Family Fun

That sums up what we've been up to lately! We took a week off from the "Planks and Fartleks" post marathon, and focused more on the "Family Fun" part.

Brian and I both felt that we recovered much quicker from the 26.2 this time than last time. By Wednesday he was back to riding his bike to/from work. I had a field trip w/Emma's class last Tuesday that I was a bit worried about as I was very sore the Monday after 26.2. We walked from Civic Park to Lesher Center, then up all those stairs. It was ok though, and the show was great! Friday was my first running attempt. I ran from Emma's school, up the hill on Treat to Cowell and home. Short, but steep, it felt ok.

Which brings me to the weekend. Saturday was the first day of the Special Invitation work for the memorial. This was exciting for Emma as this is the first year she's been an unbaptized publisher and able to really get what was going on. Of course, a morning of hard work is always wrapped up nicely at Sweet Affair w/ treats! Then we were off to Tilden. I hate to admit that we had never explored up there at all. It was such a beautiful day, and what a beautiful place! We walked through some pretty gardens, then set off through the woods with a map. We covered some pretty muddy, slick trails, and ended up lake side at Lake Anza. We made our way around the lake, and down a trail on the far end. There was a pretty neat waterfall back there that the kids loved seeing. Dark woods and wet ground make for great salamander hunting! They found more than a few, and got to experience the "losing of the tail" that they had heard so much about. We made our way the rest of the way around the lake, and back up another slippery trail to where we started. From there we hopped in the car and headed to the Steam Train, which we had heard whistling through the woods as we had been hiking. What a treat for the kids! They loved it.

From there we drove home, but turned on Grizzly Peak just to see what was on that road. We ended up finding Sibley Volcanic Park. Brian had known about it for a few years, but he says we were too out of shape to attempt walking it when he first read about it, and then he forgot about it. Well, the sun was setting, and it was getting pretty chilly, so we just looked at the staging area at some volcanic rock and info about the park, and promise the kids we would come back the next day.

Sunday is Brian's one on one service morning with Emma. Its their special time together and his time to help her progress in the ministry. She looks forward to her mornings with papa all week! We have afternoon meeting now, and after that we had a previous commitment that we went to. We managed to be back at Sibley by about 5:45 ish, and wow, what great timing!! We had enough time to see everything, and the lighting...wow the lighting!! WE were treated to the most amazing sunset ever! From the top of the volcano area you can see forever, past the Golden Gate Bridge, out to the ocean, all of San Fran, Marin headlands.....it was spectacular! Besides the amazing sunset, we saw lots of different types of lava flows, walked down into the center of a volcano, and saw areas where they are digging for fossils. The kids loved it! After the sun set, we had to pick up the pace to get back to the car as it got dark quickly and we had about a mile to go w/all 3 kids walking and tired at that point. We finished up in the dark, which the kids thought was neat, in that half scared, half having fun sort of way. They all slept well that night!
This week we have been settling into our 'summer running' routine, thanks to the time change and added day light in the evenings. It is a bit funny that our non training schedule involves more mid week running than our training schedule, but we have less long runs on the weekends, so it all evens out. Now that the Reservoir is open later, we were able to start back up there this week. What a brutal run that is! It had been nearly 3 months since we had run there, which us long enough to forget about the pain of the hills on the second lap. We run 2 laps on Monday and Friday, and 3 laps on Wednesday. Tues and Thurs we run a flat route from Brian's office on his lunch break. Every other weekend we will do a long run (anything over 13). On the in between weekends, we play it by ear. We may do a run, or we may do a hike, or we may not do anything, just depends on the kids and what we feel up to doing!

I had a very nice run this week with a friend on Tuesday. After dropping the girls off at school, I headed to her house. When I got out of the car I could already smell the sausage!! Her house smelled so good, that mix of sausage and coffee, so yummy! We had some oatmeal and coffee, then headed out w/the boys for a 4 mile run. She is a much stronger runner than me and smokes me on the hills, but seeing her way up ahead keeps me pushing to try to keep her w/in site. Half way we stopped at a park and the boys played for a while. We used to go there when we only had 1 child each for the play dates and it was funny to be there again all these years later with 2 kids each in school, and our 3rd growing into big boys already. Time has flown by! It's a treat to have a friend who's been around all those years and who also "gets" the whole running thing. It was a fun morning, and a nice break to the normal running routine.

Ok, so I think your up to date now on the past week and a half. I promise to be more regular about posting as I realize most of you dont' have time to sit and read these super long post!
I will be posting more pics from this weekends adventures on the picture site tonight.
Get out there and enjoy this sun!!