Playing catch up- Chloe turns one!

My little Chloe bug turned 1 in June. It's hard to believe that a little over a year ago Ben left for a 5 hour bike ride and I went into labor shortly afterwards, a month early. This year we had a quiet birthday here in Durham surrounded by boxes and messes. Our neighbor brought over some balloons and presents and I took a break from painting to bake her a cake, which she refused to eat.

Stuffing her face with some birthday pizza Opening some presents

I just looked at some baby pictures of her and got a very very small twinge of "baby fever" as Ben calls it. Look at that face though! So precious.

And look how little she was.

I think I need to stop looking at pictures now. We love you Chloe!

The blogging marathon continues...

Three posts in the same week? That is some serious blogging for me. I forgot I had all sorts of video from Costa Rica. Here are some highlights.

I don't think Ben has ever been prouder of Elise than when she set foot on that surfboard.

This video is pretty self-explanatory. "I kiss the lizard."

Chloe doing her thing at the beach.

I don't know where all this love for reptiles is coming from. I blame Jeremy.

Costa Rica '08

We were lucky enough to spend another week in Costa Rica with our friends, the Preeces, and their friends, the Gardners. Jenny's grandpa owns a house there and we were honored to be invited back again this year to enjoy the sun and surfing! We all have little girls the same age and it was fun to see them running around together and getting along together, for the most part!

I think Elise's favorite part was probably seeing the Barbie: Island Princess movie for the first time, and several other times during the course of the trip. She still asks to see it all the time, well more like demands it, "I want to watch Barbie," or alternately, "I want Barbie songs." But she still had fun seeing all the different animals and making sand castles. On a perhaps unrelated note, I caught her counting to 6 in Spanish today. Neither Ben or I taught it to her, so either she soaked up some Spanish in Costa Rica, or she's been watching too much Dora.

Ben just wanted to surf the whole time. I had fun not being pregnant this year and getting to go on the canopy tour! In fact, just not being pregnant pretty much made the vacation. And little Chloe was a trooper and loved playing in the sand and shoving big handfuls of it in her mouth. A big thank you to the Preeces for putting up with us for so long!



We've got a busy few weeks ahead of us. We close on our house in less than 2 weeks so we've been busy packing up. I'm excited to be in a house of our own again and have some more space for the kids to run around in. Durham here we come!

Boston 26.2

A few weeks ago I found myself running the Boston Marathon. Not that this was a last minute decision to run a marathon. I've been training and training for this really ever since I had Chloe last year. But I had some injuries late in the game. All in all, I count myself lucky that I made it to the start line, not in an ideal condition, but in a "Well, my calf still hurts, but I think it'll last 26 miles" condition.
It was a surreal experience to find myself running an event that is so big and such an aspiration for so many people. I've never seen that many people in short shorts and spandex in my life. I just remember when I finally reached the start line (it took about 8 minutes to get there!) and everyone started running at once, all I could hear was the sound of shoes hitting pavement. A lot of shoes hitting the pavement. Quite a difference from all my solitary long runs. In the beginning, I was just surrounded by people and when you went up or down a hill you could really see the crowd of runners snaking ahead of you on the road.
The three hours honestly just flew by. I had a great marathon. I doubted that I would ever say that running a marathon is fun. The Baltimore marathon from mile 16 on was just terrible. I vowed never to run another marathon again. But I feel like I ran a smart race this time, thanks solely to the counsel of my coach. He made me promise to take it easy the first half, and if I felt good still, to go crazy on the second half. It was painful to watch people pass me those first 13 miles. But it was really fun to pass people on the second half, especially up the hilly parts. I felt really strong at the end and was glad I eventually gave in to coach.
One of the best parts was having my old team all come out to support me! We're all scattered right now with residencies but everyone converged on Boston for a reunion. I couldn't ask for better friends or teammates! I owe so much to my coach, Brigham. I don't even want to know how many hours he spends writing schedules and workouts, and even though he enjoys every minute of it, I know he doesn't have a lot of those minutes to spare right now. A big thanks to assistant to the Coach, Ben, for watching our girls while I was out running and supporting me in so many ways. Though he and Brigham clash sometimes, I know they both want what's best for me.


Here are my stats for any other running geeks out there.
Official Time: 3:22:58
Pace: 7:45/mile
Overall Place: 4882/21963
Gender Place: 592/8935
Division Place: 482/4908

And pictures too of course.


Next post: Costa Rica pics I promise!

Easter pictures of the girls! What more could you ask for?

Picture of the week

I can be majestic too, Daddy.
(See Fig. 3 from Feb. 9thpost)

But I'd rather just be a silly, giggly girl.

February Antics

February seriously just flew by. Even with that extra day. Those of you who remained loyal and still checked the blog religiously only to find no new entry will now be rewarded with one big fat ginormous entry. And those of you who stopped reading because of 3 weeks inactivity, I see how it is! :) Some friends you are.

Things that happened to us in February

Ben grew a beard. A really crazy beard.

Chloe started crawling and pulling herself up to stand. It's not very pretty, but it gets her around town.

Chloe developed an addiction to teddy grahams. But honestly, can anyone really blame her? Those things are fantastic!

We made the mistake of taking Elise to her first carnival. She loved her first ride so much she had to be forcibly removed from it, wailing the whole time. The crying stopped when we offered more tickets for rides. But was even worse once that one stopped.

A picture of both girls smiling! But not looking at the camera.


A visit from Uncle Josh! With requisite awesome picture taking.


Elise learned to use a computer all by herself. She’s also in negotiation to start her own job next week. She’s always loved the computer and she learned to move the mouse around a while ago. But she didn’t understand how you got the mouse to do something until she discovered the buttons. And the scroll wheel. Now she’s a pro and can play games all by herself, which is kind of nice.


I had a crazy running month. Last week I ran 60 miles over 5 days. It was great fun but I ended up with some sort of leg injury which I am just praying is not a stress fracture. If it is, no Boston for me this year, so keep your fingers crossed!