It's Me Again!!!

It’s New Year’s eve and I am sitting here blogging.
I have been feeling so sad about my poor little neglected blog!!!
(I swear that my first new year resolution will be to keep up with my blog better!)
For years and years and years, I have enjoyed writing and chronicling everything going on?
I really don't know how or why I fell off the wagon so hard!
I logged in tonight and noticed it was NOVEMBER as the last time I blogged!
And even then, it was to play catch up on a birthday from SEPTEMBER!!!

Well I will seriously try to do better.

Here are some of the happenings over the past week:

Christmas was amazing as usual.
I felt so fortunate to have 9 of our 10 children with us!
(We really missed you, Andrew!)

We did something a little different this year.
After opening gifts, we headed to the movies!!!

CHARLOTTE LEFT THE HOUSE DRESSED JUST LIKE THIS.
(She loves all things unicorn!!! haha  And these jammies are SO perfect for her.  She told me this was her favorite gift this year!!!)

Anyway.

The whole family was giddy about loading up and heading to the movies for some family time!

If you haven't seen the movie "Wonder," it's the best!!!
I am so happy that was the movie we picked.
We had a family of all ages and every single person enjoyed the story.
(It was so heart warming!  You will love it, I promise!  GO SEE!!!!)

We have really been enjoying Christmas vacation together.
I think we all feel "recharged" as a family!
Lots of time together, playing games, watching movies, taking little trips (mostly to the mall and places around town), eating good food...

But the GAMES!!!

I love the bonding time we are having.

I will say that 2017 has been a pretty great year.
I know 2018 will bring lots of joy to us as well!

I do promise to blog more again.
I have really missed you, bloggy friends!!!
Happy New Year to you!!!!

Charlotte is 12!!!

Charlotte turned the big 12 on September 27th.
In honor of Charlotte, I give you 12 fun facts about Charlotte!

1.  She has the most beautiful deep blue eyes.  They are my favorite feature of hers!

2.  She is sensitive and caring and will notice the needs of others in a hot second.

3.  She does not mind being alone or doing things alone.  I love how she does not need others to be entertained! (I have seen her walk down the beach and play in the surf for hours alone while her siblings jumped waves together.) I love how she can just be happy by herself!

4.  She loves Nutella. (But you probably knew that?) Other faves are Takis (I don't know how she can eat a whole bag of those things!) and spaghetti, which is always the birthday dinner of choice!

5.  She is pretty quiet and that is very unusual for a Blakely.

6.  She still sleeps with a special blanket every night.  She's had it for as long as I can remember!

7.  She has quite the sense of humor and does not even know how truly funny she is. She was a huge hit at Girl's Camp this past summer and pretty much became a celebrity among the girls!

8.  She does NOT like to be high up in the air.
We learned very quickly this past summer that she is NOT a fan of zip lining:

Not exaggerating, but screams could be heard all through camp that day! LOL
(Pictured above is her being rescued as she got stuck in the middle because her weight would not carry her to the end!)

9.  She truly loves her sisters and I love seeing the 4 of them enjoying their sisterhood and sharing just about everything, from clothes to living space and secrets!
(Though sharing everything has not always been rainbows and unicorns over here?)
10.  Next to her sisters, her favorite person in the world is Carter Soto:

Carter Soto is her very best friend and has been in her life since Kindergarten!

(earlier this past June when they graduated from elementary school together)

Remember when I told you how Charlotte does not like to be high in the air?
Well she would be high in the air with Carter in a heartbeat!
(And she HAS. They tackled every roller coaster at Six Flags this summer together!!!)

10.  She would tell you that her absolute favorite place to be is on the beach:

Charlotte is in her element here.
Give her sun, sand, and waves and Charlotte is a happy girl!!!

11.  She adores her 2 dogs, Jack and Rudy, and she will do anything for them:

 (And I agree that they are pretty special too!)

12.  She loves unicorns.  (Why?)  Probably because Charlotte IS a unicorn...

I love you so much, Charlotte.
You will always be that blonde haired, blue eyed, pink bundle of joy to me no matter how much you grow up!

Another Catching Up Post

Halloween came and went.
Charlotte's birthday came and went too!
Again, I have failed miserably on chronicling all of that and we have Thanksgiving coming up in just 3 days!

Halloween was very odd this year.
This was the very first time we did not walk around with any kids!
(A sure sign of a home with no more littles!  Gah..)

We had a Halloween that looked something like THIS instead.
(Jason's little friend is pretty cute, huh?)

Charlotte turned 12 on September 27th and it was a beautiful day.
I love this girl so much and I cannot believe how fast she is growing up!
 I think I will save more specific things on Charlotte for another post though.
My darling 12 year old needs her own post with very special attention here!
(Tomorrow, I promise.)

Other things that have happened:

We have another Eagle in the house.
Mark finished his Eagle project last week!
This will be our 4th Eagle in the family and I couldn't be more proud.
(Did you know that only 3% of all scouts ever make it to the Eagle rank? It's a pretty big deal!)
Jason will be joining our other 4 boys in this amazing feat in the coming year, hopefully.
(That will be 5 Eagles in one family! That's pretty cool and exciting, right?)

I am still plugging along in life with my new knee that has not completely healed up all the way.
I am slowly clawing my way back into being a runner again and if I am being honest here, it's actually killing me.  I know I need to be patient!
It's just that I miss being able to lace up and run for hours.
I miss racing.
I miss meeting up with friends for group runs.
I miss being able to EAT like I used to!!!
(ugh.. when you go from running 35-50 miles per week to ZERO, it has a pretty profound impact on the body.)
Well thank goodness I joined a gym to keep me sane and to keep my cardio up while putting less impact on my knee as it continues to heal.  It has really helped!
(NOT the same as running and feeling the cold air on my face and enjoying all the nature and scenery that I get on a run? But I will take it while I am healing!!!)

Other than that, life has been very good.
We have been super excited about the upcoming holidays and I am looking forward to having all my kids gathered together again!  It's been way too long..

And here are just some cute random pictures of my pal, Rudy just because:

He likes to help me with the laundry every day!!!

OBX in October

It's totally awesome when you have a family member who owns a beach house...

It means being on the beach in October when the house isn't being rented out!!!

And man, we lucked out..

It felt just like summer!!!

We had gorgeous sunshine every day, low humidity, and perfect warm weather.

So relaxing and just what our family needed!

There was plenty of shenanigans too:

Uh-oh..

Oh boy.. maybe this wasn't a good idea to bury myself into a hole?

Well she'll know next time, that's for sure.  haha

Thank you, Mari and Alan!  Your home was wonderful and it was such a great time!!!

I am NOT a Unicorn

I know it's been awhile and man, I have just been getting worse and worse about it, huh?

Life is good and there is so much to blog about!

So it's time to play "catch up" again...

Because of my torn meniscus, I was not able to run in this year's DC Ragnar.

It was heartbreaking to me, but it would've been even MORE heartbreaking if I stayed home and did not go with my teammates!

(After all, I was the captain of the team too.)

And so I went!

And I cheered them on and drove the van as they crushed 200 miles relay style!!!

I loved every minute.

And it did NOT kill me to get out there and run...

I thought it WOULD kill me?

But really... I was ok dressed like a banana and watching my teammates do their thing as I helped and guided them along!

Seriously, I would have been home moping around and thinking of them if I didn't go.

I am so grateful I was still able to go!

In fact, my marathon and Ragnar are not the only races I am missing this fall season... there was the Army 10 Miler... and the Rocky Balboa in Philadelphia... and the Va Beach Seashore 50K that I will be missing too!  I have basically cleared my entire race calendar for the fall.

I really want to focus on healing!

I have to look at my long term goal here... to continue my journey in running!

I don't want it to end here, so I am taking my recovery very very seriously!

My surgery went VERY well and I was cleared to run (believe it or not) just 8 days post surgery!

(Modern technology is amazing!) 

I gave myself 2 weeks though before getting out for an attempt.

Everything feels great and I am taking it easy.

I am now running lower milage and running slower as I ease back into running again!!!

 (Pictured above was the day after my surgery enjoying a basket full of treats and gifts from all my running friends.  It felt like Christmas!)

I feel so lucky to have friends to think of me like that.

I can't wait to get back out there and running again with all those ladies I miss so much...

And now for the bummer news:

The day before my surgery, I found out that I will NOT be running in Boston in April.

I applied with my qualifying time (I will have you know that I ran my qualifying marathon 1 min and 37 seconds faster than the qualifying standard!) and I received a letter that due to the number of applicants and field size, they could not accept all qualifiers....

Bummer.

So I was one of the 5,000 qualifiers who were cut!

I cried a little and had my down day about the whole thing, but then I remembered something?

My original goal was to just qualify for Boston!

I never cared whether I ran the race or not?

I needed to remember that!

I MET THAT GOAL.

And hey... this news saved Keith thousands of dollars too.  haha

He would have done anything to get me to that race in April!!!

(I appreciate that so much too.)

Next up?

We are headed for the Outer Banks today for a long weekend!

And I promise I will post lots of pics of our awesome getaway for you too, bloggy friends!!!

See you again in a few days!!!!

xo

I'm Still Here

Well hey there, bloggy friends.

I know it's been awhile!

A lot has happened and I have been neglecting to update here.

(Sorry for that!  I know I need to be better, because basically this has been my journal!  And this kind of stuff needs to be archived for sure!)

What's been happening:

Sadly, I missed my marathon in Utah.  I made the decision not to get on that plane.  The truth is (hard to accept and admit) that I'm injured.  I discovered that this is not the kind of injury that I can just rest from and it will heal in a week or two, like in the past?  It's the kind that needs serious intervention- surgery!  I have torn my meniscus and I will have this taken care of on the 28th of this month. (Not to worry though!)  It will take time to heal?  But I will be BACK.  Heavenly Father promised me and I am going to remember His promise that I will be ok!

The kids all started school without any problems.

I missed taking pictures of the first day!  

(I am finding that I am not thinking of things like this with as much zeal and excitement as I have in the past!  LOL)

You won't judge me though, right bloggy friends?

 Chris turned 24 on Sunday!

(I didn't get any pictures of that either.  haha)

I will say that dinner and cake after church with him was MARVELOUS!

(Chocolate pudding cakes are pretty much the new hit around here.)

And I love that birthdays have just turned into big family gatherings with a nice dinner!

Monday was kind of a big deal for me.

I put in my application to Boston Athletic Association to run Boston 2018!

I've been sitting here in my house every day waiting in joyful hope for the email telling me congratulations and that I am IN????

((sigh))

I won't know til probably next week.

(If you didn't know, the Boston Marathon is the most coveted race in the world for marathoners! Because there are SOOOO many applicants, not all those who qualified can be accepted because of the field size limitations- meaning, if more runners apply than can be accepted, the acceptance will be granted to the fastest qualifiers among all applicants!!!)

Well I hope running 1 minute and 37 seconds faster than the qualifying standard is enough to get me in..

We will see about next week at this time!

(I will have to remind myself that in the event that I don't get to run Boston, I am still a Qualifier! I earned that title and I will always have that.)

It would be nice to actually get to run Boston though for having qualified for the race!!!!

Crossing my fingers... and toes.. and anything else I can cross...

That's pretty much been it in a nutshell.

I am leaving for Ragnar DC tomorrow!

(NO I am not running? But I couldn't miss it for the world and would want nothing more than to still be there for my awesome team!)

I will be the DRIVER for them this time and it will be an awesome weekend.

I promise PROMISE to take pictures!!!!

OBX 2017

We are back to life as we remember!

The beach was amazing... something MUCH needed for our family before starting school again.

Today is the first day back and I didn't get a single picture!

(I can promise you that every kid wore their best outfit for the first day of school, carefully planned and picked out weeks ago!!!  haha)

So I suppose beach pictures from last week will have to suffice this morning for my blog:

We celebrated two birthdays at the beach- Jason, 16 and Corinna, 13.

(Just WOW.  All but two kids now are young adults or teenagers!!!)

I have no words for that.

So I wil move on:

The annual torture for the dogs on the beach is always a fun time.

(Let's be honest though.. do they try to wrangle themselves out of this and put up a fight?  No. They love this!  LOL)

I will say it is NEVER easy wrangling up all the kids for a picture.  I have to hand it to the dogs- they are MUCH more compliant...

(I am sure Mark was not fully aware that I was snapping pics of all the shenanigans here.)

I won't complain though.

In the end, I got my picture!

I am so grateful, once again, for all the memories made with my family at the Outer Banks.

We are already planning next year's trip!!!