Marathon Training Week Nine

We ran 12 miles today! And I ran the whole thing! Woohoo!

Again, I am so grateful to Landon for running those 10 miles with me on Monday night, because without that I don't think I would have had the confidence/mental state to run the entire 12 today. In fact, I'm pretty certain I would have walked. So, thank you, thank you, thank you again, babe. You are too good to me.

This week has been a pretty good running week. On Tuesday I did my 3 miles at the gym--they were a little slower than I wanted, about a 10:30 pace, but it was ok. On Wednesday we had 6 miles, but we ended up walking three with two of our good friends, Lauren and Brady, who were out walking in the same neighborhood, and then running the last 3, which was perfect. I wish all of our 6 mile runs could go like that, haha! Landon and I ran the last 3 together though, which was a lot of fun--I slowed him down a little because we did a 9:14 pace, but for me that was fast, so I was excited. And then, on Thursday night we ran out 3 miles around 9pm and I was able to run them around a 9:18 pace, which I felt pretty good about. However, next week we're going to try and put more hours between our Thursday night run and our long run on Saturday, and take it a little easier to rest up for our long runs.

Today we got up around 530am (by far the earliest we've ever gotten up to run!) and drove out to where we did our run on Wednesday night because they had a 1.25 mile track and we could see each other the whole time, so Landon would know if I, you know, got kidnapped or something, instead of in our neighborhood, where we'd never see each other after the first mile. Anyway, we had 9 and 3/4 laps to do today and my garmin wasn't working right, so I just put on my Ipod and ran and ended up with about 11:30 minute miles, maybe a little under, according to my Ipod stopwatch. I was going pretty slow the whole time, but actually felt good until about lap 6. That's when my legs started getting tired and by lap 9 my joints were starting to hurt, but I kept telling myself I was ok and not tired and to keep going--I'm trying to encourage myself in my head instead of tell myself how tired I am and how much longer I have to go, and I think it worked! The last 3 laps or so were hard and it got HOT outside, but we made it! Woohoo!

I finished about 16 minutes after Landon and during my last lap he walked over to Lauren and Brady's house, just down the road, and managed to snag us some cold water and then wait for me at our finish line. I was never so happy to see him--and to see the water! I'm telling ya'-- I've got the best husband ever.

And 3 months from today, on October 11th, I can't wait to see him waititng for me at the finish line of the Chicago Marathon and to celebrate with him afterwords!!

I-M-P-A-C-T

I love Impact

When I was in high school, one of my good friends and I (and sometimes Michael, too) taught a reading class for a bunch of little 2nd graders down at Impact Church of Christ and had SO much fun. Then, I worked down there with their middle schoolers during the summer after my freshman year in college and had a blast. It's seriously one of my favorite places to be--and now, Landon and I actually live really close to it. And since this is the first summer since we moved to Houston that I haven't either been in Masters classes during the summer or taught summer school, I decided to teach a reading class again. I have a group of 24 fifth graders, 20 of whom are boys and they are a handful. In a good way though. Yesterday some of them were acting like little punks and not wanting to do anything besides play foosball, so I went out and checked out about 40 books they would like from the library and today was a different story.


Seriously, it makes me melt to see kids reading. Especially kids that tell you they hate reading and do all they can to show you how tough and cool they are. I love it. Tomorrow I'm going to bring my camera and actually try to get some pictures of my group, the Yellow Hearts group, and capture that goodness on film.

Happy Fourth of July

This fourth of July we had a really busy day, but it was a lot of fun. We spent the better part of the morning/early afternoon making guacamole and burgers and...our second fondant covered cake in the shape of an American flag. It was a lot of fun doing it together, and the second go-round was a lot smoother than the first. At the end, we'd kinda wished we'd make a square cake instead of a regular cake, but I think it came out alright anyway!


Then, we loaded up all the food and our bathing suits and headed out to our friends house for a fun afternoon of grilling out and swimming and catching up with some friends. Then, we left that night, intending to see the fireworks, but we were too late, so we headed over to another friend's house and were there hanging out and playing cards until about 2am. It's been a while since we've been driving home at that hour, but it was SO worth it. We feel so blessed to have such good, fun people in our lives.


Most of all though, on this day where we celebrate the freedom of our nation, we are so thankful for the freedom we have in Jesus Christ and acknowledge with gratefulness that all that we have and enjoy, just like today, comes from Him.

Ace of Cakes Wannabees

Yep, that's us. :) We've watched enough Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes that we thought we'd give it a try. We researched it some on the internet (and by watching a Cake Boss marathon, of course :)) and then tried our hand at it.

This recipe seemed to be the easiest to make yourself (and really didn't taste bad either) and was surprisingly easy to make. All you need is 16 oz mini marshmallows, 1/c cup Crisco, 1 tbs water and 2 lbs of powdered sugar.

First, you clean off a flat surface to work on and grease it with Crisco so that nothing will stick to it.

Then, dump about half of a normal sized bag of powdered sugar onto your greased surface (and you'll probably need more as you begin to mix in the marshmallows)

Next, pour your marshmallows into a microwave-safe bowl, add the water and then microwave for about 21/2 minutes, in 30 second intervals, stirring quickly between each interval.

When they're thoroughly melted, pour the sticky marshmallow mess onto your greased counter top and powdered sugar.

Now here comes the fun part: begin kneading the mixture until it becomes dough-like and not sticky. It will take a while and you will probably want to add some more powdered sugar periodically until it is not sticky anymore.

When it looks like this, you are done.

Wrap it in saran wrap and place in the refrigerator and leave for 24 hours. Or, if you're short on time (like us) leave for 2 hours or so and you should be fine. Just don't touch it any more than you have to, because the more you touch it, the stickier and harder to work with it becomes.

When you take it our of the freezer, roll it out to about 1/2 inch thick (using the same manner that you would roll out a pie crust if you are making a round cake like us). Make sure that your counter is still greased and that you have powdered sugar on both the counter underneath the fondant and on the rolling pin, and that you reapply often, or the fondant will begin to stick. Also, because it will take some force to roll the fondant out since it will be hard from being in the refrigerator, make sure to pick up the fondant and rotate it every 2-3 rolls or it will stick to the counter and you will have to start over (speaking from experience :)). When you have measured it with the cake pan and have a large enough fondant surface, carefully place it on your cake (which has been iced with icing, preferably buttercream, to give the fondant something to adhere to). Using the outside edge of your pinkie finger, smooth the fondant over the cake and then use a sharp knife or pizza cutter to cut away the excess fondant around the edges.

Lastly, use food coloring or food paint to color leftover fondant and decorate the cake. This was our first attempt--we liked it, even if it did end up looking like a baby shower cake! :)

Oh--and don't be surprised when you look around your kitchen after you admire your finished cake, and it looks like this! :)

Because it's all worth it when you have family over to share the cake with,

especially when they're cute munchkin nieces


and fun, Iphone game challenging brothers like ours.

Marathon Training Week Eight

Last January when we decided to do the half-marathon, Landon and I went out and ran/walked seven miles in our neighborhood and I felt like I was going to die after about the first mile. It was sad. Tonight, I ran seven without stopping. It was slow, an 11:46 pace just like the 10 mile run, but it was the longest I've run alone (without Landon to pace me and keep me going :)) without stopping, so hopefully each long run I do alone without stopping to walk will help me overcome my mental issues about not thinking I can run the whole race. And help me find my pace--which hopefully is a lot faster than tonight's pace. But it was 90 degrees outside still when we ran, so hopefully the heat has something to do with it. And hopefully it won't be 90 degrees in Chicago in October. :)

July already??

I can't believe summer is already half over--in a month and a half I have to go back to work! For now though, I'm really enjoying the time off and getting to do all the little things that I never get to do when I'm working. I do believe though, that in a month and a half or so, I will be ready to go back to work. Not ready to be getting up early and not ready to be busy all day, but ready to have something to do, if that makes any sense. Plus, I enjoy my job and the start of school is always exciting.

Today though, I'm enjoying my blueberry pancakes and my newest arts and crafts projects for my friend's little baby who will be turning one in a couple of months. These are the things I'll miss being able to do on a random Wednesday morning once I go back to work.

When I was little, my mom's whole side of the family used to go to the beach for a week every summer together. We'd rent 2 condos and basically be beach bums for a week--sometimes we'd go into town, sometimes we'd go out to eat, but usually we'd just stick close to the beach and cook our meals in our condos, since there were so many of us. And this morning, when I was making my blueberry pancakes, they took me back to those days at the beach, because someone (one of my uncles, I think) used to always make blueberry pancakes for breakfast and they were delicious.

Just like the ones I'm eating for breakfast right now. Too bad I'm not about to head out to the beach when they're gone...


Instead, I'm going to be putting the finishing touches on these. They're the first crafts projects I've worked on in a while and I think they came out cute. And, I loved working on them--everything from wandering the aisles at Hobby Lobby and picking out pieces and matching colors and looking at ribbons to putting it all together at home. And, I got some cute ideas for things to make when we have our own kids--I'll have to store those ideas away for later! :)


Happy Wednesday!