Brandon's Puppy

I ran the ALS Recovery 10K this morning, in honor of the memory of my childhood friends’ dad, who died from this terrible degenerative disease almost 16 years ago. This is my second year participating in the event, but last year I signed up as a walker so I was not officially timed (I hadn’t declared myself a runner yet…).

I’m still waiting for the official results to be posted, but according to my running app, I completed the 10K in 1:27:26. This includes a few seconds of fiddling with my phone after crossing the finish line to stop the app.

Here are my stats by mile, according to RunKeeper:
Pace (min/mi)
12:35
13:40
14:10
14:25
14:04
14:45
14:13

My previous two recorded 10K times were 1:28:24 during the ING Half Marathon on January 29th, and 1:24:23 during the Carnaval Miami 10K on February 26th (note to self: you never blogged about this!).

I’m glad to see I’m still in my range, as I hardly trained for this race, but I know I could have done better, and I blame my pants. Allow me to explain: The cropped running pants I always wear to run were dirty from training during the week, and I realized this around 11pm last night (2nd note to self: buy another pair of these pants). I was certainly not going to stay up any later prior to a race day, so I found my other exercise pants, which are a bit thicker and longer, and laid them out with the rest of my running outfit for the morning. While my first couple of miles went pretty well, as I was approaching the 3rd mile, I felt unusually uncomfortable, and figured out my legs felt very sweaty and hot. Additionally, around mile 4 I got that annoying blister I sometimes get on the arch of my right foot. So I’m blaming my pants for me not having better results during today’s race.

That being said, it was great to be a part of Team Ferd again this year, and to honor Ferd’s memory, who was always so kind to my sister and I. The memories of spending time with him and his daughters are part of my favorite childhood memories, summers at the Hilyard, and this is the least I can do for him and anyone else living with or becoming a victim of ALS.

At the request of a certain nine year old, I have made some minor changes to the blog’s appearance. Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

I did not know that May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month until I read this post over at Latina Bloggers Connect earlier today. Appropriately, I got back on track with running this week. Claudia and I went running on Sunday morning, and while our time was lousy (2.88 miles in 48:27 min), it felt good to be out there (Side note: Lesson learned – if it’s between the months of May and September, we are no longer going to be out running after 10am. It was so humid my hands and face swelled up to double their size). I went running again last night, and did better than Sunday, 3.87 miles in 1:04:45.

I’m registered for the ALS Recovery 10K this coming Saturday morning, so I’m hoping to get another run in before then. Additionally, I registered for next April’s Key Biscayne Half Marathon last night (price was 50%, woot!), and will be signing up for The Color Run Miami, taking place October 21st. That will put me at six registered races between now and next April, and whatever else may come along (directed and WB and Claudia: *cough, cough*). Registering for races keeps me accountable and motivated since I know I have to go out there and train for them.

Training during the summer will probably be less frequent (see first paragraph above), but I’ll definitely get out there as often as possible. I’ve got all those races after September, and I’ve got to keep building my resistance and distance if I want to get good results.

The boys were overdue for their well-check visits, and Matty needed an updated immunization form for his kindergarten registration, so off we went to the doctor on Thursday afternoon.

Brandon’s vitals were great. He’s currently 4 feet, 5 inches tall, weighs 79.8 lbs, and has 20/25 vision. He’s in the 51st percentile for height, and 85th for weight. Matty’s iron was just a little bit low (from last year’s blood work), but other than that, he was lookin’ good too: he’s 40.5 inches tall, weighs 33.5 pounds, and has 20/40 vision. He’s steady in his range, at 15th percentile. It’s so funny to me how different they are. Brandon definitely got his body type from my side of the family, while Matty is small-framed just like his dad’s side.

Matty needed three shots for his immunizations to be up to date for kindergarten. He was so brave, and we rewarded him with a visit to Toys R Us afterwards. Fortunately, he won’t need any more shots until age 11. Same for Brandon, he lucked out this time and is safe, as he said, for another two years. So they are ready for the upcoming school year: Brandon for 4th and Matty for Kindergarten (When did they get so BIG?!).

The great folks at GM in the Southeast loaned me a 2012 Chevy Traverse over Earth Day weekend as part of the Cars to People program. I drove the car for just under four days, and fell in love with it. The Chevy Traverse is a crossover SUV with excellent mileage for this type of vehicle.

The Traverse LTZ seats seven, with two captain’s chairs in the second row, and foldable bench seating in the third row. The boys loved the built-in DVD player, which included two pairs of headphones. They used it every time we rode in the car, even if the car ride only lasted a few minutes.

The car was equipped with Sirius XM radio, and also featured a GPS system which included not just audio directions, but also traffic warnings in real time. I loved this feature, it actually helped me avoid a traffic jam on the way to work on the last morning I had the car. I also loved that it included bluetooth technology, I could control not just the radio but my phone using the steering wheel. Additional safety features include On-Star services, airbags everywhere (really, they are everywhere), rear child safety locks, and my absolute favorite, the rear assist camera.

There are tons of other great features, some I didn’t even get a chance to play with. Because of the typical Miami spring weather, we were rained in for most of the weekend. It cleared up enough on Sunday that we were able to go to Party for the Earth at Zoo Miami. We had tons of fun at the event, watching the animals get special treats made out of recycled materials. I’ve added some pictures of our day below the fold.

Our time with the Chevy Traverse came to a close all too soon. It was really hard to part with the car and all its awesome gadgetry. What a great experience, and what an impressive car! Hubby and I have added the Chevy Traverse to our wish list for our next car.

Here’s a video GM in the Southeast made, featuring us and the other two families that were part of this program over Earth Day weekend. Enjoy!

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Hubby and I were fortunate enough to attend a screening of Marvel’s The Avengers last week. I could not have been more excited about not only watching the film, but watching it before the general public. Although I haven’t seen any of the prior films featuring Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor (I know, I’ve apparently been living under a rock), my inner geek was thrilled to see the Marvel superheroes together on the big screen, and in 3D!

The film revolves around how Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Black Widow, Hawkeye, along with Nick Fury and Maria Hill from S.H.I.E.L.D., battle Loki, the Norse God. Loki, who enters Earth through a space portal opened by the mysterious energy source Tesseract, brings with him a bunch of aliens, and they wreck havoc in Manhattan. There’s lots of cool stuff in between, but I don’t want to reveal any spoilers. What I can say is that the movie is awesome! It’s funny, action-packed, and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Here’s one of my favorite scenes, Head Count:

I’m really glad I got to see the movie with hubby before we took the boys so we could pre-screen it and make sure it was appropriate for them. It is PG-13 due to the violence and action scenes, but they know it’s a movie and it’s pretend. They are counting down the days until May 4th so we can all go see it together. I just know they are going to love it, and so will anyone who likes superheroes, action movies, and good triumphing over evil (yeah, pretty much everybody). Ah, one more thing: don’t forget to stick around after the credits start rolling, you’ll thank me later.

Disclosure: Disney Pictures graciously allowed me and hubby to attend a screening of Marvel’s The Avengers. The opinion that the Avengers, and the movie, rock is my own.

My friend Claro wrote this post as a guest writer for The Whirling Blog about his experience raising his son Jason. Jason, when he was just short of turning three, was diagnosed with autism. It’s been ten years, but Claro and Arlene have so much to be proud of. He’s a straight A student, an award winning swimmer, and loves sports, comic books and superheroes (like his daddy). He’ll be 14 in July, and will be starting high school in the fall. I know first hand that Jason is an outstanding young man. He is a testament of his parents’ hard work and determination, and I couldn’t be prouder to be close friends with this amazing family. Please go read the post, and tell Claro I sent you (and that he’s a much better writer than he thinks he is).

Late last week, the four of us went to see a production of “Annie Jr” put on by a local middle school. It was so exciting for me to introduce the boys to not only one of my favorite musicals, but one of my favorite childhood movies as well. Once the weekend approached, we popped my copy of the 1982 classic movie into the DVD player. The boys have spent the last few nights watching it in pieces.

I have great memories of watching Annie when I was little. My Godmother took me to the theater at least three times to see it. Thirty years later and I still love it. Here are some of my favorite things: I want Annie’s pink room. Molly is the cutest thing ever, I would adopt her in a heartbeat! Mr. Warbucks is so very smitten with Grace, and of course in typical male fashion, it takes him forever to realize it. And of course Sandy…it’s no coincidence that is our dog’s name.

I’ve been on a (mostly) unintentional running hiatus. The last time I ran was during the MS Walk/Run on March 25th, but it was very limited as hubby had to work so I had the boys with me. My big brother pushed Matty in the stroller, and I was all set to run the course with Brandon, but he complained of leg pains early on, so we ended up walking most of it.
I’ve meant to run after work during the last couple of weeks, but I just didn’t get around to it for one reason or another. But there’s nothing like registering for a race (or three) to get my butt in gear. I’ve got the Twilight Tower of Terror Ten Miler in September, but before that I’m doing the South Miami Twilight 5K in June, and the ALS Recovery 10K in just under three weeks. I’ve gained a couple of pounds, and I’ve lost some of the muscle tone I had achieve from running regularly. With swimsuit season around the corner, it’s definitely time to get back out there.

Since our return from vacation, B has been slacking at school. There were two particular days that he decided not to complete any work at all. It was the last week of the grading period, and this behavior brought grades down from seven A’s and two high B’s, with a GPA at 3.73, to four A’s, two low B’s and one high C’s, with a GPA of 3.44. While overall this is a pretty good average, that C ruined his chances at honor roll, something he practically had in the bag prior to those two days of incomplete work. We penalized him by taking away his Wii and DS privileges, and that was working…or so we thought.

A couple of weeks back, he had a 3-day weekend due to a teacher work day. I asked him if he had any work to do, as he and his classmates had been preparing for the FCAT and I suspected he would have at least a reading packet to do. He said no, but come Monday afternoon his after-school care teacher told us to look in his bag, as he had incomplete work from the previous Thursday. We decided he would be writing lines, “I will be more responsible” 100 times for five days. Although some would think this pointless, at the very least he had to do extra writing due to his laziness, and maybe the repetition of the sentence would sink in.

Do we know if it worked? We won’t know until next week. He’s had FCAT testing all week and hasn’t had any homework. I do know that he very much dislikes having to do lines when he could otherwise be reading or playing, so we sure hope so. Have your kids behaved similarly? How have you handled it?