a trail race, vive la france & a church luncheon

my friend rachel and i did the heels & wheels 5K a few weeks ago. it was partly paved but mostly trail and it was HARD. you had to go up a mountain (steep hill), jump over a creek (that was fun) and run through a field or two. oh yeah, i saw a big snake and stopped for a few minutes to gawk (there was a crowd).

my race bib

rachel's first 5K - she basically crushed it

i liked the race, my first trail race but probably not my last. i have a running buddy that loves trail runs so maybe i will do a few more with her.

the race season is starting up! i am doing the run for the schools with a bunch of friends on saturday, it's great because we do the zoo with the kids afterwards. lottie is already very excited.

 click on the image to learn more or to sign up

and then my favorite race of last year will be on the 7th. it will be matt's first 5K (since we've been married, he did do a marathon about 10 years ago), so i am taking the kids in the jogging stroller. are we cute and active or WHAT? the race for the deaf is routed through the lovely island home neighborhood. it is so cute and quaint, i can't wait!

 click on the image to learn more or to sign up

last week lottie's school had a "book character" day - all of the kids had to dress like their favorite book character and they had a parade. it was cute. i tried to get lottie sue to be fancy nancy (those are her favorite books) but she wanted to be sleeping beauty. as you can see, she is kinda both. vincent was an elephant and looked so cute (good job, lisa!), i forget the book he likes so much.

lottie sue and vincent, bffs

here are a few shots of the parade...

that weekend it was our turn to host dinner group - we went french. matt and i love the french! vive la france!

here is the menu...

i know, yummers

here is the table, we thought it looked french

matt literally cooked for about eight hours that day, it was delicious. maybe the best meal he has ever made, and that is saying something because he is the best cook i know.

after dinner the nerf gun came out, much fun was had.

then somehow rick, amy and matt exercised. maybe it was to burn off some of the calories from dinner? rick is a HARD CORE athlete person, he was showing us some of the moves he can do in his sleep.

rick and amy feel the burn

this is matt after he did a move rick showed us,
he is smiling because he is happy it's over

then the next day our community group at church had a luncheon. lottie sue and rowdy had a great time, the food was plentiful as well.

and now i leave you with these items of interest...

• the 2011 pulitzer prize winners were announced...i have read (and loved) the book that won for fiction - a visit from the goon squad by jennifer egan
• the times has a q&a with tina fey
• if you like "radiolab" (i do), then you can read about the hosts here
• go check out the atlantic's how genius works - get inside the minds of some of the most creative people
• here's a story on what you don't know about the muppets
• better safe than sorry: four ways you might be mishandling your cheese
• slate has a story on the politics of parks and recreation
• here is a story on lorne michaels

and oh yeah - we made homemade ravioli the other night with the smiths. it was so great, a labor of love...

mario would have liked it

and now i leave you for real with this photo of rowdy sleeping in the car. he's so cute.

 

 zzzzzzzzz

alrighty, this was a quick post. i have an Easter one in the works for you - it was a wonderful day and a full weekend. the carsons and gilmores were in town. yippee!

sterling cooper mowrer smith plays smart - NOT dumb, celebrations, art & other neat things

you may or may not know, but we competed in the KNOXVENTURE 2010 (a la amazing race, knoxville style) race this past weekend. it was SO MUCH FUN. megan wrote it all up on her blog so i will direct you there, she did a great job recounting everything (way better than i would have done or did here). we ran our little hearts out and made 13 stops, kicking b-u-t-t and taking names each time. but seriously, go to megan's blog and read all about it - it's very entertaining. 

oh yeah, we came in 11th overall and then 6th in our division - WE ROCK!

 6th place, quite awesome

i did steal some photos from her, here are some highlights...

before the race talking strategery - play smart, don't play dumb

this is our first clue, look at the focus and drive apparent on our faces
(especially matt's)

running running running

megan climbing the rock wall

shooting hoops at the basketball hall of fame

drawing megan at volunteer landing

playing a memory/matching game at the movie theater

(i seriously think we did this in less than
a minute, the dude was way impressed)

post race, happy happy happy

oh yeah, here we are the night before modeling our shirts. they were so bad they were good. tommy designed them and that was the good part, matt and i ironed them on and that was the bad part. 

matt said they looked like a kindergartner did them.

 

front

 

back (it up)

i am already looking forward to next year - sign me UP!

friday night we threw a wedding shower a la "game night" for shawn and marty. i meant to take more photos (one of shawn and marty would have been nice) but i have a few. 

we played "charoids" (charades on sterioids) - we combined charades, humdinger and pictionary and made the funnest game ever.

group fun

i had to black out a section of this one 

so that was friday and saturday, after the race on saturday we drove up to the lake. on sunday we celebrated THREE family birthdays: daddy/grandaddy, rowdy and aunt shirley. it was FUN! here are a few shots...

bb reads to the babies

 lottie sue gets a few gifts

rowdyman with his bb

 rowdyman with his granbunny

rowdy surrounded by gifts

loving on a stuffed monkey 

rowdy admires his birthday hat

lottie sue helps her baby brother open gifts

three sleeping beauties 
 

phew, last weekend sure was busy. i need a nap. alrighty, here are my items of interest:

1.  if you are looking to buy new fall items, just go to j.crew - it's the only place you need to shop (this is for kids and adults, democrats OR republicans, young and old - btw) - they can do NO WRONG i say

 

i mean, come ON...

2.  something else i'm loving - this union

i think he is oh-SO-funny and i basically love every kp song - i can't help myself

3.  you may or may not know, but i love me some jt - this is just one of the many reasons why...

see?

4.  is she??? or is she not??? i just don't know!!! (the times has a story on keeping an eye on joan)

preggers or not, THAT is the question

5.  the new york times released its top reader's dishes this week...yummers

it's times (haha) like this that make me wish i cooked

6.  here's a Q&A with mötley crüe's vince neil, talk about raising h-e-double hockey sticks...  

7.  also newsworthy, matt's cousin, halli, was featured in an asheville zine and we have the little article here 

8.  if you use nike+ or have a garmin and use garminconnect.com, go to this site and sign up: earndit.com - register your device and every time you run/walk/bike/whatever you get points, once you get so many points you get free stuff like gift cards, bars and etc. 

9.  becce and tri-cera-tops, you may want to check this out: using at&t over wireless when you have a poor signal 

10. this totally blows my mind: two physicists won the nobel prize in physics for arranging a form of carbon a single atom thick, it is not only the thinnest material IN THE WORLD, but also the STRONGEST - a sheet of it stretched over a coffee cup could support the weight of a truck bearing down on a pencil point (think about THAT - whoa) 

11.  paris rediscovers monet's magic at grand palais - the first chance to see the whole sweep of his work in a quite a while

speaking of artists...here are a few of lottie sue's recent works of (brilliant) art...monet has nothing on her! hmphf!!! 

a lottie sue zoo

black and white

um...hello - this is titled "ernie"

(if you don't know, ernie's tail is ALWAYS in a question mark)

painting with apples

red + yellow = orange

 

 our minimalist

alrighty, looks like that will do it for this post. i have a few photos i am signing off with...

nephew/cousin knox giving us a big-time smile

rowdy at his one-year appointment eating goldfish

lottie

ok, yay for hump day! post to ya later.