Great Lake Relay 2011

Last Saturday was the Great Lake Relay at Lake Taupo. It was an amazing experience to say the least.  When training began 6 weeks earlier I couldn't even run around the track at Church College.  Infact I only made it half way.  200 metres.  And then I died.  Literally.  But I had a goal and the fact that we trained as a team made it easier to stick to it and push myself.  Don't get me wrong, I hated it every single training run. But then when I finished I'd think "hey that wasn't so bad" and the next night I'd be out there again.
So race day came and I felt really ready.  My leg of the race was only 6.1 kms and was classed as easy.  It was a great feeling starting off and even passing a few people.  The first half of the run was cruisey as it was mainly downhill - I even managed a conversation with a man running beside me.  (yeah, I didn't know he was there and was singing really loud to my i-pod).  Then the hills started.  One of them was 900 metres long.  Yeah, that wasn't fun.  But I kept going and then finally I saw the van again and Jonathan gave me a drink and told me I only had 1.5kms to go.  I was like "yes - I'm nearly done"  But I kept running and running and no finish line came into sight.  I started to think I must be running really, really slowly for it to be taking so long.  At last I saw the changeover station which gave me a boost of energy and I was able to pass a few people.  I tagged Jonathan for the next leg and pretty much collapsed in the ditch on the side of the road.  haha.  I was wasted.

Yep, that's me in the ditch :)

Then the team told me  that the leg had been mis-measured and I had infact run 7.3 kms.  Holy Moly.  That probably doesn't seem like much, especially to people like Paul who ran 14 kms at 2am but for me that was a big deal.  The most I had ever run was 5.5 kms.  So yeah, I was pretty happy with that.  And I even managed to do it in less time than I was alotted for my 6.1 kms.
All in all it was a great day.  It was awesome to be part of such a great team of people.  Running over the finish line together was pretty cool.  We'd made a hair brained goal at a family feed a few months before and actually accomplished it!  It took us 15 hours and 26 seconds to run 156 kms. We came 109th.  Bring on next year!


THE RUNS
Back Row L-R:  Wally, Nigel, Jonathan, Paul, Rene, Sach
Front Row L-R:  Nakita, Kelly, Me, Sam, Kara, Asher



Valentines Day

Valentines Day was on Monday and I celebrated by getting up at 5:30 to cook breakfast for 12 teenagers...how romantic :)  But seriously, I had promised my Seminary class breakfast if they all passed off their scripture mastery and they all did! 

Don't you love my cake stand?  Jonathan got it for me for Christmas.

We had planned to go on a family picnic but were helping in the kitchen at Brother Cammocks funeral so postponed until Tuesday night.  Usually I would cook up scrumptuous picnic treats but now that I am an early morning seminary teacher and suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome :) I let the Colonel do the cooking.  No one seemed to mind.

Elle for some reason decided she officially hated KFC so had fish n chips instead

Back to Reality

How did the summer holidays go by so fast?  It seems like just yesterday I was picking up the kids from their last day of school.  I swear when I was a kid that the Summer Holidays lasted FOREVER.  Didn't they? 
So after 6 weeks of lazy sleep ins and late night movie watching its back to reality.
And unfortunatly for me - reality this year means waking up at 6am.  Yes, apart from the chronic fatigue Seminary seems to be going well.  I would have to say its the busiest calling I've ever had.  Being Relief Society President was a constant mind busy calling - but this is a constant TIME busy calling.  I seriously think that by the time I've planned and taught my lesson I'm spending about 3 hours a day!  But I'm totally enjoying it.
Jonathan has started at Sacred Heart Girls College and all is going well.  We went to the school Powhiri last week and there was a nice spirit there.  I'm so happy that Elle will be able to go there next year.
And the kids are into week 2 of school already.
10 days until the Lake Taupo Run.  I must say I'm suprised I'm still in it.  Its been a real test of endurance for me.  Like I said, I'm not a natural runner but I've kept going and things have gradually gotten easier.  Not easy by a long stretch, just easier. 

Summer Holiday

Last week we hired a house at Mount Maunganui and headed to the beach for a few days of rest and relaxation.  I left the planning and booking up to Jonathan this time and he managed to find a great beach house just a few minutes up the road from beautiful Omanu Beach.  We were lucky enough to have three days of sunshine - even though the weather forecast told us it was going to rain the whole time we were there.

Well, a picture paints a thousand words so heres a few photos to show what we got up to:

Hiked to the Top of Mount Maunganui - it felt like Mount Everest!

Enjoyed the spectacular views from the top - what a pretty country we live in!

Ate way too many oh-so-delicious Copenhagen Cones



Soaked at the Hot Pools and laughed at their sign afterwards



Had a lovely visit from Mum and Dad - just in time for the kids to convince them to buy them another copenhagen cone

Had dinner looking out over the beach



Spent hours in the water and emerged covered in seaweed!



Went swimming at McClaren Falls

Relaxed with a good book

Ate too much food

Discovered some weird sea creatures

Spent quality time together.



Little {Business} Women

Elle and her cousin Maddison have been busy little sewers for the last couple of days. They decided to sew aprons and sell them to their aunties, grandmas, neighbours and friends. With a little help from me they churned out a whole bunch of cute aprons in different colours and sizes and sold them for $5 each! They even made some matching Mum & Daughter ones which were very cute indeed.  Today they made $70 and they have plans to sell more tomorrow.   Give them a call if you want one!

Busy at work

Off to sell their wares

Freaking Out

About a month ago Paul came up with the wild idea of entering a family team to run the Great Lakes Relay in February. We all got excited/deluded and commited ourselves to running sections of the entire length of Lake Taupo. What was I thinking??? I'm not a runner. In fact I hate running. The last time I took up running I gave up after three months because my toenails fell off, I got shin splints, approximately 1,078 blisters and perpetual foot cramps.

Anyway, I guess I just got caught up in the hype of it all. So far our team consists of Paul, Nakita, Tania, Kim, Nigel, Sam, Jonthan, Me and a few others I'm not sure of. Come February 19th at 2am Paul will begin the first leg of the 155km course around Lake Taupo.

On a good note - I do happen to own the best running shoes in the world which have changed my LIFE! I love them. Asics Gel 1250. Training has begun and so far no shin splints, no foot cramps, no blisters - and I still own all my toenails.

Wish me luck people. I will need it.

New Years Resolution #1 - Re-start our blog

Aaaand here I am. There's so many useless excuses as to why I haven't blogged since May 2009 so I will not bore you with those. Truth is, I've felt a bit sad lately that I have missed recording so many great things - so I've made it a New Years goal to do better. Hmmm, I wonder how long it will be before anyone notices I've posted.

Anyway - Christmas has come and gone and here we are in January 2011! We had a fantastic New Years eve party at our place with 25 other people who had no where better to go. Thanks for coming guys - none of our neighbours have been giving me strange looks so I guess our singing wasn't that bad. Unfortunately I have no photo's of the epic fun-ness so you will have to read Crystals blog to see those. (New years Resolution #2 - take more photo's)

New Years day was spent at Jonathan's brothers house who just so happens to have a pool which was perfect for the hot sunny day. We had a spectacular BBQ lunch followed by sunbathing, swimming, spa pooling and silly antics. See silly antic photo below.



So we have an exciting year ahead - here's some of the things we've got going on:
1. Jonathan will start his new job at Sacred Heart Girls College
2. Elle has just 16 more Sundays in Primary before she starts Young Womens
3. I have just 4 weeks left of sleeping in before I begin teaching early morning Seminary!
4. Elle will start her last year of Intermediate School before she starts High School next year (This one scares me the most)
5. Ryan is in his last year of Primary School