St. George 1/2 Marathon

Jill, Marisa and I ran the St. George 1/2 Marathon together this past Saturday. We all wore our Kinvaras. We all decided to stay together the whole race. We decided to just have fun. Well . . .

We all stayed together. It was fabulous. When I felt like giving up, they wouldn't let me. It was super hard. It felt super fast. It was amazing crossing the finish line together. Hands held high. What a memory! Plus, we beat the man in the red T-shirt. That was my only goal. And we did it!

Friday the 13th

Is Friday the 13th unlucky? Judge for yourself.

Friday 13, 2012. My 38th Birthday. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. to get ready to go for an early morning run. Yes. I am psychotic. Here's my excuse for the early morning wake up call though. I had to leave my house at 4:30 a.m. and I need an hour of prep before I run. Prep=sit on the toilet.

So, after my "prep" I stood in front of the mirror to put my contacts in. I squeezed the contact solution bottle over my hand. Empty. Thank goodness, I had bought a spare bottle a few days before at Walmart. I opened the package, noticing that there was a red cap on the bottle. Doesn't red usually equal danger?

I pored plenty of the new solution onto my contact and stuck it in my eye. Oh, the pain! My eye was on fire. I could hardly pry my eyelid open to remove my contact. I had just blinded myself on my birthday. I knew something bad was going to happen on Friday the 13th!

With my good spare eye, I checked out the packaging on the contact solution. Of course. Guess I should've checked out the warning label: NEVER PUT SOLUTION ON CONTACT AND THEN DIRECTLY PUT IN EYE. LET SOLUTION SIT ON CONTACTS FOR AT LEAST 6 HOURS!! IF SOLUTION DOES GO DIRECTLY IN EYE, QUICKLY RINSE EYE WITH MASS QUANTITIES OF WATER!

Seriously. Now I have a bum eye for my birthday.

I headed out for my run after frantically rinsing my eye out. Because I had spent so much time trying to fix my eye, I ran out of time to get back on the toilet, and thus . . . well, I had to use the restroom on the road. Nothing out of the ordinary.

When I got home, I hopped in the shower, put on my swimsuit, and headed off for a swim lesson. I am not a swimmer. But, I'd really like to become one. A really amazing trainer was at the pool to give me some swimming tips. Everything went fine until the final lap. I stood up. Fully vertical. And what do you know? Nipple hanging out of my suit. What?! You may wonder how this could happen to someone with no boobs. No boobs does not equal no nipples. And after nursing four children, let's just say, it is not a pretty sight. The horror. Poor trainer man. Poor me.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Caleb's Convertible, a Drive to the Cross, Family Time

Caleb drove to San Diego in his new Mazda Miata. One of our adventures in San Diego was cruisin' around with the top down. Caleb and I stumbled upon a huge cross at the tippy top of Mission Beach during one of our runs. We drove the family up there one afternoon to enjoy the beauty.

Point Loma Lighthouse Run

Caleb and I woke up Saturday morning to a thick, pea-soup fog. We wanted to go on one final run . . . to the lighthouse at Point Loma. It was one place I didn't get to visit during our trip. We couldn't see a foot in front of us. I could tell we were running up hill after hill. Eventually we got above the fog, and this is what we saw!

The Mission

Basically, the best part of going on vacation is eating at FABULOUS restaurants. During our time in San Diego, we drove past one particular restaurant, "The Mission," on a daily basis. The restaurant is open from 7 am to 3 pm each day, and no matter what time we drove by, there was a LINE of people standing to wait their turn to get inside.

We decided we must be missing out on some big secret. We looked "The Mission" up on the Internet to check out the reviews. It turns out that the best french toast IN THE WORLD is served at this little "cafe style" eatery. People fly from ARIZONA just to get their french toast!
We knew we couldn't leave Mission Beach without eating at this top-rated restaurant!










The food did not disappoint!

Sweet Water Horses

We surprised the kids with a big adventure on Thursday . . . horseback riding! None of them have ever been trail riding before. They have all sat on a horse, but the horses have all been attached to a turning wheel that goes around in a circle. We drove about 12 miles out of San Diego to find the horse corrals. After signing our lives away, we were each assigned a horse for the afternoon:
Caleb (Tank - the big, wild beast)
Aaron (Chip - the out-of-control hungry horse that had to be reigned in constantly)
Vanessa (Native - supposedly tough to control, but of course, caused me not an ounce of trouble! He knew who was in the driver's seat! ha! ha!)
Cali (Amigo - the naughty little brother type horse whom we later found out likes to roll in the sand, with riders on his back! Luckily, he chose to gallop through the sand instead of rolling in it during Cali's ride!)
Ian (Spirit - the most well-behaved horse out of the entire group! Ian was a lucky boy!)
Nyah (The General - out of control, galloping maniac. Nyah had to be taken back to the corral after a few minutes to be given a much nicer horse named "Pawnee!" Thank goodness Nyah wasn't thrown off The General!)
Carson (Penny - the only female horse of the bunch. Very nice. Very well-behaved. They should get more girl horses!)
We had a blast! We were told we'd have some saddle sores the next day, but none of us ended up with the John Wayne walk! Definitely the best part of the whole trip!

Scrambles and Boogie Boarding

Instead of spending an arm and a leg on some "Scrambles" at the nearby cafes, Caleb decided to make made-to-order scrambles for all of us on Wednesday for breakfast. They were absolutely delicious!

Next, we headed to the beach for some FREEZING COLD boogie boarding. I watched from a safe distance away! The kids pretended to surf in a couple inches of water, built some sand castles, and did a lot of screaming and shivering.

Old Town San Diego

We stopped off at Old Town for some delicious Mexican! It is a local hotspot. We had a terrible time finding parking. Aaron almost got in a fight with an 80 year old man that refused to relinquish his parking spot to us. The traffic behind us got so backed up during the wait, that the angry drivers started honking wildly at our Pathfinder. The kids and I escaped the embarrassment by hopping out and running to the restaurant, leaving Aaron and Caleb to face the angry honkers.

Beach Cruisers

We decided to rent bikes on Tuesday morning to ride along the boardwalk. It was the most relaxing activity ever! Feeling the ocean breeze, watching people surfing yards away . . . It is definitely an activity for all ages. Unfortunately, the kids were a little disappointed that the "helmet rule" applied for all children under the age of 18! You can imagine the reaction from the older children! :)







While out for our beach cruisin', we stopped off at a mini-Christmas tree in the sand for a family photo! Great times!