Back from the ABYSS

It sure has been a long time since I last posted but at least I didn't let a full year go by, right? RIGHT! Excuses, excuses, excuses. Those are my reasons for not updating the world on my life; that or I'm just not that interesting. So, what has happened since July 2012? Well, I haven't been back to Hawaii yet - wahhh! - and I think about it every day. I also haven't been back to Disney - double wahhh! I guess more importantly than both of those is that my sister had her second baby, Juliet Teresa, in February. This kid is the spitting image of her father (whereas Miranda is a McLoughlin girl through and through).

OMG SO DARN CUTE.

Since Juliet was born her sister, Miranda, has gotten really animated and turned into a little walking, talking person. She'll run around my front yard screaming "EMBER! THERE'S A CAR COMING! COME HERE NOW!" at my dog or she'll tell her mother to "FaceTime Christine?" You're two, not twenty... haha, she knows what FaceTime is. Is that sad or awesome? I'm not sure yet.

She also enjoys the occasional picture-text war:

Follow the picture text leader!

Anyway, back to me! Since the beginning of the year I've started running 5K races throughout the area. It all started randomly with the ThinMint 5K because it came with an (ugly) shirt and a box of cookies! Who wouldn't run for cookies!? I ran that race without training; just doing my normal walk a lot (about 90 minutes a day) and stairclimbing at the gym. Somehow, I managed to finish the 5K with a decent pace of 12:30 per mile -  YOU GO SHORT LEGS - and on a runner's high decided to do more, more, more.

Give me all of the cookies!

For the next race, I enlisted Kyle and my sister, Teresa, to join me. It was the Paws For Life race in Chesapeake City, MD where you get to run with your dog! Woohoo!! I didn't actually run with her because she'd pull me over, but Kyle did. They ran the entire thing in 27 minutes and the dog was still hyper.

This was Teresa's first 5K in years, she also popped out two kids, so hooray for running!

Oh look at those hips, they don't lie!

Before Picture: Ember has no idea she's about to run 3.1

The run itself was harder than I expected. It was trail running and the trails were incredibly muddy from the week of rain we had right before the race. There were sections of trail where your shoes would actually sink about 1 - 2" into the mud. Just a little bit dangerous, no biggie! But in the words of Teresa, "I'm never running again!" and "Oh god, my expensive shoes are a mess!" I'm not so sure she had fun.

Next up? The B+ 5K which raises money for kids with cancer, the Color Run in Philadelphia and probably 800 more because I've turned into a running monster. I'm currently hovering around 5 miles in 55 minutes which is pretty awesome for someone who just decided to pick this up a month ago.

A big reason I keep going is because I, honestly, cannot believe that I am this good at it. I've never been athletic and always hated the gym so why do I love running? Who knows.

I have a secret though... and I'm not telling yet! Holla!

LONGWOOD GARDENS - WARNING: THIS IS MIRANDA POST

Today felt like a relaxing Saturday (bonus: it's only Friday!) because I was off work and out exploring Longwood Gardens with my mom, sister and niece. It's the perfect time for me to visit because it's TULIP TIME and they are my ultimate favorite flowers.

This (above) is the best looking tulip I've seen and it also has a great name to go along with the jagged edges; a pirate tulip - that is clearly not the latin name.

Arr! Look at me petals, matey!

 Miranda was excited all day about the flowers which was cute because she would walk up to them, stop and exclaim, "WOWWW!!" Sometimes she said the word so forcefully it looked like she was about to topple over from it. Being able to walk up to a flower and rip the petals off was such a joy to her; even if her mother did let her kill a few plants or two.

Now, even though my mom and I were completely happy to wander around the 1,000 acres of beautiful landscaping taking skillions of pictures my sister kept pestering us to go to the children's garden. This is where little kids can go on scavenger hunts, learn about nature and, most importantly, get soaking wet in their clothes making their parents upset - Miranda was no exception to the rule. She is a lean, mean water splashing machine.

After the soaking, we didn't do much else; just wandered around chatting and chasing the baby. The nice thing about Longwood is that it's a place where you can set your own pace. We spent about 4 hours there and didn't get to a lot of things.

But that's okay because today I became a member and can go there any time I want.

-happy face-