Booked! Let the countdown begin...

We did it!! We are officially headed across the pond...the other pond, that is! Patrick and I booked our tickets to Oz headed out of Roanoke on Saturday, June 26 to L.A. We'll fly from L.A. to Auckland, New Zealand and spend almost a week pudding around there. On July 4th we'll catch a flight to Melbourne, Australia, where we'll be met by his sister, her husband, and our adorable niece, Amy. Our plan is to travel through Adelaide with them as we make our way down to their home in South Australia on Kangaroo Island where we'll hang out, catch up, and rest for a week or so. After that we have no plans and, literally, the sky's the limit! We'll be back in Roanoke on Saturday, July 29. A whole month!! We are too excited for words. Now, if summer would just hurry itself up and get here already.

Cancelled

I received the following text message from my husband this afternoon at approximately 12:30:

"Marathon=cancelled... Connie dropped it like it was hot...Joe is sick with allergies/ear infection and your a gimp"

Of course, they did not cancel the entire marathon just because our lovely faces would not be present. The marathon is on. We, however, as in, our team, are out.

I have somehow hurt my knee (the chiropractor is saying probably a case of burcitis...spelling??...) and other members of our team are having breathing issues due to the vast amount of pollen in the air. The knee is coming along; I'm icing regularly and taking a lot of Motrin. It gets better everyday and I'm going to try to run on it by Thursday, I think.

This is all probably for the best as this was not exactly the best weekend in our lives for huge event like my first race. 1. Patrick is out of town, at school. 2. My parents are also out of town with my grandparents. (This combined with #1 means there will be nobody to cheer my on! That is not how I forsaw my first race going in my head. I envision banners and streamers...)
and 3. It is PROM WEEKEND. I am in charge of prom and will therefore be spending all day Friday and late into the night on Saturday hanging out with a schoolfull of teenagers. I think I will be a little exhausted. A marathon (or even part of one) might have been pushing it.


Fear not, though!! I am not giving up my goal of running. Knowing my procrastinating self, I went ahead and signed up for a 5k (probably a better place for me to start than a relay marathon) on May 8. It's called Gallop 4 the Greenway and it goes through downtown Roanoke, basically where I would have been running my part of the marathon. It seems I do better with a goal ahead of me; I know I would probably drop off the running game were it not for some looming race in the future. Heck, I'm thinking about just signing up for a bunch of them throughout the rest of the entire year (read: life) just so I make sure to continue working out a couple times during the week. Mike the Runner is being hardcore and may run with me; HE IS THINKING ABOUT RUNNING 2 5KS IN A DAY! Told you he was hardcore. I'm just not there yet.

An Easter Trip

We went down (over?) to Tennessee to celebrate Easter with Cousin Beth, her sister Suzanne, and their parents, Uncle Allen and Aunt Mary Ann. It was a fun and relaxing trip. I love taking weekend trips; they are usually just long enough to make you feel like you've gotten away from it all and short enough that the drive doesn't feel overwhelming.

We had planned to go down on Saturday morning, visit Patrick's grandma in Dandridge at the nursing home, head over to White Pine to see his Aunt Cecelia, and drive back through Bristol to stay with Beth and Nate and see the other members of their family.

Of course, then Patrick slept until 12:30. So, Plan B:

We left around 3:00 and stopped in Christiansburg for "lunch" at Chic-fil-A. We took a detour to Barnes and Noble and picked up a plethora (yes I just used the word plethora) of books on Australia and New Zealand in preparation for our upcoming summer trip. We happily amused ourselves on the drive by me reading aloud to Patrick about all the places I found in the books that I wanted to visit.

We decided to reverse our plans and stopped in Bristol for the night first. Beth and Nate's house is in the historic district. It is old and beautiful with lots of character. We were instantly jealous.



After checking in and getting the fab house tour, we went over to Suzanne's cool new apartment. I would have taken pictures but she literally had just moved in (like the day before) and was still setting up shop. Suzanne, this only means that we have to come visit AGAIN and see the completed project!

Allen and Mary Ann treated us all to dinner at a fun local restaurant where we sat around and told family stories for the majority of the night. I love hearing and learning more about Patrick's family. Allen is his mother's brother. He and Mary Ann both are also in education and have a ton of interesting stories about school to which I can certainly relate. It was a great meal with wonderful people.

We went to church on Easter Sunday and worshiped the Lord for His work through Jesus Christ. We gave thanks that Christ conquered death for us and provided a way for us to have eternal fellowship with the Lord in heaven.

We had lunch after church and said goodbye to the Stuarts. We headed down to visit Patrick's grandmother. She is 92 years old and looking great! We visited for a couple hours and by that time had to get on the road to head home. We didn't get the chance to visit Cecelia and her family, as it was getting late and Patrick had to work the next day, but decided that this only meant we had to make another trip SOON to see all of them!

The Stuart Gang: Allen, Mary Ann, Beth, and Suzanne. We had to have a stand in for Jeff since he couldn't make it.

What a great start to Spring Break! We loved every minute of our trip and came back rejuvenated and ready to start a new week.

The Way We Roll

Just for fun and in an effort to record our life so that one day we can look back on these days in sweet remembrace, I started a list one night beside my bed of all the little things that Patrick and I do on a daily basis. The little routines we've taken up, the "rules of house" we've instituted--not outright, but things we do that just sort of just work for us; how we do things here at our house. In essence, how we roll. Here's what I came up with for now:

• Twice a day coffee - Our automatic drip cuts on at exactly 6:42 each morning. I take the first cup and leave the rest for Patrick. Sometimes I cut it off because he prefers his coffee lukewarm (weird). Patrick makes a second pot every evening after dinner so that we are properly caffeinated to do any schoolwork going on or to enjoy while catching up on the DVR.
• Always keep the Brita full - We love our Brita water filter. Like, in a weirdly obsessive kind of way. Patrick dropped and broke the one we got for our a wedding present about 3 months ago and we were forced to purchase a new one. We went that night. As in, about 5 minutes after the incident took place. We were not going without it.
• Laundry Day on Sunday - We do laundry once a week. That's it. If it doesn't get done on Sunday, it waits til next week.
• Thursday Night TV Event - We LOVE Thursday night TV. LOVE LOVE LOVE. We try to spread out the love all week long with the help of our DVR.
• A Sabbath Nap - After church every Sunday we literally have naptime. It's lovely and refreshing. God tells us to rest. We happily do so.
• Seinfeld for Dinner - I know you're supposed to sit down around the table and chat it up for dinner every night, and we will. Later in life when we have kids. For now, we eat on tv trays in the living room watching Seinfeld reruns. We do chat (during the commercials). It is incredibly relaxing and has become our downtime each evening before gearing up for getting schoolwork complete. I'm not at all embarassed by this very American habit we have developed of eating in front of the TV. It's how we roll.