Dylan's last day of preschool

This was Dylan on his first day of preschool this year...

And this is Dylan on his last day of preschool.

We made a big day of it on Friday; the whole family went out to lunch before taking Dylan to his last day of preschool. He wanted me to walk him in, and I could barely contain the tears. I'm so happy for Dylan, he is excited to be going on to Kindergarten, but I'm finding his milestones to be quite emotional moments these days.

Get Your Rear in Gear

Our friends Natalie and Chad Ryan and their boys Brode and Gus came to visit us. Natalie and I had decided awhile back to run a 5k together, and duh-duh-duhhhh, the weekend was here. The race wasn't until Sunday morning, so we spent Saturday having fun!

We took all the boys to the Minnesota Transportation Museum in St. Paul. There are many trains we could walk through, train tables, buttons to push, videos to watch, and a real caboose ride! The boys all seemed to enjoy it.

Sunday morning dawned damp and cloudy. I had been training for 9 weeks, but was still nervous. I'm such a perfectionist, I knew if I didn't finish in my goal time, I would view the whole thing as a complete failure. I know, I know...I have issues. My goal time was 45 minutes. I guess that's my way of not setting myself up for failure; giving myself a goal time that I absolutely knew I could achieve. I could walk 5k in close to that time, so certainly I could run it, right?

Natalie, my co-worker Janelle, Janelle's friend Mellissa and I all ran together. We went about the same pace which was really fun. For the first 1.75 miles we ran 4 abreast and stuck together. Janelle and I did a 30 second walk and got back to running. Natalie and Melissa ran the whole way!

Janelle and I have rehashed the run many times, and Ie've decided that we should never have started walking, because it was harder to regulate my breathing once I walked a bit. Janelle and I pulled each other through the last mile and crossed the finish line together.

I finished in 40:21. Almost five minutes under my goal time, and I'm completely thrilled with that! It was such an incredible feeling of accomplishment, to set this goal, train for it, and succeed at it!

Girls Weekend 2011

After a 2 year hiatus, I'm happy to say Girls Weekend is back. Given our current, the girls were very accomodating. Angie flew in on Friday morning, and we road tripped to the Dells, where Jean met us.

We stayed at Rhapsody Resort and Spa, and it was so nice. It was like a 2-bedroom condo, with two bathrooms, a living room, dining room and kitchen. We grocery shopped and cooked all but one of our meals the entire weekend, and shared all of our meals in our dining room.

It was a really nice time for us to reconnect. I love these ladies! No matter how much time has passed, what events have happened that we've forgotten to tell each other about, we all know that this is a strong friendship. We love each other no matter what, and it feels so good to know I have people like that in my life!

Mother's Day 2011

This was my first year celebrating Mother's Day with my mom in many years!

We invited the Brown's over to celebrate today.

We started the morning with an attempt to get a picture of me and the boys. It didn't go so well, but I have a picture with each one individually. Dylan refused to change out of his muscle shirt, and Brody wouldn't take his hands out of his mouth. Oh well, it's who they are!

The kids had fun playing together. Addy, Avery and Brody made a fort, while they watched Dylan and Christian play Wii.

My mom, Grandma and me

The boys have had a pretty full weekend; Brody hasn't had a nap either day. By late afternoon they were pretty tuckered out. Kelly, Matt, Brian and I ran over to the cemetery to put flowers on my Grandma's grave, and came back to the boys watching tv like this. How sweet!

Shepherd's Harvest Festival

Saturday my mom and I met my aunt Annette and two of her grandkids at the Shepherd's Harvest Festival. It is a gathering of sheep, llama and alpaca keepers. It was fun for the kids to pet all kinds of different animals. They also saw someone spinning yarn, and Brody even rode a Llama!