Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

My sister Casey came to visit over Columbus Day weekend. We've been looking forward to this since the summer! Pete was in Arizona for work, so it ended up being a girls' weekend. It was Casey's first trip without our parents, so she was really excited to have some fun.

Casey made good friends with Sadie while she was here. Casey's new buddy followed her around and even slept in bed with her!

On Saturday, Casey and I watched the WVU/Syracuse football game on TV. Afterwards, I showed her my high school and we did a little shopping. We ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, and went to see Toy Story in 3D- very cool.

Sunday was our big trip into DC. Casey got to ride the Metro- her first real subway experience! We walked all over, and saw the White House, Monuments, and even the Air and Space Museum. We even got to see the National Equality March go through the city.

All in all, our girl party was a blast. Hopefully this will become a sisterly tradition!

Let's Go Mountaineers!

We headed back to WV for our first game of the season on September 12th. WVU hosted East Carolina University. We enjoyed our usual pre-game routine with Aunt Mary Gay and Frankie tailgating at the Mylan tent.

This season is our first year as official season ticket holders! Although our seats aren't quite as good as we're used to (I've been spoiled since a young kid)...

Here are some highlights from the pre-game show featuring The Pride of West Virginia! This was Pappaw's favorite part... the "sunburst" from Simple Gifts.

For those of you who don't recognize it, here's the state outline. A little rusty, but hey- it's only the second home game.

Game time!

WVU won 35-20. Let's Go Mountaineers!

Here we are at our traditional Sunday afternoon dinner at Mammaw's house. She always fills our bellies before we hit the long road home. She served up one of her specialties, roast & potatoes/carrots. Sorry we stole all the leftovers, Mark!

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!