Running Our Race

So you can guess I am not in Alabama!  Ha!  I am in myrtle beach, sc.  I met 4 of my favorite girlfriends from anesthesia school for a relaxing girls weekend!  So great!....see you on Sunday.  My sweet husband is at home with caroline.  I owe him big!! Love you brett!

I took this pic from my car at 1:45pm.....holy cow!  I am off work a little early today and am going to go for a great run in this cool weather.  Then off to watch EG in a practice cross country meet this afternoon.  I bet there will be some fast times... Bust out the skinny jeans, tall boots, and sweaters....I am sooo ready!  

It has been raining non-stop here for about 24 hours.  We are not complaining because our grass needed it....but it rained so much we started having some drainage problems coming off the gutters.  Here are EG and Dad fixing the problem.  Hard Workers!!! And....how cute is Miss Caroline last night before church.  She had on her skinny jeans and pink high top converse.  She is too cool!  And she is getting so big! Here is one more cute pic of her from this past Saturday in her Auburn dress too....we just can't get enough!  Just a little wet from a lot of drool.  I think she is going to cut her top teeth soon.

Emma Grace had her first cross country meet a week or so ago.  It was in Birmingham on a Saturday morning.  The team had to leave Opelika at 5am...yikes!  We followed her down there with the other kids to cheer her on.  Here is the entire team.  The middle school and high school teams are combined into one.  They have a really good group of kids who all cheer each other on.  They practice 5 days a week for about 2 hours after school.  Dedication! EG competed with all the other "middle school girls" (probably about 175) in a 2 mile race.  She did great!  It was a true cross country course with some hills, woods, and even a creek crossing.  It was also hot and steamy that morning!  Here she is on the home stretch.  Yeah! This is the high school boys "start"....it is so much fun...talk about get your adrenaline pumping!!  And...yeah...the guy in the front....yeah he is on our team...and he won easily.  Oh ...

Today we buried my best friend's mom.  Jan Cannon.  She was, unequivocally, the most loving, non-judgmental, caring woman I know.  Jan battled pancreatic and lung cancer for 10 months....and when I say battled....I mean she really wanted to beat this thing....Here she is with her most precious husband of 34 years, Bobby.  They were truly best friends and through them Brett and I saw the truest of love.  It was magical to watch.  Jan was the person who could care less how she was....but wanted to know how YOU were instead.  Completely unselfish....she fought this battle not for herself, but for her family. Here is Jan with Faith and her grand daughter Claire.  After Jan died, all the kids and us were sitting around the dinner table talking about how much we loved her, "how cool" she was, and "what great food she always had to feed our hungry crew".  The kids then commented how sad it was for Caroline that she may not really know Jan l...

Here is what our front door area looked like.... Basically a really old (heavy solid wood!) door that had not been touched for over 20 years.  We decided that our home needed some more "curb appeal".  We decided to keep the door since it was solid wood and still in decent condition, but just sand and paint it for a fresh look. Here we were in "mid sand"...then we filled in some ridges with putty ( i mean brett did.  ha!) This is what Caroline and I were doing in this stage of the game.  Giving Dad some great encouragement while cooling off. This is what our house looked like for most of the day on Saturday.  Needless to say our AC ran all day! And here is the after.....TA DA!  (I blurred the street numbers just for safety's sake.  But they are these really cool black "floating" street numbers to the left of the door) We put a new kick plate on, new hardware, painted the old brass light fixture, new door knocker, street numbers, and got some new...

Starting probably about a year or two ago, I have been trying to get all the kids to "learn to run".  It has been a mission of mine!  I remember when Brett and I were first married, and I suggested a "family 1 mile run"....well lets just say it wasn't well received...Fast forward a bit, and all 3 have run more than I ever thought.  Kate and Christopher are still a bit lukewarm, but will indulge me on some shorter runs.  Emma Grace, on the other hand, told Brett and I this past spring that she wanted to be "a runner for life" melt my heart And she has held true to that.  Brett and I have helped her increase her distance, and basically just "learn how to run effectively".  She has done all the hard work herself, and has impressed us both!  She decided that she wanted to be on the Opelika Middle School Cross Country team (the bulldogs!).  This meant that she went to practice this summer, 3 times/week, at 6am .  If that is not some determinat...