Softball

Well, softball sure is going well! 

I've discovered I'm not a very aggressive base runner, though. 

One play I had a clear cut opportunity to make it to third on someone else's base hit and had to be yelled by my family from the stands to notice I could run!

 Ha!

 Oh well, I've had some good plays and we sure are having fun.

Fitness

I've been working on moving every single day as I'm training for the Park to Park 1/2 Marathon at the end of September.

On Monday nights I get together at my folks' house with my sister, my mom, and usually (though not much lately) my aunt. We do the P90X X-Stretch video because it has been discovered that my aunt and sister are two of the least flexible people on the planet (ha!).

Then, after that we walk down to the Dipper. A mile and a half down the road from us is an ice cream shop that does wonderfully huge ice cream cones. We all walk down there, get something creamy and cold to negate anything healthy we may possibly have just done, and then walk back.

It's been a fun way to catch up and to get a different kind of exercise in, to allow my muscles to work in a different way and get some of the kinks out of my muscles.

I've been having some top-of-the-foot pain with switching to the 5-finger shoes I'm running in now. I know it comes from overstriding, and I'm constantly trying to correct my stride. It doesn't hurt while I run, though, so I think it'll slowly correct itself. I've had other pains that only hurt while I wasn't running, and they've all worked themselves out. I'm hoping this one will too. It certainly isn't getting worse, so that's a good sign.

So that's where we are! I'm glad to be able to move and exercise in these ways. On the occasional bad days I try to just be thankful that I'm healthy enough to run this far!

To my husband

I didn't know what I wanted to write, just that I wanted to write on here something to you. I've been tossing ideas around, not really having anything that fell into place. And then, as I was thinking about it yesterday, I came across something that challenged me to tell you the top 10 reasons why I fell in love. So that is what I will write.

10. You like me. Even after meeting my family and learning things like how crazy we are and how impulsive I can be, you liked me. And still do.

9. You and I balance each other. On your bad days, I feel the desire, the longing to help you by shouldering the day and taking care of things. On my bad days, you step up and do it for me. You've always been supportive rather than resentful of any 'moods' I happen to be in. I hope you know that I think that is priceless.

8.You did (and still do) nice things for me. Then, it was words on a page and buying me dinner on a date. Now, it's still those things and has also evolved into things like washing the dishes and straightening up the house for me when I least expect it. I'm still in love with you because things like this keep growing and changing as we're married longer and longer.

7. You are smart. We have intelligent conversations. You challenge me to think outside my box. You're constantly learning and you long to share what you've learned with me. I don't appreciate that enough, I realize. I will strive to do better.

6. You have an amazing way with words. You write them, you say them, and you know what to say to me when I need beautiful words. Affirming words, encouraging words, words to strengthen our relationship.

5. You are incredibly loyal. You have stuck with me through everything. You take care of us who are 'yours.'

4. You are an artist soul. You find meaning and beauty and appreciate them. And you capture, write, and create them, yourself.

3. We share a sense of humor. We've long been finishing each others' sentences because we're having the same amusing thought at the same time. You even find me and my family members at least a little amusing when we're laughing hysterically at some random nonsense.

2. I am, always have been, and always will be attracted to you. You are a very handsome man and I feel incredibly blessed to call you mine, and to be called yours.

1. You're unbelievably kind. From the beginning you've striven to give of yourself for me.

I love you more than I can say. Yours always.

Hot!!

It's 92 degrees here today! I waited pretty much as long as I could but I had to get a run in sometime. I really felt it last Saturday when I had only gotten in 2 short runs before the long one. So my goal this week is to do a better job of getting the runs in. I hope to run even tomorrow after a softball game.

I'm a bit surprised that I didn't get anyone stopping to see if I was okay! My face quickly gets red when I exercise, and alarmingly so when it's hot, I just don't handle the heat well. A half hour or more after I was done my kids were still commenting that my face was red!

I'm just not a hot weather runner. My body reacts so much better to the cold than to the heat. I feel like not enough oxygen gets processed through my lungs to my limbs! But I want to push through this summer. My mom wants to run a 1/2 marathon this fall, and as we didn't get to run the Riverbank together, I'd like to do this one with her. The problem will be training in this heat. I'm hoping for an overall cool summer, and to be able to work out a good time to go when I won't melt. We'll see!

Pitching Machine

S has started Softball! She's got some talent. Her games are so funny to watch as they are still working on remembering what on earth to do with the ball if it comes near them. Lots of fun!

She's a good batter. That machine is hard to hit from, and she gets a good hit almost every at-bat. 

She played catcher for the second time last week. She doesn't set up like the coach has the other girls set up... I don't know if he's never told her to do it any other way. But because she was standing instead of kneeling, she nearly made a play at first base! It was the first time anyone at catcher on her team had even moved when there was a play going on! Pretty cool. 

Another base hit! She loves to play.

The little ones get bored out of their mind sitting for an hour but the waiting is probably good for them anyway. Such is the way it is with having siblings in sports!

Memorial Day!

All three girls were in the memorial day parade. They all had a great time! The weather was wonderful, sunny and 80 degrees.

A found some friends to sit by. She loves riding on the floats. 

C got to ride on her grandpa's friend's truck. She didn't look at me; she was so focused on throwing candy she didn't hear us shouting her name. So you have to look close; she's the one in red way at the front. She has her arm cocked back to fling more candy! 

We spent the day after the parade at my in-laws' house. They had just opened the pool, the water was only 64 degrees. That didn't stop our girls from getting in there, though! Here are the first swimming pictures of the year. 

Actually, hubby's brother was the first one in. He came up gasping! It was cold.

A's first trip across the deep end.

S's first dip.

C spent most of the time just dipping her bottom in and exclaiming how cold it was. She did swim near the end but I was holding our nephew and didn't get a picture.

We also had good food off the grill and played a rousing game of kickball. I didn't think of lunch pictures and was in the kickball game, so no pics. Fun day! We were all worn out by the end of the afternoon, and the girls all fell asleep right away that night! Such a good day with hubby's family. 

To let you know...

...I'm going to update a bunch of posts with the pictures to go with them. Here are the links. You've read the post already, I just put pictures in.

Here's the post about the 25K.

Here's the update post from a while ago. Not many pics in either of these, just one of each of the girls and a couple from my run.