my life as a spectator

Last weekend I continued my new life as a marathon spectator. last month it was boston. this month it was sugarloaf. two completely different events, both 26.2 miles of *fun* (i can say fun because i didn't actually run them...just watched :-) ). i think the runners might have a different word to describe them....since watching boston i have decided to bite the bullet and train for my very first marathon. however, due to the little boy growing inside of me, that training won't start for a while and marathon #1 is schedule for october 2011. i'm pretty excited thinking about it though. i must say though...several times this weekend i told myself that i was glad the sugarloaf marathon was not my first.

we (danielle, tyler, andrea and i) traveled up to sugarloaf on saturday afternoon hoping to check in and hit the expo for a while before grabbing dinner. danielle and andrea were running, tyler and i were the lazy cheerleaders:-) tyler had no interest in joining us at the expo so he stayed back in the room (aka bomb shelter. more on that in a bit) while we went to the expo. i know i wasn't running but expos are always kinda fun and i was hoping to get myself a sugarloaf 26.2 sticker cause i think they are cool:-) danielle and andrea picked up their packets and we noticed that there didn't seem to be much of an expo. so danielle asked if they were selling anything and the lady looked at her like she had 2 heads. she told us that they would be selling the "leftovers" from the packet pick up at the finish line the next day. and now that i think about it...i don't think they were. they did tell us that just down the stairs was a "fair". so we ventured down to see what was for sale. um. yea, it was some kind of fair trade show and if we were in the market for recycled chip bag change wallets (i really wish i had taken a picture of it to show you) we were in the right place. Fail #1.

since the "expo" was a major fail we headed back to the room before dinner. i was starving...hello im pregnant, and our reservations weren't for another hour and a half (yeah, we thought we'd be hanging out at the expo for a while). so we made our way back to the bomb shelter. the inn at sugarloaf was all sold out when we booked our room so they put us up in one of their condos which was a nasty, dirty cement building that cost 40 bucks more then the nice rooms at the inn that could sleep just as many people. now i know the mountain is closed and the golf course isn't open yet, so the only people staying at sugarloaf are people running/watching the marathon....im not sure why we didn't get the advertised marathon rate since our friends staying at the inn did. the following are some pictures of our room. ghetto i tell ya. Fail #2

yup...we could sit on BOTH beds at the same time!:-)

tyler loving the fact that he doesn't even fit in the bed:-)

i guess they left this for us to clean the room ourselves?? they certainly didn't clean it for us...

and a ghetto room wouldn't be complete without this lamp...

Our reservations for dinner were at 6:30 and around 6:15 we decided to head down to the restaurant at the inn, in hopes that we could get in early. we ran into melissa and rebecca who were also running the next day and they informed us that there was no chip timing for the race. how a race can advertise as being a boston qualifier but not having any chip timing is beyond me. anyway...off to dinner. we were seated right away and had our orders placed by 6:30...mmm i was so hungry. Yeah, well the ONE chef at the restaurant didn't seem to care about my hunger since we didn't get our food until 7:45ish!! Seriously!? Bad planning. There are very few options for dinner in the area and so most people staying there for the race were also eating there, as well as the local high school kids who happened to have their prom that night as well. Fail #3

like i said, im glad this wasn't my first marathon experience. even though this had nothing to do with the race and the course itself (which i hear is wicked nice) it still has an impact on the whole race experience. chicrunner recently wrote a blog and asked if you feel your "race experience" has an effect on your "actual" race...I think she may be on to something here.

anyway...on to the actual race. danielle and andrea left super early in the morning to catch the bus to the starting line while tyler and i slept in, showered, and watched some law and order before checking out and heading to the race (we later found out the rest of the cheerleaders got up at 5:45am with their runners and went to the start line with them. oops. way to make us look bad!).

thats us....the cheerleaders!:-)

When I woke up, these instructions were left for me:

i got a tweet from danielle and she was at the 10k mark well before we had thought she would be so we decided we better get going...:-) danielle had told us she would be passing the base of the mountain around 9:00 but tyler got a call from her around 8:45 that said she had already passed it and not to wait for her there.

my boston cowbells came in handy! and everyone loved them.

the race was all along one road and the road was still open to traffic so we were able to drive by the runners, shake the cowbells and scream out the window:-) tyler and i would drive to different points and wait for everyone we knew to run by and then get back in the car and drive a few miles up in order to see them run by again. we did this several times before heading to the finish line. because this race is held in middle of nowhere, maine there weren't many spectators. i don't remember seeing many houses along the course so the only spectators were those who actually had runners they were cheering on. and once i stopped shaking my cowbell, i realized how quiet the course really was. a few claps here and there but you could hear animals and the stream flowing in the woods behind us. if you didn't have music on the race, im sure it was a peaceful, quiet run for the most part.

it was pretty cool to see the same bunch of runners run by everytime we stopped. there was the girl with the knee high socks on who always waved and smiled to us, the father/son (i assume) combo who called tyler and i the "cowbell couple". haha. he did not like that, the man & woman who asked us if we had beer in our cooler (we did. they did not stop), the lady who asked if we had ice cubes in our cooler (we did. she stopped by and shoved a few pieces in her bra, put a piece in her mouth and mumbled something about it being a "little known secret"), the grunter who grunted his entire 26.2 miles, and then there was gramps. we loved gramps. im not sure what his finishing time was but he was moving right along. my guess is he finished somewhere between 3:40-4:00.

go gramps go!

after several stops along the way we finally decided to head to the finish line. our friend melissa has been working her butt off in hopes of qualifying for boston, she got a trainer and everything! sugarloaf is listed as one of the top 15 fastest courses so she was giving it EVERYTHING she had. we wanted to see her finish. we were driving by mile 24 around 3:30 and i told tyler that we can't see melissa in this mile, she needs to be further ahead in order to finish in 3:40:59. we saw her somewhere in the 24th mile. i knew at that moment that she wasn't going to bq. i can't say enough about how HARD melissa ran the last mile and half. when we saw her come to the finish she was pushing hard, passing people and giving it her all. she ended up finishing 3:48ish i think. she has so much determination and heart that i know she will qualify....and soon.

next up was danielle. the last time we had seen her was around mile 20 i think. she was not feeling well. her knees were bothering her and she looked as if she was going to cry (shouldn't be a shocker to anyone who knows danielle!). she was upset that she had slowed down and that some other runners behind her looked as if they were going to finish ahead of her. i think i said something like "no they aren't GO!!!!!!" danielle ran her last marathon in 4:43, but she was moving right along and was well on pace to set a PR. i had made a pretty little sign for her to hold up at mile 26 and i waited there for her along with tyler. tyler asked if he thought she would want him t run the last .2 miles with her. i said "sure why not" so he went to the car to change into sneakers and came back and waited with me. she was pretty easy to spot all day with her hot pink shorts so i saw her coming up the last little hill. she said my sign was going to make her cry. tyler took off with her and she finished strong at 4:15 and change. YAY danielle.

i must say, i take some pretty sweet race photos!

we waited for all the runners that we knew to finish, watched melissa and rebecca eat some boston kreme donuts (i missed the story but i think it had something to do with qualifying for boston...), and then took off for home. not sure why i enjoy watching people run...but i do and although i call saturday night a complete fail...sunday was a major win! everyone that was running did awesome and they were all smiles at the end. can't say ill look that good post marathon!

jen, rebecca, melissa, danielle and andrea

we had some great laughs (danielle...how 'bout that gondola village?) and brought home some good memories. i cant wait to get back to running. i figure ill learn everyones marathon do's/dont's so that by the time i actually get to mine ill have a perfect race...haha. ok, wishful thinking.

overall an awesome weekend and im so glad i was there to support my friends. i know my annoying cowbells and shrieks out the car window and along the side of the road helped them keep going...im getting to be a pro at this cheering thing! need some support on your next race? lemme know!

OH and how could I forget...danielle gave a little shout out to sam and operation jack...

Train 4 Autism: Maine Chapter

So I'm on my way to making Sam keep his promise...although this might be the easiest of the things I have to do. I've been in contact in Train 4 Autism and I'm on my way to starting a Maine chapter. Or...I might have already started it...haha. I have a facebook page for it if that counts for anything:-) Other than that, I haven't done too much.

Molly is sending me out my very own business cards (I'm really moving up in the world now!), flyers and some other T4A things that I can use for the booth and promotions etc... Now...I just need to get my hands on a hoodie and I'll be all set. If you don't know, I have a slight addiction to hoodies. I have somewhere around 20ish waiting for me to get done being pregnant so I can fit into them again!

I've contacted Autism Society of Maine to see if they would be interested in working together at some point or letting us have a booth space at one of their events...or anything!:-) I've got some other people that I need to contact in hopes that we can get booth space at an expo or race this summer/fall. If you are reading this and are in charge of that kind of thing...we will volunteer or whatever you would like in exchange for a booth! K? Thanks!

Anyway, I don't have too much to say about this yet, I'm sure that over the next bunch of weeks things will start to fall into place and I'll keep you posted!

I have one cute little story to share before I crash for the night (I know, it's only 8:30pm...but I'm pregnant and tired and so I'm going to bed!:-) )....

I called my mom yesterday to wish her a happy mothers day and she told me a wicked cute story about Zach. She said he got up somewhere around 1am Sunday morning and wrote out "clues" and hid them around the house so that in the morning my mom could have a scavenger hunt and at the end of the hunt was her mothers day breakfast. Seriously? Too cute. My sister made Zach a scavenger hunt for his easter egg basket this year, so I think that's where he got the idea. I'm pretty sure he didn't plan to wake up and do this, but instead woke up at 1am and at that point decided he would write out these clues and hide them. Apparently my dad woke up while he was hiding the clues and had to help him get back to bed. My mom loved it though, this is really the first time Zach has put thought in to doing something for someone else. This was all his idea. I really wish I could read his mind...I can't imagine the things that go on in there.

Here is one of his clues. Like I said, he doesn't write much except his name at age 12. Mom says she's still finding his clues hidden around the house! I called him this morning before he went to school to ask if he did anything for mothers day. Here is how our conversation went.

Me: Hey buddy, did you do anything for mothers day?

Zach: Yes

Me: What did you do?

Zach: I made clues

Me: For what?

Zach: For breakfast

Me: Wow! That's awesome

Zach: Ok bye, I love you.

He's not much for talking on the phone:-)

So with that. I hope you all have a great week! I'll be back with more T4A news soon!:-)

My little (er, not so little anymore) Buddy!

I'm not so sure that blogging when I'm grumpy and not in a good mood is the best idea...but whatever, I'm hoping this will make me feel a little bit better...we'll see...I had been working on another blog, but I think I'll save that one for another day.

Anyone that has talked to me, read my blog or my tweets in the last 2 weeks has probably heard me blab about meeting Sam Felsenfeld , Operation Jack and Train 4 Autsim....For my family and friends, they all know why this is so important to me, but for the small amount (and I mean small...because I'm pretty sure just my family and friends read this) of people who read my blog and follow me on Twitter you may not know why I've been talking about this for the last 2 weeks pretty much daily. So on a night when I'm not in the best mood and feeling kinda grumpy, I thought about a little guy who never fails to make me laugh, smile and realize my life is not so bad. I'm talking about my little brother Zach, who also happens to be autistic.

Zach was adopted when he was 3 years old. He was not verbal...maybe 3 words that consisted of ouch, that hurts and don't touch me. We were told that our family was their (the state's) last effort, if our family didn't work out for him then they would place him in an institution because they didn't know what else to do with him. It makes me so sad to think of Zach (or any kid for that matter) living like that. For the last 9 years my parents have exausted every Doctor and therapist possible. For a while we described him as the boy in the bubble. It was like he was in his own little world, doing whatever he wanted. It was a 24 hour job making sure he kept himself safe. For a while Zach's response to pain was delayed so if he hit his head on something it would take him a little while to realize that it hurt. By the time he figured out his head was hurting, he had moved on from whatever he hit it on and did not make the connection between hitting his head on the object and his head hurting. Consequently he often got hurt and would put himself in dangerous situations without realizing it. There was the time we were all at dinner and he left to use the bathroom upstairs....a few minutes later he was looking down at us from the skylight. He had climbed out onto the roof and decided it would be fun to watch us eat dinner from above! Yikes! Not. Fun!.

Zach started Kindergarden in diapers when he was 5 and did 2 years of kindergarden. We never know what to expect from him, he has grown so much in the last 9 years we just don't know what he will be like tomorrow, next month or next year. There was a time we couldn't take him to the circus, to a fireworks show or even a loud concert or event. All of these things were too stimulating for Zach and put him in a lot of pain. He would scream for the noise to stop or to make the lights go away. He would cover his ears, shut his eyes and bury his head in your lap. All we wanted as a family for him to was to enjoy everyday things, just like a little boy should. This past summer we took him to a Portland Sea Dogs (AA of the Boston Red Sox) and he sat through the whole game and was even cheering on the players ("Sttrrrrikkkke you're outta here" he would say). It's a good thing he is starting to enjoy baseball as we are a very big baseball family. The only problem is my dad and husband are both Yankees fans and I am a Red Sox fan. Zach says he is "a both of them fan". We told him this is not possible...he hasn't grasped that concept yet!:-)

Hadlock Field Summer 2009

The summer before, this is something he would have never been able to sit through. He would have lost interest somewhere along the 2nd inning and we would of had to leave early or he would of annoyed some diehard fan trying to watch the game. He loves to strike up a conversation with ANYONE, the cashier at the grocery store, the person in line in front of us where ever we happen to be, the dump guy or mailman. You name it, he will talk to you...alot! The problem is, his speech is mumbled most of the time and for those who aren't around him a lot, he's difficult to understand at times. So when he talks to strangers we often get a lot of what I like to call the "nod and smile". When he was 5, it was cute...now that he is getting older, people don't take to him striking up a conversation with them as nicely as they did a few years ago.

The progress Zach has made over the last few years is amazing. I can't say enough about my parents and all the trial and errors they have been through with doctors. Today he is in 6th grade at the local public school. He loves science and really understands it, he will just give you the answers but in a round about way sometimes. His class is slowly realizing that he's not dumb, and he does know what he is talking about. He is just very simple about it. In class one day the entire class was asked "What is DNA?". None of his classmates answered and he raised his hand and simply said "It's what makes you, you.". He doesn't write much except his name and his reading is at a 1st grade level. He struggles with it and he works on that in the special ed classroom. In order to keep up with his class, he has books on tape which he will listen to and understand and that way he can keep up with what his classmates are doing. He just got an ipad through the school which has a lot of great apps that he can use. He has difficulty using a regular computer keyboard and can navigate the ipad touch screen much easier.

Just this year he has started to care about not being with his class all the time. He wants to do everything they are doing and has a hard time being pulled out to work on math, reading or writing. He is the manager of the school store and works on his math skills there. Adding up things on the calculator, counting change etc...he also works on his writing when he fills out gift certificates that teachers will by for their students at Christmas time.

Lately he has been having a difficult time experssing his emotions...he's doing a lot of biting on his own arm (and even bit a kid at swimming a few weeks ago. Although he states "I didn't use my teeth though" and when my mom asked him why he did it he said "Well, he wasn't listening to me so I had to go to plan B"...he is KING of one liners and makes it so hard to be upset with him for any length of time), banging his head on things or with his fist. That is so hard to watch because I can't imagine the pain he is in and can't seem to get his words out so we can help him. My mom get so upset, she feels like she has done everything she can and doesn't know how else to help him. Zach can tell when he is not feeling well but at that time can't express himself. Later on he will tell you "my brain (or body) feels jumbly". What is so hard about this is that there is not a pill he can take to cure things, there is not a surgery that will fix it. He didn't ask for this and all he wants to do it fit in with the rest of his classmates. He is very social at school but doesn't have any friends to play with outside of school. He spends the majority of his weekends playing by himself (which he enjoys) inventing things, making things out of "parts" that he finds around the house. I just think back to when I was in 6th grade and the things I was doing...he is far from that and may never get there.

My parents found a naturopath doctor two years ago who is a DAN (Defeat Autism Now) doctor. He put Zach on a diet called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, which is primarily protein, vegetables, and fruit. It eliminates any food that feeds yeast in the gut. The basic premise is that these kids have an excess of yeast (fungus) in their guts that leaks out into the blood stream and gets into the brain, severely hindering brain function. Deprive the yeast of food and destroy what is there and the child begins to come out his fog. This is a simplistic explanation, but we have seen such huge improvement in his brain functioning since then it is amazing. His doctor also prescribes multiple supplements to support his immune system that keep him as healthy as a horse. His teachers are hoping to eliminate his need for a one-on-one next year, a full two years before we were expecting. This biomed approach in not inexpensive, since health insurance does not pay for any of it. It costs my parents close to $500 per month, but to see Zach improving is worth it.

So who knows what tomorrow will bring for my little buddy. All I know is that if he can work this hard everyday of his life, I can work hard to get myself into marathon shape. When I met Sam and really started to understand what Operation Jack and Train 4 Autism was all about I KNEW I wanted to help. So long story, kinda short (believe me, I could go on and on)...THIS is why Operation Jack really hits home to me.

If you missed my last post here is what I am going to do...

1. Start a Maine chapter of Train 4 Autism (I've inquired about it...still waiting to hear back)

2. Get a team together (also working on that. Wanna join? Let me know!)

3. Raise $5000.00 (although I'm secretly...err, not so secretly hoping for more)

4. Oh yeah, and run the October 2011 Maine Marathon....just a minor detail in all this...it will be my first one!!

If I can accomplish 1-3, Sam has said he will come run the marathon with us. Yeah that's right, he's gunna come from CA to ME to do this! Pretty sweet I must say!

Why so long before the marathon? Minor detail #1 Sam is running 60...or maybe 61 marathons this year so he didn't really have time in his schedule to come run this year and minor detail #2 I'm currently 6 months pregnant, I didn't think I'd be in marathon shape 8 weeks after having baby Tyler. So 2011 it is!

I hope after reading my story that you are inspired to donate....and guess what! I'm giving you that chance, RIGHT NOW!:-) You can donate here and start us on our way to meeting/crushing (am I getting too ambitious here?) our $5000.00 goal. I'm calling this little adventure Operation Jack meets Project Zach. Last fall I ran a 5K to raise money for Making Strides ( read about that here), which was started by a mother of a child with autism at Zach's school. The goal is to raise enough money to build an OT gym for all of the autistic kids at Zach's school. My hope is that 85% of what we raise will go to that and 9% will go to Train 4 Autism, the rest will go to Kintera for all that fun stuff like credit card fees:-) I also want to spread the word about Operation Jack. My next goal ( yeah I know, I'm not even close to completing this one yet...whoops!) is to really help support and get the word out about Operation Jack. Seriously, without Sam's efforts I would not be inspired/motivated to do this. I know it's going to be a lot of work, but thats why I have such an amazing family (they already know they are along for the ride) and great group of friends ( Danielle, are you ready for this!?) who want to help out!

So with tomorrow being the 4 year anniversary of my very good friend Alisha's dad passing away in a terrible motorcycle accident, I'll leave you with Claude's motto "Live Life Full Throttle". That's what I plan to do. No regrets.

Some pictures and a video to enjoy...

Just hanging out in the car

Walk for Autism

Six Flags

Classic first fish picture!

Zachie and I hanging out on the couch

Just another day in the world of Zach!

Fly Swatter Jeopardy- This was a game that Zach is playing in his mainstream classroom after reading (or in Zach's case listening) to a book in class. Zach loved the concept of "ringing in" with the fly swatter! This is something I never thought he would be able to do! I'm so proud of him!

so good, so good, so good!

It's only taken me a week to write this darn blog...but here goes! You might want to go to the bathroom, get a big bowl of ice cream, a cold beer and sit back and relax. This will be epic.

A few months ago I realized that I would have April 19, 2010 off from work...since I worked the weekend it meant I had the Friday before off and the Monday after off. As soon as I realized that this was Marathon Monday I called Danielle to see if she was up for making the trip south with me to watch the Boston Marathon (um duh, dumb question!). After watching Chicago and New York online, I needed to see Boston live! We recruited our friend Melissa and headed south via Concord Tailways and headed to Boston.

We arrived at South Station at 9:30, took the T to Arlington and ended up blocks from the finish line. We had told some people we are following on Twitter that we would be near the finish line so we ventured out to find a good spot. To our surprise the finish line was not mobbed, packed, or difficult to get to. We were pumped that we would be able to get front row spots right along the fence and feet away from the runners.

We ended up camping out here, right about mile 26.something. To the left of us we could see the finish line. It's here where we started making all of our friends ( pretty much everyone was "our friend" that day).

Here is our new friend Tom, one of Boston's finest Police Officers. Tom kept us company for the 6 hours we were standing out there. I'll still call him my friend today, even though he wouldn't go get us french fries from across the street (not so fun fact: i really love french fries...i mean really! Being 6 months pregnant and smelling them all day and not having any was not. fun.). Tom said he would meet us in the same spot next year...we'll see if he shows!:-)

We hadn't been standing there too long before the wheelchairs started to come. I can't believe the strength these men and women showed fighting all the way to the finish. We noticed that many of them had black marks on the back of their arms from where the tire had been rubbing against them...for 26 miles! um, ouch?

At last the runners started coming.

First place for the women was Teyba Erkesso with a time of 2:26:11.

First place for the men went to Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya with a time of 2:05:52. As he came down Boylston Street he turned to look and see who was behind him only to find he was all alone. He crushed the course record (which I think he had previously set?).

Annnnd then "our friend" Ryan Hall came cruising down Boylston, good for 4th place (2:08:41)

Just behind him in 5th place was the New York City Marathon winner Meb Keflezighi (2:09:26)

Once all the elite runners finished, it was time for what I like to call the "normal" people.

Since we were so close to the finish line, we saw all kinds of struggles, triumphs, and emotions. We saw a man get down and do 10 push ups, a puke (or 2), smiles, tears, legs that wouldn't move anymore, a runner fall down and another pick her up and walk with her until she could run again, and our service men and women.

We (Ok, I lied, Danielle made them...she's so good at that) had made a few posters for the race for "our friends" whom we had never met, but we were following on Twitter, @mainerunnerguy and @operationjack. Despite the mass of people running and not really knowing what they looked like, only their bib number, we were able to spot both of them. Hopefully they loved our signs!

I know...kind of an awkward picture but it's all I have. The blurry runner on the right is Sam aka @operationjack. Danielle snapped this just after he gave us a thumbs up on our poster...more on him later. Sam ran a 3:03:48 1,730 out of 25,000...um, awesome!

Meet Heather. Heather is the wife of Denton who was also our new friend. Heather and Denton are also from Portland....Oregon. We stood next to him and a women named Kelly who was there cheering on her husband Art (fun fact: when you cheer for a man named Art in a race, you end up sounding like a seal, "ART, ART, ART" try it...it's true!). I snapped this picture of Heather as she came to give her husband a hug before finishing! Heather finished with an amazing time of 3:49:04 and took 12,519 place out of 25,000!! Nice work Heather, (think about the Maine Marathon October 2011 and come to OUR Portland!).

A group shot of the BFF's (best fence friends) Kelly, Denton, Danielle, Melissa and I. Thanks Tom for taking this picture:-) Too bad Tom will never read this blog...I think he might be amused if he did. Oh well.

It was about 3:30pm, we had been standing out there for 6 hours with minimal food and water, aching legs, tired arms (holding those posters is harder then you may think), stained voices and blurry vision (at one point Danielle says "um, the road is moving"). We decided that we needed food and water and went to meet Sam for lunch.

Danielle and I are both on Twitter and enjoy following other runners. It's fun to see what other people do for taining. Danielle came across @operationjack and told me to read his blog. Sam is doing a c.r.a.z.y thing this year and running 60 (yes 60, not 16) marathons to raise money and awareness for Train 4 Autism. Sam's mission is called Operation Jack, named after his son Jack who is autistic.

As many of you know my younger brother Zach is autistic and so when i heard about Sam and his mission I was so excited and I knew I wanted to help. I just didn't know how. We met Sam for lunch and we chatted for a while about his efforts, OJ, T4A and Jack. We asked Sam why he hadn't picked a marathon in Maine this year...as you can imagine he schedule is a little crazy this year and he just couldn't fit it in. I told Sam if he came out and ran the Maine Marathon I would run my first marathon (um, yikes!). So Sam said if we got an Operation Jack team together, he would come out and run. I'm pretty sure he didn't know that he had just challenged a group of ladies who are up for anything! Challenge on!

I went home that night and could.not.sleep. I had so many emotions running through my mind as I tried to go to sleep. As I have talked about before, I've been having quite the pity party about not being able to run right now due to my pregnancy. This is just what I needed, watching all those runners finish was so inspiring and got me pumped to get back on the road. I thought of so many things that I wanted to tell/ask Sam and I didn't have a chance to at lunch.

I'll save you a lot of boring details but over the last week Danielle and I have been chatting with Sam and we've come up with a challenge for 2011.

1. We need to start a Maine chapter of Train 4 Autsim

2. Get a team together

3. Raise 5000.00.

4. Run the October 2011 Maine Marathon.

I cannot tell you how excited I am do be a part of this project. There will be a lot more details coming soon. BUT...if you want to join our team, please let me know!! You don't have to run the full marathon, you can run the half or even get a team and run the relay! If you're not from Maine....October is the perfect time to visit, come run with us! Think about it!:-)

If you are still reading...wow, I hope you got a second bowl of ice cream. I need one after writing this!

My week ended by returning to Boston on Thursday for a Red Sox game...ahhh it felt so good to be back at Fenway. Baby Tyler is due at the end of July and I wasn't sure I would be able to get down after that this summer so I figured I needed to go soon!

What. A. Week. So good, So good, So good!!!

It's a BOY!

I'm halfway there!! I had my 20 week ultrasound yesterday and everything looked great and we found out we are having a little boy! Ruddley and I are sooo pumped. It's what we were hoping for. However, everyone in the world thought it was a girl and so we had prepared ourself for a girl so we didn't have that awkward "oh really? umm yay!" reaction when they told us! I had 4 dreams it was a girl so I was pretty sure. The last 2 nights before the ultrasound I had dreams it was a boy...so who knew! When the words "It's a boy! Look at that, it looks like a turtle, there is no mistaking that" came out we were so excited. No happy tears, but a big "whoo hoo" and a high five did the trick!

Speaking of tears...I've had my fair share of them the last ohh 2 months are so. I have been an absolute emotional wreck! I think that might even be an understatement...just ask Ruddley. I cry pretty much daily and usually for no reason. I think my biggest and most ridiculous break down was a few weeks ago when I was putting laundry away after a long day of work. Ruddley had just left for his soccer game and I was home alone. I got completely overwhelmed and frustrated and just started crying. I got into bed and ended up crying myself to sleep. Really? Wow. I spent the next several days wondering what I had gotten myself in to and telling myself this was the only kid we were going to have because I was NOT going through all of this again. I talked with several friends and co-workers who all assured me the end result is completely worth every tear, break down and moment of weakness. Danielle even bought me a sweet Valentines present that's hanging on my fridge!

A beautiful magnet that says "I'm Feeling Like..."

here are all my options to choose from...:-)

BUT...the good news....it's been 4 days since I have cried!! Yup! Not one single, little tear! I am soo happy....maybe I've moved past the " don't look at me wrong or I'll cry" stage!

Just in the last 2 weeks I've really begun to feel him move. In fact, the last 2 nights there has been some kind of dance party going on in my belly. It's pretty cool! We are ready to get the nursery painted and filled with fun boy things!:-) We've opted away from the baseball theme in his room mostly because I won't allow any Yankee's decorations and he's not so hot on Red Sox. He has no idea I WILL be putting my Sox touch on the room!:-) I did remember last night that I got some sick Syracuse outfits for him when Sarah and I went on our road trip in December. I got them so that they would fit (hopefully) during March Madness 2011!!!:-) Our kid, boy or girl, was going to wear them...but they are much more appropriate for a boy...phew! We are still working on a name. I'd like to pick it soon "baby boy emerson" just doesn't do it for me.

So with a great day yesterday, I decided to end it with a trip to the gym! I've been doing a lot of bike riding there. It's starting to be a problem...my belly is getting in the way!! I have to literally sit straight up to bike, if I learn forward and rest my arms on the handles my legs bump into my belly. It's kind of comical actually....oh well!:-) I'll end this post with some pics from my ultrasound yesterday!

All 5 toes present and accounted for!:-)

3D of Baby Boy Emerson!:-)