My First 1/2 marathon!

What a great accomplishment for this momma of 4 for me to be able to train for a 1/2 marathon all while being a mom, homeschooling teacher, wife, friend, cook, doctor, counselor, daughter... and the list goes on.......  BUT all that to say is Glory to God, hard work, dedication, friends encouragement, running partners always help with the goal! I was SOOOOOOO blessed by God to stay healthy during the training and only minimal aches and pains, one dehydration and only a few times taking ibuprofen .....   we all (Doug, Chuck S, Jen B, Jen S, Michele, Jon, David, Angela )(and Steph J met us there)....  piled in the mini van and headed down 16 to Savannah....  WHAT A FUN RIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.....    we got there and we were met by TRAFFIC to the expo......, got in and out of the expo, then headed to dinner with David and Angela, let me tell you that EVERYBODY in Savannah was eating there... we waited I think close to 2 hours then we decided to eat outside. IT WAS FREEZING!!!!  this was a COLD night in Savannah....  drove an hour to the Cecils place in Darian (which was NICE) well what we could see in the dark :)  we got to sleep about 11:30 then beep, beep, beep......  the alarm...... it was time to get up....  3:00am........   left Darian about 3:45.....  drove an  hour to Savannah got to the corral area.........   waited till the start time 7:30....  ran with my running partner (Stephanie J)the whole race.....   there is sooooo many details that I want to share but it is just TOOO much!
here are some pics~

End of November

Doug and the kiddos were out in the woods doing some "airsoft base" work and they had a BLAST, even Andrew had joined them... I think this happened to be one of those days that Doug told me to go have a few hours to myself (which time to myself seems so nonexistent these days)... returned home to Caleb SOOOO excited about this base (he was assuming that he was getting an airsoft gun for Christmas) and he lead me to the base tugging me...  I of course was SOOOO excited to see him excited (he's 8 almost 9 and lately he seems to be pre-hormonal, maybe) so I continued to show my excitement !!!...  anyway!... later that night I was talking to Doug and noticed his wedding band missing, and of course I ask about it, Doug said when they were building the base the ring fell off , so that night after the kiddos went to bed we bundled up in our heavy coats and headed out with a flashlight (me assuming that the light would help "shine" the gold) well after 30 minutes or so we came back in of course my head hanging low because that was his band that I got him for our wedding.. I know selfish :(  so the next day I told the kids "if you find daddy's ring I will give y'all $5.00 a piece", so of course they run, i mean run, to the woods but no luck... well the days that followed they would look, I would look, Doug would look with no luck........  then the rain......  well let me just say you could find NOTHING out there so days still went by and no ring.... WELL on Christmas I mentioned that maybe a metal detector would would work and my dad said he had one and he would bring it to me so on Monday we met at Tanger outlet and he gave it to me, he said "it needs batteries" OK....  so go by Walmart and the batteries were $6.00... WOWZERS for 2 batteries!!!!... told Alexis this would be the best money spent or the worst.....  Turned out to be the BEST... we went into the woods for less than 10 minutes and BEEEEEEEPPPPPP it went off... a little shoving of leaves and wet hands... WE FOUND IT!!!!!... I was sooooooo very thankful!...Doug was too!

FIRE,FIRE, FIRE....

We LOVE bonfires!... well this is in the "fire cage" but we love them! we had a great time this particular night!...  we bundled up and had a SWEET time just talking and being near the fire :)