Lately

Just a few random things that happened lately.

1. Little Fox got a phone call the other day, from a GIRL. His friend from the school bus. I missed it, but Red Fox was there and said they chatted for about 10 minutes.

2. At the NP, she asked if he knew what a humming bird is, and he said "it's a bird that eats nectar". We looked at each other like whhhhaaat? He said Nan and Grampy Scott taught him that.

3. The NP wants us to ask Little Fox's teacher about his attention and focus in class. I think she's thinking ADD or something similar. I think we need to consider it.

4. Winter is here, so I have all the curtains closed. The only room in this house with natural light is the sun room. We're going to have season depression by the time the new year comes around!

5. I'm looking forward to going to NS for the Lucky 7 relay, and learned today that it's the same weekend as the Christmas parade in Halifax. Awesome!

6. Little Fox Came home from school with a swollen and bruised finger. He said that he fell on the playground and someone stepped on it. :( He isn't complaining much about it, but he does say that it's hurting him.

7. We got Little Fox's school photo proofs back yesterday. I love it!

8. This morning at 6am, Little Fox came in, woke me up and said "Mommy, my alarm isn't set." I said, that's ok, mine is. He was worried he was going to miss the bus (yeah right, if only he'd sleep in til 7:30!), and I tried to reassure him that we wouldn't miss it.  He went back in his room, and I heard his clock beep, so I told him to put the clock down, and go back to bed. He said "I'm not happy about this!" LOL  Twenty minutes later, he said "Mommy! You ruined my life!" LOL All this over an alarm that turned out to be set and on anyway.

Happy Halloween!

It started yesterday with pumpkin carving, of course!

I love this pic, cause you can see that he's making an "ew" face.

I had him draw the face he wanted, and then I cut it out. I love it. :)

Today, at school, the kids weren't supposed to wear costumes. They had "Orange and Black" day instead. He had this bright orange shirt, but it had "I love my beach" written on the front (from the beach clean-up a few months ago), so I made the black and orange pumpkin thing to stitch on the front. I love it with the striped shirt under it!

I didn't have much of a Haloween-themed lunch planned, but I did give him mini-pizzas with ham cut into a pumpkin and a ghost (yes, that thing on the top pizza is a ghost... weirdest cookie cutter ever).

For supper, I made stuffed orange pepper pumpkins.

Then we got dressed (I wore my gingerbread man sweater, but I pretended to be half grown-up and wore jeans). Here he is, doing his best "zombie" impression.

I was surprised at him when we were trick-or-treating. We stopped at a few houses near home, and then went to Kensington. We did 2 short streets... MAYBE 20 houses, and then he said he was done! I kept telling him we can keep going and get more candy, but nope, he was done. So, I'm glad that he wasn't being greedy, but... what kid wants to STOP getting candy?? We visited with A and LA for a bit, and then came home. Silver Fox said that we had no trick or treaters! He may or may not be going to school tomorrow with remnants of face paint around his eyes! 

Happy Halloween, everyone!

PS. How many trick-or-treaters did you get? What was the best costume you saw? 

100!

I did it! I just ran the last 4 kms of my 100 km goal!

Not gonna lie, I walked a lot of the last few kms. My legs are tired... that'll teach me to be lazy for that week around Thanksgiving! I'm going to take a few days off and then start practicing for the Luck 7 Relay!

The seasons of running

I've now been running for a full year. My first ever race was last years PEI Marathon 5k. I ran outside, year-round. I don't own a treadmill... and I'm not sure if I'd want one. (Anyone have an opinion on treadmills?)

I've noticed a few things about running in the summer and running in the winter.

Summer:
Heat (obviously) - I'm not a big fan of the heat. The heat makes me restrict my running to either early morning or late evening.
Humidity -  Oh, how I hate humidity. Breathing in thick, damp air, my breath getting my glasses fogged up, and then, after the post-run shower, it's still humid, so I still feel sticky and gross.
Allergies - Ah, the post-run nose run. This doesn't happen to me often, but when it does, it's surprising how much my nose can run. Thankfully, it only lasts for a short time.

Winter:
Cold (obviously) -  I can never get my cold-weather running clothes right. It's always either too many or not enough layers. Or, that weird thing where I'm too hot with my jacket on, and too cold with it off. The cold air often makes me cough, too, which messes up my breathing.
Runny nose - My nose always runs when it's cold out. The good thing is that after um... "blowing my nose" on the run, I usually have gloves on to wipe my face, just in case.
Numb thighs - I have a pair of fleece running pants, which are awesome. But when those are in the laundry, I wear my other tights, which are thick spandex. My thighs are always numb after my run.
Running Blind - Breathing out fogs up my glasses and I can't see. The wind makes my eyes water, and I can't see. The snow gets on my glasses and I can't see. haha
Shorter running hours - The shorter days really restrict the time-of-day running options. I don't like running in the dark because it's hard to see where it's slippery or uneven.
Dry Lips - I have a tube of lip stuff in the pocket of every running jacket/sweater I own. Sucking in all that cold air makes my lips REALLY dry. It's already started.

The "cons" about winter running seem to outweigh the summer ones... but in number only. I would choose winter running over summer running any day. I love being outside in the cold weather. I love that I can feel warm when it's so cold. I love seeing the frost make the trees sparkle, and I love that everything smells so clean. I always feel so refreshed and invigorated after a cold weather run (cliche, I know!). But after a hot humid run, I feel drained and squishy.

So, fellow runners. Did I forget anything? What do you prefer?

Foxfield

Second post of the day. I'm on a roll.

A friend of a friend of a friend (or something like that) named Ken Nathan took some aerial photos as he flew over French River a few weeks ago. They eventually got forward on to us, and they are awesome!

You can see the 3 little cottages. Our house is in the trees. In the foreground is the french River Golf Course. 

 

In this one, you can see our roof, and the guest cottage behind the house. 

Halloween Hustle

On Friday, my friend IP arrived mid-afternoon for an overnight visit. I was really looking forward to having him here, since I've been inviting him repeatedly since we bought Foxfield! He got settled into the guest cottage, and then went to visit another friend of his. While he was gone, I pseudo-metamorphosed into my mother and baked chocolate chip cookies for him to take on the rest of his travels.

We had pizza when he got back, and then hung out in the cottage with wine and party mix, gossiping about people from high school, laughing (and complaining!) about life with kids, and discussing life in general. I got a few laughs out of him, which was my intent.

I stayed up way past my 10pm bedtime, and then set my alarm for 6am for the Halloween Hustle run on Saturday morning.

Saturday was a bit chilly, but my costume was made of jogging pants and a hoodie, and Little Fox's was made to fit over warm clothes, so we were good. I think the costumes turned out well, but the face paint was lackluster. But oh well. Little Fox loved it all.

The fun run was a fundraiser for the IWK, and they also collected warm winter clothes for the Salvation Army. I saw bins full of coats, and they raised over $1000 for the IWK. Over 100 people registered for the Kensington run! "The Runman" and his mom were there, of course, and she took a group photo and finish line photos of everyone, as she usually does for PEI races.

Little Fox and I ran the 2k, which was supposed to be for walkers (there was also a 5k). When I say "we ran it", I mean, we ran for like 3 minutes until he started whining that he was tired, can we turn around now. LOL I joked and cajoled him into getting to the turn around point, and then we skipped/walked/ran/danced our way back to the finish line... anything I could think of to get him to keep going and to have fun. Not gonna lie, I even bribed him with hot chocolate (which was at the finish line anyway, for all participants). 

Here we are at the finish line! See the little guy behind us, in the bright orange shirt? That's the kid that ran from one end of the Island to the other. After the race, I showed IP around a bit and then he hit the road to NB.

Little Fox said that the run was the best part of his day. Along with... M's bowling birthday party! Our friend's little girl turned 4, and they had her party at the bowling alley. Which was loud and crazy, and the kids loved it!

Little Fox taking his turn, before things got cray-zay. The birthday girl is the one in the polka-dot pants.

Here's a shot of the general chaos. That's 13 people in 2 lanes at once!

The kids were throwing those balls down the lane as fast as the ball return could bring them back. No turns were taken, just a general free-for all! It was definitely one of those situations that you had to just let happen, and it was pretty fun! I think my favorite moment was when I gave some pointers to that older boy in the dark green shirt. Not that I'm an expert bowler by any definition, but he always hit the bumber/gutter on the left side. I told him that he was letting his pinky drop, and to try to keep his hand level. His next shot went right down the center, and when he turned around, I saw him say "it worked!" with a little fist pump. LOL

After the party, Little Fox fell asleep on the drive home. So we let him have "a movie night". We had BLT's for supper, and we all went to bed early. A sign of a successful day!

Race Photos! And a virtual 5k

Since the moment I got home from the PEI marathon, I've been checking marathon-photos.com constantly for finish line photos! They JUST posted them! Finally!

I really like the second one, and I want to buy it, but not for 30 dollars!!

Just a quick update on my "Race to 100km". I'm up to 67 so far! Not bad, considering I missed 6 DAYS! So if I run an average of 4km every day til the end of the month, I'll make it! 

Also, I signed up for a virtual 5k today. It's a Team In Training fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. There are 2 bloggers organizing it, one is Canadian and the other American, so they are trying to see which team will have the most members. So come on Canadian Runners, sign up! So basically, it's a 20 dollar donation, you get a race bib, you run 5k any time between Nov 8 and 15th and send them your finish photo to get your MEDAL which they will mail to you. Details are here:

http://www.mommy-miracles.com/2013/10/the-dynamic-duel-canada-vs-usa-virtual-5k.html