Summer of 2008 in Review

We had a very busy and very fun summer so I thought I would take a minute and reflect back on all of the fun that we had. It started with Memorial Day weekend which I spent in Las Vegas for my mom's 50th birthday. After a fog delay of 24 hours, I finally got to see my 3 sisters, my brother, my mom, and Mindy too! It was such a fun trip, although it was really short, but that just means, I need to go back! :)

The next weekend, we celebrated Chloe's 3rd birthday with a pasta feed and really fun birthday party with about 40 guests. We are lucky to have have such wonderful family and friends who always like to come have fun with us! The next day was the Deadwood Mickelson Marathon and 1/2 Marathon. Chris ran the Marathon with a great time of 3:36:55 while I ran the Half in 2:16:14, which was 13 minutes faster than the half marathon I had run last year. Caiden also participated in this race, running the 1K in 6 minutes and 32 seconds!

The next weekend was another race, this one was the local 4 mile race for our Community Center and Chris took 2nd place overall and I was 12th in the walking division, pushing the kiddos in the stroller. The rest of June was spent mostly swimming and playing in the sprinkler and also a fun visit from my Dad!

We spent July 4th weekend with the Erlenbusch Family visiting us from Billings and we had a GREAT time. We went to the fireworks show, the mile long parade, the carnival, the rodeo, and also watched Chris run the local 10K race in which he ran 4 minutes faster than the year before and was first in his age group. We also went to Storybook Island and had a really fun time there. We had a wonderful visit and we were sad to see them go. Another person we were sad to see go was Lauren as she moved back to Montana in July. Her old room seems way too big now with just the computer in there.

The big news of July was when Chris qualified for the Boston Marathon when he ran the Missoula Marathon in 3:09:41!! He didn't tell anyone that he was planning on attempting this feat so it was quite a surprise to us all and we were all so happy and proud of him! My friend, Lacey, and I threw a really fun surprise party for him and about 20 of our friends came to say congrats to him and he really had no clue about it until we got there. It was awesome!

A couple of weeks later, we were back in Montana, this time for my 10 year high school reunion. It was so much fun to see old friends and spend time catching up with them and my family. The kids had a blast playing with their Auntie Lauren and Auntie Kelly and playing on Pa's trampoline and swimming at Lake Como. Kelly came back with us to South Dakota and visited us for a week and so of course we had to go to Chuck E Cheese while she was here. I think she loves that place more than the kids do! It was really fun to see her a little longer!

The beginning of August brought a newspaper article about Chris qualifying for Boston so now he's a local celebrity! It was fun to see him in the paper for his hard work - you can read the article here:

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My favorite thing about August was running my 3rd 1/2 Marathon at the Leading Ladies Half Marathon down through Spearfish Canyon. I not only took 11 minutes off of my time at the Deadwood Half Marathon in June, but I took 25 minutes off of my time from the same race last year!! My time was 2:05:12, which was way faster than I ever thought I would be able to run and so fast in fact, that Chris and the kids missed me finish the race because I told them I would be there 5 or 10 minutes later than I actually was...Oops!

The rest of August was spent back at Storybook Island, school clothes and shoe shopping, more swimming, more running, and then today at the Waterslide Park to end our summer. Tomorrow brings September and time for the kids to start preschool, Caiden to start soccer, and of course the wonderful cooler temperatures which makes training for our races a lot easier!! It's only supposed to be 70 tomorrow and then 60 on Tuesday - that's a 40 degree drop in 4 days! :)

We already have some races for the fall too! I am running in a 10K race on September 21st, Chris is running a 10K trail race on September 27th, I am running another half marathon on October 4th, and then we have the Halloween and Thanksgiving Races to follow so our running is not over for the year! The kids are very excited to start preschool on Tuesday and Caiden can't wait to see what soccer is all about! So, here is a "good-bye" to our summer and a very happy "hello" to fall!!! I hope your summer is full of good memories and that your fall is very enjoyable!