Taylor Swift

Oh, wow! We had an amazing time at the Taylor Swift concert last night. She is quite the little performer. Of course we all love her music, so it was easy to have a good time. This was her last night of her tour, so the opening acts (Gloriana & Kellie Pickler) & Taylor had a great time with it. I think we actually lucked out because of it. I guess Taylor is a prankster & so all the tour members had a fun time playing jokes on each other throughout the concert. It was quite funny at times. We got home around midnight last night & now today all five of us are dragging. Well worth it though!

The group: Jim, Sean, Zach, Lauryn, & her friend, Maddie

And for all you Vikings fans... guess who sat RIGHT in front of us??? Jared Allen!
(you can't tell by this picture, but he is HUGE)

And here is a little clip of her Love Story... (Sharon, this one is for you!)

(pause my music player first)

Twin Cities Marathon

Ahhh... Another marathon down for both Jim & I. It turned out to be a bittersweet day. Sweet, because Jim did amazing during the marathon. He hadn't planned to, but ended up doing many of my long runs with me and training hard. Well, it sure paid off. He had his personal best yesterday, finishing at 4:48! He had never been under 5 hours before, so he was very excited. I loved it when I saw his smiling face coming through that finish line!

I, on the other hand, had a very miserable run. I have been suffering from hip problems and a minor back injury. Along with that and possibly over training (causing more aches than good), I really struggled through my run. I had a goal of 4 hours and felt that I was prepared to make it, but didn't. By mile 18 I started cramping really bad in my right leg (the leg with the hip problems) and ended up having to walk the majority of the time to the finish. In fact, I could not even get my leg to run the last few yards to the finish. I had to walk it in. It was so hard for me because I have never experienced a run like this, EVER. But it was humbling and I have learned a great lesson. So, for now I am working on trying to still be proud of just finishing a full marathon.

And coming up... We are heading to Washington, D.C. to run the Marine Corp. full marathon in 3 weeks. But this one will be for fun. We are planning on running it slow, stopping and taking pictures, taking in the scenery, enjoying the crowd, honoring all the military men and women who serve for our country, and finishing with no time limits. Sounds like a great plan to me!!!

Twin Cities Family Events

This past Saturday, our kids participated in the Twin Cities Family Events. Lauryn and Zach ran the 5K (3.1 miles) and Sean ran the 1 mile. They all did great. To help prepare them for their runs, they trained hard after school through Generation Endurance. We were proud of how well they all did!