nyc with the ladies {6.26-29.09}

Nothing screams a weekend of fun like hanging out with old roomies in the big city. Allison wrote is so much better than I could (see here), but I must give it a whirl for journaling sake, if nothing else.

preface--->
2.5 years ago I was a busy college student buried up to my elbows in schoolwork and taking years off my eyesight daily by spending hours on end in the computer lab. I had a record of taking routine detours away from my schooling to experience this (nannying in NY) and that (mission en la gran Argentina), but at that point I was at long last tired of seeing all my friends move on and graduate while I was barely scraping away an occasional semester. I thus determined that it was my time to bite the bullet, take a seat, and stay put until I too could join alumnus status, with high hopes of leaving starvation and student poverty behind and finally earning a decent income for myself (fingers crossed). Stay-put goals fully in place, I also realized to gain said income, it might be somewhat beneficial to gain experience prior to my grown-up job. Stumbled upon a DC internships sign, saw one last chance for a final excursion, loads of forms and interviews later, and I was flying cross-country to a completely new experience, to live with people I entirely did not know.

And I lucked out.

Four amazing, fun, hilarious, ambitious, let's-all-be-goofy-together, inspiring, beautiful girls. Lucky, lucky me. They were just what I needed that summer, and it was they who screamed the morning after I kissed Jon Smith for the first time on August 8.









Who wouldn't want to keep in touch with people like that? Seriously? And who wouldn't want a weekend get away with some of them?

We were missing Kami & Mindy, but Ash and I made the Chinatown bus trek with Van man from DC to NYC to land ourselves a stay at the lovely Riley home in Harlem. We'd all been to NYC together once before and loved it, while living on a scarier-than-starving-college-student intern budget, and we have the photos to show for it.



This time, however, with baby Van in tow, we opted for a more relaxing NYC weekend (ever heard of that?) and Allison and Noah gave us just that. Low key hanging out, movie watching, ordering out (meaning Noah goes and picks up the food), girl gabbing, and even getting all ambitious and taking a few hours out on the town. We checked out the awesome High Line Park that opened that day (check it out, it's awesome), took our sweet time walking, and later indulged ourselves with a little Times Square cheesecake. Yum. Best hosts ever award goes to the Rileys. Oh how I love your crepes and beautiful array of street-vendor fruits. And oh how I love your stories and down-to-earth-ness. Don't be surprised if I come running back soon!

{note: I took WAY too many photos, and couldn't choose between most, so there are quite a few here. Also...totally behind=totally unedited photos.}

our stunning hosts:


the ladies + van:


high line highlights:













pieces of the big apple:























in the square:




this cracks me up. (Thank you Noah for so kindly doing the baby carrying!)




I'm not posing here, I promise, I'm pulling my hair out of my face. But I had to post this one, because look at Van's face! It's so funny! I think it's safe to say his little baby brain might have been a little overstimulated.


my cute roomies.


photo of the trip:



and @ the pad:

van's hand-fashioned crib (thanks Noah!)


the babe. so THIS is what it's like to have natural light in your home. LOVE IT.








the royal treatment for breakfast.



I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Ladies? Who's in?

since you already know we love you...

(and since this little blog is so behind), I'll keep this brief.
{6.20.09}

Just wanted to tell you...you're one amazing dad. And one day isn't enough to tell you that. But we're happy there's a day just for that anyway. Happy late late late Father's Day to the man who makes our little guy smile just by walking in the door. He's crazy about you. And I'm more crazy about you every day because of it.

I couldn't do this without you, and I would never want to. WE LOVE YOU!

day one.


now. (as in "then" now...may 09)


daddy day and the guy who made you a dad. what a cute little bedhead he has!


glad we could give you some man tools, mostly glad we could give you tight hugs. :)

people watching, people watched {6.18.09}

Jon and I LOVE people watching.

We also love music, love events, and love getting out and taking advantage of everything there is to do in this area. All summer long in DC there are outdoor jazz ensemble concerts every Friday at the Smithsonian Sculpture Garden, where everyone crowds around a big ugly duck water fountain, wades like the signs say they shouldn't, and act like they're listening to music when they're really looking for an excuse to socialize. So fun. We'd both been separately pre-marriage, but never together. That's pretty lame since this was a our 3rd married summer, so we finally decided to just go for a date night, but bring Van along because we like him. :)

Upon arriving there we quickly realized it was not quite how we remembered it, and it had become more like an open happy hour for all the young DC professionals. There were families here and there as well, but for the most part people we packed blanket to blanket, person to person, covering the grass on every possible inch, putting out their vibe, and drinking. Not exactly what we'd pictured as a Van-would-love-this evening. So instead joining the ranks and taking a seat, we decided to people watch. And we stumbled upon this happy brightly clad, happy couple.



Nope. Don't know 'em. But we sure wanted to after watching them for about a minute straight. So we met them. Chatted. Laughed. Their whole reason for coming was to be people watched. Love it. And the funniest part is that on our way to the sculpture garden, we'd passed a parked Mini Cooper that was covered in question marks and we'd commented on it, wondering who would do that. Jon saw the suit before I did, to which he instantly commented, "Well now we know whose car that was." I asked him how he knew, and all he had to do was point. This joker guy just likes to make people laugh...or be perplexed. He'll take either.

I mean check out his expressions! He was asking to be people-watched. He was awesome, we couldn't get over his outfit, or his wife's, and the way she matched with the sculpture behind her...way to rock that orange and turquoise, lady!



After getting our people-watching fill, we headed to a nearby deli/soup/sandwich place to get some food. We ate outside to enjoy the weather, and after Jon finished eating I asked if he could finish feeding Van so that I could eat. He said he'd love to and just minutes after he'd started spoon-feeding Van, we noticed that WE were being people watched. There was a lady in her 50's or 60's who could hardly contain herself, and finally she jumped up out of her seat and had to come over and comment.

(picture it with her awesome black DC accent and it's even better).
"You know, I just think it is so SEXY when a man will take care of the children like that. That is just mmm, sexy. I think it is just so sexy to see the man feeding a child, caring for a child, mmm, I just ha' to say. SO dead sexy. "(no seriously, she said "sexy" EVERY sentence.)

She continued to compliment him for being such a fine, sexy father, remind us of how we're blessed to have children because not everyone gets that blessing, even when they want it, and after Jon graciously accepted her compliments, she went and sat back down. Quietly we laughed and wondered if she would still think that if she had realized that moments before I had asked Jon to feed Van for me. Our alone time only lasted about 3 minutes before she was back, right next to us, telling my husband again how sexy he was being at that moment. She also ate Van and all his baby cute-ness right up, and then slipped Van a 5 dollar bill to "give to your daddy for his first Father's Day gift."

Yet another reason to take Van with us on our date nights. He brings in the money.

After the woman left, I had to take some photos of Jon to catch him in all his sexy father moment glory.





Glad this sexy dad is mine. :)


Glad this guy's mine too.

berries. yum. {6.13.09}

We went strawberry picking in southern Maryland last year and LOVED it. This year we heard of a different farm to pick strawberries at (there are tons here), just further north in Maryland, so we grabbed our also strawberry-eager friends and drove the 45 mins. to get there on a lovely Saturday afternoon in June. We picked way too many berries, couldn't resist sneaking a few before we made it back to the cashier (I blame Van...he started it), and later that week made our first batches of strawberry freezer jam––SO GOOD.

Thanks Odie & Tracy for sharing in our strawberry picking joy. :) Van sure likes you guys! But how could he not when you hand-feed him berries and let him stain his cute little baby face with strawberry juice? Or when you offer to carry him everywhere for his parents and entertain him nonstop while slinging him on your hips? He's hooked! We can't wait for you 2 to be parents! You'll be the funnest parents ever.

First pick of the day:


Oh how he loves you for this moment alone, Tracy.


In our pickin' zones.


This is how success looks in the strawberry fields.










Riding the tractor back from the fields.


Somebody loves strawberries...


And somebody else loves to let farm animals lick their hands. I'll give you a hint. It's not me. Van's too little. And Odie and Tracy didn't want to. Hmmm...

peace {6.19.09}

Every bit as peaceful on the inside as it is on the outside.
Every bit as beautiful in its purpose as it is in architecture.
Every bit as strong in its mission as is its powerful presence.

Every bit a house of the Lord.

We love the temple.

Please enjoy this video/information on temples.

our grandma's pace is faster than yours

{st. george marathon, 10.03.09}



That's what a sign we were greeted by said when we were running through Dammeron Valley, somewhere near mile 10. While at the time it kind of struck me as a negative greeting to all the thousands of marathoners that would have to pass by it that morning, as I looked over the race results in the newspaper the next day, I could see they were probably right. In order to have won in my division, I would have had to be in Division 29. That's the division for 70-74 year old women. Indeed, many a person's grandma's paces are faster than mine.

Slower than a grandma or not, I finished. And I finished happy. Many told me that marathoners would come in all shapes, sizes, and ages, and they did. Most told me that it would be inspiring, and it was. Some told me the adrenaline of the day would make the run a little easier than I envisioned it to be, and I'm glad they were right.

Rewind.
{to read the whole story, aka my journal, proceed if desired. to get to the point, scroll to the end and read "Summary." :) }

Pre-game: My dad and I left Cedar Friday night just in time to make it to the Dixie Center by 8:53, run in and get our bibs and packets, find out they'd run out of shirts :(, and walk out the doors before they close it up at 9. We stayed the night at my aunt's house who has run many marathons. She and and her marathoner friend talked up the next day and filled us with confidence, excitement, pre-race adrenaline and energy beans for the road (I never heard of them until that night). I'm so glad I talked to them, because they really made me feel like I could do it. I of course lay awake for an hour and a half for no reason at all, woke up just 5 hours later to the alarm at 4:30 am, and made it out of the door by 5 with a banana, bagel, and water bottle in hand.

Warm-up: We crammed on a bus with loads of other runners, shared seats with strangers and got to hear their stories. Everyone was talking about "when I ran my first marathon" or "when I was qualifying for Boston" and "did you hear about the girl running 20 marathons in 20 days?" or "oh believe me, you'll get addicted to it." I was just along for the ride, and it was fun. Jon had warned me the long 45-minute bus ride up a dark canyon to the starting line would seem daunting, and it was, but I think the most daunting part was when the bus pulled to a halt at Central (the starting line) and our lovely driver said: "Welcome to Central, folks. The temperature is 34 degrees outside, and you've got a LONG way to go. Good luck!" Wow. Thanks. It was at this moment when I started to put my outer layer on that I realized I had already lost one glove along the way. So I ran one-gloved, in honor of the King of Pop. They were a throw-away pair anyway, so no big loss.

The Starting Line: We'd been told by several that the experience at the starting line made it all worth it, so I was pretty excited about it. We pulled up at about 6:08, the gun goes off at 6:45. We saw the line for the porta potties and knew we'd be lucky to make it, but I had to stick it out. So the music's blasting and pumping everyone up, the starting line is lined with flags from all over the world so you kind of feel like a big Olympian deal, the fire pits are boasting huge flames and everyone's huddling around them getting stoked together....and there I was in the porta potty line. FREEZING. When I finally got in for my turn, the gun went off as I was shutting the door. No big deal because we all have chips on our shoes so my time starts when I cross the line, but seriously, not what I envisioned our great "we're about to embark on a MARATHON!" moment to be. I came rushing out of the porta potty, one-gloved, freezing, and undecided about keeping or ditching the top layer. We saw the 4:00 pacer run past with his red and white balloons and all his 4-hour running followers and knew we had to move fast to catch our man. My dad and I jumped into the procession of runners pushing toward the starting line, still debating clothes layers, and literally 5 seconds before we crossed he decided to ditch his warm clothes, I decided to keep mine, he shoved his in the bag as we were getting marauded from all sides by anxious runners, and we frantically looked around to realize we were fenced in and couldn't get to the trailer to throw his bag in, but the trailer guys caught onto our dilemma and responded with a yell over the crowd "THROW IT!!" So my dad chucked his bag and sent it sailing over hundreds of bobbing heads to the kind trailer-bag-catching-men. Big run-on sentence, but that's exaclty what it felt like. We looked up and forward just in time to step over the starting line, I remembered I needed to start my watch and figured it out about 10 seconds later, and with a final successful beep reading 00:00, we were off and running.

Just the beginning: After we passed the starting line we laughed at how our moment of starting glory had been far from glorious, and we joined the masses bottlenecking onto one road in a canyon buried deep in the middle of nowhere. The first couple miles were kind of slow and a little frustrating to work around hordes and hordes of people. We found our way back to Mr. 4 Hours, and upon confirming with other runners that the balloons 100 meters in front of us were his, someone warned "I'd watch him though, he's a bit slippery." We thought that was funny but it didn't take long to find out what he meant by that.

We passed him up for sanity's sake to stay in front of his followers and give ourselves a little breathing room on the road. In front of herd = open spaces. After we'd only been in front of them for a few minutes, we heard him yell something from behind and Dad translated for me and told me the dude was taking a potty break. At mile 2. Slippery as ever. Looked like we'd have to be our own pacers for the day. Everyone had cheered at mile 1, it's pretty much a big deal, but miles 2-5 were slow and dragged out for me. I kept thinking, we've only run FOUR miles?? No biggy, just 22.2 more to go. Blah.

I finally ditched my outer layers at mile 5, where dad and I will always share a fond memory since in front of the volunteers with the big drop box he said hurriedly, "Take your pants off!" I kind of laughed and said that was awkward, and then he jokingly assured the volunteers that he could say that because he was my dad. Awkward again. Hahaha. :) It was nice to have something to laugh about later in the race though as we remembered it. :)

After we'd passed Veyo (the big drop into a valley with a killer hill back out of it, where the temperature is only 40 degrees at that time of day and I wished I hadn't taken my pants off so hastily), the last mile marker we could remember seeing was 6, but we thought for sure that by the time the course comes back up out of the valley we should have been hitting mile 8. With no mile marker in sight, I was definitely playing mind games with myself and I was dying to know how far we'd gone. When we finally saw a water station ahead, I said to dad, "I'm gonna cry if it's mile 7."

It was mile 9. BIG sigh of relief, accompanied by a big smile. Mile 9. We just left 2 miles behind us without even realizing it. Rock on. I'll drink some Gatorade to that.

Halfway: I'd been feeling my knee for a couple miles by the time we hit our half. I wasn't surprised, my knee has been my big hold up throughout my entire training, which was really frustrating for me because I'd never had knee problems in my life until 3 weeks into my marathon training. 2 sports med therapists and 4 months later and not much had changed. It was bearable for the most part, but I was afraid of destroying it for life. My knee was my one fear going into the marathon that day. I could handle muscle cramps, I could do exhaustion, I could take going slow and getting a much slower time than I'd hoped for, but I could not handle ruining my knee. I'm not even 30! I've got big plans that I'll need my knees for!

Somewhere between miles 13 and 14, my dad pulled through for me, slowed down a little if I needed to, and reminded me I could do it. (Thanks, Dad!!) The pain faded out on the uphills, and jabbed back all mean like on the downhills, and I quickly learned to celebrate any inclines in our path. Yay for uphill! I think maybe because I was focusing so much on my knee, miles 14-17 just kind of slipped by without me noticing. Miles 18-19 were exciting because 18 was my peak during training, so I was running further than I'd ever run before in my life.

The split: And then all the sudden there was mile marker 20. TWENTY. Something about hitting 20 rocked my running world. My head was spinning with excitement as I realized we only had SIX MILES LEFT. That's it. 6 miles. Nothing. We'd already run 6 miles 3 times in the last 3 hours. Bring it on baby. 21 just got better and every mile became one mile closer to seeing Jon...only 5 more miles, 4 more miles...all the sudden I felt like a million bucks. I checked our time and realized we could totally make 4 hours. We were on schedule with 5 minutes to spare. We could do it. I was spouting off excitement and girlish giddiness and newfound energy along with split times and my love for volunteers that offer me orange slices and rub up my legs with icy hot. Amidst my premature runner's high, I said excitedly to my dad "I think I just got a second wind!" To which he responded "I think I'm hitting my wall."

My dad, bless his heart, had only mentioned once in 21 miles that he was "feeling his thighs" or that they were a little tight. He had never complained, so I had no idea that he was at a breaking point. What a bad running buddy I am!! Just before mile marker 22, he insisted that I leave him, saying he needed to walk, and I needed to go. I was torn, and I said I wasn't going to finish without him because mom wouldn't like me to leave him alone in a desert wilderness, but he just kept saying Go. Go. Go. Until the man behind me said the same thing, followed by a strict command to "Obey your father! Go!" And so reluctantly I went. I know! I'm such a lame marathon partner and a I should have stayed!! But my dad tells me that every time he thinks about what I did he just gets a big smile...I'll take it.

(proof that we ran together for over 3/4 of the way. I realize the photo has a big PROOF written on it, but I will be buying the photo from the fancy marathon photo people, so I feel justified posting it here...I'll replace it with the real one later)


Home stretch: Maybe because I realized how close I was to the end, maybe because I realized I could do it, but for whatever reason, I could hardly feel my knee at all after mile 21-22, and I was LOVING it. I felt awesome. I checked my time again and knew I could break 4 hours. Mile 24 gave me real boost when I recognized the part of the course where I met up with Jon when he was running 3 years ago. That meant I only had 2 miles to go. TWO MILES!!! I had thought Jon might be there to run the last 2 miles with me like I did with him, but I was hitting town 30-45 minutes sooner than I had anticipated, and I quickly realized my family might not even be there yet. I was a little bummed about that, but I felt so good that I couldn't help but smile when the course went from the nothingness of a desert wilderness to a raceway lined with people cheering on every side. Oh my gosh...I was almost done. I couldn't believe it. The closer I got the faster I ran. My legs just kept moving one after the other, almost involuntarily like they just got stuck in the running setting—and I loved that feeling.

The course had 2 25.2 mile markers, which kind of threw me off since I thought I just had a mile after the first one, but a quarter-mile later there was another sign saying the same thing, but what can you do? I wasn't super familiar with where the finish line would show up or if it would be around a turn or anything, and I was so focused on scanning the crowds for my family that I wasn't really paying attention to where the end would be. I just knew it had to be soon, and I hadn't seen them.

Finally out of nowhere I heard a loud and excited "Meliss!!!" off to my right. I finally recognized the source as Jon, barely recognized him, kind of saw my sister-in-law, and I couldn't make out anyone else's faces at all. I couldn't focus on anything, it was so weird. I tried to smile and wave but my head felt strange trying to pull their faces out of the blur. Next thing I knew, Jon was running next to me and all excited like he said "You see those balloons up ahead? Do you know what those are?! You're DONE! That's the finish line! You did it!!" I remember mumbling something about if he saw my time, and trying to explain what happened to my dad but not making any sense in the 10 seconds I had before Jon had to jump away from the fenced in "runners only" finish line section. I really hadn't seen the balloons before he pointed them out since I was looking so hard for my family, so I was so excited to be there. I finished as strong as I could, and I felt much better than I ever thought I could have. It was an awesome feeling.

(another photo from the fancy marathon photo co.)


Run a marathon: check. As soon as I crossed the finish line there was a line of misters to walk under that were a little too much for me, they threw a medal around my neck, said congrats with big smiles, and then offered runners ice cream sandwiches, firecrackers, or drumsticks as ice cream options. I though that was weird, but I took a firecracker anyway, even though all I really wanted was loads of water. My muscles all tightened and I knew I'd be sore, but as I looked around at all the runners lying on the grass, I didn't think I could do that if I ever wanted to get up again. So I walked. Real slow, but I walked. I realized I had made no plan of how to find Jon after the race, so after 30-45 minutes of deliriously wandering around marathon crowds, I finally stumbled upon family members, and I was happy to just stand there and stop moving. I finally saw my dad too, and I found out he'd finished just 19 minutes after me, he did awesome, I'm so glad we both finished. And apparently, as seen in the photos, we were both so happy that free ice cream was included for the runners. I love how my dad's holding his firecracker popsicle like a little kid in the pic. :) (I may or may not have run back in and grabbed 10 or so ice cream sandwiches for the fam...they said to take as many as we want, so I took their word for it)



The prize I really wanted:


Me and the little man. He wanted a piece of my medal and he got it. Like I could resist giving this kid anything, look at that face!!


The summary:

• I lived.
• My thought at mile 7 was that I can't believe there are that many thousands of crazy people that sign up for something like this. Regularly. All over the world. How can there be that many crazy humans?
• However, my thought when I first started running was that it wasn't so weird to imagine running a marathon once I was actually running it. So you just run for 4 hours, then it's over. Crazy, but not as weird as it had seemed before that moment.
  
• Dad and I finished separate, but we both finished.
• My time: 3:50. (8 mins. 46 sec. mile average)
  
• Dad's time: 4:09.
• I LOVE the volunteers! They were so great and so positive handing us food, drinks, and whatever we wanted, treating us like we're doing something amazing, and telling us we could do it. The crowds cheering were awesome too, even when they say our pace is slower than their grandma's. :)
• THANKS DAD!!! For training with me (well, training while I was training) for running with me, and for motivating me every week as we compared notes and experiences over the phone. Part of me felt kind of ripped off for never getting to really train with my running partner, but I'm so glad we got to run our final run together. Thanks for telling me I could do it, and thanks for knowing you could do it so you'd be willing to sign up with me! Mostly thanks for going along with my crazy ideas. :) I couldn't have done it without you!!
  
• Will I ever do it again? No. I loved that I had a good experience, and I want to leave it at that. Seriously, 5k's and 10k's are the way to go. I wouldn't mind a 1/2 marathon, but I don't want to take the time to train again for a full. I've done it, fulfilled the goal, and I'm happy with that.

And for the record, a marathon is WAY easier than childbirth.