Teenager Update

I have again been lax in the posting of pictures of my three darlin's. Let's start with the oldest.

Cute, sophisticated, can belch like a construction worker, athlete extraordinare, star student, funny, sarcastic (like her g-ma), gorgeous, has a strong sense of personal style and currently her room has not one open space on the floor. I throw things in from the door because I don't want to break another toe.

First day of school. We traditionally go out for breakfast on the first day of every new school year. We hit a local favorite bakery called Nancy P's. D-Lish!!

This years school picture. Isn't is good? I look at this a lot because I don't actually see too much of her in person. Between volleyball, friends, homework, football games...etc she is a blur. I love Sundays because she hangs with me all day at home in her jammies.

This is what Katya spends 5 to 6 days a week focusing on - volleyball. And being in tiny little Bend, we must do a lot of travelling to go and play with other teams. So far this school year Katya has been to Salem, Madras, La Pine and tomorrow they take off for The Dalles (a 3 hour bus ride each way). And by the end of October she will play at Hermiston and Pendleton. I need to get my map out to see just where these places are. And of course, she is already planning on doing club volleyball in January. Busy, busy, busy. In fact, too busy to get into trouble. :)

Broken

I managed to do all that walking in training... I did the walk with Michelle and although our feet hurt, we did it. Then I come home and while cleaning the house on Sunday trip over the vacuum and - break my little toe.

Left foot. Baby toe. OW!

I had it confirmed via x-ray that it is indeed a fracture and the doctor says that it will be 8-10 weeks until I can start back with the walking and aerobics again. I'm bummed.

So, I hobble around the house and go to work with my slippers on and take a lot of Motrin. Man, I love that stuff. And I spend all my time with Logan trying to keep him off of my foot. For some reason he wants to badly to step on it now.

3-Day Journey: Day 3

At 4am those darn cell phone alarms went off. Let’s just say we were even less enthusiastic than we were the morning before. Lots of grumbling and groaning. We got dressed, I bandaged my feet, strapped on both knee braces, we packed our bags, rolled up the sleeping mats, folded the tarps and stuffed the sleeping bags. Then we had to tear down the tent and pack that up too. In the dark. When it was really cold. Before coffee.

We finished up and dumped everything with those insufferably perky crew members by the semi trailers that somehow appeared in the middle of the night and parked a mere 100 or so feet from us without our knowledge. We made it to the breakfast and coffee lines and then sat as far away from the other perky people as possible. Wendy found us (as she is also very similar to us in personality) and we all sat there glowering and chugging coffee while waiting for instructions to head to the school buses that rolled into camp.

Once on the bus we all sat in relative silence as everyone around us was also sore, tired, had some kind of pain somewhere and was bone cold. We had been camping in Redmond and we were heading to our new starting point at the University of Washington. We were unloaded at the arboretum and we wound our way around the university, through the center of campus (what an amazingly beautiful campus!), along the main road where the sororities and frat houses were (and during rush evidently), down through some beautiful neighborhoods and to a lake.

When we hit the lake I was dying of pain. My feet had reached an all time high in terms of pain and I had already been eating Motrin as though they were orange Tic Tacs. I think I was at 8 by this point. But the lake was a designated cheering station and there were so many people lining both sides of the walkway cheering us on. They had cookies, held signs, handed out bubble gum and Red Vines, little kids were handing out stickers to put on our hands, one person had brought home made pink walking sticks made out of pvc pipe, one person was waving tuct tape for people with blisters that needed securing, some people had little pom poms that they were waving and one old Asian woman came up and shook Michelle’s and my hands. I had no choice – I had to suck it up. But I have to tell you, by this point I was seriously considering gnawing my feet off at the ankles just to stop the pain. Those were the hardest three miles of the entire walk and I was about to cry. But then it became manageable again and after downing a Red Bull at a gas station we walked by I had more energy. Michelle suffered in silence, but even she told me later that those cheering stations really helped her through some tough spots too.

We had lunch at a really pretty place called Gas Works Park that overlooked Seattle and we could have enjoyed it more had we not just been thinking about finishing the walk. We ate in record time, hit the potty, stretched and headed back out. The rest of the walk was really pretty which helped distract us. We walked along the many piers, (we loved the cheering sections people had set up through there with the Gatorade margaritas) through downtown and over to the Aquarium. Our last pit stop was at a parking lot across from there and it was then that I had to re-tape up some spots on my feet and switched to dry socks so we could finish. Michelle grabbed another bag of pretzels (she got one at every single stop that day) and we headed out.

By this point we were two miles from the Space Needle and the Seattle Center where our finish line was. People were everywhere cheering us on. Cars and motorcycles were honking, tour buses waved at us and we kept singing that Christmas song “Just put one foot in front of the other and soon you’ll be walking across the floor...” It was our personal mantra. We heard other people saying “left, left, left right left…” We were so darn close. When we finally looked up and saw the needle it was so darn close, we were only a couple of hills away.

When we finally got to the top and headed down the drive into the Seattle Center we saw a massive crowd waiting for us. They burst out into applause and were cheering all of us on. We (even Michelle) couldn’t stop smiling. We walked by two little girls holding a huge blow up picture of their mother who was taken at the young age of 37 in 2006 by breast cancer and I almost burst into tears. They had a huge team and I saw them all weekend, but didn’t know the story until later. It broke my heart that their mother had to leave them so young. Thankfully she had a sister who is obviously honoring their mother the best way she knows how and they will be well loved. They are why we walked.

At the bottom of the walkway we were handed some pink shoelaces by one person and a cold drink by another person. We walked to the entrance of the holding area and those blessed crew members were there again cheering us on and telling us how fabulous we were. We walked through the door and down some stairs to a huge applause and blaring music. We felt like rock stars. People were smacking our hands, congratulating us, hooting for us, making us feel so wonderful. We were pumped full of adrenaline and were floating on a little cloud. We were then given a t-shirt and a pink rose (courtesy of Pro Flowers.com) and then had a picture of us taken in front of the completion sign. We found our way to a corner and sat down, exhausted but buzzed. Wendy found us again and we all waited there for a couple of hours until it was time to go into the stadium. We had somehow been one of the first people to make it to the finish line.
After a while, when all the walkers had finished or been collected, we all were lined up and sent out to the stadium where we were met with thousands of people applauding us. Man…it was overwhelming. It wasn’t until that moment when we turned around and saw the actual full 3,500 people filing in. It took forever to get everyone in. Then there was a big inspirational speech thanking our sponsors, thanking us, thanking our crew (they are the most amazing people EVER), and then there was a special time when the survivors walked in. They had all been given pink shirts to wear. Everyone had taken off one of their shoes and they held them in the air as a salute to those men (yes, men can get breast cancer) and women who had fought and survived the disease. I couldn't help but think of my my mom as everyone was saluting the survivors - I love you!

They announced that our walk alone had raised over 8.6 million dollars!!! That is a lot of money to go towards the fight. At the end of everything we collected our bags and loaded our bus back to the hotel in Bellevue. We sat there with our IPods on and I fell asleep. I have to tell you, that shower at her house felt SO GOOD! And I will not take indoor plumbing for granted again!!!

With the help of my family and friends I was able to raise $2,467.00!! I think that I still have a few corporate matches that will bring my total even higher. Thank you all so much for your support!!!

All in all, it was an honor to walk for my mother and Lynn. I feel good that we were able to do something for these most important women in our lives. We can’t be there to bring them dinner, or take them to the doctor, or just hold their hand when they don’t feel good – but we were able to do something in HONOR of them if nothing else.

We love both you beautiful and wonderful ladies!! You guys are the real rock stars.

3-Day Journey: Day 2

Our cell phone alarms woke us up at a bleary eyed 4:30am and we pulled our walking clothes on as we mumbled and stumbled our way to the porta potties, coffee and breakfast station. We both had frozen parts of our bodies overnight and our tent was covered with water from the heavy dew that covers the area every night. Let’s just say that after walking 20 miles the day before, sleeping on the ground doesn’t do much for your disposition.

We each downed three cups of coffee and had a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, potatoes and oatmeal we were well fueled and ready to go when the trail opened up at 6am. I think we didn’t really make the trail until 6:30 or 7am. As we trudged along mumbling to ourselves we overheard all kinds of women discussing how they were going to hit the first Starbucks that came into view. Luckily, the Cow Ladies were there to greet us as we walked by so we stopped to take a picture with them.

Along the path Michelle noticed a Panera bakery and we headed over there so she could get herself a pastry for the road and a latte. As we joined up with the rest of the walkers we came across some cute high school girls out there cheering us on from across the street and then we hit McDonalds that gave us cups of coffee, Jamba juice that gave us shots of smoothie and Starbucks that handed out doughnuts and iced tea. That really lifted our spirits since it took me a full mile to warm up my sore feet and get those tendons loosened up. (BTW, we stretched at every stinkin’ stoplight) We also came along a team shirt that had us laughing for while.

We were hurting for this walk. We made it to the second pit stop before realizing it would take everything we had to make it to lunch (the 10 mile mark). Michelle’s knee was hurting and her toe was killing her. My feet were throbbing and it felt like I had rocks in my shoes because my neuromas started swelling up. Those last 2 ½ miles were the worst. We broke out our IPods and stuffed them in our jog bras and stealthily brought the earpiece up to our ear so we could focus on music to help us through. We were not allowed to have IPods so we were totally breaking the rules by doing this.

That lunch pit stop sign was the best thing EVER! It meant we could stop and it was our planned point to stop for the day. We fully intended to save most of our energy and pain tolerance for the Sunday walk. We weren’t going to kill ourselves on Saturday. Lunch was yummy chicken wraps at a beach and then we took some nice buses back to camp.

At camp we lay down in our tents and took our shoes off to survey the damage. Michelle’s right pinkie toe was black and blue and completely swollen. Her knee was killing her and her lower back was not much better. I had a huge nickel sized blister on the side of my heel, a blister on the bottom of my big toe and one on the bottom of another toe. My plantar fasciitis was killing my feet in general and those marbles were getting more and more swollen. We put our feet up for a couple of hours before showering, ate dinner, had some cookies at the Pepperidge Farm tent and then stayed in the tent the rest of the night. Our fellow teammate, Nancy, had brought some pink tuct tape and I used some to try and keep my orthotics stuck to my insert. I believe that when my insert shifted when I was walking it caused the orthotic to rub on my heel which caused that one really bad blister.

When I hit the porta potty that night, I was greeted by this image on the inside of the door which I thought was really funny. Michelle decided to be proactive and she put the other tarp over the tent to try and keep the moisture out of our tent as well as providing some extra shade in the afternoon so we could hit the sack before 8 o’clock.

3-Day Journey: Day 1

Our alarms (we set multiple because of my wake up fiasco Thursday morning) went off at 3:15am. We silently trudged around getting dressed and throwing our non-walking clothes into bags that we would leave in Michelle’s car. I have never needed the in-room coffee maker more until that morning. The coffee tasted good even with that nasty powdered creamer. That is when you know you are tired.

We headed downstairs exactly at 4am, put our gear bags by some chairs, put our non-walking clothes in the car, grabbed our breakfast and found ourselves more coffee. We sat there eating and watching people file in with crazy headbands, matching outfits and more pink duffel bags than I thought were actually made. As we were sitting there watching all this chaos go on around us, we met this crazy lady named Wendy. It turns out her team mate bailed on her at the last minute so she informally joined our team. She had personal reasons for doing the walk as well without all the pink fanfare. We liked her immediately.

The bus pulled in and we loaded our gear on. Some really excited and pumped up people started loading on the bus as did other people more like ourselves who were sitting there wishing for a Starbucks fairy to appear. But the attitude in the bus was infectious and we all found ourselves in better moods by the time our bus pulled up to Bellevue Community College – our starting point.

It was quite the sight! People dressed up as fairies with wands and crowns, people in crazy pajamas, people with orange cones on their head and others dressed up as pirates were everywhere cheering us as we got off the bus. My bag was a little bit lopsided on the wheels and some really nice woman ran up and picked up the back part of the bag and helped me carry it to a waiting semi trailer. We had our tent assignment on our credential which had been mailed to us a few weeks earlier and it said J69, so we headed to the “J” semi trailer. These nice people dressed up with animal hats and in crazy jammies loaded our bags and we headed off to look around.
We were one of the first people there so we had time to put up a sticker to tell my mom and Kerry’s mom (Michelle’s other BFF’s mother) that we were walking for them. Then we took pictures of the lights they had everywhere with messages of encouragement and headed to the line for Starbucks as soon as they opened up. We also acquainted ourselves with the porta potties that would be our best friends for the rest of the walk.

My feet were already starting to protest so much standing, so we sat down on a curb as the rest of the walkers filed in. I heard that we had somewhere in the range of 3,500 people doing this walk. We eventually found the other two members of our team- Nancy and her sister, Lyn. Michelle worked with Nancy in San Diego and her sister, Lyn lives in Seattle. There was a big opening ceremony with lots of fanfare and encouragement, lots of cheering and inspirational music and then we were off.

The walk on the first day was not all that pretty. Our route was along a lot of busy streets that were mostly business or industrial. Not much pretty to look at. Luckily the route had these pit stops every 2-3 miles that really broke up the walk and enabled us to potty at regular intervals. Each of these pit stops had water, Gatorade, ice, pretzels, chips, granola bars, bananas, oranges, nuts and little PB&J sandwich things. There was no going hungry while doing the walk. They also provided lots of salt so that people like me who sweat, didn’t puff up like the Pillsbury Dough Girl. I ate a lot of potato chips to try and combat my puffy fingers and feet. Michelle was never without her pretzels.

Lunch at mile 10 was really yummy. Chicken breast sandwiches, sun chips, an apple and cookies. This event was so well organized everything went smoothly everywhere we went. Because walkers have to stay on sidewalks we naturally formed a long line that must have stretched out for miles. This meant that the waves of people hitting the pit stops did so in small groups. It wasn’t until the very end of the last day that I really got an idea of the true number of people that walked.

Ic must say, the best thing about walking were the people that parked themselves along the side of the road in parking lots and held up signs cheering us on, telling us thank you for walking for them/their children/parent/spouse, telling us we were heroes, handing out candy, otter pops, red vines, bubble gum and spray bottles with water spritzing us down when the temps were crawling into the 80’s. It felt so good to have people take the time out of their day to cheer on a total stranger. Those people cheering really gave me personal motivation for finishing, especially on the last day, when I was having a hard time putting one foot in front of the other because it hurt so badly.

For those people that couldn’t finish the walk at any point along the way were the sweep vans. They were decked out with themes and they patrolled alongside of us waiting for some person to show a thumbs down that they needed a ride. We had the “Peace” van. They had slogans like “Make love not blisters” on their windows and they blared 60’s and 70’s music as they drove by. And of course they wore tie dye and giant bras over their shirts. There were the “Mammogrammies” that wore mumus and grey wigs and had “Be a film star, get a mammogram” written on the back of their van. The “Dawg Patrol” that had dog costume hats and pictures of dogs all over their van. They had “Are Your Dawgs Barkin’?” on their van. The van would pick these people up and take them either to lunch or to the camp depending on the time of day. The Cow Ladies just rode alongside us every day with loud music, a moo horn and lots of clapping and encouragement. Everyone loved those lovely ladies.

We also loved all the motorcycles that belonged to our safety folks. These guys and gals had their motorcycles decked out with plastic boobs (when else would this be socially acceptable?), bras, pink teddy bears and flamingos, boas and flags. The safety folks made sure that we got across all of those more hairy intersections safely. They were awesome standing on their feet all darn day with a smile on their faces while directing weary walkers along their path. And they were there for us at the end of the walk too. But more of that later.

Michelle and I lost our other teammates along the way, but we trudged ourselves through to the very end of day 1. Our feet hurt, our knees hurt, Michelle’s back hurt and we didn’t talk at all for the last few miles since we had to concentrate on our own personal pain levels.

As we rounded the corner on the last blessed mile we walked along our camp and saw just how massive it was. What a production! HUGE white tents for our eating area and food service area, seas of pink sleeping tents, semi trucks labeled mobile showers, more rows upon rows of porta potties… it was massive. As we came to the entrance of the camp there were more crew members there cheering us on and congratulating us that we finished. We walked down the flag lined path to the sleeping area and grabbed our stuff off the ground and our tent and got everything set up.

After setting up our tent, rolling out our sleeping mats and bags we grabbed our pajamas and shower stuff and headed over to the towel tent. We had both paid for towel service so we picked up our two towels that were slightly bigger than a hand towel and washed the days grime off of ourselves. Total gym class rules in there. If you were a modest person you were in a world of hurt. But most of us are older broads with childbirth scars, cellulite on our ample thighs (despite all those training walks) and I met one that had mastectomy scars.

We grabbed our spaghetti dinner and ate as fast as possible because the dinner music that night was some opera singer that was getting on my nerves. At least sing cheesy Italian restaurant music instead of whatever the heck he was singing. From there we went to the La Croix tent (one of our sponsors) and had ourselves a nice cold sparkling water beverage and vibrated our tired feet for a while before heading back to our tent and crashing for the night. Other people went to the big tent and did karoke until lights out at 9pm. For once, Michelle was not in a karoke mood.

3-Day Journey: Day 0

I start at day zero, because that is my travel day to even get to Seattle.

My plane was scheduled to depart Bend/Redmond at 6am. I figured to be safe, I would leave the house at 4:30am and get there safely at 5am. If I got up at 3am, I could unload the dishwasher, clean the kitchen, make a lunch for Bob and Katya and even swing by Starbucks to get myself a nice latte before I had to head to the airport.

Things didn’t quite work out that way.

Logan woke up with a nightmare (again) at 2am. I got up and got him back to sleep. I debated on going back to bed, but figured I would benefit from that extra 30 or so minutes of sleep. Well, I opened my eyes a while later and looked at the alarm to see a red glowing 4:45 staring back at me. I had that horrid feeling of dread that you get in the pit of your stomach when you realize that you are in a really, really bad spot. I quite literally threw clothes on, grabbed my shoes, kissed a bleary eyed Bob goodbye and ran downstairs. I grabbed my purse and ran to the car. I believe that I might have exceeded the speed limit just a bit in my haste to the airport. The whole time I was talking to the Uni verse and asking for assistance with red lights.

I pulled into the airport at 5:15am grabbed my bags (lucky Bob had loaded them the night before) and what looked like it was important off of the front seat of my car (leaving the decapitated Barbie) and ran into the airport. I figured that now that I was there, it was smooth sailing. I have never had a problem at the airport in Redmond – until now. I walked in and the line for Horizon was wrapped around the wall and down to the entrance almost. And it wasn’t moving. Turns out an earlier flight had mechanical problems and 50 people had to be re-routed. Then once I was finally checked in I got to go and stand in the even LONGER security line. Once I finally got through I had to run to my plane. I made it.

Michelle picked me up at baggage claim and we headed straight to Pikes Place where we noshed on French pastry and lattes. So yum. We grabbed some extra for Friday morning (who couldn’t use a chocolate croissant?) and headed to do some last minute shopping at Target. Neither of us had clothes pins in our camping stash.

We got back to her house, re-packed our bags and double checked our packing lists to make sure we didn’t forget anything. We loaded our stuff into the car and headed to Bellevue to our hotel. It wasn’t until we were at the hotel that I realized I had forgotten our extra pastries and fruit at her house in the fridge. I almost died.

By this time we were completely nervous and just sat in the happy hour area eating chips with salsa and sipping Diet Coke watching as all these people came streaming into the hotel wearing nothing but pink. It was a pink fest. Michelle and I weren’t exactly sure what we had signed ourselves up for .

Our breakfast was going to be available at 4am and our shuttle to the event area was leaving at 4:30am so we showered and headed to bed early.

First Bike

What was Bob thinking? We each take a kid to run errands for a morning because it is easier to deal with one than two.

Only, Bob sometimes comes home with "stuff" for the kids. This time he came home with a bike for Alexis.

Yes, a bike. Not a trike, not a big wheel - a bike with training wheels.

He is about one to two years too early for a bike for Alexis, but he won't hear otherwise. It does provide lots of entertainment watching him try to teach her to push the pedals with her feet while she just holds them up and lets Bob push her around.

When Debbie K. heard about the bike, she sent me home with a tricycle for Logan so he wouldn't feel left out. Isn't she sweet?

Maybe next year she might actually want to push the pedals. Until then, grab a cool drink and watch the fun!