13.1

I did it! I can hardly believe it myself, but I ran the Virginia Beach Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon over Labor Day weekend. That's 13.1 miles, with a time of 2:06:30.

Suzy had been encouraging me to sign up for a good six months before I finally gave it a shot. She recommended a good running schedule, and I started the program in June. It was really manageable- two short runs during the week, one long run on the weekend, and some cross-training in-between. I started out at 3 miles, and gradually increased the distance every week. I found running to be a great stress reliever, and it was something fun to focus on for a few months. I enjoyed the challenge, and it was a nice distraction from The Wait.

Here is the view of Virginia Beach from our hotel balcony. The race finish line was on the boardwalk only a few blocks away.

Here I am on the morning of the race. Very nervous!

Rounding the corner on mile 11.

This one was taken after I saw Pete. I must have used up all my energy smiling and waving, because the last mile was brutal!

Suzy and I after the race.

After our post-race lunch. Feeling better now!

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I started back to work this week, can you believe it? The summer flew by (as always). I'm definitely behind on posting, so this will be an overview of July and August.

Pete and I went to Orlando around mid-July to vacation with Dad, Lyla, and Daniel. They rented an awesome house, so there was plenty of room for relaxing, gaming, and swimming. Some of you may know that I've been wanting to go to Disney World for quite a while now. I was there twice as a child, but it's been about 25 years since my last visit. I've been trying to get Pete to go there on vacation since we've been together. I even looked into having our wedding there! However, Pete insisted that Disney World was for kids, not adults. Bah humbug. But since we had the opportunity to go to Orlando, how could we NOT go to Disney while there?!

Dad, Pete, and I went to the Magic Kingdom on our first full day in Orlando. We got up early and were able to get to the park before they opened. We saw Mickey and company arrive on the train, and were one of the first (ok, maybe first 100) people into the park!

Dad is a bit of a Disney expert, so the night before, I armed myself with some of his favorite resources. I had a written plan (I kid you not), and let me tell you these people know what they are talking about! We breezed through about 15 rides before lunch with little to no wait. In July! It was great. I was a kid again! It really is the happiest place on earth.

A couple days later, Dad, Lyla, Daniel, Pete, and I decided to visit Epcot. Armed with another plan of attack, we hit all the major rides in the morning. Soarin' was amazing, and Mission Space was intense and like nothing I've ever experienced. Test Track was cool, but we all decided it was not all that different from Dad's driving.

On our last night, we went to Downtown Disney and ate at T-Rex. That place is pretty elaborate, with meteor showers every 20 minutes or so.

It was a great trip, and even though Pete didn't love Disney quite as much as I did, I'm sure I had enough fun for both of us!

After we got home from Florida, I went on another little adventure with my friend Suzy. Her parents have recently retired to North Carolina, so we went to visit them.

Our first evening was spent in Wilmington. We walked around the downtown area, checking out the cute shops and waterfront. We had some wonderful seafood and ice cream as well!

The next day Suzy took me on a grand tour of Duke University, her alma mater. The campus is beautiful, and I even got to see the infamous Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Our last adventure of the summer was a camping trip. We usually go 2-3 times per summer, but with Pete's work travel this year, it was difficult to even find one free weekend. We decided to go to a place that was a little more remote than usual. It was a hike-in site, so we were hoping it would be more secluded that your average campground.

Well, it turns out it was a 3/4 mile hike uphill to get to the site. And we were seriously loaded down with our gear. It was really hot, and poor Lucky barely made it to the site. Then poor Pete had to go back and do it all over again for a second trip. And then poor me had to go once more for our "back-up" stove since the wood was damp and not burning well. Then I broke our only lantern. Smooth, Gayle. Later that night the lightning began, but there was not much more than a sprinkle, so we thought we were safe. But at 7 am the storms really began. It was POURING. We waited it out in the tent for a couple hours, but there is only so much time that you can keep the dog entertained in there. So we gave up and decided to leave. We packed up everything, soaking wet. We hiked down the muddy path in the rain (one trip, thank you very much). We put our muddy, wet dog and gear in the car, and headed for McDonald's. Best Happy Meal ever.

Here are a couple pictures from the happier moments!

After our fun vacations, it was time to get to business. One of my goals for the summer was to paint the living room and hallways. I started with the living room before we went to Florida, and finished up the halls/stairways after North Carolina. I actually painted the living room twice- the first time was an awful gold color. Thanks for saving the day, Suzy. She helped me choose a better color and paint the room again the day before we left for Orlando. Here are a couple pictures of the finished product.

The rooms are the same color, it just looks different in different lighting. This last picture is just so you can appreciate what a pain it was to do the two-story stairwell. And yes, I'm scared of heights!

And in case you are wondering, no, there is no news on the adoption front. Our agency had a Homeland Tour in June, where they take a group of adoptees and their parents back to Colombia to visit the orphanage. They called a meeting in July to discuss their trip and update the waiting families, but there was not really any concrete information to share with us. As we have been told before, there are fewer children being placed for adoption, as Colombia is encouraging the mothers to parent. Also, domestic adoption (within Colombia) is preferred over international adoption. So we continue to wait... and enjoy our time together as a couple as much as we can. Time to plan the next vacation!

The Old Pueblo

I went to Tucson, AZ to visit Pete over the 4th of July weekend. He has been working there off-and-on for the past couple months. Tucson is a beautiful city with lots to see and do. Unfortunately most of what I wanted to see and do were outdoors, and the weather was HOT. You always hear about it being "dry heat," so I assumed it would not be too bad. Well, evidently that theory does not apply in July. July is Monsoon Season, and it storms almost nightly. That means humidity. So, it was 100 degrees and humid every day! But we weren't going to let that stop us from having our fun.

The first day we went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It's a zoo, natural history museum, and botanical garden all in one place.

Next we visited Saguaro National Park.

That evening we ate dinner at El Charro Cafe. Established in 1922, it is the nation's oldest Mexican restaurant in continuous operation by the same family. It was the best Mexican food we have had in a long time!

The next day we went to Sabino Canyon Recreation Area (within the Coronado National Forest) and hiked to Seven Falls. It took a couple hours to get there, but the view was well worth the trouble!

Dear Uncle Jimmy,

I will miss you so much. Some of my best childhood memories are with you: our walks to Hawkinberry Hollow where we fed Bob Manning's chickens, took donuts to Big Boy, sat on the giant rock, drank water out of the spring using our collapsible cups, used our walking sticks that you made from a broomstick with a nail in the bottom, and of course the infamous abandoned TV that you climbed in and let me "change the channels." We had tons of fun in the Mama Mia room, covered in drawings that the kids all made you. We recorded radio broadcasts, and even played in laundry baskets. Your energy and creativity were a child's best friend.

When I got older, you picked me (and my friends) up at the bus stop, always bringing us our favorite goodies (usually donut holes from Foodland). You always made me laugh, and after I moved away, you made my visits home more fun. Lucky will always appreciate the popsicles you fed him, and his favorite dirty old balls that you saved for him.

You were the heart of this family, and life is not going to be the same without you. I am heartbroken that our child will not get to know you, but we will do our best to make sure the legend of Uncle Jimmy lives on. I take some comfort in knowing that you are no longer in pain, and hope that you finally have peace.

Love,

The Princess

Found!

My brother is my hero. He camped out at Mom's house from Monday until Wednesday night when he captured my little Nilesy. And it wasn't easy- he had to contend with barking neighbor dogs, Enemy Orange Cat, a multitude of bugs, a centipede, and a crazy old raccoon trap that Uncle Jimmy keeps for just such an occasion. But Mark persevered, ultimately catching Niles by lying in wait (or sitting in a lawn chair as it were) in the garage with food as bait. Niles came in, Mark cat-whispered him closer, tackled his a%$, and hit the garage door opener. Score!

I think we have finally solved the mystery about how Niles got out of Mom's house. We were back in WV last weekend to pick him up, and Pete was walking Lucky around the house Saturday morning. He noticed that the screen was off of the bedroom window. The same window that we had opened the weekend before when we went to sleep. I talked to Mom about it, and she said that there were no screens out of any windows when she left. Then I remembered a noise that woke us up during the night. I thought it was the window falling, so Pete got up and shut the window. But now I realize that Niles must have jumped up into the window, knocked the screen out in the process, and fell to the ground.

Case closed. Thankfully with a happy ending!

When it rains, it pours

Niles, one of our cats, ran away last weekend. We were in WV visiting family, and we took Lucky, Niles, and Sadie with us. Niles has always been a bit of a recluse, especially when in new environments. So when we didn't see him on Sunday, we did not think much of it.


Then the time came to pack up the car to leave. We could not find him anywhere. We searched room by room, cat treats and irresistible canned food in hand. No luck. It became clear that Niles had escaped.


Eventually Sunday evening came and we had to make a decision. Pete left, and I stayed behind to look for Niles.


I did spot him Sunday night. I turned on the porch light and saw his green eyes reflect off in the distance. I grabbed a flashlight and treats, and ran out the door. Unfortunately he ran too, and he is much faster than I am. I spent the night waiting by the back door, but he did not return.


Monday afternoon I had to leave Fairmont to come back home. It is a very busy time at work right now with graduation next week, and I could not miss another day. It was incredibly difficult to leave without him, and I felt awful about it.


My brother, Mark, however, was kind enough to camp out at the house and resume Operation Get Niles Back. He has really gone above and beyond the call of duty, I couldn't ask for a better person to be there in my absence. But I'm worried about the toll that the situation is taking on him.


Mark did have a Niles sighting last night (Tuesday). He came to the deck and ate some food. Even though Niles is still out and about, I feel much better knowing that he's got something in his belly and he knows where to come back for more.


My plan is to return to Fairmont Friday after work. Hopefully Niles will be ready to end his little adventure by this weekend. I miss him terribly.

In adoption news, we did have our meeting at the agency last week. Though nothing concrete came of it, I left feeling much better. The International Program Coordinator reassured us that we are the "perfect" couple for this program, and that we have no reason to look into other options right now. It does sound like our wait will be longer than we had initially been told. She predicted January-March 2010, based on what the orphanage said most recently. Overall, I got the sense that they are advocating for us more that I realized, but I think they do a poor job of communicating with us waiting families.

She will be going to Colombia on Friday as part of a Homeland Tour with several families and teens and the agency Director. The director plans to meet with the orphanage higher-ups to discuss the status of the program and presumably the lack of referrals to our agency. They return on June 26, so hopefully we'll get an update soon after that.

Bad Week

Though I try to keep things positive on this blog, in reality there are a lot of bad days. This week has been a prime example.

I am struggling to keep it together every day at work. It's been over a year since we started the adoption process, and I don't feel like we are any closer than when we began. I'm starting to question our choices, wondering if we are in the right program, if we have the right agency, should we have stuck with fertility treatments longer, and if there is really anything I can do about it at this point. Overall, I've been feeling like I don't have the strength to wait any longer. It just does not seem possible.

I made an appointment with the agency tomorrow morning. I have a lot of questions. I'm hoping I can get some honest answers. I'm tired of being patient. I'm just plain tired.