Gasparilla Distance Classic 5k 022611

So I decided to do another race, this is one of the largest in the Tampa area. So I signed up in January and had a race buddy from church, but then her husband decided he wanted to do the walk and so she just did that with him instead. Might have been a good thing for me, but might have been a bad thing, you'll see in just a moment. I had been fighting a cold, which had gone into my ear and I could not get it unplugged so that was working against me, but I still trudged on.

My scrapbook friend Carol and her husband were here this weekend and so Carol went with me to the race especially since Kevin woke up that morning with what ended up being the stomach flu and it was super bad.

Anyway we got some fun freebies at the pre-race stuff...even Carol got some! Some food and water bottles and bags! And then we walked over to the race starting line.

So here I am before the race. In my cool new Bondi Band, it really did work at keeping the sweat from rolling down my face into my eyes!! WOOHOO! LOVED IT!

Here is some dude Carol took a picture of with his pirate hat on for the Gasparilla Pirate. lol Too hot for me! (Not his body, that long ole hair on the hat! lol)

These were some miltary guys who were running/walking.

Now to my race info...

We got over to the race start line just before 9am and at 5 after then the race hadn't started I realized that it didn't start until 9:30...not sure why I had 9am in my head as the start time. UGH! About 10 mins before the race the clouds disappeared and it got hot really fast. :-( My ear was still plugged so I was worried. I forced myself to ran the entire first mile in 13:36 and then ran on until the 14 min mark and then started my 1 min walk and 3 min run, problem was it didn't last long because I felt horrible. I couldn't catch my breath very well and I was dying from the heat and just not feeling well. I felt like my body wasn't mine, at least not the one I normally run in! lol At one point I know I walked for 5 mins before the 2 mile mark. Then after the 2 mile mark I would tell myself, okay run for 2 mins then you can walk, or run to the overpass and then you can walk under it in the shade. I was just grateful I finished, that's about the only good thing I can say about the race. :-( I finished in a time of 46:45. Certainly not the under 43 mins I was trying and hoping for, but again at least I finished.

Here I am running close to the finish line. I am in the pink top, black bottoms and blue headband.

Crossing the finish line. (That is the official time, not my time, it was timed based on when your bib crossed the start and finish lines, which was nice!)

After the race I felt like CRAP so I grabbed my finishers medal, grabbed a bottle of water, found Carol, we walked back to the car, getting a few things on the way only if there was a short line, and headed home. lol I ended up with the stomach flu later that afternoon which would explain some more of the reason I felt so horrible. All of this makes me grateful I finished as quickly as I did, feeling this way I probably should have been closer to an hour! lol But I finished and will sign up for another one at some point and try again, probably not until Sept when it starts to cool down again because I haven't found one that is going on in April which would be the last month I would even consider doing one in Florida! lol So there you have it, a disappointing first Gasparilla Distance Classic. :-(

Bay Area Renaissance Festival 2/22/11

When Carol and Bill were here visiting us we headed over to the Bay Area Renaissance Festival. We were super excited to go and Kevin was sooooooo sad he couldn't go. I still didn't feel the greatest, but Kevin felt horrible (even though he said he felt fine enough to go I vetoed it! lol)

I will try to keep the commentary to a minimum considering there are lots of great pictures (I tried to really pick the very best, except some that I needed the whole series of pictures! lol)

This was a guy made up to be a tree/plant. It was really quite cool. He had a little pot at his feet that said, "hedge fund" lol!

One of the workers.

Carol and Bill paid to let Tye ride the horse. All they kept saying was "boy he looks like a natural up there!" He really did! He looks so comfortable and really does enjoy it! (I learned that two years ago when we went to Idaho and Staci's friend allowed Tye to ride her GIANT horse named Rugby.)

He even could mount it all by himself! lol

There was this lady painted like a sculpture/fountain. She was even rigged up with water coming out of her head and finger tips!!! It was sooooooooo dang awesome!

There was this lady with this fake bird on her shoulder and Tye thought it was really cool. The lady asked him if he wanted to pet it and of course he said yes!

Here was the "Queen". She was coming to the Jousting.

Jousting/fighting

So involved!

Carol asked Tye if he wanted to get his face pointed and he said he did. I was totally shocked because the last time I tried to get him to get his face painted or anything like that he backed out at the last moment.

Anyway, the lady showed him several things he could get and he picked the "DRAGON!" He was so interested in watching it being painted. He thought it was the coolest thing ever! He totally walked around for at least 15 mins after flexing his muscle and showing everyone who was willing to look at it! lol

The final results!

Carol really wanted an outfit, so we talked her into trying this one on. She decided against it because it was too dark and a lot of money! lol But doesn't she look cute?!?!?!

Here are some more pictures of the fountain lady. See the water coming out of her fingertips?!

The May Pole

Then they did a couple of songs. They were great!

Tye and I left before Carol and Bill as I was still not feeling great and my energy was spent. Tye was sad to go, but we went anyway. We had a wonderful time! We really do enjoy going, and unfortunately we missed a lot of the shows that they had, but I just couldn't stay any longer. Hopefully we can go back next year so Kevin can go with us! lol

On a side note: Tye loved his tattoo, he refused to let us take it off him until he could go to school and show his teacher and all his friends. lol When he came home it was still on his arm. A few moments, Tye went running from the office to the living room totally sobbing. I couldn't figure out what the problem was, but finally got him to tell me that a small part of the tail wiped of. He was so upset. That night when Kevin gave Tye his bath he had a complete melt down. Kevin said he was completely distraught having his tattoo washed off him. lol Next year, we have learned we need to do a Henna tattoo or an airbrush tattoo as they stay on for closer to two weeks. We may be able to survive then! lol

Planting Our Garden 02/21/11

Yep, in Florida it is that time of year again! The frost is gone and the heat has not yet arrived! That is one thing we found out this past year, we started too late in the year and so most of the stuff either went to seed too quickly or the radishes were really HOT!

So we got our soil prepared and then we planted a tomato plant. Yep, you read that right, Michele, the tomato hater of America, planted a tomato plant. Here's why, I hate all the sodium that salsa and spaghetti/pizza sauces have. While I try to buy lower sodium, I can definitely MAKE lower sodium much easier. So no, you will not see me grab a tomato to eat like an apple, or to even slice to put on my turkey burger, but I will use the tomatos to make things with! :-) I am sure Kevin will do some tomato slicing for his burgers, but not me! lol So here is our tomato plant.

This is Tye and I planting radishes. We will start another set the second week of March. :-)

These are our carrot seeds.

Our onion sets.

We also planted two squares with two different kinds of lettuce, I am not sure why I didn't wait a little longer to start a second square, but I didn't, oh well, I might do another square mid March before it gets too hot. So here is the whole garden for now...2 squares of lettuce, 1 square of carrots, 1 square of tomatos, 1 square of radishes, and 1 square of onions.

We also planted a container of peas. Since we eat peas quite a bit lately and since they tend to be viney we decided it would be best to keep them contained in their very own container. Hopefully we didn't put too many in the container. I don't think so. And Tye thought it was super cool that the pea "seeds" basically are shriveled up peas! lol

We do not have pepper plants yet, but the nursery has our name and will call us when they come in. Hopefully it will be in the next couple of weeks! I will let you know!

I am super excited again this year because I feel like we learned what worked and when from last year and in the fall I had taken a class at the nursery that kindof explained some of our errors. I knew we had made some but wasn't sure exactly what the problem was or how to resolve the problem, so it was good to get answers to the issues!

Keep watching as I will post more garden posts soon!

International Festival Day 02/18/11

They had an International Festival at Tye's school. Each grade focused on a different country. They had Jamaica. Ever since they started studying it Tye keeps telling me that we need to go to Jamaica. lol I'll have to see what we can do. lol He really liked the Jamaican bread and kept going back to get some more! lol This was in one of the hallways. I believe it was Columbia. So I made Tye stick his head through so I could get his picture. lol I can't remember which country this was for, but it was rice and garbanzo beans. Tye really liked it, I thought it looked nasty! lol

Then we had bought a book from the book fair for Tye to give to his teacher. So he wanted to give it to her right then. She was really excited and said they were going to read it that week in class. Tye thought that was pretty cool!

It was a good little night out. :-) Very interesting to learn some of the things of different countries.

Valentine's Day 02/14/11

It had just been so crazy busy lately that there wasn't much time to make Valentine's Day Special like we usually do. So we kept it pretty simple.

Here is what we gave Tye.

He was really excited about the Mater (Disney Cars) book! He immediately started reading it.

We had tacos for dinner. That was about it. lol