Goodbye Shade

If you read our blog often, you know one of our trees in our backyard got damaged in Hurricane Ike last September. We lost about a third of the tree, but it was still alive, and we were glad! Well, I was, because it shaded our bedroom, but Cory thought it was too big for the space it was in in our yard. Anywho, lately when I was laying in bed I would hear this creaking noise. So one weekend when I got up I went outside to check it out. The tree was split down the middle of the trunk, almost to the ground. The creaking noise was the two halves rubbing against each other in the wind! And unfortunately, the split was such that if it broke completely, half could fall on our house. So we had to get it cut down, which happenned on Monday. Here's the before and after. Well, the after Ike, and the after it's gone, which is now.

Run, baby, run

On Sunday, January 18th, I participated in my third half marathon! I ran the whole time and finished in 2 hrs and 20 min, and considering how little I had been running, I was very pleased with that! A bunch of my friends ran in various events too, including Charlie with 1 hr 46 min in the half, Nujoud with 4 hr and 25 min in the whole, and Josh with 31 min in the 5k. Great job everybody! Let the countdown begin until next year... :) Here is a picture that Jaime took of me, about 0.2 miles from the finish line. I was hurtin' pretty bad, but still managed to eek out a sweaty smile.

Next year I'd really like to have a time goal for myself in the half. When I signed up for this year back in the fall, I wanted to do it under 2 hrs. But I had to let go of that when I didn't really train at all. I did however, meet my new goal, of finishing the half before the woman winner of the whole. Go me!
I thought it would be interesting to look back at my results from my past races, and being the nerdy engineer that I am, I made an excel spreadsheet to keep track. Plus, I like to have it all in one place. I think when I'm old and creaky (like I felt on Sunday after the race!), I will really appreciate knowing that I accomplished this. Here it is (you can click on it to see it bigger):

Catch-up Blog - Christmas and New Years

I really suck at keeping up with this thing, so here is a recap of the last month for the Sholls.

We left for PA on the 19th of December, and after an 8 hour flight delay we finally made it to my parents house at 3 in the morning! We had lots of fun with my family, enjoyed lots of good food, and most importantly, lots of good drink ;) We mostly relaxed and just enjoyed each other's company and played some cards. We play Progressive Rummy whenever we're together, and I won one game, go me! I got to see some of my extended family, too, which was really nice.

That Monday all six of us (me and Cory, my parents, and Heather and Aaron) met up with an old friend of me and Heather's, Maria. Me, Heather, and Maria were the best of friends in high school, but we grew apart when we went to college. We recently reconnected through Facebook, and our families got together at a local Italian restuarant that we love for lunch. It was really great to catch up, and it was like we'd never parted ways. I can't wait for the next time we can get together! Sadly I have no pictures of this, because I think it would have been fun to put a 'then' and 'now'!

Mid-week we went to Cory's parents houses to spend sometime with them; we were there for Christmas. I got some Bed Bath and Beyond gift cards from Cory's parents because I wanted to get some items off our wedding registry that we hadn't gotten. Which I already did. Hello ice cream maker and new bake wear! The ice cream attachment for the Kitchen Aid mixer is my new best friend and also my worst enemy. More on that later.

We had fun spending time with Cory's parents and his sister and her family. Our neice (yay I can say 'our' now!), Jayden, is 6 months old now and she was so smiley and happy! Almost makes me want one of my own. Ok, just kidding, we're not there yet ;) But she was so sweet and I loved holding her! We also got to see Cory's friends from high school, who I can happily call 'my friends' now too. I love them! Much fun was had by all, like usual.

We flew back to H-town shortly after Christmas because Cory had to work the week of New Years. I worked a couple days and decided to take the rest of the week off. We had a New Year's Party at the Sholl house and it was lots of fun! Just a few of our closest friends hanging out, eating, drinking, dancing and ringing in the New Year together. Cory ended up getting sick (not from drinking), and stayed home from work the rest of the week. We had a relaxing weekend and then it was back to work...

I'm still in denial about being back at work, but we're getting by. Cory is finally better, and I caught his cold. We've started some house projects and bought some new furniture, and I'm gearing up for the half marathon that I've barely trained for this weekend. More to come on all of that in a new post, very soon. I promise :)