Freaky Friday - the Aftermath

Camping was really fun.  Yes I may be the last person to post about Memorial Day weekend, but this was all a whirlwind.  We had 4 adults and 6 kids camping in 1 rv and 2 tents.  Saturday we got up and had a good breakfast.  It was only about 45* when we awoke, so the campfire got to blazin and there was coffee in the RV.  The kids played around and kind of went nuts, but it was all fun.



Enjoying some breakfast

After lunch, this campground has a beach that we went out to visit.  The kids threw the bathing suits on and got in the water, they had a neat little swimming area roped off.  I did not expect to find a sandy beach on the lake like that!

Evil Genius playing in the old swimming hole

Why aren't you watching the dancing child?

We had an interesting time keeping a constant head count and trying not to get sunburned.  Track the kids, don't let them get too deep. 

Bigun really showed me something cool out there.  She has flat got the swimming down.  I mean she still needs some lessons and isn't ready for a kids swim team yet.  But she is a natural breast stroker, and threw in a butterfly arm stroke whenever she wanted to get her head out of the water to take a breath.  I feel very comfortable about her safety in the water now, and that has been a long time coming.  It's an amazing relief for me, and she knows how proud I am of her progress and comfort level.

Saturday night we had a great dinner around the campfire, cooking corn and potatoes, and some burgers and dogs too.  Good stuff all around.

I'm only really game for about 2 nights of camping, so Sunday we headed home and started cleaning.  It took a lot of showers, naps, and movies before we felt normal again.  I had some grand plans for a long run on sunday afternoon, but ended up sleeping through it.  I love camping but it definitely takes a day or so to recover from it.

Around 2 pm on Sunday is when my grandmother died.  She had been unresponsive since Friday, and really before thursday she was feeling ok.  So yes it is sad and difficult to lose someone that you cared so much about.  But she was 92 years old and she went quickly.  I was so relieved that she didn't have to suffer for months or years in a hospital hooked up to machines or anything like that.  We should all be so lucky.  The obituary went into the newspaper, and since she didn't want a funeral we had a Recieving of Friends at the funeral home scheduled for Wednesday.  She used to take me and my brothers out to a local cafeteria for dinner when she would keep us for the weekend as kids, so sunday night we all went out to a local cafeteria in her memory.

While we were camping, the discussion ensued about how our Evil Genius always does exactly what she's not supposed to do.  It's not really wrong as much as it is uncannily annoying.  She was quiet and well behaved all day long at the campsite, getting into no trouble at all.  Couldn't ask for a sweeter child.  But at 9 pm they lock the gates and the campground goes on quiet hours until 8 pm the next morning to prevent anyone from getting too rowdy and disturbing the other campers.  So of course 9 pm is when EG suddenly gets really loud.  At the cafeteria I had to send Gina a pic of this:

All of the empty plates are mine.  Everyone else is completely done, I even made quite the post-camping pig of myself.  And when it's time to go, she'll take the first bite.  It's one thing to get her to pick out something she will actually eat, but then the timing of not eating when the rest of us are just doesn't fly in restaurants.  That's the Evil Genius way.  You got to love it.

Monday was Memorial Day.  I needed a holiday pretty bad. My favorite holiday activity?  Long bike rides.  I felt pretty bad about missing the long run from Sunday too, so I decided to make it a bike/run brick and head out to the American Tobacco Trail for my favorite bike loop and a runoff.  With the new phone, I actually got a self-shot during the ride!

The view from my aerobars

I can't believe how beautiful it was out there.  I rode from White Oak down to Old US-1 around the shortest version of my favorite big loop, then came on back to White Oak.  Total ride was 43 miles.  I decided to make the run a 7 mile out and back to call the brick an even 50 miler.  The ride went great.  I haven't pulled the stats off of the garmin yet, but I was fast (2:17) and some of that ride was on the course for Ironman 70.3 Raleigh the following weekend.  Then when I started running, the first couple of miles was ok, but around the mile 2 marker I totally ran out of gas.  that should have been a sign of things to come.  I mean the legs were totally dead.  gone.  no energy left at all.  That was a slow run, 7 miles in 1:10 ish when it should have been around 2 min/mile faster.  I was so confused by the time I got back in the car I took this:

This face is literally "why did I leave the camera on my phone open", but it looks like a game face.

I was confused and distraught.  Seriously beaten down by the heat on that run and blown away by how great that bike ride was.  Cool workout that left me slammed.

Tuesday I was supposed to have a dentist appointment, but it got postponed at the last minute.  I did end up working half a day anyway.  We picked up the girls from school early and headed to SC for my grandmothers visitation.  Wednesday I got in a nice 5 mile run around the parents 'hood while the kids got in the pool, then it made for a nice ice bath after my run.

That water was still pretty cold.

Before you know it, we were grabbing some lunch and heading to the funeral home.  The kids were pretty well behaved for about the first hour and a half, which is a long time for young kids to actually be well behaved.  As soon as someone started telling me about how nice they were being, I saw one of them actually lying down on the floor and being pulled by the hands by the other one.  dragged around on the floor.  geez.

She was actually rolling up my tie

Bigun holding her baby cousin

There was a really good turnout at the viewing.  She didn't want a big funeral, just a "recieving of friends" so people could come and pay their respects.  There was quite a large turnout.  It was good to see so many of my dad's cousins, and lots of other friends and family that I haven't been able to visit with for a long time.  My grandmother will be greatly missed by many people.

After that, we headed directly back to Raleigh.  It's not easy to go there and back on consecutive days, but that's what you have to do sometimes.  Got home late-ish, and I had to work on thursday, the kids were back in school, and the entire week had just been hectic.  Between the holiday monday, and the travel to the funeral, I had only worked four hours over the past 5 days.  That's the closest thing I've had to a vacation in the last 9 months.

And that is where I have to end this really long freaky friday tale.  Thursday was our niece's birthday, Friday was Evil Genius's birthday, Saturday kicked off June with a bang and Sunday was Ironman Raleigh 70.3!  So I have plenty of writing to do.  You won't believe that race report.