Yep...Six Flags, again!

To celebrate our last week of summer and Brad's long weekend...we headed to, yep...Six Flags. Before we went into the amusement park we drove through the Six Flags Safari adjacent to the park. It was pretty cool to have a 2,500 pound Bison standing 6 inches from our car.
We had to wait on this friendly giraffe who wandered from car to car looking down into the windows. We even had a hungry Ostrich pecking at our car windows...that was actually a little scary. It was like going to an air conditioned zoo in thirty minutes, without any hassle, good background music, and lots of animals to see!
The goal of this trip, in Baileigh's mind, was to go on Rolling Thunder and Skull Mountain. These are the two roller coasters that we realized on our last visit she is tall enough to ride. On the walk to those two coasters we had to appease her sisters with some "smaller" rides according to Baileigh...she still finds these fun but a little less exciting.
This isn't either of the two coasters we were on a mission to ride, but this is the biggest roller coaster that Mckenna can ride. Baileigh picked to sit in the back, by herself!
Last time we were at Six Flags we also discovered an area that had a water play area for little kids. This time we brought the girls suits and spent our last hour at the park letting them get soaked. The loved it. Mckenna's favorite thing was to stand under this bucket that would dump out a ton of water...it was seriously enough water pressure that several kids were loosing their bathing suits! It was hysterical to watch.

Brooke was a little overwhelmed at the water park. I think the major problem was the fact that it was already an hour past her nap time and she was getting tired and cranky.

The weather was warm but overcast so it was really pleasant. Despite the fact that we've been to the park several times this summer, we had a great time adding the safari and water park area to our day.

Sugar Free

Tonight, as I graze on a few Dunkin Donuts, I am hours away from my sugar free challenge. I decided to give up sugar September 1st until my husband's birthday at the end of the month. Oh, and diet cokes and coffee!

I'm going to be a lot of fun this week!

As diligent as I'm going to be, I'll allow myself to eat whole wheat bread and have natural sugars in fruits, etc. I'm cutting out the obvious processed sugar things as well as the sodas and lattes.

I'm going to use my blog as accountability. The last time I threw out the idea of challenging myself I ended up doing 5 triathlons! So I'm hoping this has a similar effect. I'm hoping the byproduct is that I feel good...after the withdrawal and detox and maybe loose a few pounds.

Now, back to my final indulgence...a chocolate frosting filled powdered donut!

Pretty Ironic

Last night my husband played poker with the 15 guys from his graduate class. This seems to be a monthly social night. Around midnight, on his drive home, my husband was pulled over on suspicion of a DUI. My husband doesn't drink. He was the only guy at poker night that wasn't drinking. In fact, about 4 or 5 guys were spending the night at the hosts house since they were excessively drinking.

So why was my husband pulled over? Apparently because he was going too slow and driving on the white line by the shoulder. I'm LOL right now because these are two things I'm always nagging him about. I LOVE that he was pulled over for the same complaints! I guess anyone going 30ish mph in a 35mph zone looks like their over compensating for something. I guess I'll work hard to stop nagging...maybe now I can just make sarcastic comments like "I hope we don't get pulled over!"

I'm embarrassed for her!

Recently an AF cadet was on the Wheel of Fortune. I feel so badly for this girl...she'll never live this down! It's tough enough being a female at the Academy, but with this on national TV. Good luck! (Pause my playlist on the right hand side to listen to this clip).

Not sure what this says about the AFA education. At least she can guarantee that she'll get a lot of emails inviting her to parties at "Ekclusive Nightclubs".

Why I'm Cranky

My girls usually all sleep through the night.

This was last night:

I went to bed at 11:30.

2:00 Mckenna is crying. She wet the bed. A rarity. Back to bed at 2:20 after I strip the bed, wash her down, change her clothes and put her in the other twin bed in her room.

2:40 I'm almost asleep. Baileigh starts calling me. She had a bad dream. I think this is a first. She wants me to stay with her for awhile.

3:00 Brooke starts crying. I wait. The crying isn't going to stop. I'm still with Baileigh so I leave her room to go to Brooke's room.

3:10 I put Brooke back in her crib. Not sure the issue but after a few minutes of rocking she is settled. Or so I think.

3:40 Brooke again. This time I run downstairs first and grab a milk cup. I'm not sure what her issue is so I try a clean diaper, mylicon, and gel on her teeth since she has some new molars. I figure one of those may help.

4:00 I flop back in bed.

4:01 I burnt my boobs. I actually did this 2 days ago at the beach...but for whatever reason they are killing as I lay in bed. Apparently my suit was about a half inch lower in the front then normal and I have a small bright red stripe of sunburn. I stumble out of bed and fumble around our bathroom cabinets with some dim light from the closet in search of aloe.

4:05 Back to bed with some relief.

4:20 I think I just fell asleep. "MOMMY". Mckenna. She woke up to pee this time but was a little disoriented because she wasn't sleeping in her normal bed anymore...I moved her after the bed wetting.

4:27 PLEASE, GOD...LET ME GO TO SLEEP. Why can 3 girls who normally sleep 12 hours without waking all decide on the same night to wake up several times!

5:55 God listened, I guess I didn't specify how long I wanted to sleep. Brooke is screaming. Back to her room. Hope she isn't getting sick.

6:09 I wake up asleep in her rocker. She is asleep in my arms.

6:10 I think obscenities as I walk back to my bedroom when I notice the sun is rising.

6:11 I collapse in bed. I realize that even if I fall quickly asleep, Brad's 2 alarms are going to go off in about 40 minutes. I turn my alarm off. I must have been tired...I don't remember his alarms.

7:00 I feel Brad give me a kiss good-bye. I groan and mumble about it being a long night. "Why? What happened?" I want to hit him but I'm too tired to lift my arms. Men.

8:15 Mckenna is at my bedside trying to wake me up with her stinky breath . She crawls in bed and watches cartoons while I manage about twenty more minutes of restless sleep.

8:52 Coffee. Not really helping.

8:54 Throw a load of pee soaked bedding in the washer.

9:39 Blogging about my night while I drink my coffee and wait for the washer. Brooke is still sleeping. I'm jealous. If she isn't sick we're going to the gym this morning. I need something to help me wake up!

For Your Listening Pleasure

I decided to add a playlist to my blog. I've been debating for awhile whether or not I enjoy this feature on other blogs. It usually depends on the music. The other morning I found myself cleaning up the kitchen while listening to someones playlist that I enjoyed and decided to give it a try.

Ocean City

Yesterday we drove down to Ocean City to meet up with my friend and her kids. We spent a day at the beach with them earlier this summer and Baileigh has been talking about wanting to use her boogie board ever since!

Since this is our last week before school begins we squeezed one more fun beach day into our calendar. The weather was beautiful, right around eighty and the tide was out so the water was perfect for the little kids.

Mckenna and her friend Allison, working on a castle.
I was so proud of Mckenna for braving the water. She is a little more timid in the ocean then Baileigh. But she got her board and decided to test the water. She started very shallow but eventually got up the nerve to venture out a little deeper. Occasionally I would loose her visually but I was able to spot her within seconds because I could hear her screaming with excitement amongst the 100 other people in the water!
The girls laid on their boards and talked for the longest time. This must be a gene females are born with.I forgot Brooke's bathing suit...so she liked pretty PWT in her swim diaper and t-shirt. It didn't stop her from having fun, though. In fact, she discovered some holes in the sand dug earlier by other kids and decided it would be a lot of fun to roll around in them. My friend said she looked like a piece of shake -n-back. She had sand EVERYWHERE!
Just chillin in her sand seat.
Brooke kept informing us she was covered in sand. She seemed a little aggitated by it...but would then go roll around some more in the hole. I tried to keep her clean for about the first 30 minute and then gave up. I knew it was time to head home when she started sucking her sand covered thumb and wanted to cuddle. Yuck!

WIERD!

Seconds after my previous post I went back to my layout page to try one more thing...and guess what?! Yep, suddenly there was a box saying "add page element". For over a week I've been trying to figure out the problem. One post about the issue and it is resolved. If it happens again I still don't know how to fix it...but until that is the situation I'll just be thankful.

Now if I could just get my video to upload through blogger like it should!

PO'ed at Blogger

I have a problem with my blog. Finding an answer via blogger is impossible. I've been looking all morning and I'm fed up.

I'm trying to add a link on the right hand side of my blog...easy enough these days. Go under layout and the rest should be easy...however I have a small "error on page" message on the bottom left hand side of the page and there isn't an option along the right hand side to add any new page elements. I can view the current elements I have such as flickr, links, etc and make changes...I even deleted an element thinking that possibly the option for a new one would then exists but it didn't work.

Any suggestions? It's been like this for a few weeks and I'm pretty certain the error message is preventing the ability to add new page elements.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

It Wasn't Pretty...But I Did It!

I'm about 9 hours post race finish time now and starting to feel every muscle! I did it though! It wasn't pretty...but it's done.

I drove down late afternoon yesterday and checked in and looked around. I picked up some pasta for dinner and headed to my hotel. I can't remember the last time I stayed alone at a hotel. It was really kind of fun! I ate dinner, watched some TV, got organized, took some Tylenol PM, did some reading and caught some ZZZ's.

Race morning was overcast and warm. I got to the race sight and headed to the body markings. Triathlons are one of the few places were it's encouraged and fashionable to advertise your age.

I set up my transition area, drank some water and had a power bar. I was feeling a little anxious but not bad. The swim was beautiful. We entered the water off a boat dock...cannon ball, thank you! The water was 81 degrees so it was illegal to wear a wetsuit according to USAT rules. I was surprised at this news, I thought the water was going to be cooler! I made a quick switch to my game plan and put the wetsuit away.
There weren't many women in this tri...102. I was trying to stay focused but I was continually distracted by all the elite looking athletes and expensive bikes. I noticed several people with the I-Man tattoo...a status symbol saying you completed an Ironman! I was feeling out of my league! They were using this Olympic distance as a practice day for their bigger races! Nice. The swim went well. The water felt good and I eventually was able to relax my rhythm and only breathe every other stroke. The fingers on my right hand were starting to feel numb near the end but didn't last long after I got out of the water. I finished the 1.5K swim in 37:27:00. I was guesstimating somewhere near 30-35 minutes so I was fairly close.

I transitioned to the bike without any problems and headed out. The bike SUCKED! Truthfully, it was a beautiful ride, but hill after hill after hill. Somehow the course defied the laws of gravity and this course was uphill the entire way...or so it seemed. At one point I went from 37mph down a big hill to 6.5mph uphill within about 15 seconds. I tried to spin down every descent instead of resting but it didn't seem to get me much farther up the next hill. I averaged about 15.1mph on the bike which is slower then my usual of 16.5 but not too far off considering the elevation. I finished at 1:39:30 on the bike...I was hoping to be closer to 1.5 hours but the hills kicked my butt. Did I mention that they SUCKED!

I transitioned to the run and started my weakest part of the race. The run wasn't a lot better then the bike. It was a 10k course that was simply 3.1 miles out (and uphill!) and 3.2 miles back on the shoulder of the road. I'm not fond of this type of run because it gets repetitious and you have to stay to the far right on the shoulder for the runners that are heading back in...usually the shoulder is slightly sloped for water run off, its subtle but you start to feel it when you're running. I was fine for the first mile. Mile two was primarily uphill and tough! I was a little depressed at the 3 mile marker knowing I wasn't done as usual but only half way there. I walked through the water stations to stay hydrated and take quick breathers. A big marathon running philosophy is to run 3 minutes, walk 1 minute, run 3, walk 1 etc. It's hard for me to transition to this type of thinking without feeling like I wasn't successful because I didn't run without stopping. But I cut myself some slack and tried the technique. My run time was my slowest yet, extremely slow...but I don't really think it had to do with the run/walk as much as my fatigue and toes. I started having some problems with my right foot. My toes initially felt numb, and then it felt like they were rubbing a blister on the front of my sock. I debated stopping and looking but decided it wouldn't help. Thankfully my toes weren't bad, a few hot spots but no major damage.
My 10K run was a pathetic 1:15:56...at least it leaves me a lot of room for improvement!

My final time was 3:38:26. I had hoped for 3 hrs and 3o minutes. I underestimated how hilly the course would be and how much it would slow me down.

I'm admittedly tired this evening. Much more sore then after the sprints! After reading this post you may wonder why people voluntarily subject themselves to triathlons. Because despite the pain, the cost, the work...it feels pretty frickin awesome after you cross the finish line!

Phillies Night

Brad got free tickets from the base for tonight's Phillies Game. I admit that I initially wasn't too thrilled...Brooke isn't at a great age for sitting through a game. But since the tickets were free and because Brad has a goal of trying to go to every MLB park in the US we decided to go early and watch batting practice, eat dinner and sit through a few innings. The girls all did great and had a fun time.

I tried to give Baseball 101 to Baileigh, much to the entertainment of the man in front of us. All the girls were excited to just sit and eat junk food. And eat they did, hot dogs, hot pretzels, french fries, cotton candy, and a lemon ice. IN 4 INNINGS! So much for the free game...$40 dollars later in junk food!

Less Than 48 Hours

The countdown has begun to my first Olympic Distance Triathlon. Hopefully by 11:30am on Sunday I'll be recovering. I haven't said much lately about this event because, truth be known...I'm pretty nervous!

I haven't been sure about my training plan so I've been fairly random in my swim, bike and run amounts based upon my educated guesses...and I think I've been on the conservative side in terms of the distances I've been doing. My pool closed on the 19th for renovations so I haven't been able to swim this week. I know I can do the distance, it's just that I'm worried my arms will feel heavy and tired since I didn't get some short swims in last week.

While I'm complaining I'll mention that I'm afraid of getting totally smoked on th bike due to the elevations...every other race has been "fast and flat" and this one has a lot of hills...A LOT! And then I'm supposed to be fresh enough to do a 10K when I can barely pull of a 10:00 minute mile pace on a 5K after a shorter swim and flat bike! Right! This race doesn't have a Sprint portion so it seems like it's attracting veterans to the sport since most first time racers don't start off with the Olympic distance. I'm probably in a handful of first timers meaning I'm assuming I'll be at the bottom of the pile in terms of times. I wish I didn't care, but I do. I sincerely have a goal of just wanting to do an Olympic and finish it, but these voices in my head keeping stressing me out about how slow I'll be! I know that the run will take me a little over an hour if things go well...6 miles and I'll probably run somewhere around an 11 minute mile pace after the swim and bike...so like I said, somewhere around 70 minutes if I can run the entire thing. I average 16 mph on the bike when it is flat. This course is 23.5 and hilly, so that should be 1.5 hours on a good day! The swim is a little over a mile and I'm thinking it will take me about 30 minutes. So if you do the math I'd be right around 3 hours if I had the race of my life and no transitions...assuming I'm tired and have some issues I'll be pleased if I'm done in around 3.5 hours. The Danskin will be a nice relaxing morning in comparison!

The weather is supposed to be hot and humid...that is the only good thing about the early start time! I'm registering on race day morning between 5:30-6:30AM! The race is about 1.5 hours away in North East, Maryland...that isn't just a general geographic location...that is the name of the town! It's in Elk Neck State Forest and the swim will be in part of the Chesapeake Bay. The water is supposed to be somewhere in the low seventies, so warm enough but cool enough to wear my wet suit which means more buoyancy and speed!

Due to the early start time I'm driving down to the race location on Saturday evening. Brad wants to come with the girls but I feel like it's really selfish of me...you heard how late they sleep...it's a rough morning to 2 times for 2 minute increments in three hours! It' hardest on Daddy...he never complains but I know it's a long morning for him and considering he is planning on running 20 miles on Sunday evening as part of his marathon training I know he would appreciate not being exhausted by lunch! So I have a reservation at a lovely one in a half star motel for myself. NICE. At least I'll be able to sleep in until 4:45!

Weekends like this make me really miss my triathlon girlfriends in Washington. I haven't found anyone out here willing to step up to the challenge. I hope at our next assignment I can find a group to do these events together with...right now I feel I'm challenging myself in another dimension by going solo. The worst thing is having too much alone time with my thoughts which allows more time for the negative self talk. I'll have to be sure to bring my MP3 and try to loose myself in some music.

The one good thing about Sunday is that it's helping me in my goal to do as many races in as many states and countries as possible...this will be my 4th triathlon in 3 states, so I'm off to a good start!

Savoring The Moment

9:28 a.m.

A new record.

All 3 girls are still sleeping! And we have no where to go!

They didn't even have a late night...asleep by 8:45pm.

Thank you, Lord!

I learned what wakes them up...I sat down with a book at 9:30 and read the first paragraph and suddenly everyone was awake!

Officially Four!

Today it is official..my middle child is four! It sounds strange to say I my kids are 5, 4, and 1! That won't last long as Baileigh turns 6 in November.

We woke Mckenna up by singing Happy Birthday to her and letting her open a present...some "sparkly shoes" she had been asking for from Target. She went to church sporting the official Hall Family Birthday Hat...a tradition to be worn by any family member on their special day!
After church we went to Bertucci's at Mckenna's request because she likes the fact that they give the kids pizza dough to play with while you wait for the food and ice cream cups for dessert. This time she was also surprised with a piece of chocolate cake!
After church we opened a few more presents including some dress up clothes and a new game! It's a gray and rainy day so we're just relaxing around the house and playing a lot of Hungry Hippo and watching movies! The birthday girl seems to be enjoying the family time and taking advantage of the rain to watch more cartoons then normal!
For dinner Mckenna selected "breakfast"...always a favorite with her. She ate 5 blueberry pancakes topped with whipped cream!

Dinner...for 50!

Yesterday we had Brad's grad class over and their families for an "End of the Summer/Back to School BBQ". There were 13 couples and over 25 kids! Thankfully the weather was beautiful (finally no humidity!) and we stayed outside and took advantage of our large deck and yard. Everyone brought their own meat to grill and a side to share. Other then cleaning up the house, there wasn't much to do in preparation! Who would have guessed I put more work into a birthday party for 6 little girls instead of dinner for over fifty!

Check out the 3 month old twin girls in the Bumbo seats on the table...too funny!
Of course we broke out the giant water slide! I think we officially feel like we have got our monies worth out of it after today.
We also set up a borrowed bouncy thing on loan from a friend. The boys were a little rough in it...I'm just glad it was still standing when the party was over since it isn't ours!

Only Myself To Blame

I confess that I haven't been party to the High School Musical Hype. I've seen the propaganda all over the stores...but my girls are young enough that they haven't shown interest.

In anticipation of this evenings premiere of High School Musical Two I started asking around to learn more. Baileigh has a few friends here that are 7 and 9 and they are obsessed with the movie...even having viewing parties tonight to watch as a group. We borrowed a copy of the original movie and watched it together yesterday.

I don't really have any objections. It's Saved By The Bell...2007 and more music! It's Grease, modernized. My main thought though...this is perfect, if they were 10! The girls liked the dancing and music, but I could tell they would have been mutually excited to be watching Cinderella III. I kept wondering why I was initiating exposing them to things like this when it is inevitably our future and I should maximize our princess and cartoon years while they last. They'll be gone before I know it! Baileigh was full of questions that I really didn't want to answer, yet. I know a lot of the comments went over her head, but there were a lot of things that she processed enough to wonder about and inquire about. She is already starting to show an innocent interest in boys...I DON'T want to encourage it at all and I think I'm definitly doing that with this movie. She watched Max and Ruby this morning without complaints! No boys. No kissing. Just animated rabbits wearing clothes for some reason and living in a house without any parents! Now that is entertainment!

I don't know what the reviews will be of this follow up...I personally was a little disappointed. The inherent risk of a sequel I suppose.

I recorded tonight's premiere since we had a late night yesterday at the baseball game, but I'm hoping that tomorrow Baileigh forgets about it. The power went out a few times due to storms while I was recording...so maybe I can blame it on the weather! I'm responsible for being in this situation...I told her about it and suggested we watch it. Again, so many of my friends and their kids think it's great and I'm not objecting...I'm just not anxious to have my girls grow up any faster!

Happy Birthday - Hawaiian Style

Mckenna's birthday is on the 19th, but we celebrated early with a backyard luau! I was thinking about the fact that Mckenna was born in NJ, celebrated her first birthday in Oklahoma, sang happy birthday in Washington for her second year, her third birthday was a party on the road while visiting Michigan during Daddy's deployment, and her fourth year of life is marked with a party back on the east coast where it all began. I wonder where she'll turn five? I don't even know if it will be in this country!

The theme came based on Mckenna's request to have friends over to play on the water slide for her birthday!

Three of the girls we invited couldn't attend, but it ended up working out great having a smaller group...the slide can't accommodate too many more then we had.
Baileigh's present to Mckenna was a big hit with all the girls...it's a doll with hair you can style.

Mckenna asked that I make her a hula girl for her luau...I guess I watch too much Ace of Cakes and thought that I was capable of similar results. She turned out okay, but I learned some things, like the fact that I can't make a flower and I should color my frosting with special pastes and not liquid food coloring! She tasted good though and the girls liked the brown sugar for sand.

Camden Riversharks

Last night we went with 8 other families from our mini-church to a watch a Camden Riversharks minor league baseball game. If you know anything of Camden's reputation it is currently the murder capitol of the US! Nice. However there is a small area along the waterfront that they've attempted to clean up...this is where the aquarium is that we frequent as well as the Rivershark's stadium, Campbell Field...as in Campbell's soup which is headquartered in Camden.

The stadium is situated at the base of the Ben Franklin Bridge which takes you from NJ into Philadelphia. It's actually a really pretty setting with a nice view of the city. The girls enjoyed the game...well maybe not the actual game but the fact that they were seated amongst 8 other little girls from our church group. I'm not sure how much of the game they really saw...but I know they enjoyed the food and all the music and dancing!

Brooke seemed a little overwhelmed by all the noise and lights at first...but eventually she calmed down and started to enjoy the music and clapping. She may look more like me, but she is becoming quite the Daddy's girl!
We had a great time. All 3 girls stayed awake on the ride home but were asleep within seconds of their heads hitting their pillows!

Craving a Schedule!

Nana headed home today. Baileigh has been moping around all day and frequently crying. This is the worst part of not living near family. The good-bye's.
It was great to have Nana visit and we appreciate her keeping the girls while we went to Denver. We've had company in the house since July 24th...as much as we enjoyed her visit and seeing our extended family prior to that, I'm looking forward to school starting and getting back to a schedule. We moved mid April and for the past 4 months we've really just been floating from one short term schedule to the next depending on circumstances...I can't wait for something more consistent!

The Mile High City

We're home from our whirlwind trip to Denver. We had a blast!

Friday I flew alone to Denver to meet up with my great friend, Sherri. We treated ourselves to a mani/pedi, had a nice lunch, did a little shopping, and enjoyed some crepes for a late afternoon treat! She dropped me off at my hotel and I rendezvoused with Brad who had flown in from St. Louis where he had been for the week with work. We cleaned up and headed to the rehearsal dinner.

This weekend was a reunion as much as it was a wedding. We got to see our very special friend, Joy...she is the one who introduced me to Brad.

It was a beautiful evening and the dinner was on a roof top patio in the city that had a great view of the city and mountain range.

Saturday morning we walked a few blocks to a great breakfast place and probably ate our days worth of calories in one meal. Afterwards we put the top down on our rented convertible and drove to Elitch Gardens to ride a few roller coasters. Elitch Gardens is a Six Flags park and so admissions and parking were free since we have season passes. We spent less then two hours there...but road all the big coasters.

On a whim we decided to take advantage of the convertible and the beautiful weather and drove about 45 minutes up to Bolder for lunch.

We drove around the University of Colorado campus. School starts soon so there were already a lot of kids moving in. Old couches on the front lawn. Run down Frat houses. Beautiful sorority homes. Bikes everywhere. Flyer's everywhere. I felt old.
After a leisurely lunch we drove back to Denver. The combination of the high altitude, clear skies, and roof down led to a sunburn for both of us! Oops.
We were headed back to the hotel to relax when we decided we would check movie times at the theater down the street. Bourne Ultimatum was starting in five minutes so it worked out perfectly! The cold movie theater felt great since we were starting to feel our sunburns.

It was finally time for the Saturday evening wedding. Brad's friend that he played football with at the Academy was getting married. It was a reunion of the "4 B's"...Bret, Beau, Brandon and Brad...they all played football together and the nickname came for obvious reasons. They've all managed to participate in each others weddings...which is pretty amazing for Brad alone who has been gone so much over the years...can't believe he was around for each wedding.

All the B's are now married. Brad was the first so I was solo for awhile...it's nice to now have some girls around when we get together. Dianna and Bret, The bride and groom Allison and Beau, Brandon and Angie, and us.

We had a great weekend. It's always fun to get dressed up and have a night without the kids. We rarely get the chance to do that anymore. Sunday morning we didn't have to check out until 11:00 to head to the airport...so we slept in and then went for a run. It was a lot of fun to run downtown. We found a river with a beautiful city park pathway that ran along it and went under a lot of bridges. I only did a 5K but Brad ran about 8 miles. I started to feel the high altitude after a few miles but it wasn't too bad.

The girls had a great time with Nana but were happy to see us...it's so great to return to all their hugs and kisses.