Chicks of Cakes.....

Anisa entered the cake decorating competition at Zoofari, a fundraiser for the Panda research at the National Zoo. The contest was judged by Duff Goldman from the tv show Ace of Cakes at Charm City Cakes in Baltimore. There were 3 teams and they had about an hour to decorate their cakes before judging. Anisa and 2 other chickees from Art Institute rolled and spread fondant, painted, gently placed cakes on top of each other and then waited to be judged.

They WON! by a long shot. Their cake was beautiful. Duff even told the girls that their cake was one of the most professional looking cakes he had seen done by students!

Here is the team and their cake. We're so proud of the chicks! Oh, and by the way, the entire thing was edible. The little panda on top is a little cake. :)

16 years ago today....

16 years ago we welcomed a new person into our family. SARA!!! :)

The morning of May 19 started like most of my mornings with a 3 yr old. Wake up, get her fed, ready for a bath, clothed, etc....But then, I started feeling weird. Not "in labor" but just weird. I called Grandma and Grampa H who were in town to help out with the big sister when the little one arrived. I put Anisa into the tub and Gma and Gpa arrived.

By the time they got to the house, I knew I was in labor. A baby was gonna be born that day. We finished getting Anisa ready for the day and headed to the hospital. Poor Grampa had to drive and with each contraction, we went a little faster. I had called Travis, who was at work...luckily, he worked right down the road from the hospital. He met us at the door and we went to check in...after I thought I was gonna have that child in the car. My contractions were coming hard and fast. We got checked into the room, changed into my lovely gown and got ready to have a baby. My room overlooked the beautiful Willamette River over Portland, OR. Float planes flew in and out while we were there. It was actually quite nice.

The nurses came in with a teenage girl and asked if she could watch the birth (she was taking some classes and this was part of her "training", I think. We said, sure. As my contractions got worse, this poor girl got a little more green. I looked over and she was kind of "sliding" down the wall to sit down. The nurses came and escorted her out of the room for some juice. Great birth control, let teenagers watch actual births! :)

Anyway, about an hour after I arrived at the hospital it was time for Sara to enter the world. She was anxious to get here, luckily, so I didn't have to push for too long. She arrived and we were thrilled that we had another daughter. Big Sissy Anisa and Gma and Gpa got to come in and see our newest family member. We had a few other visitors during the day (Viv, Sheri, Nay) but spent most of our time admiring our precious newest little girl.

Now, she's 16. Wow, the time has flown by. She is in high school and is driving. She loves to dance and listen to her music. She also loves to put on her make-up and do her hair. :) hee hee Sometimes she can get on our last nerve, but most of the time, she's a good kid and we are so happy to be able to call her our daughter. Sara, I love you so much!!! Happy Birthday!!

Silly Travis

He reminded me to tell you all that we saw another Coastie that works at HQ. We made up our own little team. heehee He mentioned that in the program, at mile 5 there would be a miniature horse to greet us and cheer us on. We got to mile 5 and there was no horse, but as we turned a corner there were TWO mini horses to cheer for us. They weren't actually cheering, but they were standing there looking really cute and it made us smile. I also saw a squirrel. :)

Historic Half Marathon and Relay for Life

Well, we finished. Travis and I ran our first half marathon and survived. :) The Historic Half Marathon in Fredericksburg, VA is part of the Marine Corps Marathon series.

It all started yesterday when we went to get our t-shirts and bib/time chips. There was a running expo at the Fredericksburg Expo Center. We called some friends that we have known since before Anisa was born, in fact, they were some of our first visitors when we had Anisa and we had her babyshower at their house. :) Kevin and Christine. We've lived here for a year now and haven't gotten to see them, so this was the perfect opportunity. **Real quick, the reason we haven't seen them in all this time is because they live an hour south and we don't get down there often. Ok, so, we had a fantastic lunch with them yesterday, then headed home to go to bed early.

Turned out that Anisa, our darling daughter who we love so much, had other plans. She was spending the night at a friend's house. She had taken the metro to her friend's house so she had to come home on the metro, pick up the car, and bring it home. THEN I had to take them both back to the metro so they could go BACK to her friend's house. ugh....confused, yet?? :) Anyway, we didn't get to bed until 10 pm. That's all fine and dandy if you can get up in the morning at a decent hour, but not if you have to get up before the birdies. We had to get up at 3:45 to start getting ready and have a yummy delicious cup of coffee before we left.

We left the house at about 5:00 a.m. Got a great parking spot at Walfart, and headed toward the starting line. Got in line for the potty, then went to the staging area. Decided last minute we better make ONE MORE potty run. :) Then, we were off. The course is hilly, but not extreme. We run hills here, but not for 13.1 miles. There were lots and lots of people standing on the sides of the streets yelling for the runners to "keep up the good work, you can do it, you're almost done". It was cool. Mile 11 started us up a 2 mile hill. It was not as horrible as we thought it was going to be, but it actually did me in. I had to walk about 50 feet at the top (which irritates the poo out of me, I didn't want to walk AT ALL). We started running again and into mile 12 Travis felt good enough to leave me (not alone...I was surrounded by lots of new friends). :) I turned the corner and saw the finish line and got my second wind. I cranked it out at the end and we both finished strong. We got our beautiful "finisher medals", water, bananas, oranges and pretzels and went somewhere to stretch a little. Then got our belongings from the Marines who were watching over our valuables, and headed to the van. I had brought celebratory beers, but we wanted to get home, so we kept them in their little ice cooler and headed the hour north. We got home, threw in a pizza, headed up to shower then when we were all clean and not stinky any more enjoyed our pizza and beers. Now, I need a nap and a massage would be nice, too. We're both a little sore, but not as bad as we thought we would be. We'll see how we feel tomorrow! :)

Our results are in.....Travis finished at 2:16:49. I was about a minute behind him at 2:17:38. The men's divisions are harder (I think), more competition. There were 5419 finishers. There were 2737 men and Travis finished 1836. In his division (Men 40-44), he came in 329 out of 480. There were 2682 women and I finished 1118. In my division (Women 40-44) I came in 161 out of 400. The average time for finishers in the Men's division was 2:08:51, and in Women's 2:27:25, so we were both pretty close to average. In fact, Travis was 46.6 % and I was 51.2% in our age grade ranking. We are very happy that we finished and our times aren't too bad. :) Oh, by the way, the first place man came in at 1:14:40. Yes, that's ONE HOUR and 14 minutes to run 13.1 miles. The first place woman came in at 1:26:26.

So, if you read the title of this post, you might be thinking, ok, what about the Relay for Life? Well, Sara did that. It is a fund raiser for the American Cancer Society and it's a 12 hour walk all night. It started Friday night at 7 p.m. and ended at 7 a.m. Saturday. I volunteered to be a chaperone until 11, but ended up staying until 1 (which is why I'm totally exhausted now, I'm running on very little sleep for the last couple of nights). We all got there about 6 o'clock to set up our tent and seating area. About 5 minutes into setting up they announced that a severe thunder storm was on it's way and we had to evacuate the field immediately. Everyone headed into the school (it was held at Sara's school). There were a bunch of sweaty, hot people in the gym and auditorium. I hadn't eaten dinner, so as soon as the rain stopped for a minute, I walked to McDonalds to get something to eat. I had to make a quick stop at the bank, then CVS, and I started walking across the street to McD's and it started sprinkling. I was lucky. I walked into McD's and from the time I walked in the door to the counter the sky opened up and it POURED and blew! I ate my burgers, and during a rain break I headed back to the school and they were just letting us back out onto the field. The girls had fun, they walked, they talked, they slept, then came home and slept more. :)

Here are pictures of both events...

Before the race













After the race













Us at the finish line with our medals. :)














Sara and the gang...
Aren't they cute?? This is only some of the team.












The chicks playing Twister. Crazy girls. :)

Speaking of Kids....

Well, I was talking to my Grandma today and she asked about Sara and her driving permit. I had totally forgotten to tell everyone. SARA GOT HER PERMIT....RUN FOR THE HILLS WHILE YOU CAN!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I'm just kidding about the running for the hills part. She took the test once a while back and missed it by a question or two. The next time she went to take it, she studied really hard and passed with flying colors. So, she is now a driver. It's scary to be teaching another kid to drive. I'm not sure Baby's little carburetor can handle this! heehee Nah, Baby is fine. She's happy to be the one to see the kids learn. As long as Sara doesn't drive her into a ditch or a guard rail, we'll all be fine.

So, I've let Sara drive home from school a couple of times, she's driven in the neighborhood lots and even practiced in an empty parking lot. She's pretty good, but still has to work on her confidence and staying toward the middle of the road instead of the middle of the lane (I don't know if it's just around here, but there are lots of roads we drive on with no shoulders. If you go over the little right line, you're in the ditch). She has to have her permit for a year and 3 months, I think. She took Driver's Ed at school and will have to take behind the wheel before her year is up. But for now, it's just Sara and Mommy (and sometimes her friend, Hannah or Anisa) cruising the open roads of Springfield with me telling her to brake, steer to the middle, use your signal, watch out for that parked car......... Pray for us! :) hee hee