The DeLorme Family: October 2011

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Some Ramblings

This past week was full of a lot of randomness. Ashlyn went on her first field trip to the Pumpkin Patch on Tuesday. She was so excited to go. When we picked her up, she said she had a great time. We asked her what her favorite part was and she told us it was riding on the school bus without a car seat. She picked out a very cute little pumpkin that she can't wait to carve this weekend with the 5 others that we have accumulated at random places. The next evening, we went to her school's fall potluck. The food was really good and we had a nice time. They had games for the kids to play and different arts and crafts. Ashlyn accumulated yet another pumpkin at the pumpkin walk. (Yes, we will be very busy this weekend carving pumpkins!)Joey and I are so pleased with Ashlyn's school and she is so happy there.

This weekend Ashlyn got to go to a birthday party at a bowling alley. She had a lot of fun bowling and playing with the other kids. Ashlyn is VERY excited for her birthday party coming up in less than 2 weeks. She is having it at Chuck E. Cheese this year. I am sure it will be a great time. How can you not have fun there? I am still very busy getting everything ready for her birthday weekend. Yes, I said weekend. There will be lots of celebrating and special surprises the entire weekend for our very special girl.

Next week will be very fun filled. We have Halloween which I am so excited to see the kids in their costumes. Ashlyn is so excited to get to go Trick of Treating. We will also be going to Boo at the Zoo which I know Ashlyn will just love. Dawson has his 9 month appointment and Ashlyn has her 4 year appointment next week too. I can't wait to see how they have grown. Then we have birthday weekend. We should be very busy!

I have exciting news too, I WILL be running the Las Vegas Half Marathon in December!!! I am so excited that it was able to work out. I can't wait to run another half marathon. I am also beyond excited to run a race down the strip at night. Should be a pretty phenomenal experience. I was kind of looking forward to tapering down my miles now that my half marathon was over, but I am looking forward to the extra training. It will be good for me.

I will be back next week with a 9 month post about Dawson and lots and lots of Halloween pictures!

Ella got to have bath time with her cousins. They had a blast!

Ashlyn was being very goofy and decided to put on her Daddy's clothes.

Her ensemble was cracking me up.

My cuteness eating.

Can never get enough of that smile.

I just want to kiss his adorable face!

Not sure why he looks so worried, but he looks so cute!

This is the only picture I got of Ashlyn before she went to the Pumpkin Patch. I don't know why she wasn't smiling. She was really happy.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Pumpkin Patch Fun

On Sunday, we made our annual trip to Diana's Pumpkin Patch in Canon City. We just love that place so much! It just doesn't feel like fall until we have made a trip out there. They always have a fire going so it smells like fall and the beautiful fall trees surround it. They actually changed it a lot this year and I think that we liked the changes. It was pretty crowded due to a Groupon deal that they had that sold out very quickly. We still had a good time despite how many people were there.

The Maze.

The first thing that we noticed was that they had added a slide. Ashlyn was very excited to give it a try. She crawled right up to the hale bays to give it a go.

This is what the slide looks like. All the kids seemed to have a blast on it.

With admission, you get a free pumpkin. Ashlyn immediately picked her pumpkin out. She knew which one she wanted!

Ashlyn dropping the pumpkin.

They also have a huge area filled with corn. Instead of playing in sand, the kids can play in corn. Ashlyn loved playing in it.

I even let Dawson try it out. I had to keep a very close eye on him because he kept trying to eat the corn.

Dawson showing off his waving skills. He loves to wave.

We attempted a family picture. We found it very hard to get a picture with both kids looking at the camera. This is the best shot we got.

My sister and I with the kids. Again, they weren't really wanting to look at the camera.

Katy and Ella

Ashlyn measuring herself on the corn maze ruler. According to that, she's about 3 1/2 feet tall.

The corn maze was really big this year. They always have a game to play while you walk through it to make it fun. This year was a clue type game. You had to find different clues through out the maze. Ashlyn had a blast looking for the clues. She wanted to lead the way the whole time. She was fast in the corn maze!

Mommy and Dawson taking a break. I just love his shirt, so I wanted to get a good picture of it.

I love him so much!!!

I think I see a really cute little pumpkin!

My two loves. Dawson had a blast standing in the pumpkins. It was cute.

Showing off his waving skills again.

Best buds hanging out. Katy swears that they have a special language that they talk to each other in. She said that they will be babbling to one another and laughing like crazy.

Dawson putting his arm around his favorite cousin.

My handsome little man.

Joey has this thing about taking a picture every year of throwing Ashlyn up in the air in the corn maze. This was our favorite. He insisted on getting a shot of Dawson too. I assure you that Dawson wasn't thrown high at all and he absolutely loved it! We had a great time and can't wait to back again next year! I'm sad that it's over for the year.

Bike Riding Fun

The weather this weekend was just beautiful! We decided to take advantage of it on Saturday by going to Jordan Jensen Park. Ashlyn just loves riding her bike. She wanted to be able to ride all around the park. She has gotten so good at riding. She has even mastered stopping. She is hoping to get a new bike for a her birthday to replace her $3.00 garage sale bike. The back tire is so bald it's hard for her to stop. In the mean time, she is still having a blast on her bike. She looks so darn cute on that thing that every single time I watch her ride I can't help but smiling ear to ear.

She even can wave while riding.

Look at that smile.

Dawson had a blast that day on the swings. Boy did he like those swings!

The three of us on the swings. Ashlyn loves going on her stomach.

Joey and Ashlyn jumping from the swing.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

1/2 Marathon Recap

*This is a very long post dedicated to my half marathon. If you aren't particularly interested in running or a race recap you probably will want to skip it!

On October 9, 2011 I became a half marathoner!!!! Something I thought I would never, ever say! Something I never thought I would want to say. But right now, I couldn't be more proud of myself or more happy. I ran 13.1 miles!!!!I did it!

I took off nearly a year of run running when I was pregnant with Dawson. I knew that I wanted to get back into it once I was allowed to run again. It took me awhile to get back to where I was before I got pregnant, but I did it. In the beginning I focused on 5ks and speed. I ran several 5k's this summer and actually surpassed all of my speed goals. I wanted to challenge myself in a new way. While training for my 10k, I started doing longer runs. I found myself really enjoying longer runs. I started toying with the idea of doing a half marathon. I never in a million, billion years thought that thought would cross my mind. I talked with my sister about it and she agreed she would like to try one too. After realizing that our top two choices of the Disneyworld Princess 1/2 Marathon and Vegas 1/2 Marathon weren't feasible because of expensive, we set our sights a little closer. Katy did some research and we found the Denver Rock and Roll Half Marathon. We thought it would be a great choice for our first 1/2.

We researched training plans and found a ten week plan. We knew that we would have to remain pretty disciplined. It was pretty hard to stick with it at times because of the time commitment. We had to do one long run a week that took about 1 1/2 hours. We still managed to wake up at 6:00 a.m. every Sunday and went out and ran. Katy and I found ourselves really enjoying our runs together. We ran at a pace that allowed for us to talk and just enjoy the run. We both started to really look forward to our runs together. We really did an awesome job of sticking to the training plan. Things got a little messed up because I was nursing an injury during a big chunk of our training, but we managed to get through it and we were finally ready for a 1/2 marathon.

The half marathon experience is so vastly different from an 5k or 10k I have ever ran. I am used to running races with 1,000 people tops. This race had 15,000 people! Katy and I headed up to Denver on Saturday afternoon. On Saturday morning, we woke up to snow. We knew we still had to get up to Denver because we had to pick up all of our race stuff that day.The drive up wasn't pleasant at all. We managed to get through it and made it to our hotel. We parked and walked over to the Convention Center where the expo was being held.

The expo was a lot of fun. We were able to quickly get our bibs, shirts, and bags. I had found out the day before that my favorite runner, Kara Goucher was going to be at the expo. I was beyond excited. She has a book for women all about running. She had her son about a year ago and has some great info for getting back into running. The girl is probably the best American women runner right now. She is incredibly fast. I just love her and was dying for a chance to meet her. Katy and I jumped in line just in time because right after we got in line they closed the line. We were lucky! We had her sign our books and took a picture with her. She was so nice! Her husband who is also a famous runner went to my high school. Some of my brother's friends ran with him and we were able to talk to Kara and Adam about that. Katy and I felt so lucky to get a chance to meet such incredibly talented and amazing runners. After that, we walked around a bit and sampled lots of neat running products. We then left and walked back to our hotel.

Katy picked a hotel with a great location. We parked the car and were able to walk every where after that. We checked into our hotel and we were very impressed with our room. We got settled a bit and then decided to head to dinner. We were staying a block away from the 16th street mall. We decided that we would go to Magiannos for dinner. We got there at 5:15 and were told there was a 2 1/2 hour wait!!! I guess lots of other racers were also carb loading before the race. I figured we could beat the rush by going early, but I think everyone else wanted to go early too so they could get to bed at a decent time. We were actually able to snag a table at the bar and only waited about 20 minutes. We had an amazing meal that was so good. After dinner, we walked back to the hotel. We got all of our gear organized and set out. We were feeling a little nervous, but mainly excited. We were asleep by 10:00.

Our alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. It was very easy to get up because we were so excited. We got ready and headed to the race. We had to walk about 5 blocks to get to the race. We could not believe the amount of people that were there. It was just unlike any race we had ever been at. We quickly realized that in our haste that morning we had forgotten a couple of important things, but there was nothing we could do. Joey, Dawson, Ashlyn, Bryan, Ella, and Steven met us a couple of minutes before we had to go to our corral. They got up so early to make it up there before the race. It was so nice of them to come support us. I know it meant a lot to both of us. Bryan and Joey have been so supportive in our running. We literally could not have done it without their help and support. It was nice because they took our bags and we didn't have to bother with gear check. Katy and I then made our way to our corral which involved moving through a gigantic mob of people. We can now say we know what cattle feel like. We had to wait about 20 minutes from when the race officially started to actually get to the start line. Being at the starting line was so exciting.

The race itself could not have gone any better. We got to race through most of downtown Denver. It was the neatest route. Since it was a Rock and Roll marathon, there were bands performing every mile or so. The first few miles, we took it slow and didn't listen to music and just talked. We then decided that we wanted to speed up a bit. At mile 4 or so we cranked up our music and really started to run faster. The miles went by very quickly. I never once got bored or had a feeling like it was getting hard. I just got into my music and focused on running. There were lots of spectators and we were entertained by all of the signs people were holding up. There were funny ones, inspirational ones (my favorite was "Pain is temporary, pride lasts a lifetime), and even sweet ones (a guy was holding a sign proposing to his girlfriend). Around mile 10 I knew that I was going to do this! We decided to really run fast around mile 12 and sprinted towards the finish line. There were so many people around the finish line and crossing that line was the best feeling in the world! After we crossed, we got our medals and grabbed some food and water. We quickly found our family and were able to reunite with them. We finished in 2:14. Our goal was 2:30, so we were very happy with our time. We probably could have done a little faster, but we wanted to focus on finishing and not speed for our first one. We didn't walk one single time and that is quite an accomplishment since we saw A LOT of people walking. We felt amazing all day Sunday. Talk about the ultimate runner's high. Katy and I are already addicted to half marathons and can not wait to do our next one! We just have to decide which one we want to do. Here are some pictures. I wrote a lot, but I really wanted to be able to come back and read this and remember exactly what it was like.