Happy 2013!

We kicked off 2013 in the Rocky Mountains.  We rented a cabin with another family at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, and had a great couple of days away.  New Year's Eve we partied at a family dance that turned out to be way more fun than any dance I ever went to when I was single.  Let's just say our family can really get down to Gangnam Style and the YMCA.   The ball over the dance floor dropped at 12:00 EST, which was perfect for the kids because they got to stay up late, but not midnight late. 


Here are our own celebrations before the dance started.

New Year's Day we spent playing on the mountain, until Austin  heard the wind blowing through the trees and became convinced an avalanche was on its way. (Not sure where he learned about avalanches.) 

 

 

We also played indoor mini golf, ping pong, Bingo, and basketball.  We made oragami snowflakes, went on a scavenger hunt and did some rollerskating.  Well, Ryan and Austin did some rollerskating.  Me and Eden put our skates on for about 3 mintues and then decided to run around on the carpet instead.  Roller skates are really heavy on your feet!

 

 

And to top it off.....we found out we're going to have a new baby while we were here!  Probably not a vacation we'll ever forget.

Racing around

 

This past fall my wonderful sister, Sam, somehow allowed me to talk her into running another marathon/half marathon race together.  We ran the Boulder marathon in the fall of 2011, and she swore off racing.  But here she is, back for more in the Denver Rock and Roll marathon 2012.  I never could have reached my goal of running a Boston qualifying time without Sam running the first 3 miles with me and telling me over and over, "You got this.  No problem."

The end of the race was all smiles because we found our super cute cheerleaders.  But the smiles didn't last long.  When we were ready to head home, Ryan took the kids one direction to find the van. Sam and I set off another direction to find our car that we had hastily parked that morning in a lot in downtown Denver.  Turns out we had no idea which lot in downtown Denver.  We had just finished running for more than 3 hours, and then we walked around downtown for at least 1.5 hours more looking for our car.  We were so hungry and tired that we eventually just sat down against a wall and buried our heads to wait for Ryan to turn around and drive a half-hour back to help us.  Kind of funny now.  Kind of horrible in the moment.   

Nothing makes me love my family more than thinking about how much support and help they gave me while I was training for this race.  

And just to keep things fair, here's Ryan after his own race a few weeks later.