Captain America

We're at home tonight.  I know at home on a Friday night, how did that happen?  Nikki went to a dance/party at Scandia with Sydney.  After all of the holiday eating, we wanted to stay home to have dinner.  But since I haven't been to the grocery store since before Christmas, the pickings were slim.  So pancakes and eggs it was!

Since we were all here we decided to watch a movie too.  It's increasingly hard to find a movie that both Stephen and Ali will watch.  We settled on Captain America (only with a bribe from Bill to rub Ali's back during the movie).  We're only about a third of the way through the movie so far, but it's much better than I'd expected.  Although I think I'm going to like the part before the "procedure" better than the after.  We'll see.

RnR Las Vegas Recap

RnRLV-The infamous Las Vegas Half Marathon

This was to be my second half marathon and the first one I was to run with Nikki my 14 year old daughter.  She had run a 10k with me a few weeks before and struggled a little so I was just a bit concerned about her making the whole 13.1 miles.  I told her we'd just incorporate a few set walking breaks into our run. (I HATE to walk in my runs, but knew that it would probably help her get through it.)

So we went up Saturday and headed straight to the Expo.  It was too crazy to even find parking, so my husband dropped my daughter and I off and took off to find somewhere to wait.  We made our way through the expo and had a good experience.  No complaints there, we even easily changed our coral.  He didn't feel safe in the car though and wasn't happy to be left waiting for so long.

That night we had  a good pasta dinner with a group of friends that were running as well.  No drinking, and early to bed.  Next morning we headed out for pancakes and eggs.  Being a later race, we figured a good, big breakfast would be the right thing to do.  One pancake (big) and two scrambled eggs and a cup of coffee.  For my last meal, I just grabbed a wrap at Starbucks at the Mandalay Bay.  It was nice and light.

We said goodbye to Sarah when she headed out for the full!  Waited around until it was time for us to head out and find our coral.  We lined up, excited and ready to run.

Me, Lisa and Nikki!

The energy at the starting line was great!  It was cold, but not unbearable.  We were ready to get started though.

Finally we moved along and were released to start!  It was so exciting.  But that was the end of the excitement.  I felt just like cattle.  It was 4-5 miles before we were moving at even close to a 10 minute mile. (Generally I run about 8:45, but with my daughter was aiming for 9:30.)  So we were way behind target pace.  But the problem was trying to get around people.  It was dangerous.  We were weaving, running on the back side of water tables (thankfully not drinking from them!) and kept losing each other. Around mile 8 we saw a lady fall.  It was my biggest fear.  She got tripped up from another runner and landed on her hands and knees.  Luckily she was running with a guy who scooped her up and got her to the side.  I felt so bad for her, it had to have hurt!  But we kept running.  

Since we were so far behind our pace, we decided to skip the walking breaks I'd planned.  Between mile 8 and 9 I told my daughter I wanted her to eat some fuel and get some water.  So we each had a Stinger Waffle and grabbed a water at the water station.  It had finally thinned a little bit, but we were still having to jump into the full marathoners lane to pass people.  I couldn't believe it wasn't going to ever break free!  Around mile 12 was when my daughter spotted the naked runner!  

No that's just Nikki at the Expo!

We even found out later that my husband had given the naked guy a high five!  He said he was looking for us and giving people high fives and didn't realize he was naked until the last minute!  Only in Vegas!

I'm not sure where she found it, but the last three miles Nikki found a burst of energy.  I was surprised at how fast she was going, but wasn't going to be one to slow her down.  We crossed the finish line and came to a complete grid lock.  It was a mass of people that wasn't moving.  I knew we were going to start cooling off fast and I wanted to get her inside as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately there wasn't a quick way to move.  We had to just shuffle along with everyone else.  After about 20 minutes, we finally made it to get a "blanket".  It was definitely a matter of luck to grab the ones being thrown through the air.  But thankfully we each got one and were able to keep moving.  We took a short cut through the gates and headed into the hotel.  At this point, both of our stomachs started to hurt.  Nikki tried to go into a bathroom but the line was long.  The lady in front of her told her, "The line isn't moving because everyone is pooping."  She decided she couldn't stay there.   We decided to try to make it back to New York New York, where we were staying.  We walked to Luxor and tried to catch the tram there thinking it'd be faster.  It was outside though, so it was FREEZING.  When the tram pulled up, it was jam packed.  Bill told Nikki and I to just squeeze in and he'd walk back.  We did. And then two others tried to as well.  That pushed a lot of people over the edge since the doors wouldn't close.  People were freezing and wanting to move.  

We made it back to the hotel. Nikki went to the bathroom.  We found our other two kids and headed to the car.  As soon as I got to the car, I knew something was wrong with my stomach.  I've run plenty of runs at that length, so I knew it wasn't that.  I had been a little queasy all day and figured maybe I'd picked something up.  But Nikki was feeling really sick too.  I still just figured it was a bug or something.  Of course later after reading all of the posts, I realized it may have been something else.  I find it hard to believe that we would've gotten sick from drinking water at only one station.  But after seeing that volunteers weren't using gloves, I think it would've been very easy.  We were sick until Wednesday.  I couldn't eat anything until Tuesday.  (No recovery meal after the run at all) To me, it doesn't matter. That wasn't a run I'd enjoy doing again.  It was too expensive and WAY too crowded for me.  It was fun to run the strip at night, but not enough so that I'd ever do it again.

Our final time was 2:18.  I was very pleased with the time considering the crowds.  Beyond that, I was so proud of Nikki for getting out there and running it with me.  At fourteen years old, she can say she's run a half marathon and no one can ever take that from her!  I don't know if she'll ever run another one, but at least now she knows it's possible.

I decided to wait awhile before posting my recap of this race because I wanted to have some time to let the bad feelings subside.  It was a race I ran with friends and my daughter, and for that I will always have fond memories.  

10k Completed!

Today my fourteen year old daughter and I completed our first 10k!  We'd done a 5k before, but it was a difficult course and didn't leave us feeling very accomplished.  We're signed up for the RNRLV half in December so I wanted to run something prior to that race just to be sure she'd be able to complete the half.  The Beach Derby 10k seemed like a great idea.  They also had a 10 miler, but I was afraid if it was too hard, she wouldn't want to do the half in December.  So I decided to give this a shot.

We headed out at 6AM, arriving in Huntington Beach at 7AM.  We parked about a half mile from the starting line and walked over.  It was perfect timing.

We took a couple of pictures, then jumped in the starting chutes.  A boy from the local high school sang the National Anthem and off we went.  Unfortunately my Runkeeper didn't start when we did.  It turned out to be a good thing, because I was able to let my daughter pace us without worrying about going faster.  She did great!  She had to "pull over" twice to tie her shoes and needed a walk break twice.  But both were brief and we finished in 56:40.  The experience was positive, despite the weather.  I loved that it was a cool 50 degrees, but I DON'T run in the rain...ever.  Luckily it was just cool but beautiful when we began.  Then about mile 3 the drizzle started.  Ok I'm not that big of a wimp, I can run in drizzle.  But by mile 4, it was RAINING!  Hello, I don't run in rain!  At that point, if I'd been alone I would've sprinted just to get it over with.  But my daughter didn't have any sprint in her at that point and was just wanting to keep it at a slow jog.  So we continued along, trying to joke around as we went.  Finally we were close to the finish and were able to give a push to get there.  We were going to wait at the finish to cheer on a friend, but it was freezing.  We grabbed an apple and water and headed the half mile back to the car.  That half mile seemed like another 3 miles!  It was pouring, we were freezing and just wanted to get warm.  We stopped briefly to take a photo and then got to the car and stripped off our wet clothes! 

All in all it was a fun race and I think my daughter was happy she did it.  Now it's the wait for Vegas!  I hope that turns out to be just as great of an experience for her too.  Let's just hope for good weather!!

What did you do this weekend?  Have you run any longer races with your children or parents?  What was your experience?

Please act against Gil Cedillo's CA Dream Act 2011 AB 131

This act is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen.  It's already difficult enough for our children to get into California's impacted colleges.  Now we're going to give financial aid to those here illegally?  Please take a minute to voice your opinion.  

Gil Cedillo’s CA Dream Act 2011 AB 131. It's headed to Jerry Brown's desk. If this goes through, illegal alien's can elbow your kid's way out of line for college education assistance - paid by your California taxes! Call and tell them to shelve Gil Cedillo’s CA Dream Act AB 131! 
•Call 916-445-2841 
•Press 1 for English 
•Then press 2 
•Then press 1 
•Lastly, press 2 to vote in opposition of the DRE

Legends Soccer - Nikki

It's been awhile since I've posted anything on my blog.  It's not that we've been sitting on the couch, eating bon bons.  I think my biggest pitfall is I haven't been taking any pictures and I hate to blog without the personal touch of a few photos.  So while I still haven't taken any photos of Nikki on her new soccer team, I thought I'd write anyway.

Yesterday was her first league game with her new team, Legends.  She'd played in one tournament a couple of weekends prior, and they'd won the tournament.  But this is a new league and we are a little unsure about how they ranked the teams and how the competition would be.  We played a team called So Cal Rush Nike-Lancaster.  They were a lot better than I'd expected they would be.  Legends ended up winning the game 1-0 and Nikki played very well.  This coach's style of coaching is very similar to one of her old coaches.  They don't keep the ball very long and do more quick, short passes.  Nikki played mid field and had about 10 thru balls (passes that went past the opposing teams defense and allow our forwards to run to it and try to score) that were great.  She played the whole game and didn't let down.

Hopefully as these girls continue to play together, they will get even stronger.  And hopefully Nikki will continue to learn and grow under the direction of her new coach.

Okay I couldn't resist adding something!

Finally a vacation!

With the crazy water polo schedule Stephen has been following we had two spare weeks for a vacation.  So we made the most of them.  The last day of Junior Olympics, we had packed up and were ready to leave.  Stephen and Nikki were both bringing a friend, so as soon as we could we picked them up and headed out.  We didn't get to leave until after 6:00, but it got us there and ready to go out early the next morning.  We went to Lake Havasu and stayed at The London Bridge Resort.  I'd stayed there a few times as a teenager and always remembered it as a fairly nice hotel.  We had a two bedroom suite, so it was perfect for our large crowd.  We got in on Tuesday and stayed until Saturday.  It was a great trip!  The kids had tons of fun and everything was within walking distance.  The hotel wasn't quite the nice place I'd remembered, but it wasn't too bad.  Here are some photos from that trip:

Saturday we drove home right after breakfast.  We got home, cleaned out the boat, repacked our suitcases and went to bed.  The next day we woke up, picked up the friends the kids were bringing and hit the road for our long drive to Lake Powell.  We left Sunday morning and came home on Saturday morning.  Since Ali brought a friend on this trip, we had to take two cars.  It was a bit of a pain being that it was a 9 hour drive, but it worked out fine.  The kids enjoyed having their friends there and we all had a great time!  The scenery at Powell couldn't be beat.  It was amazing and clean.  The Filpi's met us up there on Friday morning and spent the day on the boat with us.  So that was a really fun day too.  All in all, we had an amazing 12 days of vacation.  Here are a few pic's from Powell:

San Francisco DMV Sucks!

So we received our registration renewal in the mail for our car yesterday.  And as we were trying to figure out why it was so expensive, we discovered that there was a charge for $115 for a parking violation in San Francisco from 7/2/10.  Fabulous, we were in Laguna Beach over 4th of July last year.  In fact we have never driven that car anywhere near San Francisco.  So I called the DMV this morning.  I was on hold for 20 minutes before I hit the button to have them call you back.  They called me back to inform me that I'd need to contact the San Francisco DMV.  So I go online to look up their number and guess what?  They only reference the main 800# that I'd already called!  I called back and went through the same circus.  When they called me back this time she informed me that they should have given me the number for SF in the first place, duh!  After calling them, I was told that was the license number the officer had written down and that I'd have to write a letter to protest it.  The DMV also told me that if SF doesn't take it off by the end of September, we'll have to pay it in order to get our registration and fight them later.  Really??  What a pain in the butt for something that we absolutely have no responsibility for!  I understand it's a great way to get people who evade parking tickets, but it's a really flawed system for those of us that follow the rules!