Rock Encore

I received a really cool surprise in the mail...a bonus medal from the Rock 'n Roll Marathon series.  If you run more than one race with them throughout the year, then you earn bonus medals.  Here is what I received for running two events with them in 2012 (the Half in Dallas in March and the Half in San Antonio in November):

Christmas 2012

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year!  Mimi & Papa and MayMay & Poopah all came to celebrate with us.  Jackson had one specific request for Santa, a rainbow motorcycle.  I spent many hours trying to figure out how to make that a reality for him.  In the end I convinced him that his new multicolored bike was a very special rainbow motorcycle from Santa.  He seemed ok with that.  The other really memorable moment from this years Christmas was the snow.  We got about 4 inches of snow throughout Christmas afternoon.  I am pretty sure that this is the first Christmas where I have seen it snow on Christmas Day.  Here are some fun photos from the festivities:

Auntie Mal Mal

Mallory came for a weekend visit.  She hadn't seen Jackson since the summer, it was so cute watching them together.  We had such a wonderful weekend!

Santa Claws

We bought a little santa hat for the kitty cats, who knew it would provide hours of entertainment as we dressed them up and took photos.  Here are a few of my favorites:

2012 Dallas Marathon

Marathon #9 is officially in the books.  I surprised myself with the desire to run another marathon.  I think I wanted to see if my body was still capable of it.  I ran 700 miles during my training program, lots of really early Saturday morning runs before soccer practice or vacation days to squeeze those miles in.  I made it through the training healthy and strong.  Unfortunately, I caught a cold two days before the race.  I've never raced anything longer than a 5k while under the weather.  I was at a loss on what to do.  But after all those training miles, there was no other choice but to lace up my shoes and pray for the best.  It was miserable.  The weather was less than ideal, very warm and humid.  At mile 9, my heartrate started elevating and I wasn't able to keep it under control even by considerably slowing my pace.  At mile 12, I started thinking about what it would be like to drop out of the race.  At mile 19, I had to start walking.  I hate walking in a race.  But I figured I could walk to the finish if I had to, until I figured out how long that would take.  At mile 20 I had a beer, it was disgusting.  At mile 23 or so I realized that I could run to the finish line, so I gutted it out.  As I crossed the finish line I had a very difficult time catching my breath, it was a pretty scary few moments, but thankfully I was able to get it under control.

In the end my time was terrible, 24+ minutes slower than what I was trained for.  I'm not sure how much of that was related to my cold or the weather.  But together it made for a very miserable day.  In the end I am happy that I gutted it out on the course, but I don't think I will ever try to race while under the weather again.

2012 Class Photo

Here is Jackson's class photo.  I have no idea how they get all those kids to sit still for that photo.

Pretty Princess

Jackson and I went to a friend's holiday party and cookie exchange.  While I visited with Sarah in the kitchen, Jackson made himself at home with all the fun girl toys that he doesn't normally get to play with.  At one point cute little Anna Grace came to find me to ensure I was aware of what Jackson was up to.  This is how I found him, he was have such a blast playing dress-up with the tiaras and jewelry.