Mud Running

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

After our very first mud run.
Over the past year, Josh and I picked up a new hobby. We did our very first Mud Run last October and just finished our fourth one. Each time we (and I mean I) do better and better. Josh is the best running partner. He is in terrific shape and during his time in the Army, he did a lot of running and he's fast. But every time we run, he makes sure to stay with me at my pace and he gently pushes me to do better. He never gets frustrated or upset with me that I'm quite a bit slower than he is. I feel like he is just as proud of me as I am when I finish. So, after this last one we decided to try something a little more difficult. So we signed up for the Tough Mudder. I am starting to regret that decision! I've been running and trying to get to where I can at least run the length of the course...it's about 12 miles. And to elaborate, there are obstacles such as jumping across haybales, running through fire, and the ending obstacle is called electroshock therapy, where you run through a field of hanging live wires that will shock you. Yes, I feel as if I may have made a mistake. :) So far, my furthest run to date is 5.61 miles and that was on Sunday. The hard part for me is that my pace is about a 10 minute mile, so running takes a while for me and now that daylight savings is gone, I tend to run out of daylight before I can even get started. But my goals for the Mud Runs were to not walk the course at all, which I've been able to accomplish. So I'm hoping that I won't have to walk on the Tough Mudder, but I'm not even close to 12 miles yet. I'm going to keep pushing and hopefully by January I'll be able to run 10 miles. That's my goal.

I love the holidays!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011


And here it all starts again. Halloween kicks off my very favorite part of the year. And I'm already excited about Black Friday!!! Halloween was such a success this year. The girls had some pretty cute costumes that other people handmade for me since I am not very good at that sort of thing.... :) Ella was Little Red Riding Hood and Sadie was The Big Bad Wolf. Being that Sadie has grown up pulling hair and biting her sister, I felt that the roles were very fitting! Sadie and I went to Ella's Halloween party yesterday morning at school and we had such a fun time. Sadie wanted so bad to be a big kid like the rest of them. She got to eat cookies with the big kids, play games, and sit in the circle with them.
Here are the kids praying over their snack. It was so cute to hear them saying their prayer in unison.

Sadie got hold of some of the super cool loot Ella got from her party.

Josh and I carved our very first pumpkin. Ella was supposed to have the job of scooping out the seeds, but she was too grossed out!

And we ended the night with a little trick or treating. It was so much fun. Ella would show Sadie where to go and would walk her up to the people handing out candy. And if someone looked a little scary, she'd make sure Sadie was ok. Although I think that was more for her own comfort :) And Sadie told every single person that gave her candy "Tay-tu Mama". It was the cutest ever.