{one year later… and some other junk}

One year ago this weekend we officially moved our family from Stevens Point back to Chilton. We packed up the rest of our stuff on that Friday afternoon night and spent our first official night together as a family in our new dwelling. The day after Memorial Day I started my very first day at my externship… and so it is only fitting that the day after Memorial Day this year, I will be starting my very first day as a paid employee! It’s actually bittersweet in a way! Very exciting as well! I cannot wait!

And since I haven’t posted any pictures from graduation on my blog yet, I thought it only fitting to include some of those as well in this post. But before we visit graduation, I thought we’d take a trip down memory lane back to when I got accepted into grad school! This was in February 2009 and it was one of the most exciting days in my life (you know, because I have a lot of those)! Why yes, yes I was excited to get into grad school! And wouldn’t you know, four years later, I still have that scarf and still wear it! I’m a scarf lover, sue me! Haha!

And now on to graduation pictures! The first one is of me and my classmate, Katie! God that girl made the last four years bearable! Couldn’t have made it through without her!

And then there is my wonderful dad and my mom! They are great and have supported me unconditionally through it ALL!And where would I be without the two loves of my life! My soon to be hubby and our eat him up son! Someone please tell that little man to STOP GROWING UP!

And my peanut of a younger sister, Alexis!

So, graduation pretty much rocked. You already know that. On to the festivities that were this weekend, which honestly included a lot of nothing! It was the first weekend in a long time where we had no set plans going on and it was actually kind of nice. Lots of relaxing and just enjoying some nothingness, well that and reading a good book!

On Friday I had my dad drop the kids off at our house since I only had to work a half day. After school, we headed to the track to get our run on. Ayden and I are currently working our way through Week 3 of the C25K program… tomorrow we start Week 4. We ran and Alexis walked with us during the walking parts. After the workout, we all walked to the movie theater in town and enjoyed the movie Epic. It was cute. Nothing outstanding though. And then while relaxing after the movie, I got a text from my neighbor and friend, Sarah, wanting to know if I was game for a quick bike ride! Well.. OF COURSE! You don’t need to ask me twice! What I thought would be an easy 5-7 mile ride turned into an awesome 10 miler! We just kept going and going! Honestly, I’m kind of OCD about it, so when we hit around 8.3ish miles and were close to home, we kind of decided that we should make it an even 10. Well, okay, so I decided. I was like, well why not, we were so close to it anyways, what was another mile or two?!

Yes, after a ten mile bike ride we were still smiling! I had a great time chatting it up with Sarah! She is freaking hilarious and I LOVE IT! But on the flip side, she is also so down to earth and easy to talk to! I see many a rides with her in the future! AND… now that I know Victoria has gotten her bike out and has been cruising around, I have one other person to recruit as well!Saturday was lazy and Ayden and I went for a decent walk at a local nature center. We are so blessed to have that near us and that it is free! I just needed to get out of the house and drug him with me. He was reluctant at first, but we had a good time. We were only gone for maybe an hour!

Yesterday… I was lazy throughout the day and knew that my mood was headed in the wrong direction because I wasn’t being active, so in the afternoon, I laced up my running shoes and headed out for a run. It was my first longer planned run since my half over a month ago and it was good! I just went to the track and pounded out some miles. I ran for a mile, walked for a quarter, ran a mile, walked a quarter, and then ran another. I finished 3.5 miles in 34 min 52 seconds. That is an average of a 10 min mile that INCLUDES the half mile I walked! I definitely felt myself pushing to get it done and prove to myself that I could still do it. I know that I couldn’t go out right now and run five miles straight. My endurances is WAY down, but I am content in still rehabbing the knee and taking it slow with Ayden. I set out to run a half marathon and I did. I will probably run another one at some point, but my next goals are to run a 5k straight with Ayden and kill the Tough Mudder! And this morning, Victoria and I headed out to a different County Park and got our hike on for about an hour! We found some awesome caves, rocked out some bright colored clothes (gosh, I love that we think SO alike and love wearing anything that includes bright obnoxious colors!) and had a great time! We are definitely going to be going back and taking the boys the next time! A must! It was great! I even got adventurous and was climbing down into some of the caves! It was just what I needed today! And pretty soon Ayden and I will be heading out for our run today!

CIAO! LOVE ME!