Much of this winter in Milwaukee was brown and dead. No beautiful snow to soften the blow of winter’s chill. It was lame. Then, to my delight, we got “dumped on”, as they say, and then dumped on again.  All is right in my wintry world again.

So, let’s go sledding! This old Radio Flyer is our favorite sled. If you don’t have one, you should. This one was Tyler’s, but I saw a few at an antique store for a lot less than I paid for it.  Super fast, and better yet, super smooth; which is perfect for “old” people like Brian and I. Sledding is better with friends.The snow was kinda’ sticky.Whee! Terror + Giggles = JOY Mmm, yum. I was so excited to capture this. Every time I slide down the hill, this is what I see. I always think to myself This is the true image of mama-sledding, this is the picture I want to remember forever. Check it out; I am in a photo !!

 These are my favorite. LOVE the joy on Elissa’s face. You can just see how happy she is.

And this one . . . love it!

I have many great images to share & I promise I will. For now, I will share with you one of my biggest personal accomplishments of the last few years. On New Year’s Day I ran a 10K in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1:02 and I am now registered to run the San Francisco Half Marathon in July!

In high school, like many, I was an athlete. I played ice hockey, softball & was on the swim team. I loved to be physical; riding bike, running, just getting out there. But like many of us, over time, life got in the way of all that. Without a coach standing over me telling me I’d better go faster or I’d go again, my couch potato days began.

About three months ago I was a the funeral of a sweet older woman from our church in California. I was a bit late, so I slid in the back row. As I sat there, looking at the rows and rows of grey heads, I realized something; there were almost no overweight old people! After that day I began to pay close attention to this phenomenon everywhere I went; the sobering truth seemed to hold true. Now, I am not saying I was “fat” or that I was some morbidly obese person destined for the grave. But I was most definitely not at my best. Instead of feeling thirty-something and strong and healthy I felt tired and old and just a little bit lazy. Not only was I choosing to sit out the more active parts of life, I was choosing to sit in on some very bad eating habits.

Armed with the knowledge that I was almost 30 pounds over my ideal weight, that I have a family history of heart disease and cardiac arrest, that my cholesterol was in the high 300’s when not on my medication and that my little brother and my older sister had successfully trained for and run the Twin Cities Marathon, I knew it was time to get off that couch (I use the term couch to describe a lifestyle cuz in reality I don’t really have much time for sitting on the couch!) and get running. I call it the “no excuse” exercise. All you need is a pair of shoes and you’re all set. No membership fees, no driving to the gym, no schedules.  

Our ten year old son, Isaiah, had recently taken up cross-country, so I thought he would make a great running partner. Ha! First day out my goal was to run one mile. Isaiah had me RUNNING! I made it about 1/4 of a mile before my body about gave out. Isaiah looked back at me, hobbling down the road and said, “WHY are you WALKING?”  I gave him a little education in our body’s response to aging, inactivity and bad eating. From there, he started coaching me to run just a little further each day. “Come on Mom, your gonna’ run all the way to that stop sign WITHOUT STOPPING! You can do it!” I was motivated by the 5K race my sister had challenged me to on New Years Day and I knew I’d better step it up fast, or I was gonna’ just about die running 3.1 miles in the dead of winter.

Soon, my  husband Brian was joining us on our runs and our distances began to stretch a little. I can so vividly remember the day I ran two miles without stopping and I actually felt GOOD! It didn’t take long for me to move the goal line from a 5K to a 10K, or 6.2 miles, and I began to push even further and faster. Not only was I running distances I could not have imagined, just a couple months earlier, but I was feeling like a young 30 year old, strong and in control. I was losing weight, too. By the time the race day came around I had lost over 20 pounds (this most certainly makes running easier; it took a 20 pound weight off my back!)

On race day in Minnesota it was COLD! The mercury read just 7 degrees that morning, with a nice breeze to bring the “feels like” number down below zero. Thankfully, we were prepared. We’d run all 100 of our logged training miles in cold temperatures, some over ice and snow. Making the day all the more exciting, my brother, sister and cousin all joined us and we had quite the team out there! Out of the five of us, I am proud to say, my 10 year old son took the prize. He finished in 51:19! Brian came in right behind him and I could barely believe it when I learned that my time was 1 hour and 2 minutes; 30 seconds per mile faster than I’d ever run and exponentially faster than the day I began.

As high as I felt after running that race, the real reward had come the week before. Brian and I were staying in a lovely little cabin on a lake (frozen of course) in Northern Minnesota. We went out on treks through the 2 feet of fresh snow, we shoveled off the lake to make a ice skating rink & we logged hours of sledding, pulling our little niece Natalie and our own Lydia up in the sled almost every time and . . . none of it was hard. It was amazing to feel so in shape, so strong, so YOUNG again! I am on cloud nine, can you tell??

So the next time you see me you might be surprised. Maybe you won’t recognize me. Or maybe you’ll come see me run in the SF half marathon in July and maybe see me finish strong. But the most important “maybe” for me is that maybe, if God allows, I will be an old lady, a grandmother and great-grandmother, maybe even one of those old ladies who is still running races at 65 . . . But one thing I know I can say for sure, there’s no way I am going back to where I was, the day I couldn’t finish half a mile without heaving on my hands and knees. No, thank you; its nothing but open roads and a healthy life for me from here on out!

A kind of crappy photo taken with Brian’s iPhone just after the race, and just before we all turned into popsicles.

Duluth/Range Sessions available:

July 28th- 8:00, 10:30 & 7:00

July 29th- 8:00, 10:30 & 7:00

July 30th- 8:00, 10:30 & 7:00

July 31st- 8:00, 10:30 & 7:00

*Note that the 8:00 am and the 7:00 pm are perfect for outdoor sessions. 10:30 am will be for sessions in your home.

*** If any of you have a darling with Goggles for my project, let me know! I can even do underwater sessions. Cool, eh?

Goggle Project

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Andy Z is a gifted children’s musician who has been featured on NBC’s Today show and delights the hearts of children and adults alike.He will be performing at 11:00. See you there!

Thank goodness we went when we did, because it was just two weeks later that he was back at that skatepark and came home with a crooked arm. He was at a birthday party and I think he might have ruined the fun!

We went through quite an ordeal getting that poor arm back where it belonged. After many hours and almost three days he finally went under a general anesthesia to have it put back in place. He was pretty out of it for a couple of days after.

He is feeling much better now and can’t wait to get his real cast tomorrow. BUT, there will be no more baseball and no skating for six weeks . . . at least.