Happy New Year

What I consider the highlights of my year (in no particular order):

• I ran three half marathons in two months after having not run one in a year and finally broke the 2 hour mark. No marathons because I actually think I'm burned out.
• Tim and I bought a new house. It’s a very nice house, big enough for us and the three dogs and one day Baby N.
• US Adoptions in Vietnam closed on September 1 due to the expiration of the bilateral agreement. It is speculated that they will reopen early 2010 yet nothing is certain.
• I sold the house I lived in for 13 years in 4 days. It was a bitter sweet time in my life.
• I broke my pinky Labor Day weekend while in Louisville , KY watching Tim compete in his first Ironman (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) and rode myself to the ER.
• What triathlons I did do this summer I placed within the top 5 of my age group.
• We added a new member to our family the end of April. A black & silver miniature schnauzer named Lulu.

What are my plans for next year (you actually already know)?

• I’ll be participating in my first half Ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bke, 13.1 mile run) in June.
• I’ll be doing A LOT of training.
• I’ll be thinking about doing a second half Ironman and if I choose to participate it’ll be in September.
• I’ll be doing A LOT of training.
• I plan on road tripping - 1) to the lake as much as I can this summer 2) to Wisconsin to watch friends compete in their 1st Ironman 3) to Oklahoma City for a race 4) on another girls weekend - locale TBA

I hope you all have a happy and safe New Year and all your plans and dreams come true.

Non Post-Christmas post

I have pictures and some video to post from Christmas plus some house pix, but I have to charge the camera to get them off. Once that's done I will post. I hope everyone's holiday was a super one.

BIG NEWS---Today I signed up for the Half Ironman taking place on June 14, 2009. OMG! What am I thinking? I must start my training ASAP, so several post will be dedicated to my boring training life. I've already been running and the swimming will be added later this week then biking the following week. I wish there was more to write about than training, but I'm hopeful there will be good news on the adoption front in 2009.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Not for the Kids

Sorry couldn't resist


Happy Christmas Eve

Well...

It's been 18 months since I was put on my agencies waiting list for a child from Vietnam and the hopes of bringing home my child are fleeting. I went ahead and let my INS paperwork expire therefore forfeiting my FREE extension. When it's time, if it's time, I'll still need to update my home study ($$) however; I'll also need to fork out the dough for the fingerprinting and approval again. All in all I'm OK with that decision yet I'm still a little panicky about it.

What's the point of extending the paperwork when it'll expire in June 2010 and the likelihood of having to resubmit is very high (meaning more $$)? My paperwork has to be valid through travel, so IF Vietnam reopens and starts referring children again the beginning of 2010 I would need to be one of the first to receive a referral in order to have everything go through the steps it needs to go through to get my travel dates and then travel and return before June 19, 2010. There's still the matter of my dossier needing updating as well ($$) which will take some time. Color me skeptical, but I don't see things happening like that.

Looking back I think I would chose a different agency from the get go. Not that I think my agency is at fault for the goings-on between the US and VN because they are not however; I think they could have/should have handled my case and many others better. Knowledge is power and I, by my fault, left that power in the hands of my agency and I think they may have taken advantage in some ways. There are other blogs that I have stumbled upon of families that started around the same time as I did or after who have been home with their children for a long time and they used different agencies. Why are they a completed family and I'm not? That is a good question. In my mind I can come up with 1) they are with a smaller agency and therefore their waiting list isn't as long, but I can dispute that will two agencies in particular 2) possibly their agency isn't as above board as mine however; if their agency wasn't then they wouldn't have their children due to all the regulations/investigations the US has 3) their agency just might be more liked than mine by the orphanages in VN, but I can't really justify this unless I compare the statistic from agencies that work within the same province as mine. Then again, it is up to the orphanages to refer children to particular agencies, so I could say by the mere "swiftness" that parents go through the process with other agencies it might be true.

Christmas is a mere two days away and I'm feeling a little depressed in this holiday season because this should have been my first Christmas with my new son or daughter and it looks like that first Christmas won't be for another 2 or more years.

Sorry for the downer post.

Have a Happy and Safe Holiday.

Sad Day

For Tim and his family. The decision was made that Bonnie, the family dog, needed to go to doggie heaven today. She had a good life full of fun and lots of love. Bonnie was a vibrant 15 year old Brittany that just couldn't recover from this 5 bought of pneumonia. I don't have any pictures of her however; she looked like your stereotypical Brittany, orange and white with flowing hair and big bright brown eyes. She will be missed.

So.....

How cold can it get? We woke up this morning and the outdoor thermometer said it was 1 degree. We went the bed last night and I swear it felt like 10 degrees, like it was outside, in our bedroom. For some insane reason the HVAC unit for the upstairs is running yet no air flow is coming in any vent up there. It's CRAZY cold here. I can't remember the last time it was this cold. Well, if I thought about it long enough I'm sure I could, but it's Sunday night, I'm cold, I'm tired and ready to just hang out watching anything on TV cuddled up under the blankets.

To top of the insane cold the wind is blowing pretty hard as well. Let's put it this way...the Chiefs played Miami at home today and at game time (12noon) it was 10 degrees with a -12 wind chill. Yes, you read that correctly, NEGATIVE wind chill. Miami kicked a field goal which wasn't a very difficult field goal for an NFL player (34 yds) and the ball just barely made it over the cross bar. Usually the wind isn't much of a factor on the field. Not today. Glad that we skipped the game because there is no way I would have survived the cold to watch the Chiefs lose AGAIN! They just can't just can't help sticking their heads up their butts in the fourth quarter. We are 2-13. OMG! I know I've never seen a Chiefs team this bad! On the positive side, if there is one, since we sucked so bad we do get a higher draft pick. Now, lets hope they don't piss it away for a player in a position we don't need. The best Christmas present any Chiefs Fan could have gotten was having Carl Peterson resign. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause!

I'm sure no one really wants me to vent anymore on the Chiefs, so let me tell you what we did for Tim's b-day. Yea, nothing special. I'm a horrible person. I couldn't even come close to the greatest he produced for my birthday, but he did get dinner at his favorite restaurant and a fun filled day with me, at least the afternoon. We both went running in the AM, but he got side tracked by the failing health of his family pet and needed to help his mom take her, Bonnie, to the vet while I made my final Christmas present purchases. We then trucked over to my brother's for my nieces Christmas since she'll be spending it with her dad this year and Tim got a birthday present from my parents and a cookie cake. Then I helped him do some of his Christmas shopping before we went to his parents house to see Bonnie and his sisters engagement ring. Allison and her boyfriend have been dating six years and he proposed Friday night with a scavenger hunt type game. It was very cleaver. Scott, the boyfriend, made a photo books with stories chronicling each year they've been together and placed them throughout their house with clues as to where to find the next one. The last one had her going outside to get a present from their dog who had the final story book tied around her neck then he popped the question.

After all that excitement dinner was kind of a let down. We were going to go ice skating, but it was just to darn cold. We've decided that we will go after work on Tuesday since that will be the warmest day of the week. Tim really liked his present. I got him a finishers plaque from his Ironman. It's really cool. I got to pick three pictures of him, add his name and finishing time and then they "lazered" the photos onto the plaque with his name, time, the race and a background photo. There is a picture of Tim coming out of the water, a REALLY cool picture of him on the bike with a railroad tie like fence and a field in the background and then the running picture shows him running across a bridge. It's a close up, so you can see all the steel beans of the bridge above and beside him. If the other people weren't in the picture it would be better, but beggers can't be chosers and it really was the best picture of him running and I had three to chose from.

I hope everyone has a Happy Holiday!

Another Big One

To Tim.

Today is his 30th Birthday.

More Possible Free Stuff

Yes, that's right. Laurie has three more give-a-ways, although they end tomorrow (Wed), so hurry up and get your entries in if you would like any of these:

Day 10: Precious Ponchos. These are adorable. Click here to read Laurie's post about the contest and how to enter.

Day 11: This is something for the adults, games. These games are from North Star Games and sound pretty cool. Click here to read Laurie's post with all the diddy's.

Day 12: These are super cute slippers for kids by Acorn. They have adult size as well if you're so inclined. Once again, click here to read all about how to enter.

Have a great night.

Weekend in Review

So I didn't break 2 hours again, but damn I was close. The course was jam packed with people for practically the entire race. It was crazy. Even Chicago clears out a little. There was constant weaving. Yes, there were sections when there weren't as many people, but dang it was crowded. It was 78 degrees around 2p, so I think the race started in the mid 60's. There was also around 30mph winds and those were mostly head winds. The start was pretty cool because we were standing between a lot of tall buildings and they shot off Christmas colored confetti and with the strong winds it was like a wind tunnel of confetti going down the street. That was really cool! I got to run with my friend, Angela, the whole race which was really nice since we haven't run a race together in forever. Here are my stats:


Distance HALF MAR
Overall Place 1388 / 5773
Gender Place 468 / 3375
Division Place 60 / 414
Gun 2:04:28
Pace 9:11
10M 1:33:10

The weekend itself was great! We did too much walking and shopping on Saturday, but it was a good time. I enjoyed spending time with my friends and doing what we love to do as only we can phathom doing. I hope we get to do it again some time soon.

Some Pretty Cool Detail

Result in Entire Field - 1388th place

4386 finishers behind. About 24% of finishers ahead.

Result in Gender (Female) - 468th place

2908 finishers behind. About 14% of finishers ahead.

Result in Division (F 40-44) - 60th place

354 finishers behind. About 14% of finishers ahead.

From 10mi to Finish you passed 164 runners and 15 passed you.

LEGEND: The location of the figure on the line shows your position in the finish order of the race. The closer the figure is to the right, the closer you were to the winner.

FACTS
Who's who: Of the 5774 who finished, 58% were female and 42% were male.
Opposite Sex: For the record, you were ahead of about 62% of male finishers.

The timing chip company that did this race has a pretty good system. First, the timing chip is disposable. It's called a D-Tag and it goes on your shoe just like any other, but you don't have to take it off. Then RunPix tracks you with some pretty nifty stuff. Tim tried to track me from the beginning and ran into some issue, but when we were trying to find one of our friends on the course I had called Tim and he was tracking her for us step by step, literally. Apparently they had the same stuff for my last marathon, but I didn't even know it. Too cool!!

Plans In a Nut Shell

• Tonight is my office Christmas Party/Dinner
• Saturday morning I leave for Dallas to run with a bunch of my running girl friends
• Sunday morning I run the half marathon, hopefully visit with some friends that live in TX and then head back home that night

Fun filled, jam packed and quick weekend plans.

I hope yours is great!

More Give-a-Ways

Yes, that's right. I'm posting about more give-a-ways that Laurie is doing. If you haven't noticed I really haven't much to blog about, so Laurie is helping my content with these give-a-ways.

I know I posted a time back about hair bows from KICK ASS BOWS (see ad on my sidebar), but Laurie's is having another give-a-way for these pretty cool, nay, kick-ass hair bows. All you have to do is post a comment on her blog under this post to be entered to win. If you don't win hop on over to KICK ASS BOWS site for a gander at what they have. I really like the frogs.

The other contest that Laurie has going on is for these great necklaces & bracelets. Check out the rules/regs of this give-a-way here. Once again all you need to do is leave a comment to be entered to win. The winner is selected via random.org. For memento's these necklaces/bracelets are pretty cool.

Mortality

Last night I went to the second of two wakes in the past three weeks. These were people that my parents were friends with that I have know for quite some time. It's really said to think about your parents mortality. I'm lucky in the fact that both of mine are still alive and three of five grandparents have only just died in the last 6 years. I know there are plenty of people out there who may not be as lucky, but there are also those who may be luckier than me. Right now I cannot fathom having to put together a funeral for a parent or deal with their assets. I'm hoping that I have another 20 years before I have to even think about it.

Here's a shout out to those we have lost, their families and ours.

Much of the same

So, my last few posts have been about give-a-ways on Laurie's blog and this one is not much different. Please visit Laurie's blog and enter to win a cute & cuddly blankie from Ambajam. I really like the Fresh Kiwi and Tangerine Orange with Green because they match the bedding that I have for the Infamous Baby N.

Laurie also has a give-a-way going for a gift for the Frothy Barley & Hops Loving Manly Man that you can check out here.

So this post isn't only about give-a-ways, not that they aren't SUPER, but I wanted to let you in on what's going on in the Vietnam adoption world. NOTHING! Well, next to nothing. My agency DID get their Hague approval, so WHEN Vietnam reopens I won't need to switch agencies to continue the adoption. When VN reopens they are expected to only work with agencies that have their Hague approval, so this is very good news for my agency and all the families still waiting and hoping.

The US & VN are supposed to be meeting this month to discuss the new agreement. No definite date has been set, but it was speculated to be around the 15th. I'm sure an outline will get hammered out then they'll have to meet again for revisions (hopefully only once) after they've spoke to the higher-ups then again to determine a date that the new agreement will begin. At least that is my hope anyway. The last time VN shut down it was 3 years and then almost 6 months before things got rolling again. This time there was already an agreement in place and I think VN & the US have an idea of what they want out of the new agreement, so the only thing that stands in the way is ego, in my opinion. I'm hoping that both countries can get past their need to beat their chest and think of all the children that are having to live their lives in orphanages when they could be living their lives in more nurturing loving homes.

More fun stuff to win

Yes, I'm going to keep reminding you to visit Laurie's blog and keep up with her 12 Days of Christmas Give-A-Way contests because she has some great stuff and her posting are pretty good too. Friday I posted about her 1st day of Christmas give-a-way, The Mountain Sprouts clothing and today is a posting on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th days of Christmas.

2nd Day = Leapster 2. It's a great learning tool. This give-a-way goes until 12/12 and the winner will be announced 12/13, so you have until the end of the week to enter.

3rd day = Robeez. I'll let Laurie's post tell you.

Robeez brings to you some of the cutest little holiday shoes! It seems everyone in the world already knows about Robeez, but I have a few things to tell you that you may not yet know about them. They are charitable, and you can help them donate to an amazing organization called Kids in Distressed Situations!

Here’s how it works: For every e-card sent from the Season of Giving website, Robeez will make a $5 product donation via its charitable partner, Kids in Distressed Situations (K.I.D.S.). It’s easy: one card = $5 worth of Robeez footwear; 10 cards = $50 worth of Robeez footwear, and on and on!

A little bonus: For taking the time to send an e-card, Robeez is also offering senders a chance to win one of seven new Shoes and Socks Gift Sets. (They’re a great holiday gift idea too!)
A bigger bonus: For bloggers who share the Season of Giving campaign with their readers and send a link to their post to heartandsole@robeez.com, Robeez will make a $25 product donation via K.I.D.S.

The goal: To send a $250,000 product donation this holiday season.
The campaign runs through to December 20. You can send an e-card from seasonofgiving.robeez.com.

Who wouldn't want to participate in this give-a-way/season of giving? It's a great cause. You have until 12/14 on Laurie's blog.

4th day = Legos. Gotta love 'em. This give-a-way goes to 12/15.

I hope you are enjoying Laurie's give-a-ways. She's a great blogger with great stories.

Give-a-way

Visit Laurie over at Pho for Five and check out her contest that ends TODAY at midnight and her new contest that starts today.

Contest # 1 - For those of you that have little girls or nieces these bows are too cute! Check them out by clicking on the picture at the left for KICK-ASS BOWS. These bows are just adorable and who couldn't use a $25 gift card towards some of these bows? Heck, buy some even if you don't win.

Contest # 2 - Mountain Sprouts has some great outerwear for kids. Check them out. You just might find something you could use the $50 gift card to buy, but you need to enter Laurie's contest. I know I saw some things that I would like to get for my niece & nephew, but they'll have to wait until next year or their birthday.

Keep checking back with Laurie because Contest #2 is just the beginning of a string of give-a-ways she will be having.

Reprise

Since yesterday's post was, well, gross, I thought I would give you some natural beauty today.

The Break Down

***Update at bottom***

Hello! I hope every one's Thanksgiving was a good one and you didn't wind up like me. Sick.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at my brothers house with his wife's family on Thursday, then Thanksgiving brunch at my parents house on Friday with my uncle, my cousin and his family, then Thanksgiving dinner at Tim's parents Saturday night with his sister and her boyfriend. That's a lot of food! (FYI: I was one of those morons out shopping before dawn. My SIL's SIL and I split the shopping and it worked out spectacularly)

When I think back at it I think I started to feel bad Wednesday night. Tim and I sat down to watch some TV and I couldn't stay awake to watch Bones at 7p. I kept nodding off. By Saturday night I was feeling pretty tired and knew a cold HAD to be looming over my head, or so I thought. I woke bright eyed and bushy tailed Sunday morning and hit the ground running as Tim described it. I was a cleaning machine (side note: the sellers claimed to have had the house cleaned before they moved out, but if it was cleaned I'm rock star). My friends, Jean and Stacie, came by to see the new house and we all went to Tim's favorite new spot, Llewellyn's Irish Pub, to watch the Chiefs play. (OMG! They actually won.)

WARNING: Might gross you out

Well, about 5:30am Monday it was like the bowels of hell came roaring through my body and out my mouth. I literally filled the toilet bowl. The shear force was enough to send splatter flying and land on the walls, the toilet brush, the floor and all parts of the toilet. GROSS!!! I know. Guess who got to clean it up? Yep, ME! I'm kneeling there, my complete insides floating in the toilet and Tim THEN decides to get out of bed to see how I'm doing and turns to head back to bed. HELLO! I stop him before he gets too far and ask for the Lysol wipes. You'd think it was 2am by apparent gravitational pull the bed had on him. At least Lulu was there right beside me making sure I was OK the whole time. Sweet little girl. She's barely left my side this whole week.

I shouldn't have, but I did. I went to the dentist at 8a and then to work. My sister-in-law was none too thrilled that I showed up to get my teeth cleaned, but I had brushed 6 times after hell came rushing out of my body and I didn't feel too bad. By 9:30a I was feeling pretty bad again. This time however; things came out the other end. Yep! Can we say, LOADS OF FUN. I left work at noon, went home and slept. I didn't have much to eat except some crackers, OJ, Sierra Mist and a tiny piece of pie I didn't get Saturday night. Went to work on Tuesday feeling pretty good then I ate lunch. Big mistake. Seriously, I should have set up shop on the pot because that is where I spent most of my time Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday night I was pretty hungry yet hesitant, but threw caution to the wind because Tim had gotten me some medicine. That medicine will from here on out be known as THE MAGIC PILL. I ate my two grilled cheese sandwiches with my glass of milk then downed the magic pill. 11 straight hours of toilet freedom. This morning Ms Butt met a different Mr Toilet, but I've made it to work, had my pint of chocolate milk, nutrigrain bar and my magic pill, so far so good. The next test....lunch.

Sorry for the disgusting nature of this post, but I truly hope your Thanksgiving was great and that you didn't have to suffer through what I am.

***Update: It's been two hours since I finished lunch and I've hit the head 4 times. Looking back it just might have been a mistake to get the Thai Chicken Salad.