I felt the need to put the year, seeing how I'm so behind in blogging. Oh well... eventually I will be caught up, but probably not. I'm ok with that. Here are some random pictures from our month of September that might give some inkling of what we've been up to...
This is our cat. Elfy. She loves the brown blanket. A lot.
This month, my sister forced me to join "Instagram". Apparently, it's so I will be cool. She then threatened me that if I didn't post pictures, she wasn't going to talk to me anymore, or something super sweet along those lines. So, Elfy got her picture taken, AGAIN. For the record, we were trying to sleep. It was 9:15, and me and Elfy go to bed at 9:14. She wasn't impressed. Oh. Follow me on Instagram.
More Instagram fun... and our usual McGregor tradition for Labor Day. Lunch at Dairy Queen. This mess has been going on for about 17 years. These 2 were only to happy to follow in Dad's Traditional Footsteps.
Next up on our month... Ben's Big Fever Week. His Stellar Nurse-for-a-Mother allowed the craziness to drag out for over a week before getting him to the dr. Anyways, he did miss a day of school and I had to go in to work at 1pm, so he stayed home a couple of hours by himself until Ryan got home. I'd like to remind everyone he's 13.5 years old. ANYWAYS, that being said, I felt the need to jot down the phone numbers on the old dry erase board... and YES. It was necessary to write "ask for 'Jennifer'"... he has Asperger's. I'm certain he would have just asked for "mom". Probably they would have figured out who it was, though... probably.
More Instagram fun. Our new niece, Sydney. Isn't she cute? Her mom's a photographer. Obviously.
Oh, right. So, FINALLY got Ben to the dr. Turns out his Week of Fever was pneumonia. Probably should not have sent him to Swim Team all week. Ha, kidding. He only went on Tuesday. So, breathing treatments for Ben. Which he didn't seem to mind, thankfully, since he got extra tablet time.
Ok, this REALLY meant alot to Ben... His friends Aaron and Jacob stopped over while we were out picking up more medicine (after the dr called to say his chest xray really looked much worse than he expected... lovely) to leave him a Get Well balloon, card and candy. It REALLY made his day and he's still talking about it.
The Running Season has begun. Well, it's ALWAYS Running Season around here, but Marathon Training is in full swing. This is a picture from one early morning 9 mile run. I will say this, you get up and out this early, you get to see really beautiful sun rises.
Um, a week later, and STILL getting treatments. Couldn't seem to get those lungs clear!
Introducing our very Scary and Strict Patrol. Her father is the Safety Officer at her school, but that in no way swayed him to give her the job. She had to apply. I don't think she lets anyone get away. With anything.
Ok, funny story. So, I joined up with our church's Worship Team. My big plan was to talk Rochel into joining, too, on "My Week" so we could do it together, and ride over to Tuesday practice together, and get coffee on the way... bonding with the sister-in-law. ANYWAYS, I started in September, and she's starting in October. Blah Blah Blah. The week that Ben started getting sick, and then missed one day of school and I went into work late, well, that was Tuesday. However, all day long I thought it was Monday. I don't usually work Tuesday's, so seriously? It's an honest assumption. All day it's Monday. I come home, we eat dinner, worry over Ben blah blah blah. 9:35pm I say something to Ryan about Monday's stink, I'm tired of Monday... he's like, "ok, it's Tuesday". Well, I was supposed to be at practice on Tuesday at 7pm. Whoops. Well, I thought it was hilarious. Anyways, Rodney was pretty forgiving and I made all kinds of alarms to go off on my phone now so I don't forget. The next week, I was there. I'm sure I won't forget when Rochel goes. There will be coffee involved.
Another Long Run. At Flatwoods. This one was 11 miles. I signed up for the full marathon at Disney in January. Full. I really wanted to do one when I turned 40. This is close enough. I have to say, I really enjoy the training... I'm all about the long runs for some reason. Anyways, there's plenty of flooding at Flatwoods still, and the road was washed out, so thankfully there's a cute little foot bridge...
I'm so Earthy Crunchy (ha), I'm going to make my own laundry soap. I found this recipe on Pinterest and it seemed acceptable to me, so I'm going to give it a whirl. I took a picture of the ingredients so I can refer to it when I shop for the items. My sister-in-law Kristi made it and said it's a good one. I will get back to you on it, I still have a big bottle of Whisk to use up...
Sent this picture to Ryan one day... this is Lunch at work. On a busy day. Probably at 4:15pm. Nice.
That's right folks... 2.5 weeks later and we are still getting breathing treatments. He went back to Swim Team practice after about a week and did amazingly well. He even had a swim meet where he cut a full 2 seconds off his 50 Free race! He's rockin' it at 26.12 now. Seconds.
Yup, another long run. This was my best time yet. I mostly walk/run intervals, so this might seem slow to all you Real Runners out there, but it's pretty good for an Old Girl.
Awww, Elfy. She's hugging the couch.
And last weekend... Ryan and I went to Orlando without the kiddos (thanks Uncle Steve!) to run in Disney's Tower of Terror 10 Miler. Inaugural Race. We had a really fun weekend... got to see (and touch!!) the marathon medal, which was on display...
... and Ryan got to meet his Running Idol, Jeff Galloway. He wrote the book on running intervals that Ryan followed and talked me into following as well. Ryan's been wanting to talk to him for years to tell him how much he appreciated his information. I wish I had a picture of Jeff's face (and CHEER) when Ryan told him he cut 39 minutes off his marathon time using his methods. It was pretty hilarious. He was thrilled. Anyways, it was cool to meet this guy. I will also add that it took Ryan a full 3 minutes to realize who he was actually talking to! Pretty funny.
Pretty sunset out side the Wide World of Sports
Waiting for the race to start... We kept seeing all these women (um, men?) named Jennifer... seriously Mom? Think of another name for your girl! Apparently you had to be named Jennifer to run this race.
Delightful text from my brother... thanks for the encouragement, Bro.
Start line... we didn't really love this race. Started at 10pm and it turns out, we are old and tired at 10pm. My bed time is 9:14pm. It was insanely HOT and HUMID, so that didn't help. The course stunk a little bit, with a dirt/gravel narrow path we had to run on for 1/2 a mile... the course was super crowded and I couldn't run nearly as much as I wanted to since I couldn't get around people all the time. But in the end, I'm pretty thankful I was able to run it. My friend stopped over today to pick up my crutches for her son to borrow and while I was waiting for her, I hopped around on them and suddenly remembered being so dependent on them last year. It put everything into perspective for me, and I don't care how slow I am, at least I can run/walk and keep going. I'm really thankful for that. So turns out, it was a great race after all!!
After our weekend away, we came home for Leah's birthday party. I didn't take any pictures of her, so you will have to take my word on it how crazy cute she is. Her mother will blog about it, I'm sure.
So there you have it... September. At this rate, I can just do 12 posts a year and call it a blog.
