the TC 10 mile

All the hard work over the last 10 weeks, the long runs, the short runs, the {horrible} treadmill runs, the beautiful sunrise runs... it all paid off last weekend. In 10 miles.

On a beautiful Sunday morning, running along the River Parkway while the sun was coming up and there was fog on the bluffs, and dusty over the river - seriously you guys, it was that good. I'm so thankful for the joy the Lord brought me during what I honestly thought was going to be the most mental and physical challenge I've experienced since freshman year pre-season volleyball. Thank you Lord for your faithfulness! 

I'm not a "runner." This 10 mile was my marathon. Even at the prime of my volleyball career, running was always hard. Always. But this run was my act of worship. To be thankful for the body the Lord has blessed me with. How many people would kill for the opportunity to take 10 steps let alone be able to run 10 miles? That was my mantra: thank you, gracious God, for this opportunity. For my able body. Every step. And that picture of me, above? Honestly how I felt the whole run. Like the Lord's presence was shining down on me. Reminding me that if I felt weak or weary, that He was right there.

And that guy? He's a rockstar. I'm so proud of how hard he trained to run a very, VERY speedy 10 mile. 

This race will always be a joyful spot in my memories. Not only was it a personal accomplishment, but the success of my family members and running with them was an added bonus. Something we will always remember.

And to our supporters - Mom, Dad, Lori, Carter-roo, Grace, Pam, Chris, Lauren, Matt, Amanda... your presence on that early morning and being there for all of us meant so much! Thank you!!

October 6th. You were a great day. Followed by a lazy afternoon at home, with hot chocolate and lots of stretching. :) Not to mention made even better by a full stomach of pancakes, eggs and bacon post race. 

So a big hug to my family, a BIG thank you to all those people praying for us, and an even BIGGER acknowledgement of the Lord's faithfulness to each one of us runners... it was a blessed day!

"Have you never heard?

    Have you never understood?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

    the Creator of all the earth.

He never grows weak or weary.

    No one can measure the depths of his understanding.

29 

He gives power to the weak

    and to them that have no might He increases strength.

30 

Even youths will become weak and tired,

    and young men will fall in exhaustion.

31 

But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.

    They will soar high on wings like eagles.

They will run and not grow weary.

    They will walk and not faint."

pinning & tweeting

Well, today was a big day for me and my computer. I decided to hop on board the Twitter and Pinterest train - and it hasn't stopped. Mind you, I'm about a year+ behind the rest of the world (at least females) on this Pinterst stuff. My first find of the day, about 2 minutes after I figured out what to do....

Recycled sweater pillows. Wonder how hard that would be - and I guess I'd have find used (but cute) sweaters. In my opinion the ones in this picture look waaay too cute to be cut up. Maybe its perusing the XL section at goodwill. We'll see. Anyhow, it drew me in like quicksand. Now on the twitter thing.... Jared has been gently nudging me for quite some time. So I thought I'd shoot him a little surprise today. Sigh. Loving that too. It's fun being able to keep up with the news that I want to hear. And it will be more fun I'm sure when an iphone rolls around for me. ;) Subtle hint, honey. Hear it, ponder it, and now you can move on.

I'd love to connect with you on either site! Happy pinning and tweeting everyone!

First day

I'll probably get a "huuuuun!" for this, but I wanted you to see hubs on his first day of grad school (yesterday)! It did end up feeling a bit "kindergartenerish" with me snapping pics.... but eh, I just don't care. I am so proud of him

No matter where this road ends up, I am proud of his desire, his comittment, and hard work ethic. He's pretty much a stud. :)

Dinner's in the oven, about ready to sound the alarm at me that its done, and Jared should be home in 10! I think we have some skype dates tonight with the fam... all in all a good evening. Maybe throw in an episode or two of "Glee." It'll be a great evening then!

Love from west virginia....

One Year

July 10th was a great day. Hard to believe that it was already one year ago Jared and I stood before a few hundred of you and promised to love each other un-conditionally. I'll give you an update: we love each other MORE! This year flew by, and definitely brough with it it's fair share of challenges and upcoming changes, but I couldn't be more thankful for the spouse God has blessed me with!

We spent the day in many wonderful ways. A new favorite restaraunt of mine called Crave, in downtown Minneapolis pamered us with the (BEST) salmon I have ever had, a (HUGE) steak for Jared, and (FREE) blueberry and peach crumble for dessert. (It never hurts to ask...) We had a nice leisurely 2-or-so hour dinner and just enjoyed talking about last year. So fun to remember!

It was a gorgeous evening out.... we strolled around downtown and ended at the Hilton where we were going to stay for the evening. I love hotels downtown. It's almost enchanting to see the tall buildings all lit up from your window. Definitely doesn't happen everyday! And I'll say it again, it NEVER hurts to ask. We recieved so many upgrades just by telling them it was our 1 year wedding anniversary. As we did on our wedding night. :) Not cheating the system... just asking. :)

A huge breakfast awaited us the next morning. And we ate up because we spent the day at Valleyfair! I had been asking/telling Jared that I wanted to go with him sometime for the past year or so. So a day of fun awaited us for our anniversary! We picked one of the hottest days, conveniently, and although we practically scorched ourselves, there was hardly anyone there! And that means NO lines. But they knew what was good for them... we drank tons of water, applied tons of sunscreen, spent tons of time at the waterpark, and rode one ride too many. Finishing with  "Steel Venom" pushed us over the edge. We were both walking wobbley after that long day!

Unfortunately, we walked into the park to discover the camera battery dead. :( So no pics of our dizzy eyes and sunned faces. But we had such a fun weekend of relaxing and celebrating each other. The Lord has blessed us so significantly with each other, and for all that's to come, I know that He will continue to help us grow even closer together.  

To the next year!

Bath time

We'll start with the end result: a clean dog, a tired dog, a nap on the couch for me, and a pretty darn cute pair of apologetic puppy eyes.....

Getting here was the interesting part. Now, I've given Sami baths before, not for awhile, I'll admit, and I can tell my skills were down. My guard as well. And I won't ever let my guard down again when bathing a 50 lb dog. Exhibit A:

Sami sees me attatching the sprayer to the shower. She runs.
Skyler chases Sami. Sister knows whats up!
Sami goes limp.
Skyler starts sweeping the floor with Sami's butt as she's getting dragged to the tub.
That hurts the back, so Sami gets picked up. Very ungracefully.
Dog's in the tub. Door's shut. Step 1.

In no series of peaceful events, the shampoo goes on, *dog plops down in the farthest end of the tub*, shampoo gets rinsed off, *dog insists on drinking from the sprayer*, and the water goes off, *dog attempts jail break from the tub immediately upon no more water flow*. Now. Here's where things got really interesting. Exhibit B:

Dog get "squee-gee-ed" off. Still VERY wet, mind you.
Skyler lets her guard down - turns around to get towel - dog leaps out of tub....

Now what happened next was like seeing a movie in slow motion with that low, Arnold Schwarzenegger like voice saying "NOOOoooooooo......" Let's set the scene. VERY small bathroom, door is shut, tile floor, ME, and an extremely wet and disgruntled dog.

She shakes - and it rains.
She starts neurotically rubbing herself on the floor against the walls with her butt up in the air.
The walls get wet.
Garbage can gets knocked over.
She rolls the toilet paper off the roll.
It sticks to her.
She shakes - and it rains again.
She continues rolling obsessively on the floor.
I slip - it's tile!!
I can't make her stop.
She shakes.
I'm mad.
I yell........loudly.
She stops.
She gets practically thrown back in the tub. And gets towel dried there.

Yet somehow, as soon as I deemed her dry enough to set free (I, on the other hand, was a different story), I was her hero. Funny how quickly they forgive and forget. She proceded to roll on the carpet, roll on the couch, and go into a puppy crazy. Havn't seen one of those for awhile!

I was exhausted. But at the end of it all - you just can't resist her. Especially those apologetic eyes... so we cuddled. And I forgave her for the thunderstorm she put me through.... and the bruise on my knee..... and the low back ache..... She's just too great of a dog. But, I think I'll be leaving bath time to the pro's for awhile. :)

Nothing else to do....

The time is here. To finally sit up on the couch and concentrate on something. I have been so under the weather for the last 4 days, this is a feat in and of itself! I've wanted to blog about our most recent fun for awhile, but my body felt otherwise I guess. I thought my throat was going to be the end of me. My immune system finally kicked the bucket yesterday morning when I woke up with hives. All over. That was it. Doctor time. Apparantly my (wonderful) body was working so hard to fight against my infection(s) it just threw in the towel - said "I'm tired and stressed - and decided hives was the proper coping mechanism. (I could think of some better strategies, thank you very much. But it didn't ask my opinion.) So anyways, with nothing else to do but sit up, it's blog time!. So enjoy... our night of shuffleboard!

About a week ago, we joined our wonderful friends at Herkimers Pub in uptown to celebrate Rachel's birthday! Surprise party... might I add. Gotta love those!

We became quite the shuffleboard masters as the night went on! If I can say, I believe the women had the better "touch" on the board. At least the scores proved it. ;) Finesse, baby!

Now, I had never played shuffleboard before, and I found it to be much harder than it looked! It truly is a finesse game. Nothing like the carpetball we grew up on in junior high - totally the same look... but none of the muscle. ;) We found that out quickly! I really enjoyed it though, and look forward to going back, refining my skills, learning more about the details of scoring, and enjoying the atmosphere of this place.

It was totally fun to catch up with the girls - while the guys got ultra competitive - and enjoy an evening out!

Snapping photos in this place was fun too. The lights were low, and instead of seeing bright, vivid colors through the lens, I saw more dim, muted, grayscale colors. It was different but way cool! And lets be real, waking up to another inch of snow yesterday has kept things in grayscale for a bit. Sigh. It will end soon enough. But I sure thought we were there!

See ya, Herkimer! We'll be back!

Take us out to the ballgame!

After a 5 1/2 month stretch without baseball in Minnesota, Skyler and I were able to enjoy an unbelievable day at Target Field to share in the 2011 Home Opener! The day started bright and early as we bravely left the house at 5am to go watch the Mike-and-MIke in the morning show (ESPN radio) at the stadium. I had received an invitation to attend this event the day before, and after asking if Skyler had any interest in going, she courageously responded, "if we're going to go, let's GO!" Just one of things about her spirit I love...

We got up close and personal with quite a good number of "big names." Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, Bert Blyleven, the Polads, David St. Peter, etc.

We consumed a delicious complementarty breakfast while enjoying this national sports broadcast. Of course, throughout the morning we snapped numerous pictures as we had TOTAL access to to Target Field from 5-9:30am! We saw "the greats" all over - hall of famers, owners, players, etc. And despite the early hour, we did have a bit of celebrity craze. I think there was only once or twice where I looked over at my wife and saw her eyes glazed over a bit. A favorite part of our morning, however, was watching the sun rise sitting over home plate with a "Twins" cup of coffee. This setting produced quite a feeling!

Notice the new HD screen next to the plaza for the left and center field viewers.

Once the morning event ended at 9am (although we already felt like it was the afternoon), we spent a couple hours strolling downtown enjoying the weather and each other before the field "officially" opened. 


We headed over a bit early to watch the unveiling of the Tony Oliva bronze statue. Oliva, a native of Cuba, is the 4th Twins player to have a bronze statue made of him. He played for Minnesota 15 seasons (1962-76), where he posted a .304 career batting average with 220 home runs, and 947 RBI's. Tony O. was the 1964 AL Rookie of the Year, a Gold Glove Award winner (1966), and an 8-time all star. It was fun hearing retired players and Tony himself!

Skyler and I then officially entered Target Field. The heat of the sun made our skin tingle and the smell of the grass was simply awesome! This feeling signified that baseball was back! Maybe Skyler's favorite part of the afternoon was when we camped out on the first base foul line to interact with and watch the Twins take batting and fielding practice. My wife was like a kid in a candy shop as she shouted at the players, asking (cutely) for them to toss her a ball. She quickly became jealous though that she couldn't compete with the 6-year old boys with gloves that could say, "Mr. Nathan, Mr. Nathan!" I think I heard, "sigh... it's hopeless..." about 5 times.

Joe Nathan

Jim Thome and Jose Mijares

And what would a game be without some classic ballpark food? Yes we indulged, and yes it was worth it! After consuming our game-time grub, a unique national anthem and Air Force fly-over set the tone for the remainder of the afternoon. We continued to soak up the 60-plus degree sun as we watched a pitching battle at its finest. 

The A's had a 1-0 lead until the 8th inning when the Twins received a clutch 2-out hit to grab a 2-1 lead. This is all Joe Nathan would need to close his first ever game at Target Field. I think I can say that we both got goosebumps watching Joe jog that valient run from the bullpen to the pitching mound, while the stadium roared. Get's your blood and Twins spirit pumping!

We hope the Twins can start winning consistently, but no matter what, this will be an occasion we will never forget and a team we will always cheer for!

Go Twins!

Jared

Family time in Phoenix

This was a trip of so many blessings and emotions. It was wonderful to join all of Jared's family to remember Grandpa Jack and just spend time together. There were tears, many laughs, and wonderful times spent just sitting on the sun filled patio at Grandma's. And oh, that sun. We were never without blue skies and glorious 80 degree weather! The colors were so different than all the gray-blues we have been experiencing in MN. It was kind of weird "skipping" spring! But I have to say, the colors wowed both of us every single day we were there!! So I blame all the pictuers for the length of this post. (That's my disclaimer). :)

I loved the grapefruit tree in Grandma's front yard! She sent Jared and I a crate a few weeks ago of 18 wonderful, fresh, homegrown grapefruit, and it was like Christmas morning! We are both grapefruit fanatics. And all the time we spent sitting on the patio, I got to enjoy this tree... and the Johnson men in Grandpa's hats. :)

When we weren't on the patio with family, we were probably spending time at our hotel pool. Lori and I enjoyed watching our hubby's act like little boys... and we don't think that will ever stop. Add in some fun cousins and balancing on a pool deck chair, and I guess you get a few hours of solid entertainment?

And when the sun went down, we sqeezed as much family in that hot tub as possible!

One of the things I appreciated most about this trip was getting the chance to meet Chris' side of the family. I had only met her older brother and his family, so meeting her younger brother and older sister as well as spending some time with them was special. Even though the reason for our trip brought sadness at times, there was joy when we all remembered Grandpa together. The memorial was a blessing. Many friends and family shared of the joy that Jack brought with him everywhere he went. His love of food, his laugh, and warmness were highly spoken of. He will be remembered SO highly! The 6 Johnson's, as well as Josh Hollady (cousin) were priviliged to sing at the service. I'll be getting a video of it up here as soon as Jared has time to help me. It was a special memory...

One thing I learned about Grandpa that I didn't know before, was that he was a master working with metal and jewlery! As we were all looking through his designs and handiwork, his talent was obvious! And he stamped all of his work with a branding, which was pretty cool. Grandma gave all the men one of his things, so it will be something they hold onto!

Another fun memory I took away was the time we spent outdoors. Seems shallow, I know, but honestly, I had never been to Arizona before, and I was just enthralled with all the cactus'! And they were huge!! Greg, Lori, Jared and I took a nice tourist stroll one afternoon, and the following day, Jared and I set out for a long trek! It was a blast! Oh yah... and I got my first experience with Chick-Fil-A!!

And by the way... I thought it was awesome...

Our trip actually ended with Jared, Greg and I taking the red-eye flight home. Lori had flown stand-by so she got on an earlier flight. (Lucky). The three of us obviously had a lot of time to kill before our 12:45am departure, so we played a long game of 500 with Grandma, and went mini golfing!

For a trip that did bring its share of emotions, it brought many blessings too. I am so thankful for my family. I'm thankful I got the joy of being around Grandpa Jack, and experiencing all the love he had to give. I'm thankful for Dave and Chris, and the awesome, awesome family I married into. I'm thankful that I love hanging out/goofing around with my brother and sister in law; and that they love it as well. :)

I'm thankful for sun (and the "occasional" sunburn), not having to fly red-eyes regularly, flip flops, patio swings, the promise of eternal life... and I'm thankful that God created seasons; both environmental and in life. Because when (either) of them change, you really find things to be thankful for!!