Kansas City MARATHON

after months and months of hard work, chris was ready for his marathon!

one of the big reasons why bart and janie came to visit was because his big race was on the 21st followed by our 13th anniversary on the 22nd. the race was in kansas city, so we were going to head up on friday, just the two of us, for the weekend while grandma and grandpa stayed home with the kids. this was a big deal! not only was chris running a freakin' marathon, but this was going to be our first getaway in several years! 

owen is so attached to me. so, so attached. but it was time. and he is finally, finally sleeping through the night after 2.5 years. so really, it was time.

in the early hours of friday morning, owen woke up... with croup. 

it was like watching our romantic getaway weekend go right out the window. 

maybe even slapping us across the face before it left, for good measure.

it caused chris a lot of stress friday morning to figure out what was best, but in the end, we both knew that i needed to stay with owen. so jack and bart went up with chris while janie and i stayed home with the kids. owen was so super sick. I've never seen him so lethargic or just down right pathetic. it hurt to cry, it hurt to cough, it hurt just to be awake. poor kid.

the boys made it to KC in time to get signed in at the gorgeous union station and walk around the expo a bit before grabbing some dinner at panera and then heading to bed early.

the morning of the race!

the hotel was basically at the start/finish line, which was super convenient.

bart and jack did lots of sight seeing and breakfast eating while chris was running.

there was a steady 15-20 mph wind blowing directly into the runners for a large portion of the race. plus there was a 3 mile stretch where it was a constant uphill (thats in addition to the other hills throughout the course). he had trained on hills, but nothing with an incline that long before. both these things caused chris' pace to slow down a little bit, but overall he felt pretty great during the race.

coming in to the finish line... couldn't let that girl behind him pass, so he put the pedal to the metal!

hooray!!!!

his time was 3 hours 30 min!

ringing the gong for completing his first marathon

 there were 1,288 finishers (805 males 483 females) and chris came in 78th place overall!!!

that is absolutely incredible!

for his division (age & sex) he came in 15th and in gender place he came in 67th! 

chris said that he is glad he can say that he did it once, but he doesn't have any desire to run another marathon. he'd love to do more half marathons and can see himself getting competitive with those and probably doing pretty well.

while the boys were gone and owen slept, janie took ellie and charlie around to do some fun things, like spending an afternoon at the nature center (and watching them feed the snakes!), going to the park, and even eating out at chick fil a and mcdonalds. she made it a special time for them and i know they loved spending every minute with her!

the boys were able to cancel the hotel for the second night. so after the race, chris showered and rested for a bit, then threw up, then they headed home so we could all be together to celebrate chris' achievement!

ellie made this cute sign to greet daddy

and you better believe we busted out the confetti canons! 

i later used the shopvac to suck it all up... gotta love those shop vacs!

because our anniversary fell on sunday, chris and i were able to sneak away for a couple hours saturday night. we went to dinner because chris finally had a healthy appetite. we went to outback because he felt like eating steak and bread, so naturally outback fit. we have had a couple not-so-great experiences at our outback here, but that night everything was top notch! we really really enjoyed our food (chris got a filet and i got the alice springs chicken). afterwards we stopped by braums for some ice cream, which neither of us could finish. we tried to snap a selfie to document our evening... apparently we need some practice! each one we took was a complete blur and we laughed at the fact that we are probably the only people on the planet nowadays that can't take a darn couples selfie!

even though we didn't get to have the weekend we had originally planned, things turned out fine. in fact, it really made us appreciate the time we had to ourselves on saturday night even more. i guess its kinda how life goes once you've been married for thirteen years and have several young kids... you just have to go with the flow or else you'll spend a lot of time feeling frustrated and disappointed. we celebrated the highest of the highs and some pretty stinky lows that weekend, but thats ok. I'm grateful that chris is the one that i get to experience these ups and downs with!

our anniversary was extra special because it was the day of the primary program! chris stayed home with a sick owen, while grandma, grandpa, and i got to watch ellie be the narrator, jack sing in a trio, and charlie say his part from memory. they all did so well! I'm so impressed with the fact that neither ellie or jack get nervous to be in front of people. i struggled with that as a kid (and an adult) and i admire that. charlie is definitely more like me and really dislikes being in the spotlight. he asked if he could stay with us in the audience and then i could see his nerves as he waited to say his part. but he did! and he did it perfectly! 

i loved seeing the kids expressing their testimonies in simple ways, especially through music. i could really feel the spirit as the kids sang choose the right in sign language. that was something charlie was happy to do and i could see it on his sweet little face.