pre-race photo op
how far past my bedtime is it again?
the real start
OUR start
my finish
my cousin's finish
i would do it again. although i would probably just bandit it because it really was not worth paying $15 when i didn’t even get a shirt. they could have at least offered to mail one to me. i really wanted the stupid shirt. the nice thing about running at midnight is that it’s not quite as florida outside. although i was still sweating like crazy by the time we finished. so… next year then?
bossman and coworker hs were here last week. this made for a completely weird spin on the home office dynamic but that’s okay. the days were far louder than usual and, well, the nights were too…
hubby drumming, bossman strumming
add in hs on bass
look at them rock!
racking up the points
bossman tries drumming
because i can. i’m not sure what these were but they were part of the landscaping of whichever relative hosted the family reunion last month. they were huge, floppy, plentiful, and oh-so-purty.
and lest you think i was exaggerating the hugeness, they are bigger than hubby’s head.
last weekend turned out to be a pretty social weekend. we had our anniversary date friday night. saturday night was a birthday dinner for panda. i think there were thirteen of us there. but sunday was the big day. in order to welcome tropical storm claudette to town, fifteen or sixteen of us got together at the state beach. there was surfing, kayaking, laying, sunning, and conversation. we stayed out there four and a half hours or so and many people got cooked. fortunately, hubby and i learned our lesson last time and wore enough clothing to combat the sun (even though the sun wasn’t actually out this time). i still got way too much redness on my face but the rest of me stayed nice and pale.
o'neil
mello on a wavelet, tat and o'neil talking, hubby and train in the background looking for waves
hubby knee surfing
hubby belly surfing with a huge smile
stretch and mello riding while o'neil watches
k and yoda hanging ten
tat self-portrait
me, panda, mello, nightingale, N, and some guy
for tonight’s bridge run… i did next to nothing. i attempted to jog just a bit but my leg was hurting too much. so i switched to walking mode. mello’s son was manning a water table just before the bridge and train was standing there talking with him so i stopped for a cup of water and conversation. and… i never really started again. we stood around and talked while the one-lappers headed back to the parking lot and while the two-lappers turned and headed back over the bridge. until i decided that i had better walk back to the parking lot to avoid being last. i’m fine with it. i really wasn’t feeling it. i sure do wish my leg would stop hurting. the shame about it is that i was all decked out in my new, less-hot, girly running duds and didn’t even run in them. oh well, at least they didn’t get all sweaty and gross.
new girly running gear
and just for good measure, sunset in our backyard…
pier sunset
after the run, most of the bridge gang grabbed a gourmet breakfast to refuel. that poor little diner didn’t know what hit it when we walked in. i think we took about half their tables.
the gang from red's end of the table
the gang from panda's end of the table
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i did it. i got up at the crack of good-grief-it’s-early on a saturday morning, registered for a race, and ran my first official 5k.
ready to race at 07:00
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last weekend we headed up to the smokies to hike up a mountain. a couple friends of ours have some standing reservations at the mt leconte lodge and invited us way back on new years eve to accompany them. unfortunately, as the time approached, they found that they were unable to go due to injuries and such so they asked that we go in order to keep them from losing their reservation for next year. and so we went.
our trip actually started after work last tuesday when we made our way to north ga to see some friends and work from the office for a day and a half. it’s a six hour drive that took us seven and a half because of an accident just below atlanta. i kid you not… i was PARKED on the interstate for an hour and ten minutes. seriously… no movement whatsoever. you can guess how happy i was that night and the next morning after getting into our friends’ house so late, staying up even later to visit, not being able to sleep at all, and then getting up ridiculously early for the commute to the office. most of the office showed up on wednesday to see us so we had a good time visiting with the coworkers and, more importantly, i got to eat at la parrilla!
thursday we worked a half day at the office and then headed to pigeon forge to meet up with our friends who weren’t able to make the hike. we spent the evening hanging out with them and then parted ways. they had told us that the trail we were taking was only going to take about two hours so we took our time getting around friday. i slept in a bit, we had some breakfast, and got checked out of the hotel. at the last minute, we realized that we would be parking our car on the side of the road over night so we decided to call a coworker who lives in the area and took our computers to his house for safekeeping. we slowly made our way back to the trail-head for alum cave bluffs and got started on our hike after 14:00.
**clicky for pix and the rest of the story** Read the rest of this entry »
preface: i actually had all of these pix uploaded and ready to post via iphone while we were on the road last week. i tried. and tried. and tried some more. unfortunately, wordpress kept crashing the iphone’s browser so, no post. hey, it wasn’t for lack of effort! anyhow, without further ado, our fourth of july in pictures…
we walked to our favorite plaza to meet up with several friends for food, fun, and fireworks.
Tat showing off her new ‘stache
our full-moon view for the evening
hubby, faith, N, G, tat, o’neil, panda
hubby, faith, N, tat, o’neil, train, half of panda’s face
faith, N, G, tat
o’neil, train, panda, me
me and my boy
we did plenty of mudding in our jeep but this guy takes the cake
how? just, how?
and the climax of the evening… a very respectable fireworks display. we had great front row seats for the thirty minute show. there were some powerlines in our view but they weren’t terribly distracting. most importantly, cobalt’s fireworks scene mode is farooking awesome and i have some of the clearest fireworks pix that i have ever seen. i heart my little cobalt!
i cannot properly express my gratitude for all of those who have fought, bled, and died for my freedom.
there she stands
a memorial street that went on for miles somewhere in AL
one of the many fields of graves in arlington national cemetery. so many brave men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.
tomb of the unknown soldier - "here rests in honored glory an american soldier known but to god"
"beneath this stone repose the bones of two thousand one hundred and eleven unknown soldiers gathered after the war from the fields of bull run and the route to the rappahannock. their remains could not be identified, but their names and deaths are recorded in the archives of their country. and its grateful citizens honor them as of their noble army of martyrs. may they rest in peace. september, a.d. 1866"
a potpourri catchup…
hubby made it through his surgery with flying colors. he actually had a great night and no pain to speak of this morning, with no pain meds since yesterday afternoon. we got to the surgical center just after noon and nightingale quickly took him back and began prepping him for surgery. before long, she had them call me back to be with him and assured me that she had him “cover his junk” while she was prepping him because, afterall, she had to look his wife in the eye. 😀 when i got back there, they had him in an air-filled suit with his own temperature adjuster. even his legs had inflated warmers wrapped around them.
feeling gooood!
all toasty and comfy, right down to the inflated leg warmers
he was happy and feeling good with whatever they put in that iv. we sat and talked for over an hour, joking and having fun. nightingale hung around for a while but had to clock out and leave the building when he was wheeled back to the o.r. apparently they take a strong stance on being over on hours. i got one last shot of us together before i had to go back to the waiting room.
me and the drugged up lunch lady
the dr was wonderfully nice (they all were, it helps to have friends in high places). she came out and spoke to me just before she went in to perform the operation and then she came back out afterward to tell me how it went and let me take pix of the stone. she reassured me that the surgery was the right thing to do since the stone was still lodged in the exact same place as it was on both ct scans. it was 5mm and not going anywhere.
the procedure itself only took about thirty minutes but then he was in recovery another thirty minutes before they let me go back to be with him again. this was when i first got back there. he was still knocked out and his inflatable gown totally made him look like he had man-6006s. it was only about forty minutes later that we got out of there and headed back home.
6006y husband not quite awake yet after surgery
of course, on the way home, i had to stop to get yet another script filled for him (has there been a day this whole weekend that i didn’t go to the pharmacy? they’ve got to think i’m some sort of drugg!e). when we got home, we headed straight for bed. he’s been sleeping ever since and i’ve been snuggling him and watching over him. i hope that he starts feeling better now but i have a feeling that’s not really going to happen until he goes back next week to get the stent out.
and now, what you’ve all been waiting for… i give you, the little b@$t@rd that caused my husband so much pain and misery for the last month:
with my pinky for size perspective
up close and personal with the little b@$t@rd
we went to the urologist this morning. nightingale, who i’ve been texting for medical advice non-stop since thursday, had gotten hubby an appointment with the head of the urological center. she told me last night not to let him eat or drink after midnight and i think the plan was to take him straight into surgery this morning. remember how bloated hubby was last night? he sweat off five pounds during the night. his fever was gone, the bloating was minimal, and he had no pain. he wasn’t sure whether he needed to go in to the dr or not so he called as soon as the office opened. they told him that it sounded as though the stone had probably passed into the bladder but they still wanted him to come in because of all the water retention. they told him he should eat. we got there, waited forever and a year, and the pain came back in full force while we sat in the waiting room. of course, when we got in to see the dr, they were all ready to take him to the surgical center to take care of things once and for all. and then they asked when he last ate. within minutes, nightingale was texting me that she knew he didn’t eat because she told us so many times not to let him eat! oops. i told her that the dr’s office had told him to… it wasn’t my fault… promise! i suppose it was all for the better anyhow. hubby got a better explanation of what the surgery would entail and freaked and begged for some extra time to try to pass the stone on his own. the doc told him to double up some of his meds and scheduled him for surgery on wednesday, if needed. so, after almost an entire day at the doctor’s, i took my hubby home in much the same condition as he started.
while we were gone, sylvis and peach had a good time yakking and playing on the beach
peach yakkin'
sylvis yakkin'
after hubby had gotten home and gotten easy again, he wanted to try to get a little exercise. we started out for a walk but only made it a quarter mile or so before he was doubling over again. on the way back, i walked by his side with my arm around him for support. my poor guy.
playing with cobalt's macro mode
propping up my love
obligatory beach sunset pic
how do you roll a cooler on water?
hubby's extremely brief attempt at snorkeling
since pain spasms and underwater don’t mix well, hubby went back to the sun tent to take another pain pill while we three snorkeled a bit. sadly, no dolphins flocked to us.
sylvis-fish
tiny shark-looking-guy
peach-fish
my poor hubby spent the whole time missing me like crazy. or not…
this is how hubby spent our snorkel time
we spent much longer out there than i expected. i think we all spent some time napping in the tent. it was wonderfully relaxing. when we finally packed up and walked back to the ferry landing, we had a bit of a wait. peach found a nice cool seat while we were waiting. shortly thereafter, he had to give it up to hubby so that he could lay down and writhe in pain a bit.
peach was very fond of his new raft
much like the dolphins, the gators were also a no-show. however, the stop at alligator lake did give me the opportunity to try out the cool face detection self-portrait feature on cobalt. i turned it on, pressed the button, and took my time getting in place. when i turned my head and looked at the camera, it recognized the new face and took three consecutive shots. what a cool frikkin feature!!!
testing out the face-detection timer
i’m glad that we were able to get out and have a few good hours with our guests. by the time we got back home, hubby was feeling terrible again. a few hours ago, he spiked a fever. a few minutes ago, i came into the room to find him asking for a scale. i brought the scale into the bathroom and when he got out of bed i noticed that his torso and face were swollen, his stomach distended. he stepped on the scale and was eight pounds heavier than normal. that’s eight pounds of water bloating that came out of nowhere. i’m very concerned and will be watching him carefully throughout the night.