A night out with my Husband

Earlier this week, Ben and I decided that we needed to get a night away. Ben's parents were kind enough to watch Jack for the night so we could get out. Ben decided to go on priceline.com to find an inexpensive hotel on the internet as we didn't want to spend too much. The funny thing was he entered the metro area hoping to get something near prior lake or somewhere where we don't always go. But instead, the hotel came up in Bloomington! Sheraton Bloomington (its right across from my work!) Anyway, there are a couple good things about Priceline and some bad things. The couple good things were we got to choose what star rating we wanted for the hotel and we got the price we wanted to spend. The bad things were, they charge your credit card without seeing the hotel and the charge is non-refundable, you dont get to change the hotel. All in all it turned out to be a nice get-a-way with no kids or interruptions. We went out to dinner at PF Changs, saw a movie, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (chick-flick) and then went back to the hotel and enjoyed the awesome jacuzzi and pool. Then we woke up and went to my fav breakfast place, Original Pancake House, a.k.a OPH. It was a nice get-a-way, even if it was in Bloomington!

Running, ugh!

So I signed up to run a 5K (3miles) on Mother's Day for Race for the Cure and now I wish I hadn't. I am saying this now because just yesterday I started training for the race. After the race is all said and done, I will probably wish I hadn't said this! Alot of stressful things were going on at home, so I really needed to blow off some steam. So my lovely husband said, "Why don't you go for a run? When I go for a run it relieves my stress and it clears my head." I had to start training anyway, so why not? So I got on all my gear, tennies, jog wear and headed outside to run around my neighborhood. Now and I have to let you know that I havent ran for about 3 years, so I knew this wasn't going to go great. However, I was excited to get out there and do it finally. I started running and it felt pretty good. Then about 3 minutes into it my chest started to hurt - really bad. I couldn't breath and despirately wanted water. Not even 5 minutes into my run and I was in pain. I thought, "My 3 miles is going to be absolute agony if I can't run for 3 minutes!" I walked a couple times for only a few seconds but it helped so much. I kept running and endured the pain for about another 15 minutes - totally hating it and thinking about stopping every second. I probably only accomplished running 1/2 mile or less and I decided it was time to call it quits. Moral of the story, I should've started training ALONG TIME AGO. Mother's Day is only about 3 weeks away now and I am going to be hurtin in the race! I will keep you posted on my pain..

Easter Weekend

We had a very wonderful but busy weekend. On Friday, I had a yummy sushi dinner with my good friend Gena. We laughed and laughed - it was a great night. On Saturday, we were invited to a 1st birthday party. A couple from our small group, their daughter is turning one on, Wednesday, April 15. It was really motivating for me to start to prepare for Jack's birthday party that is coming up on May 9. (His actual birthday is May 11). So exciting! I have so many ideas but I know that I shouldn't go too overboard. We also had Ben's sister's birthday dinner that night. We went to an excellent Mediterranean place in St. Paul called, Beirut. They had amazing food! Then came Easter Sunday, praise God. I also got Jack an Easter basket and he loved it. He mostly wanted to eat the cardboard on the packages of the little toys we got. One of the items was a glow worm. I had this when I was little so I had to get one for Jack. We also went to church and heard a great sermon by Piper and then went over to Ben's families house for Easter brunch. Ben's mom had a lot of surprises for Jack when we arrived. Another Easter basket and a Easter egg hunt. He also got to eat a chocolate Easter bunny. This was by far the best part as he was a total mess.

George Weber - Couldn't find a nicer guy..

This past weekend, we also got some terrible news. My step-mom's, stepfather, "Grandpa George" passed away due to a massive heart attack. His wife, Mary and Barb's(my step-mom) sister, Kim were in San Antonio and were out walking around the Riverwalk when George collapsed. He was rushed to the hospital and put on a ventilator to keep his heart going and later died on Saturday night. Please keep Mary and the Weber family in your thoughts and prayers as this is a very difficult time for them. George was a great father, husband, grandfather and friend. He was so loved and we are going to miss him dearly.

Here is a picture of George and Mary at our Wedding.

Believe it or not, that is me and George up Parasailing in Cancun! When everyone said "No way". George said, "Sure, I'll go!" That was just his attitude about life!

This is a family photo of all of us in Cancun, George is pictured in the back right with the glasses and white hair. What a wonderful trip that was!

Jack's new swim trunks..

Over the weekend, my mom rented a hotel at Mystic Lake Casino. We decided to take Jack over to swim at the pool. He has only been in a swimming pool one other time over the summer, so we were excited to take him. The pool was pretty packed so we didn't get to swim tons, as many kids were splashing and yelling. We took him around a bit but the water was sorta cold and Jack was shivering and seemed a bit timid about the whole thing. I've been toying with the idea to take swimming lessons with him to get him more comfortable in pools, but I wanted to wait until summer time. Here are some pics of Jack swimming in his new suit! :)