Tweetsie Photo Dump

This year instead of having birthday parties the kids wanted to go to Tweetsie Railroad for their birthday. We gladly obliged! A fun weekend in Boone with the whole family? Yes please. Here's how it went down:

family selfie at an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway

EG trying on a train hat, Kelley photoboms from the mirror

Kids where they belong most of the time

Kelley's the one who should be terrified

my face! She loved those horses

fat man on a tiny horse

The horse bench

Ella driving by herself!

Evil Genius behind the wheel

sometimes we rode with them

all 4 of us in cars

switcharoo

Got them on some of the big rides this year!

Riding the train

On the chairlift, she was terrified

They loved the baby goats

A fun day of adventure

In Boone Sunday morning

my woooo girl

We got to do downtown Blowing Rock friday night, then a full day at Tweetsie Railroad amusement park Saturday, the some Boone time Sunday morning before heading back to Raleigh. This was the kind of trip that they will remember for a long time, and Kelley and I will too.

Looking Back at May

Let's recap the weekends bullet stye just to see what's been going on around here:

• 3/25 Tybee Island vacation, DNS Skidaway Island Marathon
• 4/1 Umstead 100 weekend, DNS pacing
• 4/8 Masters golf
• 4/16 Easter
• 4/23 Trap Pond 50k DNS
• 4/29 Boone fraternity weekend
• 5/7 Jordan Lake OWS
• 5/13 Mothers Day
• 5/21 solo in the church choir
• 5/27 Boone for memorial day weekend
• 6/2 Chattanooga OWS
• 6/10 The Lion King in Greenville with all the family
• 6/18 Fathers Day

That makes 13 weekends in a row with something major going on. 6 of those require travel out of town for the weekend, more if I had gone to Delaware for the Trap Pond 50k or visited our mothers for Mothers Day. Kind of a crazy schedule. I don't like to do much for the greeting card holidays, so even Fathers Day next weekend is hopefully going to be really low key.

May Totals:
Swim: 41,450 yards, 13 swims, 1 race
Bike: 13.8 miles, 2 rides
Run: 2 miles, 1 run
Strength: 2 times
Yoga: 2 times

20 workouts total, the 1 race I actually made was the Jordan Lake Open Water Challenge 1.2 mile swim. 41k in the water is a pretty strong month, my strongest in a while. I've really been enjoying swimming too, the coaches are really doing me right and I'm getting fast-ish again.

I was feeling good at the beginning of May, so I actually went out on a test run! 2 miles was all the physical therapist would allow. I tried to go out again a few days later but only made it to the end of the block before limping home. I'm going to try again for another 2 miler in June sometime. Pretty sure my fall marathons are all wrecked too at this point. I should have started training (with a 5 mile long run) back on 5/4. Foot still hurts consistently most days. I might get anywhere from an hour to a day of relief, but that's not enough for consistent marathon training.

I thought I was lifting more than that? oh well. Therapist wants me to do more yoga too.

Here's some pictures from May that tell the real story of the month:

The garden is planted! Tomatoes and peppers, oh my

Strength training pays off, check out that mad tricept

Evil Genius played Dr Seuss in a school function

Ghost pepper plant is getting big

The Garden is growing! But what is that project on the left?

I had a solo with the church choir one Sunday

Muscadines starting to grow

Family trip to Boone

and the month included somebody's birthday

 May was a fantastic month. There was a lot going on both athletically and with family stuff. Each one of those bullets I started with deserves its own post, so there's a few more coming. But this May was one for the books. So much fun stuff going on.