milestones and marathons.

this past weekend i celebrated my thirty-something-ish birthday with a trip up to Victoria for the Goodlife Fitness Victoria half-marathon. accompanying me were my better half and kidlets, my mom, and several friends who were also running the race. we ferried over on friday afternoon, and after checking into our hotel we ventured over to the conference center to pick up my race packet. a word of advice: when you arrive as SOON as they open on the first day, with almost 14,000 people registered.....be prepared to wait awhile. the line was crazy long and wrapped around the corner and down the block. it did move quite fast though to our surprise. after we obtained said race packet, we wandered around a few shops downtown before we met up with audi and dee for dinner at Milestones. it had a great atmosphere, fab views (it's located right on Victoria's inner harbour) and good food. AND i was surprised with a sparkler-topped ice cream after dinner and a rousing chorus of happy birthday. yes, i know it wasn't my ACTUAL birthday but my husband said that i deserved a whole weekend and thus declared it "birthday weekend" :) the only damper being when sam somehow managed to knock over my almost-full bellini, breaking the glass in the process and sending my deliciously slushy drink all over me. luckily the napkin in my lap caught most of it, and the waiter very graciously brought me a new one. whew. crisis averted.


on the ferry to victoria




crazy-ass long line to get race packet


parliament building during the day


parliament at night.

after dinner we parted ways and went back to our hotel so the kiddos could go swimming. our hotel was pretty nice, but the pool was definitely NOT designed with kids in mind. there was absolutely no shallow part, you walked down the stairs and were immediately in 5 ft. deep water. or there was the hot tub, which was so hot they could only tolerate it for a few minutes at a time. next time i will defintely stay somewhere with a more kid-friendly pool, as i'm fairly certain this is their absolute favorite part of any trip....swimming in the hotel pool. ha.

saturday morning we drove up to Butchart gardens. one of the big bonuses of bringing our own vehicle, as i've heard the tour buses charge an arm and a leg to take you up there. the gardens were *gorgeous*--unfortunately i don't have more pics due to what i will hereafter refer to as the great camera debacle of two-thousand and ten. in a ever-so-slight miscalculation as i handed my mother back her camera, i let go a millisecond before she grabbed it and in slow motion i saw it plummeting to the ground. i thought it might make it for a minute--nathan and i both tried resuscitating it, but to no avail. it was gone. so i sacrificed my camera to her for the rest of the day.




katie and sam, butchart gardens


probably my favorite part of the gardens, the "sunken garden"

we made it through most of the morning without rain, and then it started coming down a little heavier. the kids were rapidly starting to melt down as well so we all piled back into the truck for a little drive (see: NAPTIME for kiddos). we drove over to a little town on the eastern side of the peninsula called "sidney by the sea", it was adorable and had the kids not been sleeping and the sky not been raining we totally would've gotten out and checked out some of the neat little shops. maybe next time.

by the time we got back to victoria it was time to meet up with everyone for dinner. if you have ever tried to find somewhere to eat for a party of 10 people with an extra 14,000 people in town for a race AND on a national holiday (it was canada's thanksgiving weekend), let me tell you folks, it's not pretty. everywhere was either turning us away completely or telling us it would be hours before they could seat us. i will absolutely know to make reservations well in advance next year. my friend ruby finally suggested the restaurant inside the hotel they were staying at, so we went there. no wait? AWESOME. we pushed a bunch of tables together to accommodate all of us and finally ate around 7:30-ish. after dinner we went back to the hotel and went down to the pool for just a bit, then turned in early.

sunday morning was cold and overcast. i woke up and prayed the clouds would hold out and not dump rain on us, at least not til *after* the run. i had the familiar knots in my stomach that i get before EVERY race, no matter how many times i tell myself that i am just gonna do the best i can and that is all i can do....i still get nervous every.time. met up with audi, dee, and ruby and did our thing. the race went amazingly well, the skies held out and did not rain on us, and it was actually really great running weather. the course was really pretty, and i was pleasantly surprised by the lack of hills....it was a relatively flat course. in spite of my severe lack of preparation, i finished in 2:01:17. i have to credit it to heather's cycling class, as i believe it really helped with my endurance.


in the darkness of pre-race. note my awesome new jacket from the race, a b-day gift from ruby, dee, audi, rhonda and heather!


my most awesome bib ever :)


a sea of runners


audi and i post-race. we keep such great pace together!


team sparkle with our finisher's medals!

after going back to the hotel to shower off the stank, the fam headed over to the Victoria Bug Zoo to check it out. minus my mom who opted out, what a partypooper :) a huge thanks to audi, who suggested it, as we all thoroughly enjoyed it. it was small, but had TONS of really cool bugs, which they tell you all about and then they take most of them out so you can hold them.


nathan holding.....something. i forget what kind of critter this was. a big one, for sure.


sam holding a leaf bug. bizarre how they looked exactly.like. a leaf.


katie and i checking out our fuzzy friend, the tarantula.


this is nathan's fave pic of the trip i think LOL.....i was holding the critter up to get a pic with him and he started trying to climb on my face and it tickled :D


in front of the bug zoo. nathan and sam are missing because halfway through the tour sam said he had to go potty, and nathan said "no way does he have to really go again, i just took him". about a minute later nathan said "i guess he really DID have to go", as sam stood there in a puddle of pee. so he had to run sam back to the hotel to get cleaned up while katie, aus and i finished the tour LOL

after the bug zoo, we went on a tour of Craigdarroch Castle. it was SO impressive....the huge stone architecture, the elaborate woodwork inside, the muraled ceilings.....wow.


the outside. sorry for the washed out, skewed pic.


standing in the entryway looking up. 4 stories of beautiful stairs, railings, banisters and ceilings.


my children on the tour. we received lots of stink-eye from the guides and i'm sure they were breathing a sigh of relief when we left LOL


my mother insisted on this pic. i actually really like it :)


the ceiling in the sitting room.


me.

after the castle we went to dinner at spinnakers on dee's recommendation. this was probably my fave meal of the entire trip, and the atmosphere was great. it's a pub-like setting right on the water and the food was fabulous. they brought me out pumpkin cheesecake with a candle for dessert and my fam (yet again!) sang happy birthday to me. for real this time. cause it really WAS my b-day. then we went back to the hotel and some present opening commenced.



after that my mom offered to watch the kids for a bit so nathan and i could go out for a drink alone. too bad i was soooo tired from the race/being up so early that i needed toothpicks to hold my eyes open by this point. we weren't gone long before we came back to the hotel to turn in for the night.

monday morning dawned clear and sunny. a perfect day for traveling home. the ferry home was gorgeous. what was NOT fabulous was when my daughter started complaining her ear hurt and crying so much that we had to stop at the first drug store when we got off the ferry for some motrin. our first stop upon arriving back in town was to harrison ER. an un-fabulous ending to an otherwise great trip, but at least the ear infection waited til we were almost home. all in all, it was a pretty great trip....and i'm already committed to next years FULL victoria marathon! yikes!

thanks for reading!

where i reach the point that i can stand it no longer and decide to reclaim my dining room.

so my house has been feeling so cluttered to me lately and i've just felt like i don't have enough SPACE and i started to feel a little suffocated (could it be my OCD? or the fact that i have about 37 events coming up and i'm just starting to stress out about all of them?) anywhoos, i decided that i needed to reclaim my dining room as livable, usable space. so i had to rehome all of my fabric and generally clean the crap that had made it's home on the dining room table for the last year or so. i am feeling much better now, it makes the house feel bigger and *GASP* i can actually USE that space now, say, if i were to host coffee next week or something :) and what would a post like this be without before and afters?!

BEFORE:



ugh.

AFTER:



it's been awhile since the surface of this furniture has seen the light of day. yippeeee!


the fabrics new home in the closet. i hope it likes it here!

thanks for looking!

zebra bottoms.

some boutique bottoms i made for katie to go with this black rumba top i found at the thrift store. i used the boutique bottoms pattern from you can make this. i wanted a bigger ruffle on the bottom of this one so i did a 6" ruffle instead of the 3" one the pattern calls for and i love it!





thanks for looking!

"first day" dress.

i fell in love with this fabric at joann's, and decided it would be perfect for katie's "first day of school" dress. i used this pattern for it, which i've used before and LOVE.









thanks for looking!

the second annual nusz family camping extravaganza.

so after my relatively positive experience last year, we decided to make family camping an annual event. this year, we decided to hit up sol duc hot springs. we ready?


kids and camping gear? check.


firewood, from the same seedy "adult novelty" shop as last year? check. (i think nathan must secretly like this place. i better check his pockets for a lighter that looks like a naked lady.)


beverages from our favorite little convenience store on the way? check. (thank goodness vampires are welcome, though i didn't run into edward there.)


beautiful views of lake crescent on the way up? check.

we arrived at the sol duc campground just after 11:00, which was fortunate for us because that just so happened to be check-out time. being labor day weekend and all, we arrived early to try and score one of these "first-come first-served" sites. we ended up getting one, but by a couple hours later our loop was totally full and the other loop was nearly full. after setting up camp and having some lunch, we headed over to the hot springs to check it out.


a pic of the main pool. it was quite the popular spot. you had to really hunt to score a seat in this one sometimes, hence the people hanging out in the middle just standing there.




this is where we spent most of our time though....the little hot spring "wading pool", cause sam was too young to go in the other ones.


katie made a little friend that she hung out with for a couple hours.


austin stayed in the big pool most of the time. it was just regular chlorinated water (and it was COLD!) yes i realize you can't see the pool in this pic, i just thought it was a cute one of my boy :)


ha! silly mommy, thinking she was going to get to sunbathe uninterrupted!

after the hot springs we went back to camp to cook dinner. nathan realized he forgot his ax so he couldn't chop up the firewood. his plan for tin-foil dinners needed revising, since he didn't think the coals would last long enough to cook the vegetables AND the meat. so we browned the hamburger in a skillet. what was that? we forgot cooking utensils too? ah, well, we'll make do with a plastic spoon. after we cleaned up from dinner we went to a ranger presentation on "olympic national park amphibians", which the kids found thoroughly boring. sam proceeded to demonstrate his boredom by falling asleep, while katie just whined about being bored and kept asking if it was almost over. afterwards we went back to camp to roast marshmallows over our campstove, since our fire was out of order til nathan could figure out how to chop up the wood into smaller pieces. then we turned in for the night.



saturday morning: here's a collage of my happy camper faces! well, except for austin. he didn't wanna get up yet. i can't say that i blamed him....i had woken up no less than 27 times during the night, turning over, trying to find a comfy position. i didn't like the camping pad nathan originally had me on; it was a really nice, expensive thermarest pad....that i hated. it is about 95% the width of your body in a sleeping bag.....so if you lay perfectly still, flat-on-your-back centered on it, you're fine. but don't even think about trying to roll over or turn on your side, cause then it feels like you're going to slip off the edge of it. so i traded pads with sam and slept on this ancient blue exercise-mat looking thing....that i could feel every little rock through. gah. i vowed to sleep better the next night, even if i had to go sleep in the back of the truck with the dog.

after breakfast we hiked up to soleduck falls. it was an easy hike, and the falls were absolutely beautiful.






the falls


falls in the foreground, us standing on the bridge spanning them.

after we got to the falls and had a snack, i saw there was a 3-mile trail that took you back to the hot springs, so nathan took the little ones back to the trailhead while austin and i hiked up to the springs. we passed lots of beautiful scenery, but every time i tried to stop and admire something or take a picture, austin would start complaining, "hurry up! let's go!" i did manage to get a couple nature shots though.



when we got back to the lodge, nathan and the littles were waiting for us. we went back to camp and had lunch, and then spent another afternoon relaxing and soaking in the hot springs. then we headed back for dinner and a roaring campfire. no, nathan never found his ax, he had stashed a duraflame log from home under the seat which was more than enough to get some of those big ol' logs started. we sat around roasting marshmallows and enjoying the fire (and i enjoyed some mini-bottles of wine thanks to the convenience store back at the lodge, thank-you-very-much!)


my view of the fire.


fam campfire pic.

i slept much better the 2nd night cause i stole nathan's pad, which i think had a foam center. whatever it was, it was a heckuva lot comfier than either one i'd tried the night before. we all got a good night's sleep and then woke up sunday morning, packed up, and headed out. it was a lot of fun, has cemented my belief that i really DO like camping (with facilities, mind you) and nathan was already discussing on the way home where to go next summer for our annual camping trip. so i'd say, all in all, it was a success.

and with that, my friends, i will leave you with one of my fave pics of our camping trip. when nature called out in the woods, nathan helping our littlest camper answer the call.


thanks for looking!

first day.

the most wonderful day of the year? quite possibly! LOL
(no, really. i love my kids dearly. i really do. but i am sooo ready for a little break.)



austin, sophomore year. 1st day at olympic high school.
(so technically this pic was taken yesterday.....but the one i snapped of him this morning was all dark and didn't turn out well.)



katie, first grade. in the lovely ms. hyde's combined 1-2 class.

thanks for looking!