Family

This last weekend we went to eastern WA to visit with Chris's family.  Chris grew up with his Mom and her family so has never been very close to his dad's side.  However, when his maternal grandparents died, his mom's side of the family has pretty much stopped seeing each other.  Chris wants to be a big family guy.  He loves the idea of family get togethers.  Thankfully my family has filled that void for him, but I know he longs for his mom to take up that role.  Unfortunately, his mom is . . . how to put it nicely . . . rather selfish and doesn't particularly care to share her comfortable life with Chris too much. 

I am always sad when I hang out at one of his parent's houses.  His mom just doesn't care that much about family, and his dad, well, his dad is very, very caring for Chris's brother and sister, but not so much Chris.  Walking through his dad's house there are lots of pictures, but I'd say 99% of them are of his brother and sister.  He's got a few pictures of Chris as a kid, mostly in a tucked away room no one goes into, and then our wedding picture and last year's family picture. 

I sorta get it.  I mean, Chris's parents got married when she was 16 and he was 18, they were divorced by the time she was 20.  Chris was born when she was 18 and he was 20.  They were young.  From what I understand, they hate each other.  They got remarried.  She married, divorced, married again, had 2 more boys (divorced after 8 years) and proceeded to marry, divorce and marry again (yes, married 5 times).  She pretty much left all 3 of her boys with her parents.  He remarried once, had 2 kids, and stayed married until the youngest graduated high school.  (He's single now.)  I think because both of his parents had "new" families, Chris got put aside, a lot.  In fact, when his mom left her 3rd husband (the father of his half brothers), she left Chris with his stepdad.  (Then his stepdad dropped him off at his grandparents house.)  Chris has always been sorta the after thought.  Yes, he's the oldest, but he never quite fit in with the "new" families. 

Anyway, hanging out with Chris's paternal family, I wish that he had grown up closer to them.  They are all about family.  They hang out a lot, they have get togethers all the time.   They are very tight-knit and I wish Chris had that as well.  They include him, his brother is awesome, but Chris still feels distant from them.  I think because of him, not because of them.  (I'm talking about aunts, cousins, grandparents.) 

Anyway, the weekend went well.  Chris's brother brought his girlfriend to meet the family and then proposed to her on Saturday.  It was nice.  (I told Chris I would have killed him if he had proposed to me in front of either of our families.  It doesn't scream "romance" to me, not to mention all the pressure to say yes.)


First time I've ever shot a gun.

I ate like crap all weekend, I didn't drink enough water, and I didn't run at all.  So today . . . I'm up 5 lbs.  I'm pretty sure it's water weight, I'm on my period, and while normally I don't gain a ton during that time, I do sometimes, especially if I eat a lot of high sodium stuff, which I did last night, and over the weekend. 

So that's two weekends in a row of really crappy eating, and I have all of next week to look forward to crappy camping food.  This week I'm going to do better with my eating.  I will control my intake while we camp.  And when I get back from camping I'm going to really crack down again.  I can, I have before, I can do it again.  Plus, I really, really need to eat well for my half marathon 3 weeks after camping. 

I didn't mention it.  I said something on Facebook, but then forgot to mention it here.  I registered for the Skagit Flats half marathon, which is on Sept. 8th.  Their website says that in order to guarantee yourself a tshirt you had to register by 7/31, so I did.  (I am all about the tshirts.)  This race is bigger than the Berry Dairy Days half I did in June.  I was looking at their registration and there are people from Texas, Florida, New Mexico, Nebraska, Minnesota, Canada, California, Oregon, Idaho . . . Most are from WA, but I was surprised to see the number of other states there (and Canada).  :-)

One last piece of news . . . in this post I talked about possibly going off birth control and having another child.  Well, I have an appt this week to do just that.  I'm still not 100%, but I guess we'll see what happens.  I am worried what that will mean for my running, among other things.