Saturday, January 25, 2014

P.F. Chang's Half Marathon 2014

This was my 3rd year of running the Chang's half marathon, and my 4th half marathon in total. For some reason, I was not at all motivated to train this year. I think I just get bored running in Phoenix - I really got hooked on running when I was living in NYC and I truly believe there is not better place to live if you are a runner. Central Park is the best place to run.

My compression socks…can't really tell a difference when I run with these, other than I think they look cool.
Kathryn and I - we are thinking of doing a Disney Run next year to switch things up a bit.
I was at the front of the corral this year. 

In the future I am going to try to always get at the front of the corral.
This year they made the finish at Tempe Beach Park. In the past it had been in front of Sun Devil Stadium. With that change, they had to also change the course slightly - we did a little detour at 64th Street and McDowell up and down a hill. It wasn't bad but it also wasn't fun to do a hill at mile 9. 
I beat my PR by 7 minutes with a time of 1:48:03. I felt good for the first 10k, and miles 7 and 8 were my most difficult (I think it was because I was anticipating the hill). Once I finished mile 9, I felt good the rest of the way. And I was happy with my time too.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Happy 91st Grandma Hazel

Grandma Hazel passed away on December 20, 2013 after about a year-long battle with cancer.
Since it was so close to Christmas and the New Year, we waited until 2014 to have her services, with the visitation being on January 3rd and the funeral on January 4th.
Kellyn and I made the below picture boards to display at the services. We had so many pictures of Grandma.

I spoke at her funeral, and since I want to remember what I said, decided to include it here. 
"I had a difficult time deciding where to start with memories of Grandma - there are just so many. And this was confirmed as we were gathering pictures for the slide show - which I do want to say thank you to my Uncle Kevin for the significant hours that went into putting it together. He always does an amazing job with these types of videos, and when you all get to see it shortly you will see just how talented he is. 
When I was younger my first memories are of spending the night at Grandma and Grandpa's. The highlight of the sleepovers were the fact that I knew Grandma would take me shopping the next morning to either Kmart or Target and I could pick out whatever I wanted. As a kid this was a big deal. I also remember lots of vacations with Grandma, specifically Lake Tahoe, San Diego and after my grandfather passed away she took the family on 3 different cruises to Ensenada, Mexico, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada and finally to Alaska. Our Lake Tahoe trips all happened in the 80s and early 90s, and Kyle, Kellyn and I loved to take my Grandma out to the buoys. We had a little 2-3 person blow up boat, and we would all pile in and row her out. We thought it was so far and so deep, but it was probably 50 yards max. My grandma hated any large body of water - in her words she was just so scairt of the water. But she would spend hours out there with us sitting in that little boat tied to the buoy. Back in the late 80s one other great vacation memory was when Kyle and I convinced both Grandma Hazel and Grandpa Vic to ride Space Mountain at Disneyland with us. I know they both hated it, but we were laughing the entire ride. Finally a later vacation memory was a trip to NYC. My grandma was 80 at the time, and we had her in and out of the subway from our hotel in midtown down to Lower Manhattan and back to Times Square to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. She even had a hot dog on the street. It was also on this trip that my Grandma was messing with the TV and somehow managed to order an adult video. She said she immediately turned off the TV. She was definitely a trooper.
Grandma never missed any important event or milestone in my life…she was at birthdays, sporting events and graduations. It was always a confidence booster knowing she was there to cheer me on. Even last January when I ran the P.F. Changs half marathon she was there along the route…and I was able to give her a hug when I ran by.
This last year was a tough year for all of my family to see my grandma struggle with cancer. As I saw the cancer take a toll on her body, there were two things that kept coming to my mind. First is that this is not the way it is supposed to be. My pastor at church uses this phrase often and when I saw my grandma, especially towards the end, that phrase kept replaying in my mind. This was my first time watching someone lose their life to cancer, and seeing it firsthand you just know that cancer and death was not part of God's original plan. It makes you realize how much the cross was needed and how perfect God's plan of redemption actually is. The second is that I now know why Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 talks about our bodies being a tent. My grandma was always such a strong person and a picture of overall good health. At the end of her life though her body had shriveled to almost nothing. She became so fragile, just as a tent is not that stable. But as Paul writes in that same passage if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. It does make me happy that my grandma is whole and healed in her heavenly home.
Before I end I just wanted to say thanks to my mom for all your hard work in caring for grandma. Even though "she says no to everything" and grandma would tell me "your mom is gonna chew me out" you know that Grandma would not have wanted anyone else taking care of her. She was able to spend her last days with the person she was most comfortable with. You have set the bar quite high when it comes to caring for your elderly parents.
Ringing in 2014 was a little bittersweet…this is the first year of my life with no grandparents as I also lost my Grandma Lois one year ago on January 5th, 2013. However, I am so thankful that God blessed me with 4 amazing people that I was able to call grandparents. Grandma, I am thankful for all the memories and 90 years just doesn't seem like enough. I am going to miss you - there was already a hole at Christmas without you here - but I do know without a doubt that someday I WILL see you again. So this is not a goodbye, but just a see you later. I love you."
This family is going to miss her.
Today, January 7th, would have been her 91st birthday. There have been so many things that have happened since she passed away that I wish she could have been here for. Although, I am sure she is wishing that we could all be with her experiencing what she is now too. Someday we will.

John 5:24 - Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. 

Sunday, January 5, 2014

It's A Boy!!!

Kellyn and Coby hosted their baby gender reveal party tonight. 
They found out the gender at the ultra sound almost a week ago so they have been keeping it a secret.
The pink team.
The blue team.
And the result is...
BLUE!
So excited for a nephew. And my grandma was right :)

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year 2014

This New Year's Eve was spent at Tim's house with a group of old and new friends. We started the night by doing a little picture scavenger hunt around town. There was a list of items that you had to get a photo of, as well as a list of items you needed to retrieve and bring back. 

The item on the list with the most points was a bedpan. My team decided to go to the hospital to try to get this pic. We first went in the main entrance, and they told us to go to ER (we didn't want to go there first as we didn't know how busy they would be and our little scavenger hunt wouldn't be at the top of their priority list). It actually wasn't too busy, but they said it would be a few min. I told the rest of my team I would wait there for it and call them once I had the pic so they could go somewhere else and get things crossed off the list. It ended up not taking too long for them to get this…and they assured me it was unused :) We were the only team who got a pic with an actual bedpan. 
After I got the pic, I called my team and they were just down the street at CVS. I checked on my phone, and it said it was only 0.2 miles away, so I decided to run there (probably not the smartest idea given the area of town we were in). But I made it and we got this pic of a team member shaking hands with a stranger.
One of the other items on the list was eating a churro as well as kissing a stranger. If you got two photos in one pic then the points were multiplied together. This was our attempt at Filliberto's, however, the jury said that I wasn't actually kissing they guy…which I will give to them. Since we lost the product of points, my team didn't have a chance at winning.
Had to get a picture in front of a church…this works.
And at a playground.
As well as at a stadium or ballpark. This is just a few of our pics from the scavenger hunt…there were a lot more. It was a fun idea…I always like a little competition.

Group pictures…Me, Steve, Erin, Dave, Susan, Tim C., Devina, Michael, Shelley and Tim W.
Tim Clark brought sparklers for everyone. After we watched the ball drop in Times Square, we had a little fun with the sparklers.





I ended up coming home at 12:45am. Today is rough since I am not used to staying up so late anymore :)