Half marathon! And some other stuff

First things first. I ran the Marine Corps Half Marathon last Sunday, and it went pretty well! I did it in 2 hrs 4 mins, which was 4 mins slower than the last (and sole) time I ran a half... In 2004. Before kids. So overall, I thought that was pretty good for a comeback run. And - bonus - it was pretty fun, a gorgeous day, and I only had a little bit of hip pain. So I was glad I did it.

Baking with the littles (Goose insisted on sprinkles in the chocolate chip cookies):

Final AWANA ceremony last night: here are the three kids getting their end-of-year awards. The couple giving Roo her are our friends who are also hosting a Latvian boy through Project 143 (theirs is a 12-year-old with a vision impairment).

Here's a language-learning effort, "fruit" in Latvian

And rounding it out… here's Monkey playing badminton at cub scouts this week (evidently he's pretty good):

Happenings around here

We play Sleeping Queens every day before rest time, the Goose and I:

Strawberry-picking field trip yesterday morning with the youngest two. They were quite keen:

There was a new baby calf at the farm where we picked. Here Mouse looks on:

Roo had her choir recital on Sunday night, at which she excelled. She enjoyed it more than her fall performance:

Burn pile! The (newly-clean-shaven) HF oversaw a weekend fire with assistance from the oldest two:

Monkey is coming along with his soccer this spring. Here he was making a goal kick at the game on Saturday:

Last week we had the Mother's Day tea at Goose's preschool. So much fun! Relished the special time with my adorable four-year-old. She had helped bake the items we ate and made gorgeous crafts. Love.

Civil War, Ancient Greece, and impetigo

We went to a civil war re-enactment to commemorate the 150th anniversary for the Battle of the Wilderness with some friends last Friday. It was fascinating. I'm a history major and all, but there's so much I forget (or didn't know)...