Playing Catch Up

It's halfway through the day and I'm barely beginning to catch up! I'm behind in reading blogs, in facebook, in email (both work and home), in laundry, house keeping and our cupboards are bare. How did this happen? We were only gone four days!

We spent a fun weekend camping with my parents up in Birch Bay. Not so much the kind of camping we usually do, but the luxurious-laze-about type my parents do. We were in a private campground, staying in their 35 foot motor home with slide-outs -much like a very nice and small apartment. We were parked right behind the building that used to house the drive-in where I was working as a carhop when I met Eric (at age 16). It was a lot of fun running, driving and walking through our old haunts, reliving memories of our youthful summers. Eric grew up just down the bay, and I spent three summers working out there.

My sister, her husband and one of my nieces visited on Saturday, and on Sunday my other sister and an aunt and uncle spent the afternoon with us. We also got to go to a mini-reunion with some of Eric's old high school friends. Four girls from my high school class (including me) married guys from Eric's class, and two of them were there, plus a girl I worked with at the Beach Boy (as carhops), and a guy from my class who married into one of the families from Eric's class! Small towns...

I had to laugh at my elderly aunt - she says Eric and I are too skinny and that we look like "death warmed over", and after she saw me eat a veggie burger and a dixie cup of carrot sticks, she told me she couldn't believe I "ate all that crap!" It made me laugh out loud. She thinks I should be eating meat and potatoes and pies and cookies and ice cream - "normal stuff". My uncle ran four marathons back in the day, and he whispered to me "can you imagine what it was like to train for a marathon while married to her?" I think Eric and I got him all excited about marathons, especially when we told him we know many people in their 70s still running them.

We had dinner plans last night near Seattle so we spent a very leisurely day travelling home. We toured my hometown (grown by leaps and bounds!), drove through the neighborhood we lived in from the time I was three till age eight and visited Eric's brother. We got to our dinner spot early, took a nap in the car and walked through town. Then we had great pizza with a group of runners before finally heading for home. It was a long and late day, but wonderful.

I'm going to slip this little bit of information in here at the end, and then hold my breath and bow my head whilst receiving my well-deserved lectures (I guess I'll find out how many of you read to the end this way!). I'm running a marathon this weekend. What's that you say? I'm not supposed to run summer marathons? I promised? You are totally right, I did say that. When will I learn? I was tempted beyond all endurance, really I was...Jenny and Margaret are running it, it's at one of my very favorite places to run, it's a silly and free event, and...I just want to! We have plans to deal with the heat (if there is any) - the majority of the course is under canopy, plus I can always dive into the lake... Check it out here. Okay, let me have it!