Are you ready for some football????

On Monday we went to see the Texans play the Jaguars in our first Monday Night Football broadcast ever. We won and it was an exciting game! Hopefully our win will get us back on Monday Night Football next year too.

Dun, dun, dun, dun...can't you just hear the music?

Opening of the game

We had seats in the nosebleeds!

This is the ESPN booth.

Brent, Tommy, Ronnie (Shane's Dad), Shane and Tara

Another Half Marathon for me!

Tara and I drove to San Antonio this past weekend so we could run the Inaugural Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon. It's always an adventure when we travel....

We had procrastinated in getting a hotel room (well, Tara did--she is always in charge of those things because she is so good at it!). So all we could get was a La Quinta WAAAAY on the north side of town. After we went to Expo and picked up our packets, we decided to drive to our hotel to check in before dinner. It is a newer hotel, so the GPS did not have the exact address, but it had something close to it, so we headed in that general direction. We were pretty sure we were on the right road, just not exactly sure where the hotel was! About 15 minutes into our drive, at 5:45 pm, we saw a sign that said "Freeway closed at the next exit, expect delays." They were right about the delay, it was horrendous. It was a parking lot! Tara called the hotel, at 5:58 pm, to see how far away we were, and they said that "on a good day" we had to drive 15 more minutes to get there on this road! Tara asked me if I thought we should cancel the reservation, and I said, without hesitation, "YES!". So she did, with 2 minutes to spare (we had to cancel by 6 pm). So there we were, the night before an inaugural marathon/half marathon with 30,000 entrants, with nowhere to stay (it was absolutely crazy!!). Suprisingly, I was not worried at all. As I said, Tara is very good at this stuff. She went online and started calling hotels, and we got a MAJOR blessing. She found a Comfort Inn Downtown, 2 full beds, free breakfast, 2 blocks from the shuttle stop that would take us to the start line! Wow, she did great!!

I was not as prepared for this race as I should have been, and even though Tara could run this distance in her sleep, she was so awesome to stay with me and get me through it. I had a personal record of almost 1 minute, and it was so much fun running with her! We have some great pics, which I will share after I order them.

Check-out at our hotel was 12:30 (that was considered late check-out!), and we did not even get back to the hotel until 12:45! Thankfully, they gave us until 2 pm. We hurried upstairs, took showers, packed , and were out by 2 pm, amazingly! We went to lunch at our favorite Mexican food restaurant La Margherita in Market Square. Then we met up with a friend of Tara's that also ran the half marathon, much faster than we did. We finally hit the road around 5:30 pm, and got home about 9 pm that night. Ten minutes after Tara left my house, I was in bed asleep. I was exhausted!

I learned a few things from this experience:
1. Book a hotel WAY in advance in the area that you want.
2. I need to train more consistently during the week, so I will be able to do it my sleep too!
3. Running with someone was SOOOO much more fun than running it alone. I want to get FASTER so I can run with Tara in all the races we are in together.
4. Never drive home from another city the same day as the race. It was exhausting and it seemed like we would never get home!
5. Never check your bag with your hotel key, your entire wallet, AND your car keys. (We had a panicked moment when they could not find my bag, that was a little scary!)
6. MOST IMPORTANTLY, bring toilet paper, the porta pottys WILL NOT have any! (A gracious man was handing it out at the start line, I was so thankful!!)

Next races:
January- Aramco Houston Half Marathon
February- AT&T Austin Half Marathon
March- Seabrook Lucky Trails?
April- Angie's half crazy, Clear Lake
May- Heels and Hills, Irving, TX

Wow, I better get training!!

Bad blogger!!

Yes, ok, I know, I am a self-proclaimed bad blogger! It has been months since I have posted, and I am so sorry. Life is busy and there has been alot going on. I know that is no excuse, but that is mine!

To update you on what has happened recently, well, alot has been going on. In a nutshell, my sister-in-law gave birth to my new nephew Dylan (who I have not seen yet), I have been training for a half marathon (attempting to anyway), evacuated from Ike (oh, the chaos), coping with the stress of my job (which I just resinged from), joined a new Bible study group (still not sure about it...), and Shane has been working 60 hours a week (the money is nice, but I am lonely).

Did you catch all that?

More to come later!

Reunion--again!

I did not have the chance to post this earlier this week. I wanted to share some pics that were taken last weekend when our friends Regina and Colby were in town. It was so good to see them again. Unfortunately, we don't get to see them that often, but we hope to be seeing them more often in the future!

Tara, Regina, and I

Colby and Shane

Regina and Colby

How do you like my new "Do?"

Last Wednesday, I had an appointment to get my hair cut. I had been thinking of cutting it short for a couple of weeks, but I wasn't really sure what to do with it. When I talke to Laura, my hairdresser, she said "why don't we do a short bob haircut?" Not knowing really what I wanted, I said "OK." Here is how it turned out:

I think it is a little shorter than I would have liked, but that is the great thing about hair--it grows!!

From disappointment to blessings

Today I was scheduled for the embryo transfer, but this morning the nurse called to tell me that my embryo had not survived the thaw. I was devastated. I really did not expect it. I was completely ready for it to happen! I had done all the labwork, I had taken all the medicine, and I had mentally prepared myself for this, and now I was not going to get the opportunity to see it through. My first question: WHY God? My second question: Are you really there God? My third question: What do I do now? After I boohooed about it, asked my questions to God, and took a shower, I tried to focus on my blessings for the rest of the day. Here is what I came up with: (bear with me, some of them are a little cheesy)

• It is OVER! I know my answer now, rather than later
• I get to keep running and training for the half marathon
• I get to keep my body shape (although I would like my hips to be a little SMALLER :) )
• I no longer need to take my heart medicine (WooHoo!!)
• I have a wonderful husband who loves me
• Most of my family is relatively healthy (including my dogs)
• I have awesome friends in my life who have prayed for me diligently through this
• God IS still there

All day as I was listening to my Ipod, every song that played offered me hope. They reminded me that God IS still there, He has never left, and never will leave me. I just have to keep focused on Him and He will tell me what to do next. I know that I will survive.

July 17th

As I posted before, we are going to use my last embryo this month. I called my doctor's nurse on Monday and she scheduled me for an ultrasound on July 11th. If everything looks good, then the plan is to implant the embryo on July 17th, and then have a blood test on July 31st to see if it worked. I have a mixture of emotions at this point: excited, nervous, calm, peaceful, and anxious. I am not sure how you can have all of those at once, but I am there! At times I am planning for the baby and my life as a new mom, and other times I am thinking about running the Houston half marahton (which I signed up for yesterday, just in case). I do not want to be too hopeful, so I am continuing life as usual. But at the same time, I want to be excited, but no so much that I will devastated if it does not work. I think right now I have a good balance, so let's hope it stays that way! I will keep you posted as we go along!