Quiet Monday

Nothing much going on, I've spent the last 4 days holed up in the house in my jammies with a box of kleenex :o( Feeling better although I still have a bit of conjestion in my head :o( I did manage to leave the house yesterday though and had a nice dinner with Rocky and Olivia at the Thirsty Bear, yumm! Then it was back home and back into my jammies.

This week I'm just going to continue to lay low until I'm totally over this cold. We've got 4 weeks til we leave on vacation so no time for any more germy bugs in my body, go away, there is no room for you here!

Saturday brought us some very sad news. A close friend of ours has been diagnosed with cancer. Doctors aren't sure where it has originated (it's in her belly area) but a biopsy has been done and a confirmation has been made that it is cancer. She is the picture of health and I still can't believe it. I was able to speak with her yesterday and although she is still in shock about all this she is trying to stay positive and strong because she knows she just needs to get through this, her treatment and get better. She can't let this darn beast get her. She will start chemo this Wednesday and will go through it for a few weeks. She wasn't sure how long it would go on for. She said they want to get the mass in her belly down and then probably do surgery, right now it's too big. I won't say here who she is until I ask her if it's okay but please keep our friend in your thoughts as she goes through this icky journey that no one every wants to have to go through.

Theraflu Cold & Sore Throat

Theraflu is my best friend right now.

Sore Throat - check
nasal congestion - check
runny nose - check
headache - check
body ache - check
fever - none and I hope it stays that way

Funny how one of the warnings of taking Theraflu is that it causes excitability in children. Well it doesn't cause excitability in me but it does cause lack of sleep. I'm not sure why but all these cold medicines keep me awake even though most of the time they make people sleepy :o(

I started feeling icky on Tuesday but I was really really keeping my fingers crossed it was just bad allergies but no such luck. I went downhill fast yesterday and by the time I got home everything on my body hurt :o( I hope this passes fast, got too much to do to be laying around sick.

:o(

BONK

That was the sound of Phil's head hitting the wall of the pool last night when he was swimming on his back :o( poor Phil (see Phil's blog entry, Swim Dork, for more details). It provided a couple of minutes of laughter though which we needed. Last night we did great, swam 1500 meters in about 50 minutes but we weren't happy about it. It didn't seem like any of us were really feeling it last night. We were all whiney and tired but we jumped in and got our workout done. GREAT JOB PHIL & AMY!

I'm not feeling good today :o( I either have some horrible allergy thing going on or I'm getting a cold. My throat is on fire and I can't stop sneezing. I think I'll skip the swimming tonight just in case it is a cold, I don't want to get worse.

Poopy Cancer

Yet again another life was lost to this icky cancer. Last week our friend Sarah lost her father, he had battled lymphoma for 13 years. Last night a few of us went to his memorial service in Oakland to support Sarah. It was a very very nice memorial service and although I never got a chance to meet her father it sounds like he was an amazing man and loved to have fun. Our thoughts are with Sarah and her family :o(

The weekend turned out to be beutiful so on Saturday I tried to spend some time outside. I had an appointment for my car to get serviced at 11am in Walnut Creek so instead of waiting for it to be done I walked around Walnut Creek and enjoyed the sunshine. My car was done fairly quickly so I picked it up, parked at one of the W.C. parking lots and walked around some more. My hubby was out on a bike ride pretty much all day so I hung out alone :o( my other partners in crime weren't around either. In the evening we had a nice dinner at a mexican restaurant in Montclair and then went home to watch a movie. I am not a creepy movie watcher and OMG is I am Legend creepy :o( I didn't like it but did manage to sit through most of it. By the time I decided that I couldn't take any more of the creepyness it was almost over. Luckily I had no wierd creepy dreams.

Sunday we spent Easter with Rocky's family in Daly City. There was lots of yummy food as usual and I had fun catching up with everyone. We have all been so busy that we really haven't seen each other in the last few weeks.

My toe is healing I guess. I assume that's what it's doing inside while it's all taped up. I did try to wear cute shoes on Sunday for Easter and my little toe was not happy with me so back to the sneakers and flip flops I went.

Um and let me just tell you that sneakers at a memorial service in an Episcopal Church, no so good! I felt out of place and like people were looking at me funny. I'm sure they weren't and I was just being paranoid but everyone was dressed nice and here I waltzed in in my Ed Hardy sneakers :o) oops.

Tonight is a swimming night and it looks like we are scheduled to do about 1400 meters. I'm hoping the sun sneaks out today at some point cause last week it was a wee bit chilly at the pool.

The countdown has begun

Update to Earlier Post

Phil the mathmatician (did I spell that right?) decided to take a closer look at the spreadsheet we use to follow the swimming and carefuly wrote out and added up what exactly that spreadsheet means and he figured out that we are swimming okay, in fact we are swimming too much. Don't ask but I'll take it and I'm a much happier person right now :O)

Not such a great swimmer :o(

I guess my little brain decided to ignore how much swimming I actually had to do and did back in 2006 when I did Wildflower because yesterday when I looked at our swim schedule I realized were were way behind :o( I'm thinking that since Amy and I hadn't swam in quite a long time we must have decided to start with using the Spring Distrance workout schedule and not the Olympic Distance. We've been doing great and are up to the full amount sets we are suppose to do....NOT. We would be doing great if we were doing the Sprint Distance, which we aren't.

We've been doing 150 meters for our warm up, we should be doing 400. If we do the 4 main sets we end up with 1200 meters of that and I guess we are suppose to be doing 1800 - 2400 meters (6-8 sets) not 900-1200 (3-4 sets). For our cool down we've been doing 50 and should be doing 100-200...YIKES. Then I noticed that since Phil is training for a Half Ironman that he should be doing the main set 8-10 times....WOW. So Amy and I were a bit bummed last night to find out we have much more swimming to do and are actually a bit behind. It takes us about an hour to get through our workout right now which means if we have to double it we'd be out of the pool around 8:30 and by the time we shower and I drive home it'd be like 9:30/10pm. I'm thinking that that's what I had to do before but I lived closer to the pool so maybe it didn't seem like I got home so late. I dunno. We will regroup next week and try to go with the actual schedule we have to do and see how it goes. We still have all of April and May to work on it.

Let's see not much else going on. We don't have big plans for the weekend. Rocky's going on a bike ride tomorrow and I'm running errands and doing things like getting my oil changed. Fun stuff. Sunday we'll hav Easter at my in-laws house.

Have a great weekend and Happy Easter!

Correction to FAQ

to this question

How did you break your toe?

Slammed into the crown molding on the wall by our bathroom

Um, my boss was confused about what I was doing when I hit my toe because I said I hit my toe on the crown molding and just in case you were confused too, no I was not doing cart wheels. It has come to my attention that there is a difference between the white boards on the top of the walls and the ones on the bottom of the wall. So to clarify, I hit my toe the BASE BOARD not the crown molding.

:o)

YIPEE it's Spring!

I love spring cause it means summer is right around the corner. It's a super nice day today althought still a bit chilly out there.

Spring and Summer also mean that our social lives start getting really busy. Already we've got our nephew's b-day party, a wedding shower, a wedding, our anniversary, our vacation, a trip to San Diego, family reunion and I'm sure a few other things I'm missing. It also means that we start looking at what festivals we want to attend, we've got a few trips to Sonoma to pick up wine, memorial weekend, my birthday, 4th of July, camping? and my parents are going to be coming to visit soon or else we'll be going down there and oh my god the list just goes on and on. Are you tired yet? I am just from reading this but I love all the stuff that we do and all the fun had.

Then there is that small thing, it takes most of my time, training. Training in the summer is rough on us because of everything else that's going on and of course we want to fit it all in. I'll be training from June - September so that ought to get interesdting. Already I'm missing Kick Off because we'll be in San Diego...oopsy.

But even though it get's chaotic at times Spring & Summer is my favorite time of the year and I always look forward to it. It's great times with family and friends.

FAQ's of the week

How did you break your toe?

Slammed into the crown molding on the wall by our bathroom

Was it dark?

Nope :o( Lights were on.

How bad is it broken?

Nurse at Kaiser: Is your toe hanging off the side of your foot

Me: eewww, eeeww, NO!!!!! It's just the size of my big toe and bruised. If it was hanging off the side of my foot I would not be calmly speaking to you I would be having a major freak out session and probably would have passed out by now. I've never broken anything

So I guess my break is not the worst that it could have been...phew!

How is it fixed?

Buddy Tape :o) You tape your toe to the next closest toe, oh and a piece of gauze goes in between them. That's it. I'll be doing that for a few weeks. Doc said it'd be about 3 weeks.

You are wearing a shoe already?

Yes, the doctor said I could play it by ear as to when I felt okay to wear a shoe. It is achy but it doesn't feel too bad. It's much safer than wearing a flip flop. Some lady stepped on my foot the other day and I was thanking my lucky stars that I had the sneaker on and not my flops :o( it hurt.

I probably won't be wearing any heels though for a few more weeks.

You can swim already?

Same answer. Doc said I could try to swim this week and see how it felt. I told myself before even going to the pool that I wouldn't over do it if it hurt. It actually felt fine and when the tape came off I stopped doing any kick drills. I just did a few laps with just regular swimming ( I don't kick when I swim). I still managed to get in a good work out and finish the evening with 1250 meters...YAY ME!

When will you be able to run or bike?

Not sure yet. I am suppose to go on a bike ride on March 30th so I think I'll take my bike for a spin in our parking lot the day before and see how it feels. As for running, same. I'll have to try that in about 2 weeks.

Did you buy bubble wrap yet?

No :o( but I should.

No Doggies Allowed

Weekend was great although what happened to the weather? Geesh, no rain but it was super windy and cold yesterday :o(

Friday night I went over to our friend Julie's house for a nice dinner with TNT friends that we don't see often. Hubby had to study so he stayed home. We had a great time and it was nice seeing everyone.

Saturday we slept in and then headed to Dublin to meet Olivia at the Dublin St. Patty's Day Festival and brought the doggies. Bad Idea. Rocky and I have always followed the darn rules on no doggies at the festival. We then arrive at these darm festivals and EVERYONE has their dogs out there and it's never a problem. I've actually been to this festival before and I remember that in years past they even had dogs in the parade. Anywho, I guess the rules have really changed because we got out there, walk around the food area and got ourselves some food while we waited for Olivia to arrive and then all of a sudden we were told that we needed to leave because NO DOGS were allowed :o( I got snippy with the girl because there were quite a few people with dogs out there and they informed me that they were on their way to find them all and tell them to leave....HOW RUDE! So we didn't get to see any part of the festival, we just ate and hung around with Olivia for a while before she had to go, she was volunteering at the TNT booth. We are boycotting this festival :o( especially because when I saw Olivia yesterday she said that PETCO was out there and some other dog or cat I can't remember people had a booth out there. I had also heard that the Pyrenees rescue peeps would be there. Uh, how are they not a health code issue?

This is an upset doggie who does not want to wear her pretty dress to the festival, she went back to bed and then hid under the covers

this is a tired doggie after the festival, he barked himself into tiredness cause we didn't even walk around

Yesterday was a busy day with lots of errands to run. I was meeting Amy at 11:30 to get manicures and pedicures. Yes, I got a pedicure but my lady was super gentle with my toe so it went well. By the time we were done it was lunch time so we went over to Stanford's, I had a yummy pizza. I know, I know, not on the diet menu, oh well. My toe is broken I can have pizza :o) haa, haa. Then I had to go by Trader Joe's, Target and Safeway and apparently so did everyone else in Contra Costa County :o( It was PACKED at all 3 stores. Must be a Sunday thing, everyone is out running their errands. Eventually I made it back home and put everything away and cleaned up a little. My hubby had done some of it already...THANKS HUBBY and so really all I had to do was get a few things chopped up and ready for dinner. Lael and Olivia were coming over for din din. We made some yummy tacos with spanish rice and then had a hummy lemon cake with vanilla ice cream that Lael had brought over. Again, my toe is broken and I can eat if I want to :o) Wonder how long I can use that excuse for? We had a nice dinner and mellow evening at home with them. Sort of mellow, there is those two doggies that live with us that think that everytime we have company they are there to see them and people must pet them and hold them the entire time, hmmm wonder how they got so spoiled? It's even worse when Olivia is there, Patch thinks he is the king of her lap. Funny little guy.

I'm going to try to swim tonight and see how it goes. Doctor had said I could try swimming this week so our plan is to swim tonight and Thursday. I may just have to refrain from doing any kicking. We'll see how it goes.

My toe is actually feeling much better and looking much better. It does get pretty achy towards the end of the day but it's from all the walking around. It's still a little swollen but not like last week and the bruising is finally going away. Rocky just bought me some new Ed Hardy sneakers which I love and luckily I can wear them without much discomfort. They are a little wide in the front and don't have shoelaces so they aren't tight. It's too cold for flip flops so I've been wearing those and they seem to be fine so far.

they should give these out at Kaiser :o)

Too Little for My Shoe

Happy Friday. I wish I was at home doing this :o)

That is Daisy taking a nap on Monday when were were hanging out relaxing :o) She's a funny girl.

The toe is still hurting :o( although not as bad. I decided to take the darn blue shoe off because it's too big for me and so even though it's open toed my toes don't stick out the front so the strap and the top of the shoe hit right on my little toe :o( It does not feel good. Today I'm just wearing one of my sturdier flip flops and it's much better when I walk.

We've got a few things here and there over the weekend but for the most part it's going to be a mellow one.

Have a great weekend!

Bubble Wrap

remember these?

Well, I decided that those weren't cool enough and that I needed something cooler so I returned to Kaiser yesterday and got myself one of these

I am now the proud owner of this not so pretty blue shoe. I decided yesterday morning on my way to the bathroom to get ready for work that it would be fun to slam my foot into the wall and break a toe :o( YEP, I have broken my little toe on my right foot, and YEP that would be the same foot as my bad ankle :o( and all they can do for a broken toe is this

tape your toe to the toe next to it and put you in a blue shoe :o( I was going to post a picture of my purple toe but no need for that. It's black, blue, purple and the size of my big toe and let me just tell you that it HURTS :o(

I slammed my foot into the wall about 7am and it hurt pretty darn bad but I still got ready for work and headed in. I had boots and socks on and around 10am I couldn't handle the pain anymore so I took the boot and sock off and OMG my toe was ugly. I asked my co-worker what he thought and he agreed that it was scary looking and it was probably broken. So off to Kaiser in Walnut Creek I went and saw a very nice doctor who agreed that it was ugly and broken. Mrs. Jeanettie Poo works across the street so she came over and kept me company...THANK YOU JEANETTE....and she happen to know the doctor seeing me so it was a fun visit. Doc saw me and had the nurse come wrap my toesies up, put my blue shoe on and then I had to pick up my pain pills, 3 or so hours later I was out of there. No swimming :o( no running or cycling :o( and I have to wear the darn shoe for a few days or a very very sturdy flip flop. I'll have to play it by ear each day and see how it feels and I can determine when I'm ready to wear regular shoes again. He said I can swim next week if it doesn't bother me.

So we have decided that I really need to invest in major amounts of bubble wrap because apparently now that I'm in my 30's I can no longer run or even walk without injuring myself :o(

3 Little Fishies

Last night we had 3 little fishies swimming in the pool :o) Amy, Phil and myself. Phil has the week off work so I emailed him yesterday morning to see if he'd like to join us for a swim and he said he'd love too. Not sure he was feeling the "love"part after he swam though...haa, haa. Just kidding, he did a great job considering like me he hadn't been in the pool since 2006. We had Phil follow the same drill routine but since it was his first time in the pool he only did the main set twice and finished with 800m total. Way to go Phil.

Then there was Amy and I. We've been swimming for a few weeks now so we decided to step it up and go for 4 main sets, mind you we were suppose to be doing this on week one...NO WAY! but last night we did 150m warm-up, 4xmain set (1200m) and 100m cool down which gave us a total of 1450m.....YAY US! I was pretty pooped when I got home and slept like a baby.

Tonight we are going to the Warriors game so our next swimming day won't be til tomorrow. I'm looking forward to getting back in the pool. I feel like we are improving little by little and we are able to get a lot done in an hour.

Brenda Donato Rainbow 5K Fun Run & Walk

What is Brenda Donato’s Rainbow Run?

A fun 5K run & walk to remember Brenda Donato, a wife and mother of two who lost her battle with leukemia on April 14th, 2007. Brenda became extremely active in The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team In Training program and met many loving and supportive friends who will commemorate her brave battle by running/walking and strolling in her honor on race day. Please join us.

Register Online

Date: Sunday, April 13, 2008, 8:30 am -12:30 pm

Location: Heather Farms Park, N San Carlos Drive and Ygnacio Valley Road
Walnut Creek, CA 94598Packet

Pick-up: Saturday, April 12; 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm, Sports Basement, 1881 Ygnacio Valley
Walnut Creek, CA 94598

Tragic

As this article says:

"When you're on your bicycle, you're very vulnerable. You have a lot of close calls.... Everyone's in a rush, but you've got to chill out and be careful."

When we returned on Sunday I was reading an article about the 3 cyclist that were hit by a Santa Clara county police officer and so far 2 people are dead. One at the scene and one at the hospital. There are reports that say that a couple of the people, other riders that came upon the accident, heard the police office say he must have dozed off....WOW!!! Aren't the cops the ones that tell us to pull over and rest if you need to if you are tired? There have been studies done that show that driving while tired is just as bad as driving drunk. URRGGHHH, very frustrating to read this.

When we were driving around in Solvang I told my dad that one reason I didn't want to do that race was because the roads were open. I have never been comfortable on the road when training here on those 2 lane roads I can't imagine 100 miles of that. No matter how careful you try to be as a driver or a rider in just a split second something could go wrong. Then something terrible like this incident could happen. Very very sad.

Motivated

Let me start out by saying that all efforts on sticking to my diet this past weekend were out the door the minute we left our house on Friday morning :o( I won't be going to WW today but I did just weigh myselft at home and for the first time since I started I've lost nothing and gained 2.2 lbs...YIKES! Today is detox day :o) It's just me and the 100 calorie snacks, fruit and veggies today. I think the only thing to do in the town of Solvang is eat, drink wine and eat more. I did eat but did not drink because oh, drinking and driving while behind 4000 cyclist would not be good. We did though indulge in the good food and pastries there.

So we headed out of here around 8am on Friday, we decided that leaving at 6 was way to early and would get us into Solvang way too early so we left a little later. Luckily we hit no traffic. We stopped to get Starbuck's on our way we were. We made it to Solvang in 5 hours with only 2 stops to tink and one to have lunch. Phil was already there so we joined him in the room. We were roomies all weekend. Out hotel room was about 5 minutes from Solvang so we decided to head in to see what was going on. I had read that the expo didn't start til 6 but we thought that was weird since are so used to the marathon expos being all day throughout several days. We went into town and sure enough the expo wasn't til later from 6-10pm. Oh well, we stopped by a nearby bike shop to see what they had and then headed back to the hotel. Phil had to gone a short test ride at 3pm so he got ready for that and Rocky and I went across the streed to get me a toothbruch, me forgot mine and hit an atm machine. We did our little errands and then made it back to the hotel room. Dinner wasn't til 5:30 so we just hung out for a while and not too long after we had sat down to relax we hear....Ppppssssshhhhhhh. What the heck was that? Rocky's tire had blown up all on it's own just sitting up agains the dresser :o( It's the second tire he has lost in a week without even using the bike. We checked it out and found the problem, the tire has some holes in it and the tubes keep going in the little hole and then eventually pops. Although he's never had a problem before it seems like there should be tape inside there to avoid that. We had some time before the pasta party so we took both tires over to the bike shop in Solvang and picked up some tire tape. The guy told Rocky that that was exactly the problem. Bought the tape then headed back to the room. It was time for dinner so we went to the Pasta Party. This is probably the smallest TNT pasta party I've been too but everyone was super pumped up. The only teams doing this ride were SF, LA, Silicon Valley and for some random reason Texas. We ate but didn't stay for all the talks because Rocky had to go pick up his race packet (the team got theirs at the hotel we were staying at) so back to Solvang we went. We sure didn't miss where packet pick up was, there was a LOOOONNN Line that was down the street and literally around the corner. Rocky hoped out to stand in line while I parked. The line moved quick and Rocky got his packet and then we walked around the very small expo which was outside and very dark :o( couldn't see much so we headed back. Rocky and Phil got all their stuff ready which included Rocky having to tape both his tires, replace the tubes and put the tires back on. We were in bed and lights out at 9pm.

4:45 alarm went off although and the boys got ready. Phil's group was taking off at 6:00am and Rocky's about 10 minutes later. I saw them off and then went back to bed :o)

Monica chowing down on McDonald's

Team Estrogen, Monica's riding group, they adopted Rocky for the day

I didn't fall back asleep but at least I got to lay down for a bit. I got up a little later and got ready and then headed back into Solvang to meet my parents. They were running a little late so I ened up going into a bakery for some breakfast and coffee. I walked around to check out the town and went back to the Expo to see what they had, now that it was light out and I could actually see. I picked up a nice jersey for myself and one for Rocky. By this time it was almost 11 and when I was back out walking around I saw my parents had arrived. We parked thier car and then hoped into mine and off we went to try to make it to mile 60 where the boys would be stopping for SAG #3 It was about a 30 minute drive. We made it :o) and got to see Rocky and his group for a few minutes before they took off. We also waited to see Phil :o) and they both looked great despite Phil having some back issuses.

Rocky and Monica at SAG #3

Phil arriving at SAG #3

Then we were off to mile 74 where SAG #4 would be. We headed back to the freeway and followed the directions given to us to go to the SAG stops but when we arrived at our next location we saw nothing :o( we saw the riders coming but not stop. I think they missed giving us a turn or something I dunno. We never saw Rocky and Phil, bummer. I wasn't carrying anything in my car for Phil but I did have a few things for Rocky so I was really hoping he didn't need any of it. I more felt back because I told them we'd be there and we weren't :o(

Somehow because of the wrong turn we ended up on the course and although the streets weren't closed it was not my intention to drive back the next 30 miles next to the riders. But we did and OMG was that stressful. The course basically takes them back in the hills on two lane roads and some aren't really 2 lane roads they are just a road with no street markings and super tiny. So here we were in our car, bikes on the right and on coming cars on the left. Made for a not so fun drive back although we did get to see the countryside, lots of wineries, cows and all the riders. Just not our riders :o(

We eventualy hit mile 96 and SAG #5 and the last one for them. It was in the middle of no where and we were a good 2 hours ahead of Rocky and Phil so we only took a potty break there and headed back to the finish. We made it back safely and did not take out a rider while doing it.

We had a little lunch at the BBQ they had for the ride and then just spent the rest of the afternoon walking, sitting and waiting for them to return. I finally got a text message from Rocky that they were a mile away :o) YAY! at 4:00pm Rocky rolled in, 9 1/2 hours after they had left...WOW. He said Phil's group was about another hour behind :o( Rocky was exhausted, my parents and I were exhausted so we ended up heading back to the hotel :o( we didn't see Phil finish but we knew he was still back there and was doing good. The great thing about the cycle team is that you are not left behind. The group you ride with stays together. I think that is very cool. Not like running where you are on your own which sucks especially during those last tough miles.

Rocky coming into the finish line, with a smile :o)

Anyway, we made it back to the room and Rocky showered up. My parents were pooped and my dad wasn't feeling great so they headed back home. Rocky and I went to a Western Style Family Restaurant and had dinner. Rocky wanted ribs and ribs he got.

Okay, so we shared this but I only had 1 cause our food came with,

stew, black beans, salsa, salad, potatoes, garlic bread and rice.....YIKES!

They sure know how to eat in them parts of town

The team was having their victory party and although we could hav joined them later or the dancing we didn't. We were exhausted so we just went back to the room to relax.

Sunday we got up fairly early, packed up and checked out of the room. We went back into Solvang for a yummy breakfast and shopping.

There isn't much to do there so we parted ways (Phil drove his own car) and we headed out about 11am. We took our time coming home. We stopped in Pismo and walked around and had lunch :o) my favorite. When we got to Gilroy we stopped at the outlets and picked up some more cycling gear at the Pearl Izumo outlet. I needed new knickers and found some there. We finally made it home last night at about 6pm.

I am really proud of everyone who rode this weekend. They all did an amazing job and have motivated me to get my butt in gear and get training. We don't start the summer season til the end of May but I am ready to go and can't wait.

It did not however motivate me to do a century although you never know I might if I can find a nice flat course :o) The thought of being out there for 10 hours on my butt pedaling away up hill just doesn't excite me. These guys did it though and kicked some cycling butt. The people who were on the cycling team and have done marathons before all agreed that although it's a long distance and you are out there for so long that this was much easier than doing a marathon. I admit that while my parents and I were at the finish line we did not see the casualties that we see at a finish line after a marathon. It's very interesting. They didn't even have to do ice baths, everyone was a little sore but walking just fine that night and the next day.

Spectating was not bad although you've got 100 miles to cover instead of 26 so driving time is much longer and so is waiting time. It was nice that the roads were open to so we could go to the SAG stops but it's gotta be nerve wracking for the riders to have cars next to them on a two lane road :o( I was pretty bummed that we only saw everyone once but at least we did see them.

CONGRATULATIONS ROCKY, PHIL & MONICA!

We are back!

We are home, we are pooped but the hubby survived and finished his first Century....woohooo :o) He did an awesome job, for more on the ride and how his day went go here.

Phil also finished and did an awesome job. I'm sure he'll be writing a full race report here.

I am very proud of both of the guys for finishing this ride and adding another event to their list of COMPLETED events :o)

THANK YOU to my mom and dad for driving up to meet me and driving all over the Central Coast with me checking out all the riders. It was a long day but they hung in there.

Rocky with my dad at the finish line :o)

The poopiest part of the whole weekend....paying $3.99 for gas :o( Insane. I'll write more about our weekend tomorrow. It's time to go plop on my couch and relax.

Update

Keep Andrew in your thoughts and prayers :o(

From Brandy:

Dr just called in regards to tests that were taken yesterday. No sign of improvement on his scans. Although Andrew is toddling around our Dr. said she needed to speak to other Drs for advice. We are waiting for more information from Infectious Disease.

WHOA!

What a day it has been. I'm just now getting done with some work I had to bring home :o( I'm so poooped. I was swamped today and will probably be swamped tomorrow so I will post now since I won't be around Friday either.

I've done the laundry, cleaned up and somehow managed to get some work done..yucko. Olivia poo will be coming over to babysit my crazy dogs while we are gone.......THANK YOU OLIVIA! although we do wish she was coming with us :o( Hopefully my furry little ones will behave :o) muaaahhhaaaahhha!

Tomorrow is our last day of work, we'll come home, pack, have din din and hopefully get to bed at a decent time since we do have about a 5 hour drive. Our plan is to leave about 6am. My hubby has been getting all his bike stuff ready so that at least the bike and biking gear will be ready to go and tomorrow we just pack the bags.

You'd think I'm the one that's getting ready to ride because I'm nervous and super excited. I'm proud of my hubby for taking on this challenge considering he's had no time to train but I'm also nervous for him, 100 miles is a long ways to go. I know he will do great though.....GOOD LUCK ROCKY!

I am also nervous and excited for Phil :o) He has trained so hard this season and as he does when training for marathon's he's had days when he's been hard on himself for having a tough day. This isn't an easy task, if it was everyone would be doing it. But he has stuck with it and has had some great rides if you ask me. I know he is going to do great. I'm glad that I'll be there to see him do his first century ride.....GOOD LUCK PHIL!

Okay, it's time for bed now. I'll be back next week.

Move Cars Move

URRGGHHH, it just took me almost an hour and a half to get to work :o( I had planned on getting off one exit earlier to take the back roads and I get to that exit and all of a sudden the cars just start flowing at 65mph. WHUT??? Why was I just not moving? So annoying.

Had a very nice swim with Amy last night. We are getting much quicker at doing our drills. We are trying to not take any breaks in between the sets so it's going quick. We did 3 sets yesterday, plus our warm up and cool down so we finished with 1150 meters. We've decided that next week we will move up to 4 sets because it'll give us about an hour of being in the pool. Right now we are finishing in about 35-40minutes. Kick off for our Summer Season isn't until May 31st so we've got plenty of time to get in shape as far as the pool goes. It sounds like Amy might be able to start running a soon so we'll have to play our swim schedule by ear. I know she really misses running with Pam and Olivia so I'm sure if all goes well she'll be back on the trail soon :o)

Weight wise I didn't lose much last week just a few ounces the big goal this week will be to try to be good while we are in Solvang. We'll see how that goes though since I don't have a good track record with eating good on my weekends.

No title for the blog today, my brain is fuzzy and I can't think. It seems like we have a gagillion things to do before we go to sleep on Thursday night and not much time to do it.

I stopped by the hospital on my way home from work yesterday and had a nice and fun (yeah, I know fun in a hopsital?) evening with Brandy and a whole crew of peeps visiting. I left there close to 7:30 and then met my hubby, who had to work late, for sushi. We made it home in time to catch the last bit of Jon & Kate +8, I love that show, and then I passed out.

And speaking of Jon & Kate, 1 three year old kept me busy enough, can you imagine 6 of them? and then 2 more kids? Oh gosh, you'd have to take me away in a white coat.

Tonight I'm meeting Amy to swim so it'll be another long day although I am looking forward to getting a swim workout in. I'm not sure though if I'll be able to swim tomorrow, I may have to bail, sorry Amy. I have to clean my house and do laundry and get packed. I'm sure we are leaving at o'dark hundred in the morning on Friday so I have tomorrow and Thursday to get everything done.

I still can't believe my hubby is doing a Century this weekend. He's crazy! Cool thing is though that my parents will be driving up to Solvang to hang out with us so that will be a nice treat since I haven't seen them since July :o(

Meet Emma

Striking a pose at lunch :o)

Emma Roo is our friend Brandy's daughter, many of you have met Emma in person of have seen her on my blog before. Emma is 3 and super duper cute and now chats quite a bit.

If you don't read Brandy's blog here is the email that we got on Friday, we already knew about what was going on but Friday she sent her friends this email and posted on her site.

After two weeks of going back and forth to the Drs and hospital, Andrew has been admitted to the hospital as I type. What we thought was a sprained ankle has proven to be a possible bone infection in his left leg. Although Drs are feeling a bit optimistic, they haven’t been able to rule out Cancer and have warned us that more tests will be needed. His pediatrician called 5 different Drs. and they clearly stated a concern for his leg with an infection. Infectious disease is also going to meet Andrew upon arrival since they are concerned. As of today we have been told he will be in the hospital for 2 weeks. As you probably imagine, I am not feeling well about this and are concerned. Hospital life is not something I can even think about.. but its happening.

I couldn't believe that another one of her kids was sick and now being admitted to the hospital. Brandy and Keith (Emma's father) have been through hell with losing Cole and now here they were about to go live in a hospital again :o( it was very sad to read this email.

So of course us girls went into, what can we do mode, and started checking with them to see what we could do. I knew that my weekend was going to be pretty mellow so I offered to babysit. Uhhh, yeah, babysit 3 year old Emma :o)

Rocky had gone to a concert with the boys. I'm not into heavy metal so I had decided a while ago that I wasn't going to go so instead I went to Walnut Creek and had dinner with Olivia. We had dinner at a yummy Vietnamese Restaurant and afterwards headed over to the hospital. Andrew was admitted to Kaiser in Walnut Creek so they are really close this time. We picked up some food for Brandy and Keith first and then went over.

I asked what the plan was and Brandy said that Keith was going to spend the night with Andrew and she would go back home. Brandy has started taking some nursing classes on Saturday's and if she took Emma home she wouldn't of been able to go so this is when I told her that if she thought Emma would go with me I'd take her. We stayed for a quite a while visiting but it was getting late so Brandy asked Emma what she thought about going home to have a party with me and Emma was all up for it especially since I had doggies at home :o) We packed up Emma and headed out, switched the car seat into my car got her all hooked in and off we went.

Emma talked to me for a bit and then fell asleep and when we got home she was still asleep. I managed to get her out and carry her up the stairs in my heels. Yeah, I'm still sore from that. Of course the doggies got all crazy and Emma woke up and wanted to play. Daisy was not sure at all about her and although she wouldn't hurt Emma she did growl at her for a good 10-15 minutes. It was funny. Eventually Daisy ended up under the bed. She was not a happy camper. I took a fluffy duvet and folded it up, put a little pillow down and made a little fort for Emma to sleep in. I bundled her up like a burrito, gave her a stuffed animal and told her it was time to go to sleep. She was asleep within minutes. I was worried that she would wake up and want to go home at like 2am but she slept like a log and never woke up. Instead Daisy did not sleep, she sat and stared at Emma the entire night :o( not good for me cause I didn't sleep either.

At 7:00 am on the dot Emma woke up and declared it was light out so it as time to get up. YIKES! I grabbed her some cheerios and a blankie and we sat on the couch and watched cartoon, while I tried not to fall asleep. Cartoons don't really keep her entertained for long so she went back and forth playing with the doggies, eating her cheerios and watching cartoons. After a while Rocky got up and asked if we wanted eggs but neither one of us did. He walked the doggies and got himself ready to go, he was heading up to Santa Rosa to finish recording the bands CD. Not long after he left Emma wanted eggs so she went in the fridge and pulled the eggs out and put them on the counter for me to cook. Then she saw the yogurt and decided she didn't want eggs she wanted yogurt. She sat at the table and ate the whole thing and when she was done she decided once again that she wanted eggs, so we made her eggs and she ate those too. She has quite an appetite. By this time I figured we should start getting ready and head out of the house. Our house is pretty boring for kids so I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep her entertained for long. I gave her a bath, did her hair, got her dressed and then gave her some juice and sat her on the couch with the doggies. I took a super quick shower because I was worried about her being alone but she did really well and just sat on the couch drinking her juice. I got myself ready while trying to entertain her and the dogs, that was interesting.

Are you tired yet? I sure was and it was only 10am :o)

We packed up and headed out. Our first stop was Old Navy to get her something new to wear. Uhhh bad thing, don't leave me with a 3 year old little girl cause there are way too many cute things to buy out there. I could have shopped for her all day but I didn't :o) I got her a little dress and some shoes and off we went. We were in San Leandro and then were going to Walnut Creek and within a few minutes of starting our drive Emma had fallen asleep. I guess she was tired too :o)

When we go to Walnut Creek it was lunch time so I asked Emma if she was hungry.

Me: Emma are you hungry

Emma: Yes, I'm hungry

Me: Emma you want pizza

Emma: Emma have pizza?

Me: Yes, Emma you can have pizza

Emma: Emma have pizza?

Emma speaks in the third person, she is too cute.

We went to Chili's and Emma had pizza and Claudia had a salad. Emma also had Cinnamon Apples and chocolate milk. This littler girl is tiny I'm not sure where she fits all the food. She did have some leftovers so we took them to Andrew because Emma informed me that Andrew was hungry too. I noticed throughout the day that she never forgot him and if I did something for her she informed me that when we saw Andrew we'd have to do it for him :o) a very caring little sister.

The pictures above are from us having lunch, she was posing for me as I was taking pictures. The dress is the dress we got her at Old Navy and I did her hair which Brandy said she never lets her do. I think it was mainly cause she was intrigued with all the stuff I kept putting in my hair so she let me put gel in her hair and put it in a pony tail. I told her she looked pretty and she responded with....

Me: Oh Emma you look so pretty

Emma: Nooooooo

Me: Yes, Emma you look very pretty

Emma: No, Emma not pretty. Emma gorgeous

haaa, haaa

I was suppose to be meeting my friend Debbie to go shopping in Walnut Creek and I thought she was coming later in the evening but she got there around 2 so I took Emma back to the hospital. Perfect timing cause Brandy was just arriving.

Emma and I had a GREAT time and although I was pretty pooped and did not move from my couch yesterday it was a lot of fun and hopefully we can do it again :o)

I was also tired because after dropping Emma off I went shopping with my friend Debbie, then a movie and then dinner. By the time I returned home it was 13 hours later.

Rocky and I had a nice breakfast yesterday, ran some errands and then returned home. He had to work and had to do some studying so we just layed low.

Amy had a really busy weekend as well so we decided that we aren't going to swim tonight. I think I'll stop by the hospital on my way home and then go home and try to clean up a little. We've gotta start getting for our trip to Solvang. It's a short week for me but it's going to be a busy one.