Norway

Tony and I were able to go to Norway together a couple of weeks ago. Tony has been several times for work, and this time I was able to join him. Our kids stayed with grandparents (and Beka), and we were able to enjoy 8 days of alone time together. It was awesome. And very strange, not having our children with us.

Tony had to work from 8:00 to 4:00 on monday, tuesday, and wednesday, and then half the day thursday, but we still had several full days that we got to spend together. When he was working, I spent the time shopping and visiting some museums that he had already been to. There were a couple of other women who were there with some of Tony's co-workers, and we hung out together during the day.

This is us at the airport outside of Oslo, waiting for the train to take us into the city. It was very cold.

We did a whole lot of walking around the city, visiting various squares, coffee shops, etc. We walked a lot, a lot, a lot. It was awesome. Mainly because we ate a lot too, and so everthing pretty much evened out.

The castle. Pretty cool.

On sunday afternoon we took the train outside the city and went hiking in the woods. It was very foggy, very cold, very wet.

We almost walked into this lake. Seriously.... very foggy.

Still some snow on the ground. Crazy.

I took a ton of selfies of the two of us. Tony hated it, but he was a good sport and halfway smiled for most of them.

The ice bar. Definitely the coolest place I have ever had a drink in.

 I thought this church was from the 1200's . It was actually just a replica. Buzzkill.

It's 11:00 pm right now. This is the view from the hotel balcony.

We finally found some Norwegian ice cream. It was awesome.

We were there during their National day. This is their palace.

I always have a difficult time capturing the moments that I want to remember on camera. I feel like my pictures never quite show what I want them to show. I am definitely not a natural photographer, and picture taking is somewhat of a burden to me. We did a whole lot that I never even thought to photograph. We came, we conquered, we went.

Oslo is a great city. It is definitely not as big as London, New York, Paris, Venice, etc... I really do feel like by the end of the week I had finally found my groove.

Anyways, by wednesday I was really missing my children. Like ache in my heart missing. I was definitely ready to come back, and I was so excited to finally see them again.

slacking

I've definitely been slacking on the ole blog. My bad.

Anyways, here are so pictures of......

Super Lanie, Super Li-Li (Elias), and Super Leah!

This one is definitely my favorite. It's just so realistic. 

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In your time of need, they show up!!!!

And this one is just funny.... and a little creepy. 

And this one is just cute. 

"working"

Elias loves taking Tony's tools and working on things. He will sit there and pretend to fix Leah's bike for at least 30 minutes. In toddler world, that's a long time.

not much

So not much is going on here. Days pass, weeks pass, and I don't know where time is going. I feel like it was just Christmas, and now we are halfway through March.

I have absolutely zero writing skills left. My sentences are short and fragmented.... sometimes I feel like my brain is barely functioning.

It has been ridiculously pretty lately, and we have played outside a lot. We love being outside.

So, here are some of the recent happenings:
- Elias is potty trained. It was pretty easy, and he's doing really well. The only problem is he takes off his clothes before going to the bathroom, and this can get pretty awkward at church and at the library.... you get the picture. Whatever. I'm proud of him.

- We have a dog now. His name is Lucky. We like him, but he is an escape artist. This is him, outside of our fence.

- Elana is a sweet, lovable, fiesty, crazy little toddler. It feels weird to not have a little baby anymore. But she is still clingy like a baby, so there's that.

- Leah is growing up more and more every day. It's fun to watch.

I love watching my children play together. I love watching them communicate in a way that is just their own.

People have told me that having them so close together will be awesome in a couple of years. Sometimes I get glimpses of that....

Some days they play together so ridiculously well, and they all get along and it just seems magical. Other days not so much.

Some days I think to myself "wow, this is getting a lot easier." Other days it seems like there is no end in sight.

So right now we are figuring out naps/bedtimes, playing a ton, reading a ton, doing lots of "activities", taking life one day at a time, and I'm trying to "live in the moment" (whatever the heck that means. Sometimes I think I just throw out random catch phrases cause that's what people say...)

Half-Marathon

So the other day I ran my first half-marathon. I say first, because I am pretty sure I will eventually do another one. Maybe when I can walk again.... But seriously, I'll probably do another one. Anyways, I ran one down in Albany with one of my friends from church, and it was definitely an experience. I'm not sure what adjective to use... it was grueling, that's for sure, but the sense of accomplishment was great.

For the record, I used to dislike runners. They really annoyed me, especially the female ones. I would see them running on the road, and I'd think to myself: "just look at her. Running. There is no way she is enjoying that." I never believed any of my friends when the told me that they "loved running". Nobody loves running. Running is stupid. Running is tiring. People just say they like it but no one actually does.

But, lo and behold, about 8 months ago I started running because my shoulder was hurting too much for me to do any other type of workout, and I actually enjoyed it. For the first time ever. Who knew? After I ran the 10k in September, I decided I wanted to challenge myself a little bit further. I really have nothing to do at home, and I have a ton of free time on my hands, so I figured, why not? (I'm kidding about the nothing to do and the free time. Finding the time to run was incredibly challenging, but Tony was incredibly supportive and helpful and the whole thing, and I managed to get in pretty much all of the mileage that I was supposed to.)

So the day of the race, it was colder than it had been all year. Seriously, it was ridiculously cold. It took me three miles for me to actually feel my toes again. Which was actually kind of nice, because after that  I only had 10 miles left... and 10 miles is just twice as much as 5, which is really just 2 miles more than 3.... So basically I was almost done. Yeah, not true.

Really, though, I was fine until about mile 8. After 8, I was like, yeah, it's been fun... but I could really just stop now. Miles 8-11 were definitely the worst. I can say that one of the best things about running in an actual race, though, is all the people who are there encouraging you. There were so many people on the side of the road cheering everyone on, and that is very helpful. Also, the gatorade and orange slices every 2 miles is great too.

So I finished the race in 2:07:29, which puts me at around a 9:40 minute mile... This was definitely better than I had hoped for. My goal was to be at a 10:00, so to get under that was awesome. I did make two huge mistakes. The first one is that my shoes were way way too old. I'm pretty sure that's why my knees and ankles hurt so much at the end. I should have bought new shoes months ago, but I never really thought about it until it was too late to break any new ones in.

My second mistake was that I started off a little bit too fast. By mile 11 I pretty much had nothing left. I got passed by soooooooo many people the last two miles. Tony took some wonderful pictures that show this older lady in red passing me at the last minute:



                           

This is us at the finish line. They gave me this silver tinfoil cape that I assumed was my superman cape, but was apparently a thermal blanket thingy to keep us warm. Like I said... it was freezing. I actually kept my gloves on the whole race, which is just crazy.

After the race we got a free beer (woo hoo!), some nutritious snacks, and I limped my way to the car, vowing to never ever run a full marathon. The first marathon runner finished 15 minutes after I did. As in, we all started at the same time, but he ran 26 miles to my 13. That's just crazy. Like a 5 ish minute mile pace for 26 miles.... Insane.

Anywho, the race is over, and I'm glad I did it.

Rain Rain, go away

So it has rained about 10 out of the last 14 days here.... maybe more. It's been ridiculous. Soooo... after a lot of this:

I finally let them go outside and just have at it.... So this is what happened: