Gadgets!

Ok, for those of you that don't know.... I'm a closet gadget freak. Ok, maybe not so much a closet gadget freak as an out and out gadget freak, but who is keeping track. Given that, it has been a very exciting day for me! I got two new gadgets. Ok, so one of them really wouldn't technically be defined as a gadget I guess but it is still very exciting.

The first purchase was a new lenses for my digital camera. I have a Nikon D-80 camera which is a digital camera that you can switch lenses on and I bought a new zoom lens for it. The lens is a 70-300 zoom, which basically means I can make things really far away seem a lot closer. I am very excited about it because the main reason I bought it was for our trip to China. Less than three months before we go!

The second purchase is a true gadget. I bought a portable GPS. Specifically I bought a Garmin Nuvi 200. Now to be perfectly honest with you, I have yet to actually open this device because I'm trying to decide if I am going to have buyer's remorse and take it back! So I'm giving myself 24 hours and if I haven't caved by tomorrow evening then I am opening it up to play with it. I'm trying to justify to myself that I am just using my tax rebate (which I haven't actually received yet) to help stimualate the economy. Thats what we are supposed to do with them, right? :-)

Anyhow, I am off to bed because I need to go to the gym in the morning. I'll keep you posted on the buyers remorse!

Happy Mother's Day

Yeah, I know this post is late but better late than never. I hope all the mothers out there had a fantastic Mother's Day. Zach and I went to Kansas for the weekend to attend one of my niece's graduation and to see my Mom. It was kind of a bitter sweet weekend. Its always nice to see my family but it was kind of hard to see my mom. Her health is pretty good, but her memory is starting to get bad. Several times over the weekend she would ask me something and then come back and ask me again five minutes later. I'm sure it is hard for everyone to have to deal with the fact that your parents are getting older and those types of things are going to become reality. I'm thankful that her health is good, we almost lost her several years ago to a heart attack. Times like these remind me that we should not take the loved ones in our life for granted because unfortunately some day they may not be there.

Take time this week to reach out to your Mom or some other special person in your life to tell them how much they mean to you. To my friends and family out there, even though I may not talk to you everyday, you are always in my heart. You are what has made me the person I am today. I love you all.

Talent Show

So today was the yearly talent show at Zach's school. A few weeks ago he decided he was going to try out and much to my surprise he decided to sing a song. (Last year trying out meant standing on the stage and telling jokes with his friend.) He bought the song Bad Day on iTunes and set out to learn it. He asked me to print out the lyrics for him and he started memorizing the words. He made it through the auditions and then had to find a copy of the song without the words for the actual show.

Here is the link to view his video. Hope you enjoy the show.

We are extremely proud of him for practicing hard and getting up on stage even when he was nervous. The funny quote of the day happened when he got home and said "You probably wouldn't have liked it as much if you were Simon." I was cracking up! For those of you who don't get that.... Where have you been?!?! He was referring to Simon on American Idol.

Ok, now I have to go pack, Zach and I are headed to see my Mom for Mother's Day this weekend and to one of my niece's graduation. Happy Mothers Day to all the moms. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Weekend? What weekend?

That pretty much sums up how I felt when the alarm clock went off on Monday morning. The weekend went by with a blur. Here are are the highlights.

Friday was Zachary's birthday so he had a friend spend the night. Before that they had practice for their orchestra concert. We told Zach we would take him anywhere he wanted for dinner for his birthday. Anyone care to guess what he picked? Yep, you got it McDonalds! So we got Zach and TJ McDonalds, I ordered pizza and Wendy got Taco Cabana. Everyone was happy!

Saturday morning we had the SOKS orchestra concert... I really don't know what that stands for but it was for all 5th grade orchestras. Putnam City School District had an Arts Festival for all the Arts classes and the orchestra kids were the first ones to perform. It was fun to see all the kids play together.

Saturday afternoon we had Zach's birthday at http://www.laserexpedition.com/. I have to say I was very impressed. The price was pretty reasonable for everything we got and they did a good job having a schedule with the activities. Everyone had a really good time playing the indoor laser tag, including Wendy and I! After the party we took all the kids home and had a much needed quiet evening at home watching the last Pirates of the Carribean movie.

Sunday we did some chores in the morning and then we had baseball practice in the afternoon. Zach went to Wal-Mart with us that morning to spend some of his birthday morning that was burning a hole in his pocket.

All in all a great weekend, I just felt like I needed one more day to recover from all the excitement. Hope everyone out there had a great weekend too.

What was I thinking?

Yeah, that was my first thought when I opened the door at 520am Sunday morning to head down to the race. I opened the door to discover that it was pouring rain, cold and windy. Not exactly my idea of the ideal running conditions. So I went back inside, put another layer of clothes on, summoned all my energy and headed out.

Now my leg was the last one which meant that I had to wait about 4 hours from the actual start of the race at 630 until I would start running. This turned out to be a good thing because by the time I was ready to start it had stopped raining and the sun was out. It was still pretty chilly with the wind, but it definitely could have been worse!

I managed to finish my 6.2 miles in about 69 minutes. This is a little slower than my goal time of 62 minutes, but considering my leg had the most elevation changes (ie the most uphill portions!) I felt pretty good about that. My main goal was to finish without having to walk and I did that so I felt pretty good. Zach and Wendy came out on the course to cheer me on so that was really nice. Then when I got to the finish line the rest of my team was waiting there for me so that was cool too.

This week has just flown by. Zach's birthday is tomorrow... I can't believe he is already 11!! Damn I feel old some days! He has an orchestra concert on Saturday morning, then we are doing a Laser Tag party in the afternoon. Should be a fun weekend! I'll try to get some pictures posted on Sunday.

The Bad Boyz suffered their first loss last week. The team that we played was good, but if we had just been able to hit the ball we could have beat them. Its weird, at practice the boys hit the ball without any problems but during the game they don't swing the bat as well. We play again tonight, so hopefully we will get back on the winning track.

Gotta get going, hope everyone has a great day!