time

After leaving Pops and Nana's house Soren was home from school all week for fall break. I LOVE having her here with Reese and I. It was such a great week. I don't think that I have mentioned that Soren has had poison ivy AGAIN. She got it the weekend before Halloween and since her body is so sensitive to it, it takes weeks and weeks to go away. This time it was on her face. Poor kid. She got so tired of people asking her what was all over her face. As hard as she tries not to scratch, sometimes you just gotta, and one of the sores became infected last week, meaning no swim team for a while. So that means that I got to have her at home all week and we did not have to do anything. It was wonderful.

On Thanksgiving day, Papaw and Mamaw joined us for a weekend of continued celebration. We kept things simple this year. I put a brisket in the oven Wednesday night and spent about 20 minutes throwing the rest of the meal together for lunch on Thursday. We walked it all off afterwards, enjoying the beautiful Texas weather. Over the weekend we bowled, went to the movies, ate a lot and nearly lost our minds completing a puzzle. It was a nice visit.

here we are trying to stay sane while we search for the next piece of the puzzle

we did it! the finished product:

This is where Tiffy spent the ENTIRE weekend, which is funny because Papaw does NOT like dogs

saying good bye

As usual, I am sad to send Soren back to school tomorrow, but grateful for the fellowship I enjoyed over the extended holiday week. My blessings are overflowing. Thank you, God!

Thanksgiving

We are not travelling for Thanksgiving. We did not have turkey or dressing or even pie. I did not go shopping today. In spite of all of that it is still Thanksgiving and I have more to be thankful for than anyone I know. For some reason God has seen fit to bless me beyond measure in every area of my life and I want to give Him all praise for that. I don't think I could be happier. Happy Thanksgiving!

A Monumental Weekend

What an amazing weekend! I can hardly put into words how proud I am of my family. I will break it down by person because there are so many great details about the race. To start, take into account that there were a staggering 33,000 racers! That is a cool site.

I was standing in Coral #8 and held my camera over my head and took this picture. If you look closely you can see an arch made of balloons way off in the distance. That is the starting line. We were that far back and we were only corral #8; there were 40 corrals!

this picture was taken at the same point, only these are all of the people behind us. Body to body for as far as the eye could see

finally, almost 12 minutes after the start of the race, corral #8 nears the start line!

I snapped this as we were running at some point about mid way. There are people everywhere! In most races the crowd really thins out, but with 33,000 racers, there is no thinning out of the crowd.

I will be biased and start with Pete...

The Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual marathon and ranks as one of the world's most prestigious road racing events. The Boston Marathon has distinguished itself as the pinnacle event within the sport of road racing by virtue of its traditions, longevity and method of gaining entry into the race (via qualification).

Why do I bother to tell you this? Because Pete qualified! Wow! Here are his stats from the race:

Peter Underwood #1204
Burleson, TX
Age: 33 Gender: M
Distance
MAR
Clock Time
3:03:17
Chip Time
3:03:10
Gender Place
81 / 4015
Age Grade
68.2%
Placeoall
93
Placediv
15
Pace
7:00
Ttlrace
7526
Ttldiv
565
Ttlsex
4015
5 Km
21:40
6 1 Mi
42:43
10 Mile
1:09:40
Half
1:31:20
17 Mile
1:57:05
20 Mile
2:18:46
24 Mile
2:47:55

Now let me explain what you see. His total race time was 3 hours, 3 minutes and 10 seconds. He was the 81st male out of 4,015 to cross the finish line. He was 93rd overall out of 7,526 marathon finishers; 15th in his age group out of 565 males 30-34 years old. Here's what is amazing to me: his pace for the entire 26.2 miles was a 7:00 minute mile. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

To qualify for the Boston Marathon at his age you need to run a 3:10, so he made it with 7 minutes to spare! His qualification is good for 2 years, so now I need to find some sponsors to get us to Boston! Pete, I am SO proud of you! Way to go!

This is what a Boston bound marathoner looks like!

This is what you get on your feet when you run fast enough to qualify for the Boston marathon!
This is me being so very proud of my husband!

Moving on...

Pops.

You need only look at Pops to see what this race has done for him. The fact that he completed his first half marathon is great in and of itself without taking into consideration how far he had to come to achieve that feat. He looks so great and has to constantly overcome physical setbacks to stay on coarse to achieve his goals. He has had major hip problems that would have sent most people back to the couch where they came from, but not Pops! He keeps finding ways to continue on his path to success. We are so proud of you, Pops. Keep it up!

(sorry about the picture quality; I only had a disposable camera that I ran with, so no zoom or anything)

Look on the other side of the barrier and you will see two people waving; that is Pops and Kara coming into the finish at a time of 3:03

Nana.

There was a t-shirt at the expo that I almost bought for Nana. It read:

Race shoes: $89

Race entry fee: $100

Crossing the finish line before my husband: priceless

She was FAST! Nana's first half marathon time: 2:35. Go Nana! Woo Hoo!

Kara.

Pops said he wanted someone to race with him and Kara volunteered. It turned out to not only be her first half marathon, but she was able jog the entire 13 miles. Nice job, Kara!

Zach.

Zach and I ran the half marathon together. We were slotted to start in coral #8 so that is where I waited before race time, but when it was time to take off there was still no sign of him so I took off. Just before mile 2 I spotted him and we were able to stay together for the rest of the race. I think he enjoyed the race atmosphere enough that he wants to work up to the full marathon distance!

because there were 33,000 racers, they slotted us in corrals. When you signed up for the race you entered an estimated finishing time and they slotted you based on these times. Corral #1 (Pete's coral) was at the front, right on the start line and the rest of us were behind. Each coral had 1,000 racers and we took off at roughly 1minute 30 second intervals. Zach was late getting to the corral (due to very long lines at the port-o-potties!) so he just jumped in and went.

Zach passing the 15k mark

Finished! Zach's total race time was 1:55. Nice!

Yea Us!!

free beer for the racers! a great recovery drink!

an athletes favorite site...port-o-potties. These are a mere fraction of the "facilities" available at this race. You are oh-so-lucky if you get one that still has toilet paper in it. I was not so lucky...

celebrating after the race the San Antonio way - with enchiladas!

So that's it. We are all home safe and sound from what I think is a trip we will all cherish for years to come. Thanks everyone for such a fun weekend, and great job runners!

Politically Incorrect

Soren has always been a rule follower. She is a total people pleaser and very conscious of what she says so as not to step on any toes or be inappropriate. Reese has not quite mastered that social etiquette.

Reese and Pete were on the internet reading about a trade in the NBA and she made a comment that the player looked like a girl. Pete laughed and said, "He's a big black guy!". Reese gives Pete her "that's ridiculous" laugh and says "Dad, he's not black, he's brown!"

Tonight Reese was talking about indians and what they wore. She explained to Pete that they no longer wear things like they used to wear and when he questioned why she said "because there are no more indians. They are in heaven with God and the dinosaurs."

new additions

We are enjoying the privilege of having Callie and Lyla with us on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for a while. I think everyone is enjoying it. Callie calls me mom; I love that! I did not know that Reese was such a baby lover but she really digs Lyla and Callie really digs Reese, so it works out pretty well.

Out of words

Reese has a few new habits that I think are funny. First of all are her "collections". Every time I try to throw something away she asks if she can have it for her collection. I am afraid I am raising a pack rat. She has stuff packed away in every crevice of her room. She is at school and then at a friend's house today and I am going upstairs with a dumpster; hopefully she will just see it as an opportunity to start all new collections and she won't be too mad at me!

At school Reese makes at least 2 crafts each day. In her eyes, each craft is extremely special and needs to be hung up somewhere in the house. So on every door knob, light switch, refrigerator, hangs a lovely preschool memoir.

This one is a good thing. Reese absolutely loves to "read". When she says she will read something it means that she is going to read all of the letters to you and you will tell her what they spell. This goes on every waking moment of every day. She has come so far recently with recognizing her letters and the sounds they make. Her favorite game is for me to say a word and she will tell me what letters it has. She is so excited. By the end of the day my brain is so tired of spelling!