I super suck at keeping up....oops!

i know, i know. i super suck at blogging these days. but really...i don't feel like i have much to write about. my life is super boring and I'm just waiting for this baby to pop. i could write about the last few weeks of my pregnancy but i am afraid i would send you into a deep depression with how bad it has sucked. i'm tired, hot, cranky, emotional, my feet are the size of footballs (no really, it's true), my house is under construction (why wouldn't it be!? ugh.), and i have long since stopped caring how much weight i gain or how long its going to take me to get back to my tiny self. so, to deal with all of the above...i eat. i eat ice cream pretty much everyday (it's summer and its hot, cut me some slack) and yesterday i think i gained a few new stretch marks with the amount of food i had.

however, life is not all that bad. my husband has been SUPER supportive me of me. he wants to make sure i get all the rest i can and tries to put up with my emotional state as best he can. and since he is doing all of the house construction himself with some help from our neighbor mark, he doesn't get too mad when i cry and say it needs to all be done NOW. some very great things have happened in the last few weeks so i thought i would share...

very great thing #1: my very, very, very good friend danielle threw me a surprise baby shower with people from job #2. i wasn't expecting it and it was sooo nice to get together with everyone again. it's been a while since we have all hung out together. tough economy has forced some of them to be without a job, and others to move on to a different, more stable job. i was completely surprised and happy. i lost my camera (add that to the list of things annoying me) and so i don't have any pictures of it, but it was a blast and danielle is pretty much the best. because while i am not going to spare you with the details of my shitty pregnancy....danielle has gotten EVERY detail and i think i have convinced her to not have a baby...ever:-)

very great thing #2: this almost ruined very great thing #1, but life has a funny way of making sure everything turns out the way it is supposed to. my friend jim runs a ropes course at a local summer camp and last fall i was telling him about zach and how he loved doing the ropes course at summer camp and was quite good at it. jim verrrry kindly offered to zach take up on the ropes course he runs and we were finally able to make that happen later on that day. zach has no fear and was a champ out on the course. my mom loved seeing him be so successful. its a rare opportunity that we get to see zach accomplish something that some "normal" kids can't accomplish and he did it without any special equipment, or adaptations. he did it and completed it just the same as any other kid out there would have! go zach!

the sign of a great day!!!

very great thing #3: this should actually probably be very great thing #1 if i was posting them in the order that they happened....but oh well it will be #3. i was on nesn (new england sports network for those of you non new englanders). when ruddley and i got married we decided we wanted to visit every major league baseball park in the US over the course of our marriage. for the last 2 summers we have knocked a few off our list. so far fenway park (red sox, duh!), citizens bank park (phillies), yankee stadium (yankees), camden yards (orioles) and nationals park (nationals). this summer was camden yards and nationals park and it's also the trip that i lost my camera on..ugh! so again...no pictures. BUT....when we were at camden yards we happened to be sitting right in line with the nesn camera. danielle was creepin' on me and stalking my every move like what i was drinking, eating, texting, or saying to ruddley. she took this picture off of her tv...yea, thats me waving to her while i am on the phone with her in the tank top::-)

very great thing #4: yesterday was the 4th of july (duh) and it also marked the one year anniversary of my very first road race ever! it was the ll bean 10k. for obvious reasons, i did not run it this year. however i couldn't let the race go by and not go and put my cheering hat on! i knew several people running and like i said, i have no life so really had nothing better to do :-) its a tough, hilly course and yesterday i was kinda glad i wasn't running. it was h.o.t out. even though the race started at 730, it was not fun. i was the camera lady and i must say i did a great job...again!! i met some new friends while i was waiting at the finish line. this guy and his 3 kids were waiting for their mom to finish. she had hoped for a sub 40 but ended up 42:xx i think. still not bad.

then i snapped this sweet picture of joan benoit samuelson finishing in 38:25 and was the womens winner. If you live under a rock, or are just not a runner and don't know who she is...she's a pretty big deal in the running world. stolen directly from danielle's post cause what i would have said it pretty much the same " joan was the 1983 boston marathon winner 2:22:43, 1984 winner of the first ever womens marathon in the los angeles olympics and founder of TDBank beach 2 beacon 10k. she also holds the course record for this race. shes pretty awesome." (well said danielle). i also read in a newspaper article today (http://www.pressherald.com/sports/fighting-traffic-blazing-to-the-end_2010-07-05.html) that she ran the last 4 miles of the race with her shoes untied because she didn't want to take time to stop and tie her shoe. samuelson was quoted saying "you'd think after all these years, i'd know how to tie my own shoes"

here is the post race picture from last years race...

and this years post race picture. see why i didnt run! 3 more weeks folks. 3. more. weeks! we were a little more festive this year i think.

very great thing#5: our friends/neighbors mark and christine also ran. after the race they invited me to spend the day with them and christine's family for the 4th of july since my husband was home working on the house. we went to a parade and bbq and i spent the day hanging out with their amazing kids.

here is kaden, about to turn 3. he had just run down a hill, singing all the way down and then took a massive face plant in the mud. probably one of the best things ive seen in a while. haha. he was not so happy.

very great thing #6: I WON SAM'S BET!!! yup that's right i guess he would run 3:24 in the grandma's marathon on june 19 and he went 3:22. closest to his time without betting too fast wins! after betting every week since the middle of april it's about time i won!!! i cant wait for my operation jack sweatshirt to come in the mail! also a little plug...operation jack is in the running to win 20,000 through chase community giving!! all you need to do is vote for operation jack just click here and vote! it take 30 seconds and he/i would really appreciate it.

so there you have it. 6 very great things that have happened in the last few weeks! i hope everyone had a wonderful, fun and safe 4th of july:-) hopefully next time i blog ill have a little munchkin to tell you all about.

World Cup Fever

*****When I had the idea to write this, I also had the idea I would upload several videos that I took to really show what I was talking about. Unfortunately Blogger and or Quicktime and I do not get along and so you will not be able to see all my cool videos. However, I didn't figure that out until I was done writing so I decided not waste my blog and post it anyway!:-)*****

It's been 4 years since the last World Cup (duh!) and I have to say 4 years ago I was wayyy more into the games, teams and what was going on. Perhaps that's because I spent the 2006 World Cup touring Italy with 3 friends of mine. And incase you didn't know, or forgot, Italy was the 2006 World Cup Champions. Unfortunately for me I got back home to the US a few days before they played the final game and it just wasn't the same watching it at my friend's bridal shower instead of anywhere in Italy.

I can't even begin to describe the atmosphere on the streets of Italy. We began our trip in Rome and watched the first few matches there. One of the days we took a day trip to Pompeii and we ended up chatting with our tour guide asking him where the best place to watch the game that night would be. He offered to take us to the local University that night to watch one of the games. We were a little sketched out, but then figured that there were 4 of us and if we stuck together we should be ok. So we took him up on his offer.

This was the sign advertising the game at the bar.

I quickly fell in love with the National Anthem for Italy. Don't ask me why, maybe it's the fact that its fun to sing along to and during the World Cup EVERYONE was singing it. (This is where I would insert the video that I took of everyone at the bar singing the National Anthem if it let me...stupid Blogger/Quicktime! I'll keep trying. Check out this youtube link though... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5muGVKdJFV8) With some help from the locals I even learned most of the words to it...yea, I'm lame....but can youuuu sing the Italian National Anthem in Italian? Yeah, didn't think so!

The difference between watching the World Cup in the United States vs. Anywhere else...is that everyone else cares about these games. So everywhere we went the games were on. It didn't matter if it was some super fancy restaurant (we didn't actually eat at any...but walked by plenty) or the local pizza shop...the games were always on a tv. And if you weren't eating there, you could still stand on the street and watch the game!

The next few pictures are hard to tell, but it was the final minutes of an Italian game and people were on the street looking over the hedge trying to watch the game that was being shown at a restaurant in Florence.

Italy won this game and I remember the streets went crazy. Everyone was zooming by on their vespas with Italian flags around their necks screaming and honking horns! It was such an awesome thing to be in the middle of.

Hillary and I came across these signs in Florence...seriously, since when do they ban playing soccer in the park!??

But then we found another park that allowed us to kick around our mini ball!:-)

So really, that's about it. This post would have been way more exciting if I could upload all the videos I had planned....buuuut i couldn't...so deal with it!:-) We started our trip in Rome, went up to Florence and finished off in Venice! We had such an amazing time and I highly recommend visiting sometime if you can. Since you couldn't be blessed with all my exciting videos, I'll leave you with some more picture from my trip that have nothing to do with soccer! Enjoy.

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!