Birthday Marathon weekend and Virginia Beach trip

On Friday morning we drove 4 hours to Virigina Beach for a 4-day / 3-night trip to celebrate Jim's 35th birthday and for Jim to run his first full marathon!  He ran in the Shamrock Marathon on his actual birthday, Sunday the 18th.

We stayed at a Holiday Inn right on the beach and even had a direct ocean front room with a sliding door that led straight out to the beach and boardwalk!

Saturday was the Children's Marathon, kids 5 and under get to run 26.2 yards (as opposed to the marathon distance of 26.2 miles) and cross the same finish line that the big race uses!  They break up the groups into age groups so the 5 years olds don't trample the 1 year olds.  They even get their own t-shirt, bib numbers

and a finisher's medal when they cross the line! Avery had fun warming up:

But unfortunately they had everybody line up too early and the toddlers in Avery's 1-year group all got really bored waiting for too long; and Avery was so grumpy that daddy had to carry her across the finish line!

 Oh well, at least she enjoyed her finisher's medal:

 Avery also enjoyed seeing the large King Neptune statue on the boardwalk:

Also on Saturday afternoon we went to visit our friend Meg (Meg and her husband Chris used to live in San Diego, and got transfered via the Navy to Norfolk).  They now have a baby, Jocelyn!  Avery loved seeing "baby Jocelyn!"

On Sunday we got up early and Jim got prepared to race

And luckily were only 4 blocks from the start line so we walked on down.  Jim got a good-luck send-off before the race (yes that's Ronald McDonald in the background, we don't know why he's there!)

Then Colleen and Avery staked out a good spot to watch him run.

He got to see them at the start, again about the halfway mark, and finally right before the finish!  Having your name on the bib number was neat, because people would yell "Go Jim!" "Come on Jim finish strong!" "I poured this cup of water just for you Jim!"  It was neat having people yell your name at you to help push you through.

Jim's goal was a 3:20:00 finish and was running almost right on pace for the first 18 miles and then he got a leg cramp, but he kept running and slowed down the last 8 miles and finished at 3:38:16.  Even though he was a little disapointed he didn't make his goal time, he was very happy to finish his first marathon, and still finished in the top 12% overall and the top 24% of his very tough age group (males 35-39 years old).  Here are some race pics during the race, at mile 18:

A half mile from the finish:

Almost to the finish:

Here is shot Colleen got of him on the final stretch, his feet aren't even touching the ground and he has a smile on his face!

Here is waiving to Larry the Leprichan who announced all 14,000 finisher's name in that day's full and half marathon!

After the race photo with Jim's finisher's medal:

And got a photo in front of the sand castle:

Avery liked wearing daddy's finisher's hat (and she was still holding the cow bell she rang when daddy ran by!)

They had a huge finisher's party tent with a band playing and Yuengling Beer (the sponsor) and they claimed that this year they broke the record for number of kegs drank after the race (it was a St Patrick's Day theme after all, and there are priorities right??)  We enjoyed two beers each and did our part!

Since Jim cut out coffee the last four days before the race he was craving one, so after we left the beach party we went straight to Starbucks for a well-deserved venti sized latte.

That evening it cooled off a lot but we still went down to a large playground and Avery enjoyed playing!

We then did a quick dinner at a taco shop and got a Margarita, not a fancy birthday dinner but with a toddler what can you do right?  We all enjoyed hanging out for his birthday either way!

On Monday it was bright, sunny and warm again so we hit another beach playground:

Then we went to the Virginia Zoo in Norfolk on the way out of town.

Since we are members of the NC Zoo they have recipricol memberships with most other zoos in the country so we figured we should check it out!

We saw some of Avery's favorite animals and then we headed home.  Once we got home that evening Colleen made Jim's favorite cake for his birthday:  white cake with chocolate chips baked into the cake, and white icing with chocolate chips in the icing.

Running!

We have been running a lot lately as you may have heard! We are running in this spring's Second Empire Grand Prix Series in the region. It consists of 10 races ranging from 5k, 10k, and half marathon distances. (They give you points for each race based on how you do and take your best 6 scores). There is an award luncheon at Second Empire Restaurant in Raleigh in July for everyone that completes the series--running in at least 6 races--and the top 3 in each age group get an award. We think we each have a shot at the top 3 in our age group!

The last three races we both set PRs in each race. Colleen is down to 24:20 (7:50 per mile) and Jim is down to 19:09 (6:09 per mile). Here is Colleen with her rose from Race For the Roses 5k.

In that race we got an award (gift certificates to a local running store called TrySports) because we were third overall for the couples competition (combined time).

At the NC Torch Run Jim got third in his age group and won a medal. Of course Avery likes to wear it around the house.

Here we are after the most recent race Run For The Oaks in downtown Raleigh.

Thanks to cousin Charline for watching Avery during the race and cheering us on!

Jim is running in his first full marathon on March 18th (his 35th birthday) at the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach, then we each are running the Flying Pirate Half Marathon at the Outer Banks in late April with cousin Lori and her fiancé Scott. We have a beach house rented and look forward to that one! (Jim hopes to break 1:31 and Colleen hopes to break 1:57.) Also we are continuing our race series this spring in which Jim hopes to break a sub 19:00 and Colleen hopes to break a sub 24:00. The next two 5ks in the series are flat and fast (the last three were hilly) so hopefully we'll get it! We really enjoy running on some of our training runs we do together and love that we enjoy something in common so much!

Cousin Beth's Wedding!

We flew to St Louis for Jim's cousin Beth's wedding.  We had a good time seeing a lot of friends and family who either live in St Louis or who traveled there for the wedding.

The wedding was in a church in downtown Clayton.  Here is a picture of Beth walking down the aisle with her dad:

Funny part for us was right when after the wedding officient said "Who gives this woman away for marriage" and Beth's dad Dennis said "I do".  During that quiet moment 2 seconds later, Avery being a 21 month old screamed "YAY!!!!!" and clapped.  Gotta love toddlers!

The reception was on the top floor of the posh Chase Park Plaza, up in the Starlight Room with a view of the St Louis skyline in the distance.  Avery loved dancing with her cousins:

They also loved getting their photo taken up against the big windows overlooking the city:

And the adult cousins all got their picture taken outside on the balcony (in age order too, this seems to be a tradition at all the weddings)

We also got a family picture, facing the other direction with the Arch in the background.  Too bad it was so sunny!

After the reception ended, Jim's parents were kind enough to take Avery home so we could go out.  We went to the bar on the ground floor of the hotel and hung out with the Cross families, then we went to a sushi place a block away, then back to the Chase to see a movie at their theater!  We had a blast, thanks again to the babysitters!

While we were in St Louis we also were able to see Kevin Warnecke, his wife Cady, and their son Joey.  We tried to go to a nice Mexican restuarant called Pueblo Solis, but it was a huge wait so we went down the street to one called Amigo Joes which, we'll just say, didn't have the best Mexican or Margaritas we'd ever had.  (we should have known when we pulled up and they had a sign out front that said "Fried Chicken"!)

But we had fun anyway and stopped at Ted Drewes for dessert!

We also got to see all the Grandparents in St Louis. (Avery's great-grandpaents!)

We stopped by Grandma Dahlem's to visit:

We saw Grandma and Grandpa Harper at the wedding

And we saw Grandma Shirley by finally getting her xmas present to her by taking her out to lunch at her choice (Denny's!)  Avery slept through most of it, but she woke up near the end:

Also while we were in St Louis , Jim got to see Mike Pozsgay, (he was in town from DC taking care of some family matters while his wife Lisa was back home in DC 8 months pregnant!), he met up with Mike, plus Jeremy and Maria Leavitt for a couple hours.

Avery also like playing the bounce house with her cousins, thanks to Grandpa Ball for getting that set up for them!  

She was only half the size of the other girls and was usually getting bounced around on her back or belly since she could hardly stay up with the all the other bouncing, but she had so much fun and giggled the whole time!

And of course, one of the highlights of the trip was going to the Museum of Transportation and seeing all the big trains!  Avery kept saying "Choo choo!  All aboard!!!".  We got to crawl around the big steam engines, ring the bells on the train, etc.  She loved it, just like her daddy!

We also got to see Julie, James, and Olivia.  Julie was 8 months pregnant and we just missed seeing their new baby, Noah James Backer, born a week after we left!

Congrats to them!

Great Wolf Lodge

While some more work was being done our house to fix some areas in the flooring where the contractor did some sloppy work, we had to go to a hotel (they paid us of course).  Instead of staying in town, we drove 2.5 hours to Charlotte to go to Great Wolf Lodge for three days.

It is a hotel with a huge indoor water park!  They also have a full-service spa, a Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, two in-house restaurants, and a bar all in the resort so you don't even need to leave the place!  They also have a huge arcade area (like Dave and Busters).

The water park has a little kids / toddler area, some smaller water slides, multiple pools, and some big kids / adult (really high and fast!) water slides like at a big outdoor water park.

Of course Avery isn't anywhere close to the required 48", so we took turns going down the big slides and staying with Avery while she played in the other pools.  One of her favorite areas was the zero-entry wave pool, when the waves weren't coming of course:

She also like the pool with the basketball hoops:

She liked watching daddy try and shoot hoops, and usually miss!   There was a snake in that pool, but not to worry, it was a snake she liked to sit on and "splash" back into the water.  (In fact whenever we were back in the room she'd say SPLASH SPLASH! to let us know it was time to go back to the water park)

She spent some time in the toddler area where she took this spill down the slide

And liked sitting on the jet skis where you could shoot water at people

Here is Colleen and Avery by the smaller water slides and water fort

Here is Colleen and Avery in another pool

Here is the happy family

Each night they have an animal show and story time in the huge lobby area of the lodge.  Most of the kids (and adults) wear their PJs for it too.  Avery wore her wolf ears as we got there early to get a good spot

Of course while we were in Charlotte we went to IKEA and Einstein Bagels too!