Surprising myself

I've been having some experiences lately that have kind of blown my mind.  They've involved me accomplishing things I honestly never thought I would achieve. Not a false humility kind of "nah, I'm no good at that" but a "if I tried really hard, it's entirely possible I will still never be able to do that" kind of things.  Two of these things happened in the last week.

1. I got an A in my Statistics class.  Even as i write it it seems totally weird.  What?? Me??  I need this class to finish up my M.S. in Counseling and I've put it off from the beginning.  Honestly, I've put off statistics since I started college in 1997.  This is especially weird because my parents have both been statistics professors and that's what my dad did for 30 years.  Math has never been my forte and I stunk at calculus (senior year of high school) and probability (only math I took in college) so I generalized them to stats and was sure I'd hate it and do poorly.  Turns out, neither is true! This is a huge revelation to me...

My professor was awesome (think power point presentations with South Park characters) and by the grace of God, I conquered stats!  Now it's got me thinking that maybe I can do a Ph.D...

2. Somehow, mostly by accident, I ran a 5k.  How do you run by accident you wonder?  Well, I went with the whole fam to walk a 5k with our friend Ed and a bunch of folks to support Brain Cancer research.  Ed lost his mom last year and it seemed like a great way to support such a worthwhile cause.  So we metro-ed down to DC and met up with the 12,000 others racing.  I've been training for a 5k that I'm hoping to run in June with my 3 sister-in-laws but had no intentions of running this one.  When we started I told Chris I wanted to try to run a little bit and I'd come back or wait up for them when I got tired.  Then...I just kept running.  It was the perfect storm of beautiful weather, a flat course, beautiful DC landmarks all around us, thousands of people walking/running, and I did it!  I ran the whole stinkin' thing! 

Before this I had not run a full 2 miles without stopping to walk at least a little bit. By the grace of God i didn't see the 2 mile marker because if I had, I would have been proud of going that far and probably stopped.  But after the 2k marker, the next one i saw was 4k.  If I'd made it 4/5 of the way, i couldn't stop now! So, I just kept going.

I won't go into all the reasons this is shocking and unlikely but let's just say, I'm truly surprised and I must say, quite proud of my body for doing it!  So, my goal of "becoming a runner in 2011" is actually happening! I'm still kind of in shock. Whoohoo! Here are some race pics.

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The post race reward :-)

Seder-ific!

A couple weeks ago I snagged an invitation to a genuine Passover Seder.  Not the version my family does (which is good but far from thorough when it comes to all the Jewish traditions) or Christian-ized versions which some churches offer.  It was an authentic sit down dinner with a Jewish family (friends of my sister's) and their 25 closest friends :-)  It was SO MUCH FUN! 

There was culture galore (yarmulke's, yiddish, Jewish food), lots of new learning, a ton of fascinating symbolism, a lot of inappropriateness and by the end, a lot of hilarious, drunk Jewish people :-)  They went through almost the entire Haggadah (and ironically skipped the only part my family really focuses on-the 4 questions).  The host also had created a supplemental 20 page booklet that he handed out to everyone!  Some of it had interesting new traditions like instead of leaving a glass of wine for Elijah only, also leaving a glass of water for Miriam to honor her for her heroism in saving Moses and to honor Biblical women in general. 

Other things in the booklet were cartoons and poems and things like the lyrics to "the 10 plagues" to the tune of "Take me out to the ball game!"  HILARIOUS.  They also had all the classic foods (charoset, matzoh, horseradish, parsley, chopped liver, matzoh ball soup etc.) to eat at different junctures in the 4 hour dinner when they corresponded to certain parts of the Passover story.  They were also relatively strict about the FOUR glasses of wine that are mandated throughout the ceremony.

Ever since going, I've been thinking about how to either score an invitation to Miss Shirley's house again next year for the whole family or how to start doing a more thorough Seder with my own family.  It was such a great experience on the spiritual level and the fun level!

Chocolate bugs to represent the plagues and 10 drops of wine that each person took out of their glasses to represent losing some of the joy of life (wine) in each of the plagues.

You dip parsley (or another bitter herb) into salt water and then eat it.  It's NASTY, which is the point since it goes along with readings about the bitterness of slavery the Jews faced in Egypt.

A little glimpse of the 25 people at 3 tables in a relatively small living room!  The "closeness" made it an even more fun adventure.

My favorite Passover food (I make it all year long)! Matzoh Ball Soup! It was nice to have something familiar at this new experience too :-)

First REALLY Warm Day!

 We had an oddly warm day last week and I woke up feeling like we needed a baby pool.  A trip to Walmart with the girls (and then one to Target when I realized Sadie didn't have a bathing suit or swimming diapers) and we set it all up in the yard and had a blast!!! Seeing the girls interact is one of my favorite things.  I'm loving how many activities and even toys they both enjoy and can do together!

Carrot Cake!

 Probably like most people, I get really excited when I see something that looks really cool and that I'd like to do....and then actually do it! This cake was one of those great situations where I loved something in a magazine and it was the right mix of easy, cheap, and fun to make it happen :-) 

Start off with a nice, frozen Sara Lee Pound cake (unless you're an overachiever and want to make your own)

Cut off a couple inches from one end and then 2 wedges off the sides.

Add some yellow and red food coloring to white icing until you get an orange you like

Use icing to "glue" on the wedges to make a point at one end.  Let your husband eat the flat end you cut off (at least that's what I did :-) )

Ice the whole thing

Gather your orange jelly beans-sooo pretty!

Start laying 'em on (and if you're me, let go of any hopes of perfection)

Ella had fun helping with almost all of the steps but the jelly-beaning was the easiest for her to help with :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lay out some green candy for the stem and...Ta-da! It was a hit at our Easter Celebration and a fun project with Ella.

Peep Adventure!!!

The weekend before Easter we took advantage of really good deal on Certifikid for what we started calling our "Peep Adventure."  It was a night in an executive suite at the Gaylord National Harbor and admission to a bunch of different Peep related activities for families.  It was SO much fun to get away and we were treated like royalty by the Gaylord staff!  We even were handed gift bags with stuffed animal peep chicks, candy, a schedule of events, tickets for events and more.  Overall we had awesome family time and would love to go back for more family fun events at National Harbor!

Sadie checking out our fancy bedroom

Our first activity was gingerbread Easter Candy Houses

See the 2ft tall Peep on the top balcony?  That was one of many we found on the Peep Scavenger Hunt :-)

Sadie was fascinated by the Giant Peep!

It was pouring outside when the Easter Egg Hunt was scheduled so they did it inside.  Ella still had a blast.

Fun Mommy-daughter time on our sleepover at the hotel

Chris and Ella hid behind the curtains to watch the crazy thunder storms over the Wilson Bridge-it was a perfect spot!

Brunch the next morning was awesome.  So. Tasty. Though I must say, Sadie did NOT sleep well on our little trip away :-(  But, it was only one night so it wasn't too bad.  She was pretty happy even being somewhat sleep deprived.

I'm a sucker for topiaries :-)  So glad the rain cleared up by our second day there.

It's an impressive hotel even from outside!

It was a great trip that we'd definitely do again.