Couch to 5K

Some of you exercise nuts out there may have heard of something called "Couch to 5K".  It's a running program designed to get you from the couch to a 5K in 9 weeks.  Well, today the hubs and I went from the couch to a 5K in less than 24 hours!  Here's how it all happened...

We were watching "The Biggest Loser" on Wednesday night and they were going over some health tips for the Thanksgiving weekend.  They mentioned that most cities have a 5K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning.  We decided to look it up and see if Tulsa had one.  Sure enough, they were having the Second Annual Tulsa Turkey Trot the day after Thanksgiving!  We thought about doing it, but weren't really sure.  We decided to mention it to some friends of ours who have recently picked up running so that we would have someone to hold us accountable to it.  Once they decided they wanted to do it, there was no backing out!

Now let me tell you, I do not run.  The hubs does not run.  We both exercise, occasionally.  Nothing 100% consistent.  So I really mean it when I say we went straight from the couch to a 5K!  And the race was miserable.  And wonderful.  And really, really awful. haha!  At the very end though, there was this little hill to come down from to the finish line.  With perfect timing, as I reached the top of that hill my iPod started playing "Eye of the Tiger" (I'm serious!).  Combine that with the fact that I could see our friends who came with us yelling my name, I was able to run to the end and finish.  It was an amazing feeling.

All in all, there were a lot more hills than I had expected.  And I ran a lot less than I had expected.  And when I wasn't running, I walked a lot slower than I had expected.  And it took me a lot longer to finish than I had expected (just under 50 minutes).  But I did it.  I got off my butt, got off my couch, and on a complete whim, I completed a 5K with the hubs.  I couldn't be prouder of both of us.  It was a great time!

Our whole group at the race!  Mark, Lori, Mike, me, and Eric

The microchip on our shoes that tracked our time.

Start of the race.

My view from part of the race.

Eric crossing the finish line!

Mark crossing the finish line!

Lori crossing the finish line!

My turn to cross the finish line!

And Mike's turn to cross the finish line!  That's the look of determination right there.

Mike and I afterwards.  Phew, we were tired!

The kiddie pools full of beer and water. haha!

Eric and I enjoying some beer and carbs!

I'm an Auntie again!

My brother and sister-in-law, Michael and Ashlee, had their fourth baby on Tuesday, making me an Auntie of a newborn all over again!  No one knew the gender except for Ashlee's mom, so we all got to find out when we went to the hospital.  They had a beautiful girl making their family wonderfully complete with three girls and one boy.

Aunt Vanessa and sweet Charlotte!

She is so beautiful!

Uncle Mike and Charlotte

The biggest sister with the baby sister.

Abijah's turn with her baby sister.

Charlotte's sweet and precious toes.

I got to spend my lunch break on Wednesday just snuggling the sweet girl!

It's so much fun having another niece to love and spoil!  I, of course, love her tons already.  I am very blessed to be an auntie of so many sweet kids!

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And here's just a quick little bit of info on where we're at with adoption...  Over the past month I have been in contact with a private adoption agency a lot.  We even had a phone interview with them and went over a lot of information on getting started with their program.  But, without going into every single detail, I will just say that we are once again looking into DHS adoption or fostering-to-adopt.  It seems like we (aka, ME!) have been trying so hard to ignore this option, but God has been putting it in our paths on almost a weekly basis.  It's getting a little hard to continue to ignore. ;)  So that's where we're at.  We are praying a lot about it since, honestly, it really scares us (again, aka, just ME).  We are trying to decide between just adopting or doing foster-to-adopt.  I'll let you know anything new when we know!