Halloween 5k

Yesterday I ran my first race in costume :)

Since it was a Halloween race and costumes were encouraged, I figured, why not?

It snowed Friday night so before we went to bed we dug out our snow gear so we'd be nice and toasty. I woke up Saturday morning and it was raining (and all the snow was melted). I knew the race was going to be cold and miserable and I almost rolled over and went back to sleep.

Instead, I got up and got dressed (and woke up Mr M and LMS too) and we headed out.

I'm glad we did, since it was a fast race- the fastest 5k I've run in years!

1st mile was just under 10 minutes (fastest mile I've done in quite awhile)

2nd mile was about 10 and a half minutes

3rd mile was just under 12 minutes (I had to stop and walk twice-my endurance isn't quite what it should be yet and my lungs were not liking the cold)

I think my finish time was 32:03, which I'm very happy about :)

Warning: some crappy pictures ahead

Me running to the finish line. It wasn't really that dark- Mr M was having problems with the camera settings. 

But it's the only pic of my costume in action :)

 LMS escorting me through the finish chute.

Me, wet and cold, but happy to be finished.

It was a nice course through a gated community with some good hills that I didn't have too many problems with since I've been pushing LMS up and down the hills in our area in the jogger. It rained the whole race, so I got soaking wet (which the cotton shirt and skirt just sucked up) and my glasses were covered with raindrops which did make it a bit difficult for me to see where I was going. There weren't a lot of runners- only about a hundred- and it was nice to not have to jostle with lots of people. I even started pretty close to the starting line! Despite the cold and rain, it was a fun race :)

My Costume

When I decided to wear a costume in the race, I decided it needed to be simple so I could run in it, but still fun and unique.

I remembered the awesome tree costume my mom made when I was in 3rd or 4th grade- out of paperbags. We'd seen the idea in a magazine, and she copied it and it looked great, though it was hard to sit down in :)

 I realized I could make something similar, but since I would use fabric, it would be a lot easier to move in.

I bought a lightweight, long sleeve cheap-o brown shirt at wallyworld, and another brown shirt in as large a size as I could find.

I looked through the silhouette library, thinking I'd use a simple oval leaf shape. Then I found oak leaves and acorns. I knew I had to go that direction, even though it would be more work :)

I used the Silhouette to cut out three different leaves and an acorn out of cardstock. I used them to trace designs on the felt I'd bought at Joanns (on sale for half off!), then started cutting- about 50 or 60 leaves and a couple dozen acorns. 

 Little Miss Sunshine helped cut out a couple of leaves.

I cut the green leaves, LMS cut out the yellow one :)
(the leaves are on the farmhouse table I built- the top had to be stripped, but I hadn't sanded it yet- but that's a story for another post)

I used variegated green/gray cotton yarn to sew the leaves to the sleeve hems and neckline and add a little bit of detail to the leaves (LMS insisted that they needed lines, and they do look better with them).

I also cut out an owl shape from cardstock with the silhouette and traced it onto felt. I was going to sew the pieces together, but I ran out of time so I used an owl I cut from a piece of fleece.

I cut off the top part (from the armpits) of the large brown shirt, then made a simple casing and added elastic, giving me a simple brown skirt. I like running in skirts, so I went with a skirt instead of pants. I ended up wearing it over my skirt/capri set from Athleta (love it) so I didn't have to worry about what the brown skirt did or didn't do.

I used the sleeves to make ankle cuffs that I sewed 'fallen leaves' to (another thing LMS insisted was necessary, also a good idea).

I used some of the cut-off shirt to make a headband and I sewed leaves and acorns to it.

I was looking online for costume ideas and saw something similar for kids, though they had brown sweat pants and a stuffed squirrel in a pocket (and they used boring oval green leaves).

The Results

Overall the costume worked well- I was able to run in it without any technical difficulties, though there are a few things I'll change for next year (I'm not going to make another running costume, though I might use the costume I wear at the Disney half in January).

** shorter leaves around the ankles- they dragged a bit on the ground

** different brown Tshirt for the top- I thought the lightweight fabric would be ideal for running in, but I didn't like the low neckline and it stretched out weird after just one wearing (getting wet didn't help, either)- I'll use a regular crew neck t for the top when I re-do it.

** I may not put the owl back on- the fleece owl worked, but I'm not sure I like the overall effect. Maybe the felt owl will look better, or maybe I'll do a squirrel. It's hard to get a 3D applique on a t shirt, though, so I may just leave it off.

Do you have any ideas for running costumes?

Quick and easy stickers for the ukulele (Silhouette project)

LMS loves her pink ukulele, but so do the other 3 girls in the class who have pink ukuleles. This can lead to some confusion as to whose uke is whose.

We could just write her name in sharpie on the back of the neck, but where's the fun in that?

So I decided to use my Silhouette to do some personalization.

I found a hibiscus flower in the Silhouette library and cut a couple different sizes.

LMS helped me put them on, and we were done!

I had originally envisioned a white sticker on the pink ukulele, but then realized I don't have any white vinyl, so we used some dark pink instead, and I think it turned out great.

Hee hee. This is what LMS does half the time during uke class- play with the grass and flowers :)

Fire Station Field Trip

A couple weeks ago Little Miss Sunshine and I went to the local fire station with some other homeschoolers for a tour.

First up- trying on a real fire helmet.

The fireman showed the equipment that's on the trucks (this cabinet held the jaws of life).

The kiddos got to climb in the cab of the truck and try on the headphones.

Then they headed outside where they got a chance to use the hose- they all thought that was the coolest thing ever!

 

Just before they drained the hose, all the kids balanced on it- it was hard as a rock. Then they turned off the water pressure and the water drained out and the house flattened, which the kids thought was hilarious.

It was a fun trip, and a good reminder that we still need to decide on an emergency evacuation plan and make sure we all know what to do if there's a fire.

Grilled elk tenderloin

While I was laid out on the couch last night (I think it's highly unfair that I have to endure painful monthly cramps when none of my other lady parts seem to be able to work properly) Mr M made a really yummy dinner.

He grabbed an elk tenderloin from the freezer, defrosted it and then rubbed some salt on it and let it sit for awhile.  While it was sitting, he put a butternut squash in the oven to bake.

Mr M briefly rinsed the salt off the meat, then brushed on the fauxmato bbq sauce that he had made a couple weeks ago (I still need to do a post on the fauxmato sauce). He then tossed it on the grill to cook.

When the squash was done he scraped the flesh and pureed it in the BlendTec, using some canned coconut milk to thin it.

When the meat was done, he sliced it and we sat down to a dinner of grilled elk tenderloin and coconut squash puree. The elk was a smidge salty (he'll rinse the salt off more next time) and the squash a tad runny (he'll use a little less milk next time), but it all tasted soooo good! The tenderloin was so tender and juicy no knife was needed, and the flavor was great. The flavor combination of the tenderloin and the squash really hit the spot.

I didn't get any pictures because we ate it all up so fast :)  I'll try to get some next time, since we will definitely be making this again.

I'm so glad I have a husband who likes to cook and who has taken on the challenge of cooking meals we can eat :)

Wright Brothers National Memorial

Little Miss Sunshine showing off her 5 Junior Ranger badges

One of the things we did while in the Outer Banks was go to one of the three National Parks in the area. Ok, they're not technically 'Parks', but you get the idea. There's Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the Wright Brothers National Memorial, and Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

Each site has a different junior ranger program for the kids.

At Cape Hatteras they can be a seashore ranger,

at the Wright Brothers Memorial they can be a flight ranger,

and at Fort Raleigh they can be a Roanoke ranger.

Personally, I think they differentiate between them to keep interest up in the junior ranger programs. Not that I'm complaining or anything. I really do think they add a lot to the experience for kids, and I know we (Mr M and I) have learned a lot of stuff we wouldn't have if LMS wasn't doing the program.

Because of the road still being washed out by the hurricane we weren't able to do anything in the southern part of the Outer Banks, so we didn't go to Cape Hatteras or Fort Raleigh. Since we plan on going back again, we'll hit them up on future visits.

We did go to the Wright Brothers Memorial, which was pretty cool. I spent my junior and senior high school years not far from Dayton, Ohio, and it always confused me how Ohio could be "The Birthplace of Aviation", when everyone knew the first flights were in Kitty Hawk, NC, not Ohio, and why were they going to North Carolina, anyway? Maybe this was covered in Ohio history in elementary school? I missed that and had California history instead. After going to the memorial, I now understand. The Wright brothers experimented and built their designs in Ohio, then loaded everything on a train to North Carolina. They had made some inquiries and determined that Kitty Hawk had the ideal conditions (wind, lack of vegetation, etc) for their flight attempts.

It's visits like this that are a fun part of homeschooling. 

Isn't LMS cute?

Oak Trees

We have lots of oak trees on our property, and the house is surrounded by 50-60 foot tall oaks.  The weather has changed recently, and every time the breeze blows, acorns drop.

The acorns drop from 60 feet up and bounce off the roof and then the deck. Do you know how loud that is? Loud enough to wake us up at night. It was disconcerting at first, but now we're getting used to the constant thunks.

We do have to be careful when we spend time outside, though. We've had several near misses with falling acorns while putting stuff in and out of the vehicles. I'm just waiting for the thunk on my head....

A small portion of the acorns that have fallen- I sweep them off, and they just keep falling.

Happy Camper shirts

Several months ago I saw some cute shirts here, that I thought would be great for our camping trip this summer. Unfortunately, I dropped the ball and didn't get the vinyl ordered in time, so it arrived the day before we left. I was so busy trying to get everything else done, there was no way I had time to figure out how to use my Silhouette, which I still hadn't used yet at that point.

I ended up making them for our trip this past weekend, though I still think they would have been great for our trip this summer. Oh well.

It did take me awhile to figure out how to use the Silhouette and the software and what order to iron everything on the shirts, but I managed to do it all with only one mishap- I forgot to flip the first 'happy' and had to redo it so it would be legible after it was ironed on.

 As I ironed all the pieces on I realized I should have picked the colors a little better- the gray "happy" on my shirt blends into the lavender shirt (this was the one I messed up on and I didn't have any more white left- black would have been better than gray) and the purple trim on LMS' shirt blends right into the black trim.

  

Despite their imperfections, I'm happy with how the shirts turned out, and I like LMS' shirt the best. I'm glad I finally took the time to figure out how to use the Silhouette. Now that I've done that, I feel confident whipping out other projects. It really is quick and easy to use, once you figure out the details, which I just never had the time to do. Doing a challenging project right off the bat really helped me learn the ins and outs, even if it did increase the chances of a disaster :)

What does OBX mean, anyway?

This past weekend we decided to take a quick trip to the Outer Banks, NC.

We see tons of "OBX" stickers on the cars here so we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

image source

We drove down Friday and camped at the one RV campground I could find open- most of the RV campgrounds seem to be on Hatteras Island, which is only accessible right now by taking two different ferries, and they're still recovering from the hurricane. The road was still closed, but should be open in a week or so, which would make Hatteras Island accessible again.

We stayed in Kitty Hawk- you know, the Kitty Hawk the Wright brothers flew their first planes at? That one. There's a memorial and everything.

The three of us in front of the Wright Brothers National Memorial

My  main goal for the weekend was to sit on the beach and read :)

While I did get to do that, we did fit some sightseeing in as well.

We drove up to the Currituck Beach Lighthouse.

And we drove down to the Bodie Island Lighthouse.

We didn't climb either lighthouse, unfortunately. I didn't have enough cash in my wallet to climb the Currituck lighthouse, and the Bodie Island lighthouse isn't open for climbing. The visitor's center was closed because of hurricane damage, but one of the websites I looked at said that the Bodie Island lighthouse is a working lighthouse, which is the reason it's not open for climbing. It looked to us like it was being renovated or had been damaged in the hurricane.

And we played at the beach, of course. LMS *loves* the ocean, even though she's not super-fond of swimming pools (she takes awhile to warm up to the pool, but will jump right in the ocean). When we went to Hawaii 3 years ago we checked out the beach the first afternoon we were there. None of us were wearing swimsuits, but somehow LMS managed to get completely wet, and Mr M wasn't too far behind her (I was on camera duty :).

 

It happened again at the Waikiki beach- we went just to look at it (and say we'd been), when LMS decided she just *had* to go in the water. We took her clothes off for that one and let her swim in her underwear.

We had a repeat this weekend:

Come on in the water, daddy!

Run from the water!

That was fun, let's do it again!

Mr M gave LMS a (deformed) mermaid tail.

And we flew our kite that's been in storage for the last 4 years. The last time we flew it was just before we left California.

LMS was a year and a half old- look how tiny she was!

LMS wanted to fly the kite

which was followed by them chasing after the kite when she let go (they caught it).

Proof that I was there, too :)

Which photo is better? I like the grayer version above, but I like the brighter colors below, too.

We had a great weekend and look forward to going back to the Outer Banks in the future and exploring the islands we weren't able to drive to this time and spending more time on the beach.

Our simple driveway fix that wasn't so simple

A couple weeks ago I was at Sams and saw a pile of ground up asphalt with a sign and a phone number on it. An asphalt company was ripping up the top layer in preperation for laying a new layer of blacktop, and they were selling what they didn't need.

Our driveway has suffered from the heavy rains we've received this year, and really needed more gravel, and the area where we park our vehicles is dirt, so we keep tracking in mud when it rains, so it could use some gravel as well.

Looking down the driveway

Looking up the driveway toward the circle

 

The circle at the top of the drive- note the boulders in the center

 

We park in that dirt area between the flagstone walkway and the woodpile

A week or so ago we finally called and made arrangements for them to deliver four truck loads of recycled asphalt. Late Thursday afternoon the first truck load was delivered and I realized we'd miscalculated. We'd planned on spreading it by hand (I've helped spread gravel in my parents' driveway, but that was with the gravel being pushed off a trailer as the trailer inched forward, and there was 5 or 6 of us helping), but the two of us spreading the gravel from the big pile next to the back door all the way down our 500 foot driveway by hand just wasn't going to be feasible.

One load of gravel

So I made some quick calls and we arranged for a Bobcat to be dropped off the next day. Shortly after that, the truck returned to drop the second load. I could tell he was having a hard time getting around the circle (it's a tight fit for anything bigger than a pickup truck), and I saw he was getting close to our well head, but I was sure he'd seen it and wouldn't hit it.

Um, yeah.

Not so much.

Next thing I know, the well head is shattering and pieces are flying all over. I ran out to inspect the damage, and that was the first the driver realized anything had happened "I didn't even see it there". I went back in and called Mr M, who was on his way home from work, then started searching online for local well drilling companies. They were all closed by then, of course, but we were able to talk to one who promised to come out first thing in the morning.

Our shattered well head.

We covered it with a blue bin to keep dirt and debris out and to increase visibility.

 

In the meantime, Mr M tried calling the asphalt company, but no one answered, so he drove down to the jobsite to see if he could catch anyone still there. The guy there tried to say that they weren't responsible for damage down to our property, and that we should have been out there directing the driver. (really??? like he'd have been able to see me???) After some back and forth (during which Mr M mentioned they should have their own spotter who's familiar with the driver and the vehicle), Mr M was able to get the price of the four loads halved, so we ended up with a really good deal on the gravel itself.

Four loads of gravel, waiting to be spread

The next morning the bobcat got dropped off right before the well drilling guys came. They dug down a foot or two, cut the cracked pipe, and used a sleeve to connect a new length of pipe to the original pipe. After fixing the wires, they put a new cap on the well, and filled the dirt back in. Less than an hour after they started, they were done. They did say that if the crack had been any lower, they would have had to pull it all apart and it would have cost a lot more because it would have taken a lot longer to fix.

The bill ended up being exactly the amount we'd gotten the gravel bill reduced by, so we broke even on that at least.

The biggest expense was definitely the bobcat. Since Mr M was out there, he also dug out the huge boulders that were in the center of the circle at the top of our driveway. This opens up the circle a lot, so it's not nearly as tight as it used to be, and provided the rock for a protective barrier around our well head. If someone takes it out again, their axle is going with it!

The new well head

Digging the rocks out took longer than planned (some of them were buried pretty deep), and we needed an extra day to finish the spreading and smoothing that needed to be done, so we kept the bobcat an extra day and Mr M took some time off work to finish the job.

No boulders left in the center of the circle

 

Our neighbors have a chainsaw and they're going to help us take out that small tree on the left side of the center of the circle.

 

LMS running down the new driveway

Looking up the driveway toward the circle

Once Mr M was done with the driveway he cleared about a third of the path through our woods- we want to put a walking trail around the outer edge of our property, through the trees, and using the bobcat definitely made the job easier (we'll do the other two thirds in a year or so). It did make the path wider than a woodland trail really needs to be, but given how allergic I am to some of the plants out here, being able to walk down the middle of a trail without touching anything is definitely a good thing for me.

LMS on the trail. This end looks the roughest and I need to fix it up some more still. The boulders on the left are the ones surrounding the well head.

 

Part of the trail through the woods

We got the trail started just in time, too. Leaves are starting to fall and will leave a nice layer on our path. One weekend soon we'll be renting a wood chipper and chipping the downed wood on our property to use as mulch on the trail. Right now it's kind of ugly, but it should look pretty good by spring.

Keeping the bobcat an extra day did increase the cost, but it was still cheaper than renting it another weekend, since they charge for pickup and delivery and it's delivered on a flat bed semi (so our truck doesn't help us on this one).

Mr M did most of the work with the bobcat, though I did a little as well- mostly so I could see how it works. LMS insisted on a turn as well and had lots of fun driving it around and moving the shovel thing up and down.

LMS ready to do some work

So, our simple 'let's fix the driveway with some gravel' ended up being not-so-simple, and more expensive than we planned, mostly because of the bobcat rental.

On the other hand, our driveway looks a lot better, our parking area looks better, our circle is much more manageable (I'm sure the UPS guy will thank us!), and we got a start on our trails through the woods. All things that needed to be done, even if we hadn't planned on doing it *right now*.

Have you had any projects take on a life of their own?