Catching Up

(by the way, the main photo here was taken after my second 20 mile practice run - feel free to be in awe of us, because, yes, we are still smiling!)

Okay, okay…so I know it’s been forever since I’ve written anything. Can I, yet again, blame the crazy fast pace of our lives? I hate to say this, but I suspect that my blogging is going to be pretty consistently inconsistent for a while. However, I will endeavor to cover the past two months as best I can.

Ridge and Holt began school without a hitch. Ridge is, of course, in second grade and Holt is in kindergarten. We are extremely lucky to have landed absolutely fantastic teachers for both of the boys. Last week their first report cards for the year were sent home and I am proud to say they are doing extremely well. Ridge is reading above grade level and Holt is very enthusiastic about learning to read. He simply loves sounding out words he sees written around him.

Ridge continues to enjoy JuJitsu and even competed in an in-house tournament on Saturday (that means it was a tournament at our school). He fought well, but more importantly he had fun. In addition to JuJitsu, Ridge has also started taking weekly guitar lesson and continues to forge ahead with is Japanese school every Saturday morning. As for Holt, he is taking Hip Hop lessons every week. No matter what, we couldn’t convince him to join us in our JuJitsu lessons, but instead asked for “dancing lessons”. Both boys will have a recital in December. It should be interesting!

Aaron was finally accepted in to the nursing program at San Antonio College. I won’t go in to details, but lets just say that the red tape that goes along with getting into nursing school is a pain! He’s excited about finally getting underway, though. For him, the next two years will no doubt be busy and stressful.

As for me, my marathon day is nearly here and I am so excited I can hardly stand it! I have done two 20 mile runs and survived them both, thanks to my WONDERFUL Team in Training teammates. My friend and I have already decided on our next race (we are insanely optimistic) – the Austin half marathon in February. In addition to running, I’ve discovered that I, too, just love JuJitsu. On Saturday, I also competed in the tournament along with Ridge and Aaron.

Many of you might be aware that I began a new job this year. I’m part of what I like to call a Behavioral SWAT team. When schools are at a loss as to what to do with special education kids with extreme behavior problems, they call us. I work district wide with all grade levels to support school staff. If you find that you are just dying of curiosity, you can even go to my school district website: http://tw.neisd.net/webpages/mfelke.

So, all in all, everyone is happy and busy – but not too busy. In fact, maybe now that I’m officially caught up with my blog I’ll be better about posting more often. Cross your fingers.

Here is a sampling of pictures taken over the past few weeks. Most should be self-explanatory. There’s one that’s a little blurry – that’s me fighting Laura, the Brazilian girl who works at the Jujitsu school. The man in the photo with Ridge is our teacher, whom we call "Marra" (pronounced "maha").

Training Update

Click here, then scroll down for my marathon training update:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/stx/rnrsa08/mfelker

Dixie Dude Ranch

My mother has reminded me that I have been remiss in my blogging duties. Funny - even though we live together, she still keeps me blogging! It makes me smile.

Last month we went to the Dixie Dude Ranch, courtesy of Cindy, my mother-in-law. For Thursday through Sunday, we had fun filled days of rest, horseback riding, and (best of all, in my opinion, no cooking!). There were loads of other kids for the boys to play with, a pool to entertain them during the heat, and no shortage of delicious homecooked food served family style in the quaint dining room. Each evening we were treated to awesome entertainment. My favorite was the trick roper you see in the photos. Not only was he very talented with a rope, but he was hysterical, too! I have a lot of photos to load, so I'll just stick them all at the end of this post.

Summer is nearly over for the kids and is totally over for me. I'll begin my new job for Northeast ISD tomorrow as we enter a week of teacher preparation. I'm really excited to be working with challenging kids again, and this time I'll have a team of 10 other members with whom I'll be working! It promises to be an interesting year!

As for my boys, Ridge will go into second grade at Specht again and now Holt will join him as he is entering Kindergarten. Aaron - HOORAY! - will begin a nursing school orientation/into. class for SAC's nursing school program in October. For now, he is working hard at a new job at a dialysis clinic. It's been a challenge for him - he usually has to be at work (a 45 minute dive away) by either 4:15 a.m. or 5:15 a.m. Crazy!

On the "farm" front, we are excited to report that our chickens are now in full production. Aaron and I finally culled the flock, killing and processing (i.e. plucking, gutting, and freezing) a total of 8 roosters over the course of two weekends. We have a great flock now of 9 hens and 2 beautiful roosters. On hen, the Americana breed, is faithfully laying us one green egg everyday. Between the other 7 Plymouth Rock hens we are getting between 5 and 7 eggs every day! I'll try and get some photos of the roosters and the green eggs sometime soon.

For now, here are some shots from the dude ranch. Remember, click them to make them bigger.

Imagination Rocks!

Searching for a new game to play inside in order to escape the heat of the day, Holt and Ridge devised this way to play marbles. I thought it was quite clever! They really get a lot of use out of their pieces of play silk.

Fundraising Update

Click the link below and scroll down the page to see my latest fundraising update.



http://pages.teamintraining.org/stx/rnrsa08/mfelker

Training Photo

Here's the lastest training photo from our six-mile run last Saturday. I'm going to have to practice posing better whenever I see the photographer. I promise I'm having way more fun than it looks! This Saturday will be 8 miles. I'm actually looking forward to it. We've been running at the Mission Park, which is a beautiful place to run. When the sun starts to rise over the mission, it looks just like a post card.

On a non-training note, we took the boys to Schlitterbahn today (a waterpark in nearby New Braunfels, for those out-of-town readers). It was the first time in over three years since we've been. Needless to say, the LOVED it. We even braved a few of the rides. Holt was okay with it so long as I kept ahold of his kiddie tube (they have handles). After the first few drops and splashes, he got over his initial fear. From that point on, his face was plastered with a huge grin and he kept telling me that this was FUN!!!

Training Update

Here's a photo from last week's marathon training practice. We did five miles. It was the furthest anyone in my little "group" shown here had ever run. Since we are doing intervals, I have to say it was the easiest five miles I've done. The group I'm in basically runs for four minutes then walks for one. We do this 4 - 1 thing the whole way. It was actually good, because we ended up running an average of an 11-minute mile. Usually when I've run five miles, I've been slower. I'm curious to see how much faster I am this week since we'll be running on a flatter course.

Ever since the first day of practice (we practice at 6 a.m. every Saturday), I found myself running with Veronica, the girl right in front of me. She's in her early twenties and is a high school teacher. Next to me is Carla, who thought she would only run the half-marathon, but Veronica and I changed her mind. The gentleman in the photo is Tom. He's a hoot. He told us last week that he had some major health issues, so he lost 50 pounds, ditched his blood pressure medication, and exercises like crazy. In addition to running, he does a Boot Camp exercise program several times weekly. Apparently, after turning 65 this year, he decided he should run a marathon. We have a great time running together and I'm looking forward to meeting even more folks!