Race season begins

Well, race might not be the correct word to use. I run in races, but I really do not "race" against anyone. I enjoy running in races for the feel of accomplishment and to keep me on track with my running. The free t-shirts aren't too bad either. Here is a picture from my first race of the season, the Red Lizard 5-Miler. Andrew and Sadie came down to support me. It turns out Sadie could have ran with me but I left her dog jogging belt at home. Too bad, maybe next time.

Madison

Here are a few more pictures of my niece, Madison. She is cuter and cuter each time I see her. My brother and his wife report that she is a good eater and sleeper, how wonderful. Every time I see her she is sleeping. How adorable, right?

My brand new niece!

My brother and his wife had their baby last week on January 29. They did not find out the sex of the baby until it's birth...it's a girl!!! Her name is Madison Nicole and she weighed in at 8 lbs. 9 oz. and is 20 in. long. She is adorable! Here are just the first few pictures from the hospital. This little girl is going to be decked out in pink. I have bought Steve and Tonya many baby gifts throughout the pregnancy, and for her baby shower, but as soon as I found out it was a girl I raced to Target and bought everything I could find that was cute and pink. It's all waiting for them at their house when they get home tomorrow. I can't wait to spoil Madison even more.

Welcome to 2009!

Well, we made it through "Arctic Blast 2008" and things are much more normal around here. I have gone back to work, the snow has melted, rain has begun to fall and I am looking towards all of the things that 2009 will bring.
This past year I was a little bit out of the running circuit. I only ran about 5 races last year. This year I plan to go back to running at least 1, maybe 2, races per month. I will try to list my planned races on the sidebar. Feel free to join me on any if you'd like. My running partner, Lindsey, will likely accompany me on most.
I am also hoping to find out in the next few months if I'll be going back to the classroom next year. This year I have been teaching ELL and am terribly missing being a classroom teacher. I put in to transfer back but it will be a matter of a spot opening up. Pray one does!!

Still snowing

It started snowing lat Sunday December 14th and has been snowing off and on ever since. Area schools were canceled most of last week and now Christmas Break has started, otherwise I am sure we'd see more cancellations. The last of the "Arctic Blast" (as the news channels call it) is supposed to hit today and tomorrow, dropping an additional 7 inches of snow. This is a lot to Portlanders. Sadie has enjoyed playing in it but passes out as soon as she gets inside from exhaustion. It is rather funny! As beautiful as the snow is, I am looking forward to rain so life can get back to normal.

What a gift!

Okay, so I said earlier that Andrew and I bake cookies for our neighbors in the cul-de-sac. They usually bake/make something for everyone as well, like cookies or candies or fudge. Well, as we were delivering our cookies last night, our neighbors Mike and Katie let us in from the cold snow and we noticed they had about 8 pairs of throw pillows on their kitchen table. So I asked Katie, "What are you doing?" She said, "Oh, I am making these for all of the neighbors, go ahead and pick the ones you like." I now looked sadly over at the plate of cookies we made and delivered to them only moments before. How in the world can a plate of cookies measure up to beautifully hand made throw pillows? I know, I know it's the thought that counts. So, here are the throw pillows her kids (I like how they made their 2 boys deliver the gifts in the snow!) brought over this morning. Aren't they beautiful! She made them all from scraps of upholstery fabric from those sample catalogs that interior designers have for customers.

Christmas Cookies

I found a way to cure boredom...bake 15 dozen cookies! I woke up on Friday morning, thinking I was going to school, to learn that school was canceled again. This means we now go back on January 5th. Hopefully the crazy weather will be over by then. So I was awake and showered (thinking I was going to school) and it was 5:30 a.m. What else does one do in this situation but bake cookies. Every year we make cookies for our neighbors in the cul-de-sac and I also needed to bake cookies to serve at church this Sunday. So I got to baking. I made 15 dozen in all. It wasn't too difficult since they were all sugar cookies with frosting, yum! We walked around and delivered them last night. We also went to the library yesterday. I checked out 7 books when Andrew asked, "Why are you getting so many books?" I think he forgets how quickly I read and that I have the next 17 days off. I finished one last night. I need to pace myslef to read only one per day. Well, tonight is our Bible Study Christmas party IF the weather permits. Look back for some fun photos, as a friend and I have a surprise planned for the party that not even Andrew knows about.

Bored

Okay, so we are going on day 3 of no school due to snow and I am terribly bored. Part of me wants to go to school just to have something to do, while there is a little part of me that is excited about the fact I may not have to go back until January 5th. The weather forecasters are calling for a few more inches of snow today with a nice layer of freezing rain falling over that to create ice covered snow, joy. I went to Les Schwab to buy chains since we only have them for Andrew's car and I figured I should probably have some too. The line to buy chains was about 25-30 people deep, yikes! I waited it out and now we have chains for both of our cars. So, you may be wondering, "what has Nicole been doing with her time since school has been canceled?" Well, I have compiled a list of my activities (this makes me feel productive to list out what I've done):
1. organized all clothes drawers
2. organized clothes closet
3. organized kitchen cupboards/refridgerator
4. did laundry
5. dealt with broken water pipe
6. took various internet quizzes such as, 80's trivia; dog breeds; citizenship test questions; is it rock, country or rap; and match the hair with the celebrity.
7. washed my make-up brushes
8. cleaned the house
9. wrapped all christmas presents, mailed all gifts needing to be mailed and finished all christmas cards and dropped them in the mail
10. checked the mail
11. put garbage on curb with the hope they come today
12. watered christmas tree
13. cleaned my friend Katie's house (this was a highlight, I love to clean)
I am sure there is more but I am really drawing a blank now. If you have a spare moment you can call me, I will take a break from my "busy" schedule to talk to you :^)

The culprit!

Oh, the joy of homeownership...You may be wondering what this picture is. Well, it is a water pipe from our attic crawl space that carried water from the street to our house and then through this pipe to the front yard hose spigot, until it broke yesterday! I was laying on the couch, trying to watch Talledega Nights, when I heard this large bang noise and then water gushing. I thought it was the washing machine but then remembered I was not washing clothes. Then I thought, oh one of those silly neighbor boys turned on our hose. So when I got up to turn the hose off I noticed water was pouring out of the walls/siding, the overhang and all over the front of our garage. I knew instantly a pipe had broke. So I threw on my flip flops (mind you, it is 20 degrees with ice and snow) and ran to my neighbor's house for help. He shut off our main water supply so the gushing and damage would stop. He then went up in the attic crawl space to confirm that it had broken and to make sure the damage was only in the garage. He then vacuumed up the water and set a fan up there to let it dry. What a great neighbor! In the meantime, no water supply to our house. I was instantly thirsty for water. I still could not get ahold of Andrew to tell him what had happened. I called about 12 plumbers with no chance of coming out for at least 2 days. No water for 2 days!! Later that evening, our wonderful neighbors came over and attempted to fix it. They took the broken pipe off and installed a pipe clamp/cap so that we could turn our water back on but not have any water or use for the front yard hose/spigot (like we need it right now). So, I will call and cancel the $100/hour plumber and our neighbors said they will come and replace the whole pipe for us later, no need for a plumber. Did I mention how great our neighbors are?

SNOW!!

The weather forecasters had been calling for snow to begin falling on Sunday December 14th for about a week. Well, it came. The snow started at about 8 a.m. and continued falling all day. My sister-in-law was supposed to have her baby shower that afternoon, but due to the weather it was canceled. Here are some pictures of Sadie enjoying the white flakes as they fall from the sky. It was pretty hilarious to watch her run around the backyard chasing flakes and trying to root up snow with her nose. Her large bowl of water is frozen solid. I think she was a little confused as to why she could not drink from it.