October

 I got on here and was thinking, oh, I did post in September, I'm not as far behind as I thought . . . forgetting there's a whole month between September and November, and it's my birthday month. 🤣

Anyway, what did I do in October?  Well, like I said, I had a birthday.  I decided to go back to the Lake alone for my birthday because I enjoyed it so much last year.  For whatever reason, it wasn't as enjoyable this year.  Maybe because last year I went for a longer time period.  I had Covid and went for 5?? days, this year, it was just a long weekend.  I took my hammock chair and a hook thing so I could sit in it.  I left the hook attached to the roof, and am excited that now I can take my hammock chair in the summer too.

I did stop at my sister's house (where my parents used to live, and I grew up) on my way through.  I was there less than 12 hours, but it was a hard day.  I was sitting outside watching the sunrise and was just really, really sad. I couldn't figure out why I was so sad, suddenly I remembered what day it was, October 4, exactly 3 years since my Dad died.  

I made a detour through Lind to "see" my parents.  I had been planning on doing it even before I remembered the date, but it made it harder somehow.  I had brought some flowers from home and left them.  I sat and cried and talked to them for a little bit.  It was just a sad morning.

We had a night of incredible northern lights.  We missed the big one in the summer so I was determined not to miss this one, and it did not disappoint.  Although, we could only really see it amazingly when we took pictures.

And of course we went to the pumpkin patch.  These are pictures we've been doing for years.  We started going to this pumpkin patch when Maddox was a baby.  The ones of small Maddox, he was 1 year old, I know there's some from when he was only 4 months old, but I couldn't find them in the time allotted to write this.  😊

And then of course, there was Halloween.

At the beginning of November Chris and I went to a Seahawks game.  It was my first live NFL game.  I had a lot of fun, but don't think I'll do that again.  I enjoy watching it on TV better.  I can pause, rewind, and hear the commentary.  But it was an experience I'm happy I did.

And that's pretty much what we did the last month.

I suppose I can talk about my running. I was planning on October being my highest mileage run month this year, but then I got a tooth pulled and quit running completely for a couple weeks.  I don't really know what happened, but in September I had upped my "long" run to 4 miles, and was working on getting my daily (and by daily, I mean the 3 other days I run) to 3 miles, but in October, I did no long runs at all.  I was doing hills 2x times a week, but then with my tooth I quit that.  I have struggled to get back into the groove of running (again).  Especially since it's now dark outside when I get home.  I did just get a lighted collar for Peanut, so we'll see if that motivates me a little more.

Happy September

 I have been doing a lot better with running.  Starting the second to last week in August I have been faithfully running 4 days a week.  I am only running 9 miles a week, 3 miles for a "long run" and 2 mile the other three days.  I did run 4 miles a week ago for my long run, but then last weekend I went to Long Beach (WA, not CA) and skipped 2 of my last week's runs and my "long run" on Sunday.  I could have gotten most of my runs in, including Sunday, but was lazy.  I was home early enough on Sunday to do something, but just didn't want to.

I have tentatively made a running schedule, but it usually ends up differently. Sunday is an always, then Tuesday and Wednesday or Thursday and Saturday is another always.  However it has ended up being Sunday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.  That does mean I'm running 3 days in a row, but it's still 4 days a week.  Today is Tuesday, so I keep telling myself to just go run tonight, but then my brain says I don't have to, I can do tomorrow and Thursday.  I don't know.  

Last week was Asher's birthday, but he was with his Mom, so we're celebrating tonight (another excuse not to run today).  Yesterday was Damian's birthday . . . there are so many September birthdays in my family, it's crazy!

2 1/2 weeks ago was Maddox's first day of 8th grade.  I can't believe how big he's gotten in the last year.  He is a teenager now, and that hurts my heart.  I really do miss his little kid goofiness. (The video is a million times better with sound.)

I wrote this earlier today, I actually did come home and ran.  So yay me. 

Family trip: Disneyland (3 days)

 I forgot to post my pictures of Disneyland.  

After our cruise my family, and 2 sisters, with one nephew, went to Disneyland.  One of my sisters decided her and her family didn't want to go.  I'm pretty sure it has something to do with her boyfriend's political beliefs, but I really don't know what those beliefs are. (He's a whack job, so I don't know.)

Anyway, we exited the cruise and went to Anaheim and had a very quiet afternoon before the craziness of Disneyland on Saturday. 

I have over 200 Disneyland photos on my phone, for some reason they are not all saving to my Google photos.  The ones my family took and shared aren't uploading and they have some of the best pictures.  Damian has all the ones of Asher and the characters.  (Damian made a point of getting Asher signatures with the main Disney characters, I think the only one he missed was Minnie Mouse. We saw her, but she was always going on a break.)

We flew home Monday evening and we were pretty exhausted by the end of the day.  We went into Disneyland on Monday, but we really didn't ride many rides.  The one I really wanted to do we couldn't get on, so that was a bummer.  

I'm really annoyed I can't get the pictures to upload.  I didn't take a ton of pictures, others took more, and the cooler ones are 

Rabbit hole

  Have you (those of you that write in a blog) gotten sucked into a rabbit hole of your own posts?  My sister told me a few weeks ago that she read that hypothyroidism has many of the same symptoms as peri-menopause and she talked to her OB/GYN who said that if you are on hormonal birthcontrol you won't have peri-menopausal symptoms.  I didn't believe her at first, but then was looking at hypothyroidism symptoms are almost identical to peri-menopausal symptoms.  

Anyway, yesterday I was looking at foods that are good and not good for an underactive thyroid and remembered I used to drink a "green drink" which was almond milk, frozen blueberries, spinach and cinnamon.  I couldn't remember all that I put in it, so I was searching my posts for it and ended up going down the rabbit hole.  

Somehow one of my marathon and several other races I've done ended up in the search results even though they didn't mention "green drink."  

I ended up reading several of my posts about my first marathon in 2015 and remembered how much my family supported me.  This is the first post (of the ones I read) that talked about my family support, it's not really about them, more about my crazy head space.  Here's the second one again, not specifically about my family, more about the results of a 5k I did that year, but part of the group of marathon posts I wrote.

But this one, this one right here, made me miss my parents a lot, especially my dad.  Back then I never thought a lot about it, and it was really his death that made me realize that he was my biggest supporter.  He drove me to my first marathon, I don't know what I thought back then, I just thought he didn't want me to have to drive in alone, which might have been part of it, but I think it was more that it was his quiet way of supporting me.  I also think that he wished he ran.  I never asked him, but now I wonder if that was something he enjoyed, but never had time for.  Farmers work from sunup to sundown and I don't think he ever prioritized himself or his health.

~quick aside talking about my parent's support, I also read this post about my Leavenworth half marathon in 2017 where my parents drove to Leavenworth to watch me finish that half and then take me to lunch.  I don't know what they did afterwards, I wish I had asked, they probably did something, but I was the reason they made the drive.

Then there were my sisters and mom who drove all over the place just to meet me to cheer me on.  And lastly, there was Damian.  That post I just linked up there, man, I forgot how much Damian encouraged me at the end of the race.  

While I was reading those posts I realized I will never have that support again.  Yes, I likely won't ever do another marathon, but I don't have my parents.  I don't have that safe place to stay where my Mom will thaw steaks just so I have a high protein dinner right before a giant race.  I have my sisters and Chris, Damian and Maddox, but there was something special about my parents being there, especially my Dad.

To make this post go in a full circle, I did message my doctor about checking my thyroid, and was told I had a thyroid test in 2022 and it was normal.  That means my weight gain is my fault and peri-menopause and that sucks.  

Family Trip: Cruise (4 days)

 Last week we went on our cruise and then Disneyland last weekend.  I only ran one day, in case you're curious.  I wanted to run more days, but every day was crazy busy except one that was our "at sea" day.  Funnily, we started in LA and our first stop was Catalina Island, which is very, very close to LA, but they made our second day "at sea."  Basically we went down towards Ensenada (our 2nd stop) and then just cruised (haha) around in the ocean for a day, and then went back up to Catalina Island for our 3rd day and then back to Ensenada, Mexico our 4th day and back to LA.  We made it from Ensenada Mexico to LA in 12 hours or less, so obviously all the stops were very close.  I think it would have been better to go to Catalina our 2nd day and then a "sea day" the third day, and Ensenada the last day, but I'm not in charge of how they do things.

Anyway, this post is pretty much going to be a photo dump of our trip.  

Plane ride to LA

Our first (and only) night in LA.
The hotel was a bit sketchy, but 
it was only for a night.

One our way to the ship!

Boarding!

Our view from our dining room table.

Our Steward made towel animals 
every morning

We had one day "at sea" but I took no pictures.  I did go for one run on our "sea" day.

Off the ship and onto to Catalina Island

Catalina was pretty, but I wish we had been able to explore the island more. We were on foot, so only able to go to the shops right next to the Harbor. 

We did an "undersea" excursion.  The kids loved it, but I would have liked more exotic fish.  These are not WA fish, but seemed to be very, very common ones from CA.  Maybe "exotic" fish are only exotic because we don't have colorful fish in WA.

Day 2 animal

My excursion in Ensenada was a city tour that took us to the oldest winery in Mexico (with a wine tasting) and the home of the invention of the Margarita (with a tasting).  We ended at an ocean blow hole, but was mostly a tourist trap (with free tacos).

He was tired!

Chris, Damian, and Maddox went horseback riding. They had a lot of fun.  Asher was too young, so I went on the city tour.

Day 4 towel art

I don't know what happened to day 3 towel, I don't even remember what it was.

Anyway, I am going to post about the second half of our trip, 3 days in Disneyland. That will (hopefully) happen next week. 😊