Coach Jen B

It's been on my bucket list of marathons for some time now.  Last year, I put my name in the lottery and wasn't chosen.  This year, I thought about it.  I thought about it real hard..... I would fill out the form and get ready to press submit and then I would close the page. But then, I received an email from Boston Children's Hospital asking if I wanted to apply to be part of their charity team - Miles for Miracles.  Boston Children's Hospital - the freaking awesome hospital that finally gave us the answers we needed with Tucker.... filled with many children with very serious and rare conditions... well, of course I'll apply!  I've been searching for a way to give back to the fabulous programs at Boston Children's Hospital and this just seems like the best way possible.   Before all of this New York City Marathon talk happened, Ward and I were planning on taking the kids to New York City for a family trip anyway.   So why not go ...

and that's the story I'm sticking with.  If it's in print, it's got to be true, right? I blogged about that awful, lingering fever last week and thought I was back.   I had a pretty good stretch of some kick butt speed workouts last week, then a 12 miler, and BAM, that's awful fever was back!   It left me quite frustrated this time.  Another fever?  Seriously?  Why?  Perhaps I pushed too hard coming back.   So this time, I took Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off.   I even took 1/2 of Monday off from work.  I made it to about 10:30 and couldn't function.  So I found coverage for the rest of my classes and headed home.  Just as I was getting to my car, my phone rang.  It was the school nurse at Tucker's school.  He had a fever and needed to come home. Part of me was kind of relieved he was sick, which meant I was really (still) sick.  I retrieved him from school and we just napped and took it easy. Tuesd...

School has officially started here.  I started on Monday, with 2 professional days and then students started on Wednesday.  This now means I am the mom to a 4th grader!  Jeez, where has the time gone? my nephew, Jackson, & Tucker before school  and then the boys getting off the bus  It seems like only yesterday my boy was heading off to kindergarten and I was pregnant with this little girl. an oldie for sure  But enough of this gushy stuff.  Last week, I posted about my incredible Tommie Copper compression shorts review and one of the possible entries was to run a virtual race to squeeze in a run (or many) before the start of school.  I know school has started already in many parts of the country, but believe it or not, there are a lot of schools that haven't even started in Maine!   Four lovely ladies shared their post run pictures.    Thank you, ladies! Jess - showing off the beautiful mist in the ...

Today marks a very special day in our life.   Where have the years gone?  It seems like only yesterday he was this tiny little guy.  Now he's growing up.  This boy means the world to me.     We'll be spending your special day at the cottage -  jumping, splashing, and lounging in the water - just as you wanted.  Happy Birthday, Tucker!  I love you.

Last night was Tucker's special night - as I mentioned yesterday, one of his drawings was selected to be put on display at a local art gallery.  To celebrate his accomplishment, we took him out for dinner at our most favorite chinese restaurant in Hallowell - Lucky Garden.  Dad & Barb Ward & his mom, Kathy the kids and myself After dinner, we walked down to the gallery. We spent quite a bit of time walking around admiring the art.  I absolutely love kid art.  It is full of life and created without restraint.   Then we spotted Tucker's drawing.  I also knew that Stacy's son had a piece selected as well, so we went on looking for his.  We looked quite a bit but then I spotted it - right next to Tucker's.   In talking to one of the curators, she explained that display represnted 22 local schools grades K-8, and only 9 students from each school were selected from each school.  It is quite an ac...

Photo Of The Day - #15 Car It is mud season here & I have a huge loop driveway.  Paving that sucker is really out of the question in terms of affordability - at least until the kids are out of the house.  Ha.  Mud is my reality for a couple more weeks.  Unfortunately, it means my car looks like I've been 'muddin' in the backwoods of Maine.  Let me just tell you, my car looks so awesome sitting in the parking lot at HBS, sitting next to those nice new, shiny BMWs, Volvos, etc.  Gotta love it.  Photo Of The Day - #16 Sunglasses Today's photo is supposed to be sunglasses.  It's rainy and gross this morning, so I really don't want to put on my glasses, but I'll surely share with you.  I picked these babies up at my fave downtown Gardiner, consignment shop - Girltrend.  I bought them for my Reach The Beach relay team because our team name is Need Food Speed & would like to have aviator glasses.  Don't you love these?...

I'm still in shock.  How in the world can I have an 8 year old son?  I know, it IS possible for me to have a high schooler - thank goodness I don't.  Tucker is my 1st child and my only boy. I love this boy more than words can describe. We spent an awesome day at Peacock Beach with great friends.  Good thing because it hit 100 degrees (at least) in the Richmond/Gardiner area.  When we got home (after a quick trip to our CSA pick up), I fired up the grill and made pizzas on the grill (because it was too hot inside to turn on the oven) and prepped for a birthday sleepover.  They had a blast running through the sprinkler and eating ice cream cake.  What a day for that!!! This is NOT from today!  We had a party for him last weekend at the cottage!   As I write this post, the boys are in the living room unwinding (I hope) by watching a movie.  Izzy even insisted that I bring her mattress in there and put it on the floor so she could...

I tried like hell to download the 2 videos of the Old Hallowell Day Fun Run last night.  Something is totally up with blogger and the download because I even left my laptop open to download all night while I slept and when I got up this morning the 30 second video wasn't downloaded.  Grrr. So I guess you get to enjoy the videos per plan B - You Tube! Video 1 - Fun Run Start Video 2 - Fun Run Finish

Tucker is in training to run his 1st 5k.  This is so exciting!  He and I will be running the Monmouth AppleFest 5K at the end of September.  He's been doing a lot of bike riding and some easy runs with me.  I don't want to push him too hard, but I want him to be ready for the 5k as well.   On Saturday, he ran the Kids Fun Run after the Old Hallowell Day 5k. Warming up for the fun run..... Tucker and his "best buddy" Jackson What a smile! I am one proud momma!   Also - for more pictures of the fun run, go here .  

Remember a few weeks back when the Mr. Fox came and took (ate) away 6 of my "girls"?  I was completely devastated.  I really was.  I raised those girls from chicks and they followed me around outside. Of course they weren't really following me around because they love me.  They were only following me because they knew I fed them, but it was still cute.  Plus, I was getting some awesome eggs from them.  Well, sadly, Mr. Fox chose the "good" egg layers and left me 4 of the not-so-good egg layers.  I couldn't get rid of the remaining girls, because they were still my girls ! I went back and forth with what I was going to do.  Was I going to get more chicks and start all over?  This would mean raising them in the basement until it got warm enough and then have to wait until the fall until they start laying?  OR scour craigslist for some egg layers.  I chose craigslist.  I'm impatient.  We found a farm not too far from here w...

Today began with the P ortland Seadogs Mother's Day 5K .  I apologize for not having any pictures, my photographer was a big ol' slacker in that department today.   I had an odd feeling going into this morning's race because Ward didn't run it this year.  Normally he runs it with one of the kids in the jogging stroller. But this year he felt that it was best to not run a race one week before the Sugarloaf Marathon .  Since he chose to not run the race, we didn't have to worry about dropping Tucker off anywhere and I got have my own cheering squad.  I loved seeing my family on the side of the road at the start of the race and we very excited to see them sitting in the stands as I came in to the finish line. Thank goodness for mainerunningphotos.com ! I'm the one in the deep pink shirt, black shorts (near the center) with my number on my shorts...look at all those runners!   Since Stacy couldn't run the race today, she transferred her bib #s to Joe and...

Saturday really seemed like a normal school day because I was getting up at the normal time (5:20) and I my destination was Brunswick.  The only difference was getting 2 extra people up and ready before heading out the door.  Okay, really 3 extra people because normally I just put a jacket on Izzy and strap her in her seat and drop her off at daycare.  Adding Ward and Tucker into the mix was crazy!  My goal was to be in the car, driving away by 6:30.   When I looked at my watch as we were driving away, it read 6:32.  Not bad. We didn’t have to worry about dropping the kids off anywhere for the race because the race times were staggered enough and we had my dad, and Ward’s parents coming to watch.  Thank goodness for that!  All four of us were registered to run races yesterday.  Tucker and Izzy (I only registered her because I didn’t know if Ward was going to have to run with her to encourage Tucker or not) were registered for the Ki...