Beach to Bay Weekend

This weekend, was the Beach to Bay Relay Marathon! The race took us, the runners, from the Gulf of Mexico beach to the Corpus Cristi bay. But to get there we had to first get down to Corpus Cristi... So after way too long packing, I picked Cam up from his work and we headed down to the coast. We got there around 6, so we played in the beach for a while. Addy had fun chasing the seagulls, throwing shells, and running out into the waves. After a while getting out wasn't as fun because the wind had picked up and was blowing sand everywhere... That was the forecast that we were in for a bit of a long night...

Since I wanted to save some money, I figured that we'd use our state park pass and camp on the beach at Mustang Island State Park, so after playing in the sand and water, we decided it was time to set up our tent and get dinner and Addy to bed. So, we set up our tent... which was a little difficult due to the height of the tent and the flimsiness of the supporting rods and of course the wind. :) So Cameron drove our car up right in front of it, stuffed some big wads of seaweed under the other side of the car, to stop wind underneath, and rigged a tarp to help the wind go over the tent. Man, I wish I could have paused the wind even for a minute to just get a picture, cause it was a pretty awesome set up, but alas, I did not subject myself or my camera to that kind of abuse...

We eventually got Addy's pack-n-play up, it helped support the wind-blown side of the tent, and her to bed. Surprisingly she went down without much of a fight, so Cam and I huddled in the car and ate our tinfoil dinners out of the blowing sand. Then it was bed time... Needless to say, we had an exciting sleep that night accompanied by the flapping of our rain cover, with light dustings of sand all over throughout the night. :) Addy woke up 3-ish times and I was up about 5 times... Cam however did not sleep well, so we were all a little zombie-ed when we had to get up at 5 to pack up our tent and get to my hand-off site.

I did the second leg of the race... which was perfect, cause the first runner (Lupe Chatter) ran all along the beach against the wind... which I did for about 100 ft, but then turned and had it to my back all the way to the third runner (Valerie Carleton). I did 4.67 miles and felt good enough to step up a little at the 4 mile mark, so it was a good run! Valerie passed the baton to Becca Bird, then to Bridgette Lowery, then Kara Martin took us home. We completed the race at 4 hours 13 min with a 9:39 average mile! (Subtract out a few extra minutes at the hand offs trying to find people and we made good time!)

Team Will Run For Chocolate!!

Since it was the Beach to Bay Relay Marathon, it was only fitting that we got a picture on the beach....

and one jumping... We did miss Lupe Chatter in the team picts.

Addy and Cam played on the beach while I waited at the finish line for Kara and the rest of the girls...

but were my loyal supporters the rest of the time.

More beach fun...

So despite the crazy wind and sand, it was a fun time on the beach.

P.S. Last exciting news for this weekend... Today was Addy's first day in nursery! She did so well and was a 'good girl' said all the nursery workers... I think it was hardest on Cam because he didn't have any 'entertainment' during the later two hours of church! ;) J/K, but it was interesting to actually pay attention to the lesson and think that Addy was in her own classes doing her own little thing. :) Fun stuff.

P.P.S. Lessons Learned:
-Don't get a tall and spacious tent because it doesn't withstand storms very well...
-And even just a little sand that gets in with every little gust of wind builds up to a bunch of sand over the course of a windy night. :)

Handyman Side Project!

So, Cameron had a scrap piece of metal just hanging around that hadn't worked out for what he'd originally planned.... (If that makes sense...) So, I told him I was going to do a Honey-Do List for him... and surprisingly he agreed... but only if it was cute and it stayed in order of importance/order of needing to be done first. So I readily agreed! Luckily, I have Sarah Wilcox as a friend who was very willing to show me her amazing machine (a Silhouette) and use it to help me cut out the lettering I wanted to use for the project! Add in some cute stickers from Michaels and this is the (almost) final product!

I just need to add in some paper and magnets to hold the actual list of projects to be done and get magnets on the back so it'll hang on our filing cabinet! Fun stuff!

The Daring Deeds of My Little Missy...

Since this is my first time to try to link a video on this blog... We'll see how it goes! :) Addy has always been a little bit of a risk taker/thrill seeker, but here are some videos to show how she's been doing lately...

Yes, that is Cameron's table saw... but the blade was down and he was enjoying watching her do it as much as she was enjoying doing the jumping!... :) Little stinker. That was all fun until yesterday, when the following started happening!

I swear, Adelaide is going to give me a heart attack! Even when she bonked her head once, she still jumped right back up and climbed back up on the stool... the little thrill seeker! Oh well, you live and learn right... at least that's what Cam tells me and I have to keep telling myself so I don't get too worried. :)

Project Update!

So, Cameron's little rocking chair project is complete and Addy is in love! :) Cam refinished and then routed her name out on the back. She pulls it around with her all over the house and reads books, plays with toys, and just rocks in it.

As for how my garden grows... it's doing great! :) Well, except for my little spinach plants... a mean ol' caterpillar came and ate them down to nothing. So he got tossed over the edge of the balcony to go eat someone elses' plants! :)

So we've been getting, and eating strawberries!

They are a little small, but not bad for a balcony garden!
(If look closely, you can see where my littlest strawberry lover stole a bite... :)

Since it has taken sooo long for me to get this posted, I'm going to have two updated photos... One about a month old and one from now! Let's start with the beans and eggplants!

The beans sort of sprang up and got huge all at once... and the eggplants surprised me.
I wasn't sure they were coming up at all.

So this is fresh from today. There's a jungle huh...
bottom left corner is an eggplant, the rest are beans
except for a volunteer 4 o'clock flower that came up on its own!

Then onto the tomatoes and green onions...

The monster tomato on the left is from the store,
I planted it the same time I planted seeds for the rest of the plants,
which gave it a very nice head start...
(green onions in the top left corner and bottom right corner of the pic...
and cherry tomatoes on the top right)

So yeah, things are just bigger here...
we've even got some pretty good sized tomatoes on the older plant!

And that leads us to the pepper plants! Another surprise sprouting!

There are hot peppers in the top of the pic, then multicolored sweet bell peppers on the bottom of the pic.

They're growing pretty well...
They've just got some bugs on the bottom of the leaves that I need to get rid of...

These were my first sprouters and faithful 'til the bitter end little sprouts... Cabbage, spinach, and lettuce...

The little green things on the bottom right, just above here...
are lettuce... but I must not have thinned them correctly cause they dried out and died...
the couple of spinach plants on the bottom-ish left got eaten by that nasty little catterpillar,
so all I've got from my original seedlings are my three little cabbage plants over by the white tubing.

I just noticed the holes in the cabbage leaves! Yikes!
And I transplanted some eggplants to keep the cabbage company,
since my lettuce and spinach died...

Since the tomatoes go so crazy and get sooo big, I decided to just have two per bucket... but I had more sprouts, so after giving some to friends, I stuck one in a bucket and we'll see how it does!

And that's how my garden grows! :)