Today marks the 10th anniversary of 9/11, now called Patriot Day. Everywhere I look on Facebook and Twitter I see mention of this day in some capacity and with good reason -- this day in history changed many things about the way we live today. It is amazing that I cannot remember what I was doing at a particular time last week or last month (I can remember exactly what I was doing on this day last year -- Happy 1st Anniversary to my dear sister, Kelly and her husband, Tim!), but I can remember exactly what I was doing on that Tuesday morning 10 years ago; and this is a sentiment I have read today over and over again.
When I learned what was happening on that Tuesday morning, I was still a newlywed, having gotten married barely two months earlier. I was sitting in lecture with my fellow third year veterinary students learning about laryngeal surgery in small animals with Dr. Roberto Novo and my husband was supposed to be traveling to Green Bay, WI for work. My class day was cut short and Kevin never made that trip that day.
So many things have happened in my life since that day 10 years ago -- My dad survived colon cancer; I graduated from veterinary school and started my first, second, third, and fourth job; I stood up for and celebrated the marriage of many of my closest friends; I had my daughter; I had my son; I celebrated with my brother and sister-in-law when they were married; I celebrated with my sister and brother-in-law when they were married; my grandmother (maternal) has been in and out of the hospital and several transitional care centers more times that I can count; my grandfather (paternal) died of large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma; celebrated 10 years of marriage; my daughter started kindergarten; I decided to go back to school and specialize in veterinary spinal manipulation therapy; and I have been lucky enough to travel all over the world. Despite this list, however, I can still remember that Tuesday morning like it was yesterday and as I watch the footage on the television today and hear the names of those that lost their lives and think about the their loved ones and the first responders, it's like hardly a day has passed.
I think the take home message for me and everyone that can remember that day is that we will never forget.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Sofia's First Day of Kindergarten
It's official. Sofia is in kindergarten at Aspen Academyin Savage.
I dropped her off with her homeroom teacher (Miss Houglum) for an hour this morning. The purpose for today was to allow the teachers to get a better feel for their new kindergarteners and assess their skills. This was also a chance for the new kindergarteners to meet all three kindergarten teachers and check out all the kindergarten rooms since they will spend some time in all three classrooms. They asked that we leave our kids there so they could see how each of the kids interacted with the teachers and other students without parental interference. I'm not sure how the other parents felt about this but I thought it was a great plan because Sofia tends to be much more cooperative when I am NOT there. Sofia was actually a little bummed when I showed up to pick her up an hour later; she is just so excited to take the bus and on normal school days her day care will pick her up in the Kids Count bus!
Tomorrow morning is her first full day of kindergarten and she'll even get to ride on the bus. I am so excited for her as she embarks on this new journey and hope that she loves school and everything she's going to learn.
Only two more years and we'll be sending Ethan off to Kindergarten, too. He was very excited for his big sister today (or maybe just the bribes I had for them if they smiled for the camera...).
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I dropped her off with her homeroom teacher (Miss Houglum) for an hour this morning. The purpose for today was to allow the teachers to get a better feel for their new kindergarteners and assess their skills. This was also a chance for the new kindergarteners to meet all three kindergarten teachers and check out all the kindergarten rooms since they will spend some time in all three classrooms. They asked that we leave our kids there so they could see how each of the kids interacted with the teachers and other students without parental interference. I'm not sure how the other parents felt about this but I thought it was a great plan because Sofia tends to be much more cooperative when I am NOT there. Sofia was actually a little bummed when I showed up to pick her up an hour later; she is just so excited to take the bus and on normal school days her day care will pick her up in the Kids Count bus!
Tomorrow morning is her first full day of kindergarten and she'll even get to ride on the bus. I am so excited for her as she embarks on this new journey and hope that she loves school and everything she's going to learn.
Only two more years and we'll be sending Ethan off to Kindergarten, too. He was very excited for his big sister today (or maybe just the bribes I had for them if they smiled for the camera...).
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
My Ragnar Experience
"PICTURE THIS: A Minnesota relay race where teams of 12 run 192 miles along the world-famous Mississippi River ultimately ending in the Twin Cities. This running event winds along the Great River Road starting in Winona, cuts briefly into Wisconsin, runs through the streets of St. Paul and finally ends in Minneapolis. If you have never run a Ragnar, you better hold a place on your calendar; this is a running race you would regret missing.
This isn’t your average 10K or half marathon, this is Ragnar!" As read on the Great River Ragnar website
This all sounds like fun, right?!?! I thought so when I first caught wind of such an event. My good friend and training partner, Meghann Kruck brought it up one day last winter when we'd met to pound the pavement for a few miles. When I got home that day, I googled this event and thought, "Hey! That sounds like a lot of fun" and I sent Meghann a message simply stating that I was in. As the day kept inching closer and closer on the calendar, I realized that saying "yes" was the ONLY easy part!
So, now what? I'd said yes, so we had a team of 2! Luckily, it wasn't too much harder to find several other people that thought this sounded like a great idea, too! And so Team Suburban Assault (#136) came to be and on May 5, it became official after >$1000 landed on my credit card statement and I was the team's captain (which at the time meant nothing more than creating a Facebook page to create an easy way to keep in contact with everyone). Unfortunately, the easy parts were now crossed off the list and there were several hiccups we encountered on the road to race day, which was August 19-20, 2011. Seriously, who would think that keeping a team of 12 together for 4 months would be so difficult?!?!
In an ideal Ragnar world we have 12 team members and 2 drivers split up into 2 vehicles. I had heard from a few different sources that we would go insane if we tried to cram 7 people into a minivan or even a Honda Pilot that seats 7 (because let's face it. A Honda Pilot that seats 7 comfortably seats 2 adults and 5 people that have much smaller bums {i.e. children}) since we also had to fit all of our gear and food for 36 hours into the same vehicle. So with input of several of my team members, I went on a mission and booked two 12 passenger vans for 48 hours so that we wouldn't have to sit sweaty shoulder to sweaty shoulder in the van and we would have room for a few bottles of water (or 48+ bottles of water as the case may be). This was, by far, the best decision I made the entire time as captain for Team Suburban Assault. I'm not sure if the rest of the team agrees with this sentiment (or my husband, for that matter, since that slapped another $600+ onto our credit card), but seriously, we all got along splendidly in our 12 passenger vans and I'm not so sure we would have the same outcome (i.e. 14 live bodies by the end of the race) if we'd traveled in any other way.
Before I knew it, August 1 had come and gone and we had less than 3 weeks before the grand event. We were still shy one team member in Van 1 due to a work conflict and had an injury to contend with in Van 2 so the hardcore recruiting began. We could have run with just 10 team members, but that would entail either 3 members in each van picking up one extra leg OR 1 member in each van picking up three extra legs. The biggest problem in Van 1 (my van) is that the position we were trying to fill had the longest legs and no one really jumped to it to tackle the extra mileage -- I offered, but was not overly enthusiastic because I knew that the legs I already had to run were going to be a huge challenge for me considering the longest race I'd run thus far in my so-called running career was 7K... Luckily, only 4 days before race day we found a runner to take on Position #5 in Van 1 and those of us in Van 1 all breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. OK, I cannot speak for everyone else, but I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. No matter how hard we looked, though, we could not find a replacement for our injured runner in Van 2, but with a couple of weeks off, he felt comfortable jogging his legs at a slower pace, so we were ready to go as a Team of 12 runners and 2 awesome drivers!
It's now the week of the race and our Team's start time was set for 6:00 am. Whoa, what?!?! 6:00 am?!?! Isn't that still the middle of the night?!?! There were conflicting opinions as to whether we should stay in the Cities and drive to Winona on Friday morning or whether we should book a hotel room in Winona or La Crosse. We needed to check in at the starting point one hour before actual race time, so we booked a hotel in La Crosse, crammed 7 people in for a very short night of sleep, got up at ~4:00 am and ended up checking in at the starting line about 5:20 am. Team Suburban Assault was a GO for 6:00 am and Betsy started us off with head lamp, reflective vest, and flashing LED butt lamp along side the lovely Mississippi River.
Betsy passed to Meghann. Meghann passed to Pete. Pete passed to me. I passed to Jack. Jack passed to Phil. And at about 12:15 pm, 6 short hours after we started this adventure, Phil passed to Kalynn who started the journey for Van 2 and the baton (i.e. slap bracelet) was passed to Mark, Melanie, Aaron, Sam, and Maren. Each van controlled the baton three times, so each runner ran three times. My personal lengths were 6.2 mi, 5.0 mi, and 4.2 mi. Each leg was labeled as Easy, Moderate, Hard, or Very Hard -- those labels, however, are very subjective because although my 4.2 mi leg was labeled as only moderate, It was by far my hardest leg -- maybe it was my pessimistic and negative attitude towards hills (that hill was a b!tch) or maybe it was because I'd only gotten about 6 hours of sleep total in the last 48 hours, but regardless I passed that baton to Jack for the last time with a huge smile on my face because I had done it! I had completed my 3 legs and would cross the finish line and that was a WIN in my book!
Will I do it again next year? Yeah, probably. Because, if nothing else, that was a great group of people with which to spend 48 hours in very close quarters. Thank you Suburban Assault for a weekend of great memories! And a huge Thank you to our drivers, Mary and Paul and our volunteers, Matt and Steve!
This isn’t your average 10K or half marathon, this is Ragnar!" As read on the Great River Ragnar website
This all sounds like fun, right?!?! I thought so when I first caught wind of such an event. My good friend and training partner, Meghann Kruck brought it up one day last winter when we'd met to pound the pavement for a few miles. When I got home that day, I googled this event and thought, "Hey! That sounds like a lot of fun" and I sent Meghann a message simply stating that I was in. As the day kept inching closer and closer on the calendar, I realized that saying "yes" was the ONLY easy part!
So, now what? I'd said yes, so we had a team of 2! Luckily, it wasn't too much harder to find several other people that thought this sounded like a great idea, too! And so Team Suburban Assault (#136) came to be and on May 5, it became official after >$1000 landed on my credit card statement and I was the team's captain (which at the time meant nothing more than creating a Facebook page to create an easy way to keep in contact with everyone). Unfortunately, the easy parts were now crossed off the list and there were several hiccups we encountered on the road to race day, which was August 19-20, 2011. Seriously, who would think that keeping a team of 12 together for 4 months would be so difficult?!?!
In an ideal Ragnar world we have 12 team members and 2 drivers split up into 2 vehicles. I had heard from a few different sources that we would go insane if we tried to cram 7 people into a minivan or even a Honda Pilot that seats 7 (because let's face it. A Honda Pilot that seats 7 comfortably seats 2 adults and 5 people that have much smaller bums {i.e. children}) since we also had to fit all of our gear and food for 36 hours into the same vehicle. So with input of several of my team members, I went on a mission and booked two 12 passenger vans for 48 hours so that we wouldn't have to sit sweaty shoulder to sweaty shoulder in the van and we would have room for a few bottles of water (or 48+ bottles of water as the case may be). This was, by far, the best decision I made the entire time as captain for Team Suburban Assault. I'm not sure if the rest of the team agrees with this sentiment (or my husband, for that matter, since that slapped another $600+ onto our credit card), but seriously, we all got along splendidly in our 12 passenger vans and I'm not so sure we would have the same outcome (i.e. 14 live bodies by the end of the race) if we'd traveled in any other way.
Before I knew it, August 1 had come and gone and we had less than 3 weeks before the grand event. We were still shy one team member in Van 1 due to a work conflict and had an injury to contend with in Van 2 so the hardcore recruiting began. We could have run with just 10 team members, but that would entail either 3 members in each van picking up one extra leg OR 1 member in each van picking up three extra legs. The biggest problem in Van 1 (my van) is that the position we were trying to fill had the longest legs and no one really jumped to it to tackle the extra mileage -- I offered, but was not overly enthusiastic because I knew that the legs I already had to run were going to be a huge challenge for me considering the longest race I'd run thus far in my so-called running career was 7K... Luckily, only 4 days before race day we found a runner to take on Position #5 in Van 1 and those of us in Van 1 all breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. OK, I cannot speak for everyone else, but I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. No matter how hard we looked, though, we could not find a replacement for our injured runner in Van 2, but with a couple of weeks off, he felt comfortable jogging his legs at a slower pace, so we were ready to go as a Team of 12 runners and 2 awesome drivers!
It's now the week of the race and our Team's start time was set for 6:00 am. Whoa, what?!?! 6:00 am?!?! Isn't that still the middle of the night?!?! There were conflicting opinions as to whether we should stay in the Cities and drive to Winona on Friday morning or whether we should book a hotel room in Winona or La Crosse. We needed to check in at the starting point one hour before actual race time, so we booked a hotel in La Crosse, crammed 7 people in for a very short night of sleep, got up at ~4:00 am and ended up checking in at the starting line about 5:20 am. Team Suburban Assault was a GO for 6:00 am and Betsy started us off with head lamp, reflective vest, and flashing LED butt lamp along side the lovely Mississippi River.
Betsy passed to Meghann. Meghann passed to Pete. Pete passed to me. I passed to Jack. Jack passed to Phil. And at about 12:15 pm, 6 short hours after we started this adventure, Phil passed to Kalynn who started the journey for Van 2 and the baton (i.e. slap bracelet) was passed to Mark, Melanie, Aaron, Sam, and Maren. Each van controlled the baton three times, so each runner ran three times. My personal lengths were 6.2 mi, 5.0 mi, and 4.2 mi. Each leg was labeled as Easy, Moderate, Hard, or Very Hard -- those labels, however, are very subjective because although my 4.2 mi leg was labeled as only moderate, It was by far my hardest leg -- maybe it was my pessimistic and negative attitude towards hills (that hill was a b!tch) or maybe it was because I'd only gotten about 6 hours of sleep total in the last 48 hours, but regardless I passed that baton to Jack for the last time with a huge smile on my face because I had done it! I had completed my 3 legs and would cross the finish line and that was a WIN in my book!
Will I do it again next year? Yeah, probably. Because, if nothing else, that was a great group of people with which to spend 48 hours in very close quarters. Thank you Suburban Assault for a weekend of great memories! And a huge Thank you to our drivers, Mary and Paul and our volunteers, Matt and Steve!
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