Squeezing it all in

Since I last left off (ahem..almost a month ago), I've been doing my best at cramming in everything I can before school starts again.  WHAT!?!?!?!  Tomorrow is September?  How in the heck did that even happen.

I came home from Sunny Delight (aka San Diego) and told myself I'd fit in everything I wanted out of my summer in the 4 weeks I had left.  I'm here to say that I got almost everything in that I wanted!  And I still sort-of have some weekends left to at least go canoeing in Princeton.  My time has been spent with family, loved ones, field hockey kiddos, training, training, and more training.  No seriously, I think Chris started my Ironman training just a little too early.  Oh yea, I forgot to mention.  I'm doing an Ironman next August.  Trying not to think about that for a while so I don't freak myself out for the next 11 months.  The first 3 weeks of August were build at 18+ hours of training.  I really have no idea yet how I'm going to fit Ironman training into the schedule during the winter/spring with work & coaching.  I'm just going to ignore that until later.

As I was living it up the first couple weeks of summer, mother nature decided to come in and literally rain on my parade.  I spent a lot more time on my trainer than I'd ever like to when the weather is nice and the sun is shining, but once I cried about it (no seriously, I cried because I felt like my summer was being robbed from me), I sort of got over it.  Field hockey has been going swimmingly and I've enjoyed being around those girls again, and the coaching staff.

Along with all the swimbikerunning, I've gone on a few dates (omg I wore makeup and dresses!), did a race, did some indoor rock climbing, spent precious time with my cutie-pie niece, froyo-ed (yes, it's a verb), saw the doctor, celebrated my Dad's 50th birthday, ate corn on the cob at a Crab Feast, painted some pottery, made a cement stepping stone with my niece and sister (pictures will come when I steal them from my Dad), finished an ENTIRE jar of almond butter in ONE sitting with help from my manly man (seriously, problems with that), revamped and redecorated my bedroom, went on my first ferris wheel ride at a fair, partially painted a shirt, played with some babies, played some hockey, enjoyed lots of sunshine, survived an 'earthquake' and Hurricane Irene (thanks for the major loss of power) and went back to school.  School started for me on Tuesday (thank you Irene for canceling it on Monday).  I missed new teacher orientation last year since I was hired so late in the year so I had to do it this year.  A little bit of a snore since I know it all already, but what can you do?  Of COURSE the weather has been perfect and beautiful all week and looks like it's going to be miserable on my last weekend of freedom, but what can you do?  Grin and bear it I suppose and soak up summer some more in 2012.

 Date night..swoon

 Brigantine Triathlon

Youngin's partyin hard

Crab Feast time

 I went to throw my nectarine pit in the woods behind me and fell backwards. So stupid.

 Miss little Artist

 Painting pigs

 Froyooooo!!  Micheila loved it

 Just look at that guilt

 Just a wee bit anxious for the ferris wheel

 Cleaning out my room and finding that I enjoyed running at a young age, equipped with a very unique running style

 Date night!

Back yard birthday partying

In preparing for hurricane Irene I switched around my entire training schedule so I wouldn't have to sit on the trainer or run outside in terrible unpredictable weather.  In typical Yasi fashion, I messed up fixing a flat on Saturday morning so I ended up sitting on my trainer anyway for 3 hours.  Fun.  Then I killed it on my run, and met the hockey girls at school for the last 30 minutes of a surprise yoga class.  I needed it.  Then I ruined whatever good I had going for me and did my swim that was supposed to be on Friday, then I moved to Sunday, then I did on Saturday because I didn't want to venture outside during the storm.  Are you still with me?  I ended up cramming in 9 hours/3 days of training in 2 days.  Welcome to the introduction of Ironman training Yasi!

All in all we didn't get hit too badly with Irene, but the aftermath was a mess.  I decided I'd rather stay at my boyfriend's instead of with my own family for several reasons and stayed from Saturday afternoon until Monday morning.  There was a bunch of down trees in his neighborhood including a picture of a tree that took off part of a house and landed on a car.  It was sad.  I came home and our neighborhood was just a bit messy.  Lots of branches and leaves everywhere.  We had a fallen tree in our front yard too, but it was only a baby (tear) so it didn't do any damage.  The only damage it did was to my heart.  We gave our mom that tree in the spring for her birthday.  It was a dogwood, her (any my) favorite!  So sad.  We were without power for a good bit which was unfortunate, but it was nice to just lounge by the light of the day and read leisurely.  Then it was annoying when I wanted yogurt and it was lukewarm.  But, if that's the only thing I have to deal with, then I'll take it.

 Preparing for the hurricane

 No power? Just paint cool shirts!

 Taking baby for a walk to check out hurricane damage

 That's the top of a tree..in the front yard

 Terrible hurricane damage

 Out for a walk

Hurricane = no power = romantic dinner for 7

This is entirely too long, even with all of these pictures.  Plus, I need to go to bed because tomorrow is another day of 'school'.  First day with kids is next Tuesday.  Ready or not, here they come!