Getaway...

Last weekend, Scott and I got away without the kiddos. I can't remember the last time we were away by ourselves. We certainly miss Bella and Austin on those rare vacations alone, but we do cherish the time where we can rest and have fun without the kids. We went to the Outer Banks with my brother, Will, and sister-in-law, Melissa. Will, Scott and I were registered to run the Outer Banks 1/2 marathon, but we had a little bit of time to explore some of the Outer Banks while we were there, too. We had a blast and are looking forward to taking the kids there to explore some more!

We got there Saturday afternoon and headed to the race expo to pick up our race numbers and to check out the vendors. This was by far the biggest race I've ever participated in, so the expo was quite impressive. Then we headed to dinner. We opted out of the pre-race pasta dinner for some local seafood. Our innkeeper suggested Basnight's Lone Cedar Cafe (although, my sister-in-law heard her suggestion as Bass Mike's Lone Feeder Cafe, which had us really confused for a while, but then provided for many laughs later in the night) and it certainly did not disappoint. All locally caught seafood- so if you're ever in the Nags Head area, I really recommend good ole Bass Mike's.

We headed to the starting line in Nags Head around 6am Sunday morning. They had a wave start, based on your estimated finish time, so Scott, Will and I started in the 3rd group. There were over 3700 people participating in the 1/2 marathon, so it was an insane mass of humanity at the starting line. We got started and even though Will, Scott and I started together, we quickly got separated. For the first 8 miles I had no idea if I was in front of them or behind. Around mile 8, and just before the 82' high Washington-Baum bridge at mile 9, Will caught up with me. We ran together across the bridge, but at the bottom, Will left me. I didn't have enough left in the tank to keep up. So, the last 3 miles or so, I was back on my own.

I had trained hard to finish under 2 hours, and knew what pace I had to maintain to do that. I kept around a 9:00/mile pace or less the whole race, except for the 1 mile that crossed the bridge. With 1 mile left to go, I picked up my pace a little, but not much because I was exhausted. Thank goodness for the crowds of people cheering us on, because I was so tempted to walk. I crossed the finish line 46 seconds after Will with a finish time of 1:58:13. I was certainly happy with that. I finished 859 out of 3758 overall, 339 out of 2387 females and 67 out of 383 in my division. Not too shabby, I guess!

Here's my little brother, Will, approaching the finish line. My sister-in-law, Melissa, was there to cheer us on!

And that's me, in the black, approaching the finish line. And yes, I'm pretty sure that's a kid to the far right of me that ended up crossing the finish line before me.

Almost there! It's a little deceiving since the race clock already says more than 2 hours, but with the wave starts, the race clock had already been running for about 5 minutes when our group started. Luckily, they based our order of finish on our chip time, not the race clock.

Poor Scott, they herded us on out of the finish area due to the massive amounts of runners, so I didn't get to actually see him cross the finish line. But, he did great and finished around 2:02.

Enjoying a well deserved Coors Light!

After lunch and showers, we headed out to see some of the sights of the Outer Banks. We went to Corolla to see the lighthouse and some of the surrounding area. It was gorgeous and I wish we had more time to explore! Here's looking up at the Currituck Beach lighthouse.

Here's the inside of the lighthouse, looking up the stairs you can climb to the top. After running 13.1 miles, I had no desire to climb all those stairs. So we just stayed at the bottom!

At the lighthouse, there was a boardwalk area through the woods and out onto the water. Here's a little of the view from the boardwalk.

And another shot off the boardwalk.

We had a great time, and definitely hope to get back there again some day. We'd love to have more time to see the sights and take Bella and Austin to enjoy the Outer Banks as well. Maybe I'll go back next year and run the full 26.2 mile marathon!

Halloween

We spent our Halloween weekend quite differently than planned. What we had planned: pumpkin painting Saturday afternoon, oyster roast and trunk or treat with friends Saturday evening, church fall festival Sunday afternoon and then trick or treating in the neighborhood Sunday evening. What ended up happening: Bella throwing up Friday night and running a fever all weekend. Awesome. However, thanks to some regularly scheduled Tylenol, Bella was able to participate in a few activities...

We did enjoy painting pumpkins in the backyard Saturday afternoon.

And here's my girl riding a Tylenol high.

The finished products.

Bella decided one needed just a little more color.

On Sunday evening, we had to miss the fall festival. Hate to be the ones to bring nasty germs to spread them around to the masses. So, we had a quiet Halloween at home. We did dress the kids up in their costumes. Austin was a ferocious lion.

And, once again thanks to Tylenol, Bella was able to trick or treat for a little while. Here's Sleeping Beauty.

Austin didn't really care a thing about trick or treating. In fact, we found his trick or treat bucket in the middle of the cul-de-sac at one point.

"Well, well, what have we here?"

It took a few tries for Austin to finally master how to eat a dum dum.

But he eventually figured it out.

Then he decided that he was done and wanted back in the house.

I coaxed him back out to the porch for one more picture while his sister and Daddy were trick or treating some more.

Although Halloween didn't go at all as planned, we still had fun. Hopefully, some good memories were made in spite of it all.

Punkin Pickin'

This past Thursday, I took Bella and Austin to pick out pumpkins. We all had a great time. Austin enjoyed wandering around trying to pick up all the pumpkins. Bella enjoyed looking around trying to find the perfect one. And although having 2 kids in an open outdoor space by myself feels a lot like herding cats, I had fun as well.

Austin headed straight for a pallet of small pumpkins. He really enjoyed taking them all off the pallet and putting them on the ground. I enjoyed getting to put them all back on the pallet when he lost interest and walked away.

And here's Bella with her small pumpkin.

Decisions, decisions...

Examining the pumpkin closely to be sure it's worthy of sitting on our front porch.

I really wanted a good picture of Bella and Austin together. This was the best I got. It is almost impossible to get them to both look and smile at the camera.

A decent shot of the two of them, although it looks like Bella's got Austin in a choke hold.

Bella's signature picture pose: smiling, but looking just to the right or left of the camera.

My handsome fella.

"Hey Mommy, I think this is the one I want."

"What are these things? They don't look like the rest of the pumpkins here..."

"Put the camera down and let's go!"

Austin wanted to push the wheelbarrow.

"I think I'll take this one." And, I might add, this was right before his little foot got wedged in the slats of the pallet and I thought for sure he had broken his leg. Luckily, once I freed his foot (with the help of the man working at the pumpkin patch) he was fine.

While I was frantically working to free Austin's foot, Bella amused herself with a game of jack-o-lantern cornhole.

We enjoyed our pumpkin patch adventure. Austin is fine (except for a few bruises around his ankle) and our pumpkins are proudly displayed on our front porch! Up next- I think I'm going to let Bella and Austin paint their pumpkins- should be fun and messy!

Rainy Days

Last week it rained. And rained. And rained. And when we couldn't stand it anymore, it rained some more. It rained for 4 days straight. I'm not talking a little drizzle either. It was a downpour with flooding and all. I can't remember the specific total, but it was over 22 inches of rain, which I think was some sort of record. Even beat out a hurricane. So, when Thursday rolled around (rain day #4), I decided why not try and make the most of it. I decided we should all stay home together as a family and just have a cozy day inside. The plan was to bake cupcakes, watch movies and just make the most of a blah day. Bella even stayed in her pajamas all day. Austin would have, but his pajamas have footies which makes walking difficult on the wood floor.

Here's just a little of the water that was standing in our yard. The rain almost washed all the dirt away from my little gardenias.

Our cupcakes. Bella was a great helper. Of course we had to make her favorite- chocolate cupcakes with strawberry icing.

Everybody thought they were delicious!

What's better than cupcakes? Getting to eat the leftover icing!

You know they had to be good- she ended up with crumbs by her eye!

Austin decided to chill in the highchair as if it were a lazy boy recliner...

And this is what a 3 year old girl's bedroom looks like at the end of a day stuck inside...

Finally, around 4pm, it stopped raining. It was way too soggy to go in the yard, so we all huddled on the porch, just to get the feeling of being outside. We all had to leave our wet footprints on the only dry part of the porch. Austin's are the 2 on the left, then it's Bella's, mine and Scott's...

We enjoyed our rainy day inside, but were certainly glad when it stopped. Cabin fever was certainly beginning to set in! It's now 5 days later, and our yard is still not dried out. At least we've saved money on having to run the sprinklers!