LadyLockUp: October 2013

10-11-2013 Fall Pictures

I try and do fall pictures of the kids every year. Often we go to the arboretum, but we wanted to try some place different this year. I was all for going back to where I took Anna's 3 year pictures, but Joshua didn't want to. The kids were out of school on the 11th, so I decided to do it that day. We haven't had much cool weather, so most of the trees are still pretty green. We went to Loose Park, which is down near the Plaza. I don't know that I had ever been there before, but it was BEAUTIFUL! Definitely a go-to place. The boys were more willing than I anticipated :) And Sarah was pretty good with it too.

These are the ones of all of the kids that came out best. Many are still completely goofy.

Joshua

Zachary

Sarah

Anna wasn't terribly cooperative, and I know she was thinking "we just did this last week, so why are we doing this again?" I took over 500 pictures. Here are some shots of her:

Puppies

Yes, you read that right. Me, who has said forever, that I do not like dogs and certainly will never have dogs, now has not one, but TWO puppies! We have had them 6 months, and I am still trying to figure out how it happened. I had to go into the pet store to pick up a raffle basket for school. There was a cute, white, bichon poodle in there. Jason and I went back the next week to look. And a few days later we went back to play with it. We told the owner that we were looking at the bichon poodles because of allergies (I am severely allergic to dogs). She brings out two black dogs who were liter mates. We played with them, and I had already told Jason that if we got one, I wanted it to be female. We have two male cats, and neither one wants anything to do with me. (To be fair, the one doesn't want much to do with anyone.) We walked out with both. We didn't tell the kids, but they knew we were at the pet store looking at puppies, so when Jason came home to get the checkbook, they knew we were getting one. So, I carried one in, and Jason carried stuff in with the other puppy buried. Their responses were priceless. They were SO excited! Jason named them Odo and Kira after Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Odo was so scared, he was throwing up. Kira was always a bit crazy. Odo has totally come out of his shell, and Kira has settled down. They both are great dogs. They love being with other dogs, and once they warm up to you, they will bug you like crazy until you pay attention to them. They lay their heads on your shoulder just like a baby. Interestingly enough, a few days after we got them, we had to take them in for their first vet visit. When we pulled the papers at the vet, they are Pomeranian poodles instead of bichon poodles. I was MAD. We had a whole long conversation about why we were asking for the breed of dog that we asked for. If she would have tried to give us a lab or something instead of a bich-poo, we would have known the difference. Of course, by this point, we were already attached. And, if I was okay after 3 days, they weren't going to bother me. Some places say that they aren't "hypoallergenic" because of the Pomeranian, but other places say they are because of the poodle. I'm glad they don't seem to bother any of us. It was HARD at first. We crate-trained them, and when we would take them out to use the bathroom, it would take them forever. They had a lot of accidents, and they spent more time in their kennel than not. By the beginning of July, they were doing better, and at this point, they are doing great. They are out as long as we are home, and even sleep with us a lot of nights. They are still perfectly happy in their kennel too. Here are a few pictures.

2013 5ks

Until May of 2012, I had not ever done a 5k or anything of the like. Since then, I have done 6 5ks and a triathlon. I am proud of me! I may end up walking a lot (I tore my ankle up in college and running is difficult), but I finish. Julie (my sister) and I ran Running With The Cows in May of this year. We did it last year too. I love cows, which is why we started doing it. But, even though the run is in the country, you don't actually see any cows. The cow we are pictured with is the only one we saw, except for someone dressed as the Chick-Fil-A Cow, and I think Julie said there was another cow that I didn't see.

In June, a friend, Heather, and I ran Hospital Hill. This was an extremely difficult course. She totally rocked it! I am proud to say I finished and ran about 1/3 of it. None of the course was flat, but there was an especially huge hill in it. There are not too many 5ks that you get a nice finisher's medal for completing it. It was through downtown Kansas City, which was a really neat backdrop for it. This year was their 40th anniversary, so we got a really nice I wanted to do it again next year, but I can't make that date.

At the start of the race

After the race

And the medal

This summer, Zach started running too because his soccer coach for this year is a cross country guy and warned us the kids would be running. In August, a friend and I decided at the last minute to do a 5k, so I asked Zach if he wanted to do it with me. He had been running at the track, but only a mile and a half. We decided Wednesday that we were doing the 5k on Saturday, so Wednesday he ran 2 miles at the track. I figured he could walk what he needed to. He decided to run with my sister because she runs a pretty consistent pace. When they got to the last 3/10 of a mile or so (when he could see the finish line), he sprinted it. He beat my sister by more than a minute. I was so proud of him!

Before the race

Start of the race (I am in the middle of the picture between #30 and #32)

Zach and Julie in the race

Zach crossing the finish line. Neither one of his feet are on the ground!

Julie hi-fiving Zach as she crosses the finish line

Me running to the end

And in September, we decided to do another 5k. My sister had done this one before, but I had not. Joshua also decided to join us. He barely ran at all outside of the running he does for refereeing. I figured he could walk what he needed to. Zach is a fast runner, but he tends to run too fast and not have anything left at the end, so I told him that he might want to run with Julie again. When I saw him running (it was an out and back type run), I didn't see her for quite some time afterwards. I was worried he would run out of steam and then be upset with himself. When I crossed the finish line, he was so excited because he had finished the run in 27 minutes! A full 4 minutes faster than his last run (which was a MUCH easier course than this one!), and 4 minutes faster than my sister. Joshua also did awesome, considering it was his first and he had not prepared at all!