San Diego/Mesa vamily vacation

Wow - what a trip! I look forward to this every year, as we have now made this a tradition. This was our 3rd and best year. We decided on 2 days of Legoland since we have already conquered San Diego's other great things like the Zoo, Sea World, etc. Makai's birthday is next week so we wanted this to be something he really remembered for his 5th birthday. And since Legos are his #1 favorite thing right now, he could not have had a better time.

Mitch's parents drove from Mesa and picked us up after 3 days of playing in San Diego. We drove 6 hours to Mesa and spent 2 days with them. We even got to see my Aunt Carol - she lives about 30 minutes from them.

Boy are we tired, but we had SUCH a great time!


Look what Makai built! ha ha








Giant pancake with Snickers candy bar in it from Hash House

You Westerners don't know how good you have it

Driving to Mesa - you can see the fence along the Mexican border in this little town

Swimming with PawPaw

Riding Jasmine's horse in their backyard

Making S'mores at a cool restaurant Aunt Carol took us to - my beautiful cousin Jasmine

Marathon play-by-play

I did it!!! It feels great! I reached my goal of completing it under 6 hours. 5:37.37 to be exact. Woo hoo!!

Mitch was so supportive. He ran this with me, but you would think he just took a stroll in the park or something, ha ha. He drove all the way home the same day, and has been taking care of the kids and let me sleep until 10:30am - I JUST woke up! He said I could go get a massage today too - he's the best. He was so supportive during the whole race. He was "coaching" me and telling me how good I was doing. I love that guy.

The only thing I wish I could do differently could not be controlled - and that was the bathroom stops. There were port-a-potties all along the way (at all the wrong times for me!) but waiting in line and taking care of business sure does add those unwanted minutes to your time. Oh well - I guess you gotta do what you gotta do in 6 hours! TMI? ha ha

I had "mini-goals" throughout the race that helped me mentally stay on task. The first one was obviously to finish under 6 hours. The next one was to do the first 2 sets of 5 miles in an hour each. So the first 5 I was right at 1 hour. Second 5 - right at 2 hours. I hit mile 15 right at 3 hours, so I added one more set of 5 to my goal of 1 hour each set! Then we hit the lake. Lake Hefner - in OKLAHOMA, mind you - wow. That wind is something else. It was almost funny - almost. Running south, into the wind, on a lake - I could barely stand up in some parts. So that's where I slowed down quite a bit.

And the last half was definitely harder than the first half, of course. I hit 13.1 at 2:37 feeling pretty good. But the last 6-8 miles were just brutal! Very hard, very, very windy. Everytime I would have to stop for a minute or two, it was excruciating to start running again. It was almost better not to stop, but my body had to have breaks very often toward the end.

At about mile 24, I realized that even if I walked...slowly...for the last 2 miles, I would still get there under 6 hours. But I still managed to do an ugly sort-of-running shuffle every 5 minutes so I didn't feel like I was quitting. We rounded the corner and into the shoot around 5:30-something and I decided to finish with every single thing I had left. So I sprinted. I'm sure that "sprint" was comical to anyone who might think that was a sprint, but to me, I was leaving smoke behind me, ha ha.

At the finish, Mitch scooped me up and hugged me and I had an emotional and physical release of everything I had just went through and the letdown of that last push. It was great!!

I can confidently say I will never do that again, but I am so glad I accomplished something so monumental before my 30th birthday. Now it's time to rest and get a massage and get ready for next week's vacation in San Diego!

Here are my averages, per my Garmin watch. I knew I would have to average 13-14 minute miles to reach my goal so I tried to stay close to that, speeding up when I had more energy, or running downhill to make up for times I knew I would need to rest.

Mile 1: 11.35
Mile 2: 12.12
Mile 3: 11.58
Mile 4: 11.59
Mile 5: 11.51
Mile 6: 11.42
Mile 7: 11.33
Mile 8: 11.25
Mile 9: 11.55
Mile 10: 11.40
Mile 11: 12.31
Mile 12: 11.44
Mile 13: 12.46
Mile 14: 11.29
Mile 15: 14.02 (This was the lake stretch with the wind)
Mile 16: 12.03
Mile 17: 11.42
Mile 18: 12.40
Mile 19: 12.38
Mile 20: 12.05
Mile 21: 13.13
Mile 22: 13.47
Mile 23: 13.45
Mile 24: 14.31
Mile 25: 12.48
Mile 26: 13.44
And 6 minutes for the last bit!

Before the race. With a Spongebob wristband from Makai. I look so hopeful and rested!

I only had my phone with me - the camera on it is not good. This is what it looks like before the sun comes up (I never knew). Standing in front of the beautiful OKC bombing Memorial just before it started - but of course you can't see.

I took this of myself with the camera phone at 13.1 - the half, while Mitch was talking to a fellow runner. Feeling *okay* at this point. It was SO humid - I was sweating at mile 5 unusually hard.

About mile 24 - the wind on this street was coming right at us, and was literally pushing me backwards at some times - I was ticked off!

Just after we finished - our friends took this pic.

The wind blowing my finisher shirt back at our friend's house.

Ready or not, marathon, here I come

Three more days until the big run! I must say, I'm a little nervous. I started my training very dedicated, doing every suggested run on the program I chose. But toward the end, I got sick of running, running, running for 18 weeks straight, so I have been slacking. I hope I've trained my body enough to get through this! Because I'm certain I will never done another one again.

My goal is to finish, #1. But my secondary goal is to do it under 6 hours, which, unless I WALK the entire time, should not be too hard. Well, yes, it will be hard, but I will be pretty disappointed in myself if I don't finish under 6 hours. At my slow 13ish-minute pace, that will be...carry the 1... hmmmmm...TOO stinking close! Cross your fingers for me that I get there - I don't think you get a finisher shirt unless you finish under 6!

Just for fun, I looked up some famous people who have run marathons and their times. You would be surprised! Some fit people take a long time and some unexpected people are crazy fast!

Meredith Baxter (Family Ties mom) 4:08 - Wow!
Will Ferrell: 3:56 - HOLY cow!
Mario Lopez: 5:41 (must have been flirting with the ladies a lot)
Freddie Prinze Jr: 5:50 - okay, I can hang with that
Oprah Winfrey: 4:29 - must've been skinny Oprah
Lance Armstrong: 2:47 - why did I even put this on here?
Ali Landry: 5:41
Katie Holmes: 5:30

Happy Easter

Praying for:
Jason
Lynn
Jill's mom
Our US troops

Thankful for:
My two beautiful children
My too-good-to-be-true husband
Good friends
His sacrifice
Family
Health

Spring Photo Shoot

I'll admit, I am not bragging on this one. It was colder than I expected. Malia had to wear Mitch's coat after her first few solo pics because her little lips were quivering. And me - well, it's obvious that the spray tan booth is working if you compare me to my vampire-like pale family.

Speaking of vampires, I was running around the outside track at our gym, listening to my new favorite thing, Twilight, on my Ipod (gotta love audiobooks when you're a busy mom). As cheesy as it sounds (more cheesy than listening to Twilight on an Ipod), I thought the track circled around a pretty wooded area, like Forks or the meadow in the book. So I drug my poor family here on a cold Spring day. Everyone was kind of grumpy by the end - not a particularly good photo shoot, but if you look at the cute kids in the images and not from a picky photographer's point of view, there are a few good pictures.

We usually do 2 photo shoots a year - Fall and Spring. I'm loving our last fall pictures so much anyway, it will be hard to top. But I love to take them two times a year because the kids grow so fast. Spring pictures are for Makai's birthday - these are his "almost-five-years-old" pictures. I can't believe it!



This is my favorite picture - almost of all time. I'm glad we did the photo shoot, just for this picture.

Follow up on racers hit by car last November

Some of you may remember me blogging about my first half marathon, the Dallas Running Club Half Marathon around White Rock Lake in November 2008. I didn't write on my blog about what happened just after we finished the race. Perhaps I was too stung and shocked. Although I did think about it - I felt like writing about it would somehow take away from the actual victims, and I was only a witness.

After we finished the race, my friend and I met with our waiting families and kids, ate some of the free food and stretched. When we finally thought we could hobble to our cars, we said goodbye and my friend went with her family and left. I was going to attempt to trade my race shirt for a different size, so I went to my car, grabbed the shirt and went to the shirt tent. No luck there.

As I walked back to my car, I heard "HELP!!!!! GET THE MEDIC!! THEY NEED AN AMBULANCE OVER HERE!!" People were VERY shaken up, sprinting past me back toward the race site for help. I had heard a weird scraping sound and thud and wondered if this was related to it. I walked just a few hundred feet over a short hill where I was heading to go back to my car and a fellow racer stopped me. "You don't want to look over there," he warned. Of course, I did. I have never seen anything so gruesome. People sprinkled all over the road and grass, like they fell right from the sky and died where they lay. Bent in the most awkward positions - I remember one person's position - looked like some sort of contortionist with their leg bent completely the wrong way.

I realized help was on it's way and there were too many people already there for me to be of any assistance, so I just went to my car, literally 25 feet away from these people moaning and bleeding on the ground and prayed. I've never prayed so forcefully and outloud like that. I was crying and shaking - and I felt silly yet helpless because I just could not help them and they NEEDED help. One lady even came up to me in my car and asked if I was okay because she saw how shaken up I was. She was a nurse. I asked if she thought they would be okay and she said, "That, I can't say - but I know the people helping her will do everything they can." I felt like I was watching a father die in front of me - a mother or a daughter - I didn't know, but only the worst situations were popping into my head.

One man, laying underneath the responsible car was literally covered in blood. I mean, his face was red, like someone poured 5 buckets of blood right on his head. He was literally under the car - only his legs were sticking out.

It was horrible!!!!

The first thing I did, I should mention, was run to my car and call my friend. I wasn't sure if she had actually made it to her car, even though she walked to a completely different place I was going, I was panicked to even think it could be her under that car. Her shoes - what color were her shoes?? I couldn't even concentrate I was so shaken up, but since all I could make out were legs and shoes because everyone was so unrecognizable, I tried to remember. I couldn't, so I called and left a frantic message on her voicemail. I was pretty sure it wasn't her - it wasn't. Of course, selfishly, I thought that could've been me. I couldn't get over how I was seconds from being under that car. Those people didn't do anything differently than I was doing, just crossing the street after their race to get to their car in the exact same place I was going 1 minute later. I was very shaken up, wondering if they lived, if they had families, and even if it were me, would I be as strong as I've learned they were and made it through.

I was happy to see the Dallas Morning News did a follow-up story on these wonderful survivors. It made the front page of yesterday's paper.

Read about it here, and thank God for their survival!

A few of our favorite things

So my friend's daughter just turned 3 and she wanted The Sound of Music birthday party, and it reminded me that we, too, have lots of "favorite things" in our family. It also reminded me that even 3 year-olds love and appreciate really, really old movies that are great.

So here's our list - and it's long. I'm sure we could add much more!

First off, gotta give props to our Homeboy. He's the bomb dot com.

I'll start my other favorites right under Jesus, since He is first, and He can undo all of my gluttony, vanity and addictions:

The two places I frequent. And when I say frequent - I seriously mean EVERY day.

My next favorites involve lots of food. No wonder I have cholesterol problems! I didn't realize how many really BAD favorite foods I have.
You all probably read about my first one. One a day keeps irregularity at bay. TMI? Those should be my initials. But then my name would have to be Tina Marie Istanbol or something. I'm just sayin'. You can take fiber pills, or you can take a few swigs of Diet Dr. Pepper. And since I'm not a coffee drinker, a mom's gotta get a pick-me-up sometimes too.

I am a HUGE breakfast fan. I have been known to peel out, huff and puff, and angrily say, "UGH - OKAY, thank you" in a McDonald's and Chick Fil A drive-thru when they tell me I missed the breakfast deadline. Like I said, Jesus covers me on this. Especially since I'm positive the Egg McMuffin and Chicken Minis were created from His very hands and sent from Heaven above.

When I miss my 10:30 cutoff, I settle for something a *little* more nutritious, as well as a pretty good combo with a DDP.

This is a family favorite (minus Mitch). We love to eat raw "butter" (batter). Ewe, I know. But this is the ultimate best kind.

Best smelling kids product ever - I will use this on them until they are 15 years old.

The next one is hard to share b/c I am still very devastated that this has been discontinued. I had to order 10 bottles off of Ebay and they have been sitting in my refrigerator for over a year. I don't want you people searching online and taking the remaining bottles in this world. They're mine - all mine people. The best moisturizer on the planet and it's under $5. I've been using it for over 10 years.

Speaking of beauty products, this is a new favorite of mine. I use to be a Oil of Olay loyalist, but this new product is really, really great. I love my moisture (see above) and Garnier Skin Renew Daily Moisture Lotion has lots of it, plus, it gets rid of nasty sunspots and has an SPF 28. I sound like a commercial, but my face seriously looks brighter when I use this!

Loving this distressed jean trend! A housewife's dream. I've been settling for workout attire all day, but now I get all fancy and dressed up in my ripped up jeans and v neck t-shirt. My favorites come from the Gap, in a "sunkissed wash" that is so vintage-y and comfy. I seriously have multiple pairs of holy jeans, and these t-shirts in every color. Also, summer scarves: the oxymoron I love now. Sometimes I wear the jeans, v neck and scarf all at once, if I'm really feeling saucy. You might be seeing me in this uniform for many years.

The cutest children's book every written. Not just for girls, Makai loves it too. The illustrations are even better than the story.

This one's a no-brainer. The whole family is still this movie's #1 fan. We go to Wizard of Oz plays, buy memoribilia, play dress-up, reinact scenes and sing songs - All. The. Time.

This one's just for my baby boy. His new attraction: everything Spongebob Squarepants and Legos. You can not say "Whooooo....." in this house without a joyful "...lives in a pineapple under the sea" to follow. So we bought this kit and he can put it together by himself, while quoting Spongebob episodes.

This one is JUST for Mitch. He hasn't seen this post yet, but I KNOW he will insist this one is included, if this is to be a list of family favorites (I can see him smiling right now). He thinks that Quik Trips (QTs) are the best thing in this world right now. He raves about them almost on a daily basis to me. He loves the management, the layout, the cleanliness, the "quickness" - everything. He even talks about buying one or learning how their training program works. Um, okay. I have cookie dough, he can have his gas station.

Mitch and my favorite American Idol season of all time is this year!

Extreme talent, great personalities and is it just me, or is this the most attractive bunch yet? The girls are gorgeous and the young men are all very handsome!
I don't think I could be rooting harder for 2 guys. THIS is the music I like - where are the Bryan McKnights of this generation??? RIGHT HERE! Vote for Danny Gokey and Matt Giraurd!!

And finally, a huge family favorite. We love the and CHANGE of the Obama administration. What a beautiful family with beautiful hope. Yes, that's right. I started my post with Jesus and ended with Obama. It's hard to be a Christian AND a Democrat (some say impossible), but I yam what I yam.