Missing You

I am missing my blog. 

I haven't been writing as much because life has been busy-- that's my excuse.  But it makes me sad because I truly enjoy writing this blog.  It helps me process my life and my brain gets feeling rather muddled when I'm not writing frequently.  

Perhaps it seems that I am posting a lot of pictures of myself running.

That is true.  I am.  But I am running a lot and Abe likes to take pictures of me running, so there you have it.  
This was this past Saturday as the girls ran the last little bit of an 18 mile training run with me.  EIGHTEEN MILES!!! Can you believe it?  It is still shocking to me.  After the disastrous half marathon the previous Saturday I was very nervous for this run.  Actually, of all the training runs I've had to do this is the one I feared the most.  I'll do a 20 in a couple of weeks, but that doesn't scare me as much as this one did.  But miraculously, this was not so bad.  I mean, I was tired but not dead-tired.  I hurt, but not any acute alarming pain.  This gave me hope that a marathon was possible when last weekend I felt utter and complete dread.

And then look what my little Faith drew for me.  I tell you, she is an angel, an absolute angel

And then as if to prove to myself that I still had something left in the tank we decided to take the kids to the zoo.
 I've been meaning to buy a membership all summer.  In fact that was my plan for fun this summer-- buy a zoo membership and go a lot.  That's it.  That was the whole plan and I never did it.  Hmmm, maybe we should have had more fun this summer.

 I guess I just needed Abe there to finally do it.  It was hot, but WOW!!-the Hogle Zoo has come a long way.  In the past when family came from out of town they would ask about the zoo and I'd tell them, "Don't waste your time."  It is so much improved.  And I guess the word is out because it was also way more crowded than I have ever seen it before.  We homeschoolers should know better than to go to the zoo on Saturday.  You go during the week when all the kiddos are in school.

We loved the sea lions.  If I could pick an animal to be I think I'd like to be a sea lion.  Or maybe a sea otter.  They are cute.

Do you notice that Clark is missing?  He spent the day at a friend's house and told us we could do any family activity without him except go to Lagoon.
As it turns out he meant to put the zoo on that list as well.  He was bummed and it does seem very wrong to take the family to the zoo without Clark.  Good thing we have a membership now.  Anyone want to go to the zoo with us?

The days activities weren't over yet-- Saturday night we had our family book club in the park.  By this point I was feeling pretty wiped out, but it was relaxing to sit and talk with friends.  The chasing George around the park was not so relaxing but there were lots of helpers to keep tabs on him.

Bethany brought Zeus the bunny to the park to play and nibble on grass.  I was impressed that they didn't lose him, but he was on his leash.  The kids ran around non-stop playing games.
I did not join in any running games.

If you look really close you can see three figures standing on the rocks.  It's Clark and two friends.

There's a little closer up.

And there be the victorious hikers.  And I didn't even get too nervous while they were gone-- even though there were signs saying mountain lions had been reported in the area.  But even as I write this I'm thinking that maybe I should have been more nervous.  Oh well, all was well.

I suppose Abe did go on a Lagoon ride of sorts that evening.  David Flynn (in the Hawaiian shirt) recently got himself an impressive new car and took the menfolk for a joy ride at the end of book club. 
When questioned by the kids afterwards about the car and the ride Abe said he really liked our minivan because it could seat our whole family.  Really, what else could he say? 

I don't know if it can get much better than this.

Or this.