Christ is Risen!

He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

What a wonderful Easter weekend!  I couldn't have asked for anything more!  I had everyone in my family home and some nice weather.  I guess I should qualify that...nice weather for Easter in Michigan.  :)

Friday I spent the day with Mom, Dad, Sophie and Rookie.  We did Easter shopping, birthday shopping, some lunching out and watching a movie while waiting for Laura to come home.  I will say the movie Country Strong was not as fantastic as I hoped it would be.

Saturday morning Mom, Laura, Megan, and I headed down to the Loons diamond to run the annual Loons Pennant Race.  Dad drove us down there and posted himself along the course to get pictures of us as we streaked past him in a blur.  Well...maybe that was the rest of the group, I just trot along at my own little pace.  I'm more like the Turtle of the group.  Mom and I both had PRs for the race.  It did help that there was no way I was letting the 10 year old girl running near me beat me.  I talked her into running up the hill with me instead of walking it and she took off like a rocket...then I had to catch up to her!  That will teach me for encouraging her to run and telling her I'll run with her!

We then had a few hours to recoup and get things ready for Easter dinner with the Melville side of the family.  It was so nice to have everyone together again.  We do not get together near as often as we should...nor do we get together as often as we used to before we all got older and got lives.  :)  We celebrated 7 birthdays and enjoyed the day.

Sunday after church we took the doggies out to the City Forrest for a little exercise.  Sophie and Rookie loved frolicking in the woods and any water hole they could find!  I found out that Rookie loves the water as every golden retriever should.  He and Sophie were swimming where ever there was water they could get into.  And Dad was nice enough to take Rookie's leash to let him chase Sophie through the woods.  Nice enough...brave enough...something like that.  There were some humorous parts where I thought Dad was going to face plant in the mud when Rook took off, but he regained his footing quickly.  Luckily Rookie didn't run him into a tree while tearing through the woods either!

After Dad and Laura left to go to their respective homes Mom and I did a 5 mile run.  She tried to run my into the ground and wouldn't let me slow down!  It ended up being a great run and gave me some more confidence for my big race this week.  Sunday I'm doing the Flying Pig 1/2 Marathon in Cincinnati, OH.  I think I may have had some serious mental illness when I signed up for this race, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.

I hope you all had wonderful Easter weekends just like I did!

A Much Needed Vacation

I was starting to go crazy at work.  I was grumpy and short with people.  So I was glad Khristine had suggested we take a trip to visit Dad in Tennessee over her spring break!  Spring Break couldn't have landed at a better time.

Dad was nice enough to let Khris and I take his convertible down.  I think he had an ulterior motive...that meant he got to drive it while we were down there!  :)  We had a couple double takes and people checking us out on the drive down including one vehicle of dumb boys who kept speeding up and slowing down to look at us.  That got real old real quick after the first 2 times he did it.

Only one day was nice enough to drive around with the top down, but boy was it a beauty!  80 degrees and sunny made for a nice sunburn, complete with a seat belt strap mark.

We took one whole day to spend in Nashville.  We visited the Ryman Auditorium and got our picture taken with the Minnie Pearl statue.  Did some walking around and visited the Country Music Hall of Fame.  We spent the evening watching a Grand Ole Opry show and then returned downtown to hang out at some of the honky tonks.  We made it to one and enjoyed watching the dance floor and the band. 

This pic was at the end of our honky tonk night.  We thought Drew might enjoy the picture.  :)

We had some excitement while shopping one day.  We got herded into a back hallway of the mall and had to wait out a tornado warning.  I guess tornado warnings are different in TN than they are in MI.  You are about 99% certain to see at least one tornado during a warning if you are in TN.  Luckily we were safe and just had some high winds and nasty weather.  That was the excitement of our day that day.

Khris and I each came home with a pair of cowboy boots.  I'm very excited to be able to wear mine!  They are so stinkin cute!

On the way home we stopped at the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum.  We took a tour of the factory, did some shopping in their gift shop and got a couple pictures. 

All in all it was a great trip!  I was so glad to be able to spend the week with Dad and to have some quality time with Khristine besides our 10 minute phone calls during the week.

2 Week Update

Wow has life been busy!  I don't know where the time goes, but somehow it jumped from the middle of February to the end of the second week in March! 

• We have had 2 volleyball matches and won 2 of the 3 games each week.
• Not bad, but not the best we've every played.  :)
• I have been incredibly busy at work.
• Last Thursday there was a free hour of tennis lessons at the tennis center
• Hilary and I had a blast
• We then signed up for 3 weeks of tennis lessons and a free racquet
• Last night was our first official class...Mom, Hilary and I
• Again, it was a great time...and I am glad to know that none of us are tennis superstars
• Heck, all three of us could probably be considered "tennis challenged"
• Carson and Morgan left me with a fantastic cold after their weekend visit
• Due to the warm weather, freezing rain, and my cold Dad and I decided against skiing last weekend.
• Instead we went to watch the Midland High girls basketball team win districts.
• This last Thursday they won regionals, for the first time in school history.  Go Chemics!
• This week for work I had Six Sigma Green Belt training for 3 days.
• Talk about information overload
• It was a very enjoyable class, just a lot of info.
• I have two more weeks of training in the next two months
• Wednesday I went to Buffalo Wild Wings with the Senior LYO from church
• I watched the silly boys try to eat Blazing wings....without milk.  :)
• I then watched the female youth director totally show them up by eating one of them herself and not crying or carrying on.
• This weekend should be a fun one
• I have Jessica's baby shower tomorrow
• The women's ministry at church is hosting a health fair on Sunday
• Anyone in the area that would like to check it out please come visit!  It is open to the public
• Trinity Lutheran Church on Jefferson in Midland.  2:00 - 5:00 Sunday!

Week of 2/21

What a great week!  Now if I can remember what I did and what made it so great I'll let you know!  :)

• Rookie had his last obedience class of the session
• He was still the worst behaved dog, but by the end of class there were only 4 of us and he was the only first timer
• The instructors commented on how much Rookie has improved since he started 8 weeks ago!
• Rookster got a new octopus toy for finishing his class.  It's his new favorite...he carries that darn thing everywhere he goes!
• Paco and the kids came up Friday night for a slumber party.
• It was awesome to spend time with them! 
• Carson and I read quite a few books.
• Carson liked running around the house with Rookie, and since Rookie doesn't leave my side that meant I had to run around the house too!
• I wonder if that counts as my long training run for my 1/2 marathon I'm doing?
• Carson helped me make pancakes on Saturday morning.  He's an awesome helper!
• We even made Carson a Mickey Mouse pancake.
• Unfortunately I wasn't on top of things enough to get pictures of the kiddos!
• Sunday was a movie day at church for the women's ministry.
• We watched The Blindside.
• As always, an awesome movie!

This week should be pretty busy.  But Dad is coming home for the weekend and we plan on our last ski outing on Friday!

A Week In Review

Now that my house is complete I never know what to put up here.  I'm just not all that creative!  That's why I've decided to "borrow" a format from a friend of a friend's blog...who also "borrowed" it from our friend Hannah May's blog!  :)
A bulleted list and a week in review makes things so much easier!  :)  Thanks Jen!

• Work was incredibly busy for the second week in a row on some HOT projects for the plant.
• That makes the work day fly by!
• Co-ed volleyball started with our first practice!
• We only had 4 people at practice and only 1 was a guy!  Uh Oh!
• It was a great way to spend Valentine's Day!
• Got a fun package in the mail from my friend Jules!
• Subbed for the Bay City women's team and we took all 4 games!
• That's a minor miracle considering we normally struggle to take 1 of the 4 games
• Aunt Susie's beloved dog Otis passed away at MSU veterinary hospital...it was a sad weekend
• Had a date that went ok.  Nothing earth shattering, but an enjoyable evening of chatting over homemade dinner at my house
• Woke up to 6 inches of snow on the ground Monday.  Arg.
• Got to snow blow my driveway and Mom's last night
• Roads are not fun as it is too cold for the salt to work
• Windchill was -6 when I got up this morning...NOT COOL!

That's all I got for last week.  This week is shaping up to be pretty low key...which is SO nice from time to time!

3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th days of Christmas!

I've been slacking on the Christmas swap blogging!  So I'm putting in a few days today!

On the 3rd day of Christmas my swap partner gave to me...

Some fragrance mist from Bath and Body Works! 

 On the 4th day of Christmas my partner gave to me...Mix N Match bracelets from Avon!

On the 5th day of Christmas my partner gave to me...An ornament of hair ties...More Peanutbutter cups...and a sparkley barrette! 

And finally on the 6th Day of Christmas my partner gave to me...

A very neat picture frame...she must know I love putting up pictures of friends and family in my house!