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Friday, December 16, 2011

December in Florida!!

We are in Florida for 1 month visiting my family, Eduardo's family, Disney World, the beach and everything in the warm weather!! We left on the 11th and won't be back until after New Year's!! I brought the girls alone and they did great on the plane ride.
Eduardo left the day after us and has been in Naples, FL all week at a convention. He is coming to see us tonight and is bringing his nieces from Miami with him, 3 more girls which Ana Maria and Kathryn are so excited about!
The weather has been warm, we haven't felt cold once! This is why we are here!! We'll keep updating our adventures on the blog!





How to eat yogurt, Kathryn's style!

Kathryn only wants to self feed now!! That's okay but look at the mess she makes, I'm serious! She is 15 months old and is becoming so independent. My baby can't get any bigger!!









Friends and Santa

Eduardo and I took the girls to the mall to run a few errands and ran into several friends accidently! We all decided to take them to see Santa together. We love our friends!











December Bunco Ball

Angela hosted our December Bunco and the theme was Bunco Ball, wear your favorite party dress! We also celebrated our friend Tami's birthday afterwards at the Wine Cellar. We forgot to take a group pic so here is a picture of the late-nighters going out for Tami's birthday! The rest had gone home to sleep...



Santa Claus came early...to the tennis courts!!

Santa Claus came early this year and even to the tennis courts!! He brought the girls a Barbie Jeep, which they were so surprised and excited about! Eduardo and I were even surprised Santa brought gifts this big, I guess the girls had been extra special this year!
He left a note saying he was coming early to Arkansas because he knew we were going to be in Florida for Christmas and he also said he left it at the courts because he knew it was so cold outside. He said in the note for the girls to keep it at the courts for the winter and ride it everyday.
It has been awesome because everyday Ana Maria wants to go to the courts to ride the car and play tennis. It gives us somewhere to go, a warm place where they can play and we can watch the university team practice with our papa right there!



















Christmas Carols at Nursing Home

I love taking the girls to the nursing home to sing songs and say hello with their friends. My grandmother lived at a nursing home for over 5 years so I am passionate about making it a point to go and give back. My friend Amy's husband is a director at one in Springdale so that is where we have been going lately.
Today I invited the MOMS Club to come and we sang songs, danced, played instruments, and decorated their Christmas tree. Santa Claus even came with gifts for all of the kids! The most important part of it all was seeing the smiles on the residents faces...that's what Christmas is all about, giving!





















Christmas Train

I arranged for the MOMS Club to go on the Christmas Train for the 3rd year in a row. It is always so exciting and the kids love it. This year there was hot chocolate, Santa Claus and Rudolph! Kathryn is terrified of Santa Claus but Ana Maria can't get enough of him! She was thrilled the whole ride to be sitting next to her best friend Delaney!

























1st Snow in December 2011

NWA had their first snow in December the same morning we were going on the Christmas Train. I knew it was going to be gorgeous with all the snow on the ground!
Unfortunatly I parked outside the night it decided to snow so Ana Maria and Eduardo had to spend time getting my car ready to drive :)











Dallas, Texas~White Rock Marathon!!

Our little family traveled to Dallas, Texas the weekend of December 4th so Eduardo and I could run a half marathon. We had been training for it and heard that it was a fun course to run with bands and lots of spectators. The weather is supposedly always good too but not this year!
We arrived on Saturday afternoon, checked into the brand new Omni hotel and then boarded the shuttle bus for the fitness expo. There was so much to do at the expo that we stayed for a long time. We let the kids play in the Cliff Bar kids area and we got 100 or more samples!! We picked up our official bibs and t-shirts and were ready to run!
Sunday morning we left the hotel at 5:30am to be sure we had enough time to get to the start line with all the shuttle buses we knew we had to take. Plus we were staying at the marthon's offical hotel and there were over 25,000 runners!!
Our college friend, Rebecca came to stay with the girls while Eduardo and I ran the race. We got to the marthon in plenty time to eat breakfast, go to the bathroom 20 times because of nerves, stretch and watch all the excitmement and other runners!
It was finaly time to go outside and get ready to run. It was cold though (40') and very rainy. We had come to Dallas to run so nothing was going to hold us back!!
The race started and Eduardo and I were in different corrals. It didn't take him long to get to the start line but it took me 28 minutes! That's a long time standing in anticipation in the cold and rain.
The course was really nice but so many more people than I expected. My time could have been a lot faster if I hadn't started so far back and didn't have to pass so many people. It was raining so hard and every street corner you had to jump through a huge puddle. By the first mile I was soaked! Luckily, I had gloves on though but my shoe came untied at mile 4 and I had to take them off to tie my shoe. I couldn't get them back on because they were too soaking wet. My feet and hands were frozen when I got to mile 13.1!!
That's okay though because I enjoyed every minute of the race. If I could run a half marathon in 2 hours flat under those conditions, than I can do anything!! And next time I'll be even faster I hope on a nice sunny, dry day!!
My goal was 2 hours and I did it!! I was very proud of myself and Eduardo did it in 1 hour 53 minutes which is incredible also!
After the race we wanted to get out of there as fast as we could because we were so cold and wet with no change of clothes. We boarded the shuttle bus and were back at the hotel within 30 minutes of finishing! We took warm showers, ate lunch, took naps and then drove 5 hours back to Fayetteville with our sweet girls.
It was a really fun experince which I can't wait to do again. I injured my left foot a little bit so I'm not running at the moment but as soon as I am fixed, I will be outside!!
Enjoy some pictures from our weekend :)