Happy Birthday to ME!

I had a great "birthday weekend" and partially a great birth"day". The part that wasn't great was working on U-Scan for 8 hours...need I say more? And the basement flooding because of all the rain and the sump pump (something they have in old houses to suck up the water if it rains)not being able to keep up with the water, and finding out that the dehumidifier in the basement hasn't been working for a LONG time (there were cob webs in it...). Luckily everything in the basement is raised up for just this type of thing...Well, everything except the load of towels I had Anika throw down to the bottom of the stairs when we were picking up as they were packing to go home (have I mentioned my sister and her family are back in America? And that they live in DC now? And that they came down for the weekend???!!!). I was going to put them in the washing machine when I got home from work...They were drenched! But other than those two things happening my birthday weekend was great! I have TONS of pictures but I am going to start with the ones from our "B-day 5k". Really we walked and jogged (I jogged 2 times for like 2 minutes) 3.4 miles (it was actually like 3.65 according to Allen's GPS) in honor of me tuning 34. I am so glad to be back to an even year! The odd's sound so much older to me. 30 and 32 were no problem but 31 and 33 seemed to sound so old. But any way. Tina, Anika, Ben, and I finished the whole thing together. Technically Ben won the race since he was being pushed in the stroller that crossed the finish line first. Aaron and Allen took turns hanging out with the boys who wimped out on us. :) Just kidding. But they did. Jake made it 3 loops (it took 5 loops in the neighborhood for the whole thing) and Sam and Saku make it 1 (but they started the weekend in a hotel room not sleeping much because Ben was getting over the croup and still had a cough. All 3 big boys also stayed up late every night and got up early every morning and played all day like boys do. I get tired just watching those 3 boys play together!) We had a great time! Thanks for coming and sharing my birthday weekend with me! And here are tons (seriously TONS) of pictures of our race:

Here we are making our t-shirts. Everyone except Aaron and Allen made them. They both had those special exercise shirts that wick away your sweat.


No that isn't a bald spot on my head, just a crazy part. I hadn't brushed my hair yet. This was like 6:45 in the morning!

Here is Ben in his shirt. He is going to be 18 months old next month and will be going to nursery at church on Sundays soon! He is always smiling his little grin. He doesn't like to cuddle but he tolerates all the hugs and kisses you give him with a smile and pushes you a way when he has had enough.

The Jakester:

Saku's (he was born in Finland and his name is this Finish version of Zachary. Saku is the nickname for it, kind of like Zack) in his race shirt. Saku turned 6 in March and is all boy. He though I was turning 15. What a sweet boy!

The back of my shirt:

The front of my shirt:

Tina's shirt (we looked at Allen's real 5k shirt and based ours loosely on it. That is where Tina got the idea for the long number. She had to put 600 in it because Jake put a 34 on one of his selves in honor of me and a 600 on the other. We asked him why the 600 and he didn't have a reason, so he convinced Aunt Tina to include it in her number so it could be in honor of her.

Anika is going to be so much taller than me! She is only 11 1/2! She brought some of her books for me to borrow since she knows I like kids books better than grown up! Thanks Anika I think I am going to start with "It's Raining Cupcakes"! The front of Anika's shirt:

And the back of Anika's shirt:

Sam in his shirt. He is 2 1/2 months younger than Jake and they are good buddies. He is always ready for a hug whenever you need one and loves to collect elephants.
Allen and the kiddos:

Me, Tina, and the kiddos:

Me and Tina. (I told you there are a lot of pictures...):

The Powell Family:

The Harmon Family:

At the starting line ready to go. Right after this picture the kids took off like little cheetahs and left me in the dust and as I ran my pants started to fall down (not all the way, just a little bit). They sprinted for maybe 100 yards.

The next couple are the beginning of lap 2.


Aaron ran a couple of laps (3, I think and then switched with Allen watching the boys)

Anika and me walking.

Tina and I walking. Don't let this picture fool you I wasn't leaving people in the dust.

Here we are almost at the finish line. Anika and I had a plot against Tina to act like we were going to just walk to the finish line, but at the last minute sprint and beat her, but we decided we would be nice and finish together. :) We only had that little plot because she was making us tired walking so fast. Girl power!

Crossing the finish line!

Our official Start/Finish line.

Ben was such a trooper. He sat in his stroller as happy as can be the whole time. The last few minutes he started to give up on us but we won him back over when Tina pulled out the goldfish. Good Job Ben!

Some post race pictures:



Allen ran the whole thing in a couple of parts (Daddy breaks) but crossed the finish line the wrong way. I don't know does that even count? Just kidding it totally counts in my B-day race! In an actual 5k they may disqualify you or something...