4th of July Weekend

Hello there and happy Monday! We had such a great and relaxing weekend and I loved every minute of it! I made it my goal to seriously stay home, chill, and relax this weekend and we did just that (well, mostly).

My "weekend" began at work with a luncheon on Friday. It was a luncheon to end the 3 week summer student program and those sweet students voted for me as their favorite hospital associate and the physician I work with as favorite doctor! My take on students is this - they don't have to be there but they want to be because they want to learn. Everyone was also a student at some point in time, so we should be nice to them and encourage them. Anyway, I was honored to say the least!

After the luncheon, we were closed for the remainder of the afternoon and got to go home! Score!

On Friday evening, I browsed through my Orangetheory days and realized that I had an extra one because I miscounted. I knew I couldn't let it go to waste, so I headed off to Orangetheory instead of running outside in the sweltering heat. More about my Saturday OT experience on Friday! :)

Jason had rehearsal for our Sunday church production and while he was gone, Brayden and I ate a few grapes and watched Meet the Robinson's. Brayden actually watched something other than Mickey Mouse or Puppy Dog Pals which blew my mind! It was truly a monumental occasion!

After enjoying a nap on Saturday afternoon (all of us), we spent the rest of the evening outside enjoying the water! My parent's bought this water pad for Brayden for his birthday and we just got around to filling it up with water!

For dinner on Saturday evening, we had our first Hello Fresh meal! More about this coming up in a future blog post (my thoughts on it all, etc).

On Saturday night, I also realized that I hadn't yet registered for the 4 mile race on the 4th of July and online registration closed that night. DONE!

Sunday morning was our patriotic service at church! I left with a full heart as we ended it with celebrating our veterans. A sweet and precious WWII veteran absolutely brought me to tears as he (along with all of our other veterans) reminded me of all they sacrificed so we can enjoy the freedoms we know today.

Afterwards, we had dinner on the grounds which was so much fun! We haven't had an after Sunday dinner at church in a LONG time!

This kid loves chips, y'all. Chips chips all day long.

After returning home, we watched the Astros game, hoping to catch a glimpse of our Florida friends who were there. (We didn't end up seeing them.) We also spent more time outside and enjoyed leftovers for dinner.

Mission accomplished - it was a truly enjoyable and relaxing weekend! I'm excited for a day off of work this week and am looking forward to spending more time with my sweet little guy! I hope you all had a great weekend, too!

Weekend Madness

So, I woke up this morning to the incredibly sad news that One Man's Dream is closing at HS in July (here). Say what?! I sure hope this isn't a permanent closure. I loved that they included a tribute to the man who made it all happen - it took a man to start it all, the mouse didn't create himself!

Now that I got that off my chest.......on to my weekend! :)

Yesterday, I shared about our 5K that was held this past weekend. Well, despite the craziness of Saturday morning, my weekend consisted of so much more!

I spent Friday night blowing up balloons for the 5K with a friend...thankfully, I was able to go to bed a little earlier than normal!

My 5K morning began at 4 a.m. We began setup around 5 a.m. and thankfully we had a ton of help!

After the race, we showered then drove to Texas with friends to meet up with my brother and his wife. We had two plans for the day: girls shopping and boys golfing!

We ended up in Katy, Texas at the outlet mall there. Our shopping trip was a success, too!

I've been eyeing  a Kate Spade bag in this color for a while now - I saw they had one, so I texted my husband and he said yes! 

I was an innocent bystander....I promise!

Melissa and Kayla also purchased shoes! It was a great day overall if I do say so myself! :)

Our mid-afternoon snack included pretzels from Wetzels. I had no idea that asking for an "Almond Pretzel with Caramel Dipping Sauce" actually meant pretzel bites in a bag. Oh well, it was delicious but definitely not what I wanted or asked for. The girl behind the counter argued with me, so I just let it go. (Great, now the song is stuck in my head....)

On a positive note, it was delicious!! I ate half and saved the rest for another day - and they rewarmed in the oven just right! :)

Oh Blue Bell. Come back to us, please....

While we shopped, the boys spent time at a Top Golf range in Katy. They had a blast and didn't stop talking about their experience the rest of the afternoon! 

We had dinner in Katy at the Cheesecake Factory and it was delicious! 

After dinner, Jason and I split a slice of Turtle Cheesecake!

Sunday was our patriotic service at church where we paid tribute to the men and women who helped pave our path for Freedom. We also celebrated our country's birthday - it was awesome!

Somewhere in all of that madness, I also spent time playing with my two favorite little girls! 

I didn't even have a chance to "run" on Saturday but managed 10,000 steps by 10 a.m.! At the end of the day, I was around 20,000 steps! Boy was I tired and definitely enjoyed a Sunday afternoon nap!

How was your weekend? Do you like to shop?

T.G.I.F. GT5K

This past Saturday, my church hosted their 3rd Annual 5K, benefiting local veterans. To date, we've built ramps at several Veterans homes and we've helped with funeral costs for a local Veteran in our community. So, when our pastor approached me about putting on another 5K (with me playing a bigger role on the committee), I agreed!

We made a few changes this year and I love how they turned out! For starters, the location of the race changed to the lake (which happens to be my favorite running spot in town). Only downfall, most all races that occur downtown have the same exact route. Second, all of our Veterans received a shirt in a completely different color from everyone else's - regular registration included a white shirt while Veterans included a red shirt. This really helped the Veterans stand out from the crowd. Another change was the inclusion of an official start and finish line. This one was probably my favorite - I love Americana and patriotism, so we used several American flags to serve as the "chute" for the finish line. We also included flags from each branch of the military in between.

I cannot say enough amazing things about these guys, our race committee! I loved working together to put on this awesome event! We had a great time (despite a few bumps in the road), but everything came together in the end and went off without a hitch!

I love having races at this location downtown because it includes a stage, complete with electricity!!

The theme for this race was "T.G.I.F" (Thank God I'm Free). We usually hold this race around the 4th of July and our Patriotic Sunday service, but I think everyone's convinced now that moving it to Veterans Day weekend would make more sense. It's way too hot in the summer and people are on vacations, etc. So, Veterans Day Weekend it is (of 2016)!

Prior to the race, we put out all of the signs - mile markers, turn here, and these motivational ones (which were my favorite)....

We received great feedback on these signs! They ranged from "Almost There" to "Our Veterans Thank You" to "You Can Do It"! Who doesn't love a little motivation during a race?

Once we got started with opening ceremonies, we heard a message of thanks (to the Veterans) from our Mayor...

Our Pastor led in opening prayer...

 

And one of our musician friends played the Star Spangled Banner on his trumpet.

Source

After all of that, we were ready to begin the race. The Marshall who was working the site asked if we had an opening ceremony to complete - when I told him we already did it, he was shocked and said he usually has to push 5K's along! He was surprised that we were ready to go, and on time at that! :D Organization for the win! 

Source

...and they're off! 

The wind was SO crazy we literally had people holding down our tents (most were staked into the ground but our start and finsh line signs weren't). 

If you look close at the above pictures of the start/finish line sign, we had two bags of sand and stones that were duct taped to the tripod bottom in order to keep it from blowing away. That still didn't work - thank goodness for volunteers who didn't mind holding them down until the end of the race!

We re-enacted our advertisement video from a few weeks ago! Haha! HE WON! Kidding...

As runners came rolling in, we were excited to see our friend and youth pastor in first! He said he was in it to win it, and that's just what he did!

My husband and our friend Everett completed the race together! 

My favorite part, though was having the opportunity to cheer on our Veterans as they crossed through the finish line!

A video was also created for Sunday morning, but mostly included footage from the 5K, so here it is! 

If you're interested in the entire race planning process, I put together a series last summer that includes three parts: 

• Part 1 - Early Stages of Planning
• Part 2 - Final Race-Day Checklist
• Part 3 - Race Day!

I definitely looked back over those posts many times just to make sure I remembered it all!

Well, that's a wrap! I've enjoyed planning this race over the past several months and had fun putting it all together with our fabulous committee! Looking forward to next year's race and supporting an awesome cause. It's because of our Veterans that we can enjoy SO many rights and privileges today. I can't thank them enough for their sacrifice!

How was your weekend? Have you ever helped plan a race/been on a race committee/been a race director?