Half Full

We just celebrated an amazing weekend at Disney, competing in the Half and Full Marathons!  I know it might not SOUND fun to most people, but it REALLY was a great time... there is nothing like seeing all that hard work and dedication paying off as you round the corner to the finish line!  What a rush!  I LOVE doing this with Ryan, and have completely jumped on his Running Band Wagon, even though I am no runner!  Who wouldn't want to be completely encouraged by their husband?!?!  He's so amazing.

Here we are, waiting in our corral Saturday morning, before the Half Marathon.  13.1 miles of fun!  There were 27,000 people also running, including my sister Laurie, and her daughter Amanda!

Hands down, the best part of the race:  The Magic Kingdom!!!  It is just the coolest thing to be running into that park, and hearing the workers say, "Welcome to the Magic Kingdom!".  Nothing like running down Main Street and seeing the castle, and seeing all the Characters out.  Nothing like the music playing, people cheering. 

I carried along Ben's little camera in my back pocket (Thanks, BEN!) to snap these pictures!  LOVE running through the back of the castle!

And this lady.  I have to say, pretty inspiring.  She kept passing me.  And yes, I had to run to catch up to snap this picture!  She was running with her Granddaughter, Alice, (You are welcome, Tracy... I was listening in on their conversation.... but mostly because my iPod lost it's charge by mile 2.  That's right, folks.  No music the whole way.  Grrrrrrr) whom she had to keep telling to "Hurry Up!!"  hahahaha.  Not sure if her name really was Alice, but I kind of like to think she was just calling her that.  It's way funnier that way!

And the Finish Line.  Loved seeing Ryan (he was certainly already finished by the time I made it there!) and the Family in the stands!  And The Mouse, of course!  My favorite part of this race was the fact that I never once felt discouraged or overwhelmed, and just really enjoyed myself.  Didn't get the time I was hoping for, but that was ok too!  I was so happy to finish in a good mood:)  3 hours, 22 minutes, and 37 seconds of good fun!  Ryan finished in 2 hours, 35 minutes, and 14 seconds... a record for him!  Yes, we could walk just fine afterwards, in fact, he took Ben and Carly to Hollywood Studios, and I went shopping with my Mom and Dad, brother and sister!

Shout out to my pal Betsy, who also completed her first Half Marathon!!!  So proud of her, since I know exactly how nerve wrenching the first one can be... I believe I have a new Half Marathon Pal!

NEXT morning... The Full Marathon!  For the 3rd year in a row, Ryan was taking on Goofy's Challenge, which is the Half on Saturday, and the Full Marathon on Sunday, for a total of 39.3 miles!  I was feeling REALLY bad for him as he walked out of our hotel room Sunday at 3:30am.  I knew I certainly couldn't have been going for a run!  But he continued to amaze me as I got text updates as he crossed over various mile markers and his time was EVEN BETTER than the day before!  In fact, he bested his Half time by 6 minutes and his Full time by 19 minutes over last year!  So proud of you, Ryan!  He finished in 5 hours, 23 minutes, and 32 seconds! 

For added fun this year, Ryan's younger brother, Rick, came down from Michigan with his whole family to run the Marathon.  He said he had an injured foot, but when I saw him at mile 18, he was a complete blur, so nice try, Rick!  He did so good, and of course, I'm proud of you, too, RICKY!  (That's for old times sake).  We had a completely AWESOME day with his family at the Magic Kingdom the next day, so that post will be coming soon. 

THANK YOU to my parents, and brother for driving over on Saturday to see us run, for braving the crowd and enduring hours of waiting, and for being around us all sweaty!  Ewww.  And for entertaining me with shopping in the afternoon! 

THANK YOU to Rochel and Edgar for spending the weekend with us, cheering for all of us and hanging out... no easy task with 2 small children!  And THANKS for the coffee on Sunday! 

THANK YOU to my sister, Laurie, and Amanda for spending ANOTHER Marathon weekend with us! And for running, too!  I loved our time at the Start, and getting to see your excitement!  And of course, Epcot on Sunday.

THANK YOU to Rodney... I so appreciated your help with the kids, getting them to the Finish Line for us, and helping me so completely on Sunday during the Marathon!  You are there for us.  As always. 

THANK YOU to Rick and Kristi for coming, too!  LOVED spending time with you guys and your very funny little kids!  Isaiah and Carly were so ready to swap spots, forever!  And I am still considering snitching Julean. 

THANK YOU to my amazing husband for encouraging all of us to better ourselves!  I can hardly express to you the joy I felt when you got your Half time under 2:30 during the Marathon!  Seconded only by your time at the Finish.  You are everything.

... and not so lastly

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

2 Corinthians 9:15

Generations

A new year.  A new header for the blog...

We've had a lot of extra discussion in our house in the past few months about Ryan's grandfather, Grandpa Tuinstra.  I guess mostly fueled by the fact that our newest nephew, Parker, was born on Grandpa's birthday and even got his middle name from him... and the fact that Parker looks remarkably like Grandpa, which reminded us that RYAN looks EXACTLY like Grandpa's wedding picture... you get the idea.  And over our annual Christmas trip to Michigan, we got to see Grandpa.  And the discussions continued, especially after our visit, as we were Even-More-Than-Usual impressed with the fact that so much of Ryan's Christian Heritage came directly through this man.  Which really gets to you soul-searching when you wonder if YOUR own grandkids will be able to say the same about you???  See what I mean?  Discussions. 

I was looking up verses this morning for "Endure".  I guess I felt like I needed some encouragement along those lines, but I thought it was more like "don't give up... stay strong... keep going..." kind of encouragement I needed.  Funny how God has other ideas for what I REALLY need.  But when I got to this verse, my mind went to the above picture, and got me thinking about Grandpa again...

Your faithfulness continues through all generations,

you established the earth, and it endures.

Psalm 119:90

So of course, I started looking THAT up... and came across this:

Even when I am old and gray,

do not forsake me, my God,

till I declare your power to the next generation,

your mighty acts to all who are to come.

Psalm 71:18

And apparently THAT was the encouragement I really needed for today. 

This picture is from our visit with Grandpa a few weeks ago... we were all around the room at the nursing home, singing him Christmas songs... I was snapping pictures and glanced down to see Carly singing her heart out, which wasn't so surprising... but what REALLY made me catch my breath was seeing her Great Grandpa watching her.  It's a sweet memory for me, and a very poignant reminder to follow his example to our kids, and THEIR kids.  What a Gift he has shared with his family, right?!

Michigan Christmas

Click here to view this photo book larger

Here are some quick pictures of our trip to Michigan for Christmas...

Brave

Big day around here... Carly is FINALLY tall enough to ride on the BIG roller coasters at Busch Gardens!  She was SO EXCITED.  I could hardly watch her riding them, and she loved every minute of it!  I don't think this smile left her face ALL DAY!

In the off chance you aren't familiar with Sheikra, you hang FACE DOWN for a good 5 seconds before plummeting 200 feet to the ground, then swoop up and go upside down and side ways for a while... Our newly acquired friend, Roy, was kind enough to take these GREAT pictures for us...

And of course, being MCGREGOR's.... they had to ride in the FRONT ROW!  Carly is 4th in from the left, Ben and Ryan are beside her... that is Ryan taking a picture with his cell phone.  No, he didn't drop it, amazingly enough!

You are going to need to click and zoom in on that girl's face of pure joy!

And for the Not So Faint of Heart... Ryan's picture from the top!  The very tiny people on the ground would be Carly's Papparazzi.  We were pretty overjoyed for our girl to FINALLY get her chance at the fun.  She tried to talk her Mama and Cousin in to going with her, but I must say, Torrey and I are the Smart Ones!

Thanks, Roy for the GREAT pictures and for joining us on our fun day!!

My Little Girl is growing up:(

SIXTEEN

It seemed on the day we got married that we couldn't love each other more.

We were so wrong! 

Happy Anniversary to my very best friend.

I love you more today than yesterday... but not as much as tomorrow.

You are amazing!!

Adventures in Advent

We've had many Advent Activities so far this Season, but I think perhaps this has been my favorite so far...  Watching "The Nativity Story".  Have you seen it?  We watched it last year with the kids and thought it was so excellent we decided to make it an Advent Tradition.  Last year, I was so speechless over watching Joseph race through the streets of Bethlehem searching for a room for his soon-to-be-delivered wife.  He's so frantic and desperate and I just think that HAS to be the way he felt!  THIS year, I was overwhelmed by the Shepherds.  I love how God chose someone so humble to celebrate his Son's birth FIRST.  Just regular, working class guys.  Anyways, the movie is really well done, and my kids LOVED watching it again.  We did too!

Other activities that have made their way into our schedule.... Dinner at Chipotle, who sponsors the kids swim team.  Making a Christmas craft (yeah, no photo of that, but they were cute jingle bell necklaces), the Christmas Concert our church choir performed (oh yes, Mama's in the choir again!!), Happy Hour at Sonic, Munchkin donuts hiding in the microwave for breakfast...

Of course, we HAD to have a night of watching the Charlie Brown Christmas Specials... Who doesn't love Sally telling her brother, "I'm supposed to say, 'HARK!', and then Harold Angel sings."  and she ends up saying, "Hockey Sticks!"  Love it!! We warned Carly not to make that same mistake when she did her part in their Christmas Show!!

Visiting "The Lights" at Disney's Hollywood Studios.  They are so impressive and we stepped back in a RARE quiet corner and watched them dance to the music QUIETLY, taking a moment to SLOW DOWN.  That was really nice for us!

The performance of Back to the Manger... perhaps I should insert the video's here... Ben and Carly did GREAT!  Well, truth be told, ALL the kids did GREAT!  Ryan got them all singing GREAT, and our friend Debbie did a fantastic job with the drama part.

Carly had a pretty big part in the show with lots of lines and her solo.  She really did great remembering all her parts (and everyone else's too!!) She worked really hard, practicing every day!

(RATS!  Can't get Ben's to upload... it's too long!!)

It's on my facebook page, though!

Anyone who knows Ben, knows how very impressive it is that he was willing and able to get up in front of everyone and sing and dance!  We were so proud of him, we know it's a little harder for him than for Carly.  Imagine that, both our kids are little singers!  HA!

We attended the Christmas program at my parents church and loved it!  It was so nice to spend time with them.... we have been so busy with the kids being older and in school and our busy schedules that we haven't seen them as much as I would like.  I do miss the days of Ben and Carly being too little for school and the time we spent hanging out at Grammy and Papoo's house! 
We also had dinner with Aunt Rochel and Uncle Edgar and small children...

HELLO LEAH!  Welcome to Auntie's Blog!  I thought this picture was funny... ask Ryan to hold the baby and when he's done playing with her she gets to sit BESIDE him.  Funny.  The flash on my cell phone make her close her eyes:)  She's actually really smiley with the cutest Circle Head.  (Thanks, Carly!) Anyways, while we were there, there were funny moments that involved the newly written "J song".  Apparently Eli think's candy canes are "J's" and his cousins were happy to oblige him with silly dancing and singing "J" over and over.  Who says 11, 9 and 2 year olds can't play together and have a fantastic time?!?!

Let's see... Tree trimming, Christmas Party with our friends, Game Night, Driving around and looking at Christmas Lights... We've had a fun, not-so-busy-BUSY Advent Season.... so far! 

The Main Attraction of the Advent Season arrives tomorrow.   Oh, you'll be hearing PLENTY about her, I'm sure!!

Header...

It's that time of year again... Advent (not "new blog header").   I love it.  Mostly because I need to SLOW DOWN more than any person I know!  Today, it occurred to me that I was RUSHING through the activity I was doing TO RELAX.  (ok, if you must know, crotcheting.  All right, an afghan for Carly.)  Ryan was teasing me for the text I sent him a few months ago:  "The girl doing my pedicure is taking ENTIRELY too long and it's driving me nuts!!!!".  The reality speaks volumes.

So, waiting.  I'm very very bad at it, but aware enough to see the need.  And December is the one month I guess I allow myself to anticipate and savor something.   Which is kind of ironic since our calendar is seriously the FULLEST in December!! 

Our kids LOVE our Advent Calendar.  Ryan and I love it for what it teaches them... anticipating Christ's birth, spending time with family, and being patient!  Most of our activities will be repeats of last year, and a few new ones for good measure.  It's a tradition we've all come to love and I know that even when our kids are grown, Ryan and I will continue to plan activities and probably even "hide" the plan in the countdown calendar!!

I originally made a DIFFERENT header...

... a fine close up of our Advent Calendar.  I didn't love it, but I did love the verse.  It emulates the Season for us perfectly.  I love how the punctuation falls in this particular verse... "Wait for the Lord"  "Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord".  Particularly the "Be strong and take heart AND WAIT" part.  I spent the whole year waiting.  For my job to change.  From Night Shift to Day Shift.  I needed to sleep.  My family needed me to NOT be so cranky.  I needed to not be so bored with my job.  So I prayed for a change of heart, since I didn't think a job change was likely.  I figured that if I delighted myself in the Lord, he would give me the desires of my heart (Psalm 37:4)... I quickly learned that that means He will give me the desires of my heart, as in, making me want what HE wants.  His plan.  He made me happy in my then current situation... and when I completely least expected it, I found myself getting up at 5:30am.  For work.  I love what I am doing now, but to be honest? Just before He moved me, I honestly loved what I was doing then.  Funny how that worked out. 

The new picture:

So, we started our Advent Activities.  You know, on December 1st.  By the 4th day, we finally got to our Tree Trimming Party.  We got the tree up, all the decorations out... I decided I needed to photograph our ornaments because they are all so sentimental to me!  So I was on this level of our tree, getting refocussed to snap a picture and I saw our calendar in the background... the chest with the pictures of Ryan's grandparents... soft lighting, the "Love" ornament on our tree... and well, I don't think that was a Random view since it made me stop.  Catch my breath.  And wait.