First Half Marathon

It seemed somewhat fitting to be running my first half marathon in the running capitol of the USA just short of one year after Lily was born and during our last month or two here. It was amazing with 8000 runners and walkers and many, many more cheering us on along the side of the roads with their guitars, drums, car stereos, and some even with their industrial size sound systems. There was even one young man with his 80's mustache holding a tray of eclairs with a sign that said 'Free Eclairs.' I did pass them up, it just didn't seem right at mile 8. Colin and Lily dropped me off at 6:15 a.m. so I could walk to the start. They met me at mile 2, 8 and at the finish-line. It was amazing how many friends came out to cheer me along and Mike, Rosie, Katie, Geoff and Harper met us at the finish line. My goal was to run in under 2 hours and I succeeded by running 13.1 miles in 1 hour and 54 minutes. I felt great the entire time and it was a beautiful day with clear blue skies and a balmy 35 degrees to start the race out, though the day did make it to 70 degrees.
It was funny because the night before Colin and I were recalling how last year we walked from spot to spot to watch our friend Brian run; Colin said it took us forever to walk because he had to roll me up the hills. This year he was rolling Lily in the stroller up the hills as I completed this race for myself. In all of my hours of running I have thought much about all of our adventures out west, the friends we have made, the new discovers we have made both about ourselves and the land. Many firsts have occurred here. I am saddened to be leaving such an amazing place, a place with people that join you at 7 am on a Sunday with their guitar to sing you a song as you run by smiling. I am saddened to be leaving our family of friends that are irreplaceable. I pray that the day never comes that I call anyone of them and they don't pick up the phone because 'it has been too long and the conversation will take too long.'
However after hours and hours of pondering this big decision to move I know we have made the right one. The days that I may waver a bit in our decision something overtly obvious reminds me why we have chosen to move back east. I embrace this next adventure that awaits us. I am excited for what is to come: the opportunity to have dinner with our parents and siblings on the fly, to sit on the dock at our cottage for hours on end and not worry about the next person we need to go visit, and most importantly to share this amazing little girl with her family.

Ana is a close friend from work and she also ran the half. Jeff her husband, Colin and Lily watched the race together.

A couple pictures to make your heart melt

Watching the birds fly by overhead while performing the hand motions to 'Patty Cake, Patty Cake.' (well sort of, she is still working on roll it; instead she does a Karate Kid version of hand movements for this part.)

Talking to the dog, birds, trees and flowers

Easter Weekend

We had a great and very busy Easter weekend. It was Colin's birthday and Earth Day. On Easter we went to church, I ran and made lemon meringue pie for Easter dinner (just like my grandma used to make for me- the entire time I thanked grandma for her endless hours in the kitchen making lemon meringue for me - like every child I was clueless as to the time that went in to the meringue she made to selflessly.), we went to the Davis' for a big dinner and Colin finished working on our bikes. We couldn't help but get Easter pictures of Lily in her dress by the tulips, we would have gotten more but it was raining and then she fell in the mud- so sad.

w
Saturday for Colin's birthday pre-funk we headed up to King Estates for a 5k to prepare us for next weekend's half marathon. It was so beautiful to run through the vineyard. The run kicked all of our tails as it was over bumpy terrain and up lots of hills.

I pushed Lilly in the stroller and she was a trooper. She loved every second of the bumps- talking the whole time to hear her voice make all of the funny sounds. Every time she saw Colin she would point and yell "Dada!" It made our day.

For Earth Day (well the day after) we spent the morning in the sunshine, Lillian admiring the trees, talking to the birds and animals and us fixing our bikes to get them ready to ride this spring.

Look whose hair is long enough for a barrette now.

Bust a move!

Click on the link below to see Harper and Lily bust a move. You can tell she has her mama's dancin' gene- quite clearly a Nye.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGwaXcEOYOQ

11 months old

We officially have an 11 month old. All of the feelings of where we were last year, how far we have come, how much she has grown fill my head every day. We drove back from Seattle on her birthday and she did amazing considering our trip to Portland the weekend before and our trip up to Seattle were mini nightmares for all members of the family. We once again concluded that there is NO WAY we will be able to make the move to MI via a family road trip. Instead Lily and I will be flying and Colin will be moving everything.

Lily continues to excel with all of her fine motor activities - picking small items up, feeding herself, helping to dress herself, even zipping and unzipping mom and dad's coat occasionally. She is also a talker - non-stop. She is developing new words every day and making words of her own up and looking at us with such intent and directive when she tells us something as if we are supposed to know what she is saying. This week she has come down with a miserable cold - lots of crying and 2 nights of NO sleeping. Last night she was crying so hard because she did not want to be changed and when I was finished and finally picked her up she actually yelled at me with words I could not understand. It was funny and sad at the same time. Also odd because we do not yell at our house. She is starting to get up on her knees when crawling but never actually moving on her knees while crawling. She just this weekend started to cruise (walk herself along furniture) between furniture which is a huge milestone.
Everyday we feel more love and joy with this girl, even through the sleepless nights.

A few busy weeks

We have a had a few busy weeks full of fun trying to squeeze every last droplet out of the northwest before we make our way back Michigan this summer. Last weekend we went to Seattle, walked the University of Washington campus to see the beautiful cherry blossoms, we spent great quality time with friends playing, eating, talking and laughing. We could not help ourselves from taking an abundance of pictures of Lillian with the trees.

We walked many parks and sat by the water. This is Dahlia, Whitney and Nathan's 15 month old. Lily loved being with Dahlia, she followed her around the entire weekend and loved playing with her toys. We also got to meet Kasen, Krista and Eric's 3.5mo old son. Sadly we didn't get any group kid pictures but Lily loved watching him and talking with him, he is a big talker so Lily had a little competition.

The group left to right: Tiffany, Brian, Julie, Lily, Colin, Krista, Kasen (3 months), Eric, Whitney, Nathan, Dahlia. All friends and their partners from P.T. school.

Lillian ate her first mouth full of sand. It was great, we set her outside of the canoe and she crawled inside immediately and took a BIG lick of the seat -sand and all. Here we come Big Bradford Lake, Lillian is ready for her weekends at the cottage in Michigan.

The last week or two have been rough because she cut through 3 more teeth. We are at a total of 8 and I can see a molar starting -eek.

Harper was over a few weeks ago and Colin played for the kids. They loved every second of it and they both crawled over immediately to play the guitar themselves.