What I Miss

I'm really bad with goodbyes.  They don't really affect me too much, and I hate when people get all weepy about me leaving.  I usually see the adventure ahead of me more than the place that I might miss later.  Our most recent goodbye was rushed, but that was fine with me.  Why drag it out?

I was recently trying to think about things I'm starting to miss from the past two years down in Pensacola.  So far, it's a short list.  When thinking about that, I also started reflecting on things I actually do miss from previous homes.  I have much more clarity for those things since the dust has settled and I have those way behind me.  I thought I'd share those lists with you today.  (I'm not going to say I miss certain people or friends on any of these.  Obviously it's a given, but people are also mobile.  Most of the friends from each of these places don't live there any more anyway.)

Lawrenceville, GA (home)

• Is it bad that I can't think of anything?  Maybe that's a blessing.

Athens, GA (college)

• Free or cheap entry into a lot of great sporting events, including football and gymnastics
• Free city and campus bus system with my student ID
• Myers Quad
• Tons of stuff to do

Jacksonville, FL (AmeriCorps year)

• Main Library
• My bike (which was stolen on my last night living there)
• Ultimate frisbee pickup game on Sundays

Hampton Roads, VA

• Sacred Heart Church
• Walkable Ghent neighborhood
• Imperio Inca restaurant
• Norfolk Botanical Gardens
• Croatan beach and watching the surfers

Pensacola, FL

• St. Paul Parish
• Brie dip from Hopjacks
• Teaching Budget for Baby class
• Naval Hospital Pensacola and free healthcare
• Central Time Zone
• (To be determined with time and comparison!)

The Pensacola list was actually longer than I expected (sure as heck beat out Jax). My hometown, however . . . ouch. Sorry, Lawrenceville!

7 Quick Takes (Olympic Fever Edition)

— 1 —

B and I have been having fun keeping up with the Olympics.  He's a lot more into it than I thought he would be!  I think he's watched about every sport that has come on.  He likes to whine and moan about some of it, though.  I sometimes agree.  One thing he hates is swimming.  I get this.  Why is someone who won a gabillion medals in swimming the "greatest Olympic athlete"?  You can win a gabillion medals in swimming because it has a gabillion events.  (17 events, I just counted.)  But what about those sports that only offer one medal?  I personally love women's beach volleyball, and I think May-Treanor/Walsh is one of the greatest teams of all Olympic history.  And what about skeet shooter Kim Rhode who has won gold in five consecutive Olympics?

— 2 —

Speaking of beach volleyball, can I just say that Kerri Walsh is amazing?  Did you know this gal popped out TWO kids between the last Olympics and this one?

Source

I remember hearing Jillian Michaels say she didn't want to "ruin her body" with pregnancy.  Um, I think Kerri Walsh just proved that it does not ruin your body if you don't let it.  (I can personally vouch for this, as I have a similar body type to Jillian and have lost every ounce of pregnancy weight and even a pound extra to boot.)

— 3 —

Going back to swimming, what in the world is the point of the butterfly stroke?  Why would you ever use this stroke in swimming?  Freestyle is the fastest, breaststroke is an endurance stroke, backstroke probably has the least risk of drowning . . . but butterfly?  To look like a fish?  I don't get it.

— 4 —

I really enjoyed this YouTube video that shows the evolution of uneven bars routines over the year.  Neat, huh?


— 5 — Did you catch my guest post over at Many Waters earlier this week?  I talked about my views on my husband leaving active duty military service, which you can read here.  His replacement is checking in today, which means it's turnover time.  Less than 30 days left until his end date.  Yeep.  And, no, we still don't know where his job search is going to land us. — 6 — I've crossed two items off my 101 list lately.  The first was that I got my butt back to that farmer's market and finally bought a few items:

Flowers, local raw honey, and some yummy bread.  Total was under $20.

The honey was from a church friend's yard, so that was cool too.  You can check out their website here. — 7 — And yesterday I blogged about how I made ice cream from scratch without an ice cream maker.

Check out how I did it here. —— And check out more quick takes at Conversion Diary!

Celebrating

This past Friday, I celebrated two very different occasions.  On the one hand, it was my birthday.  But more importantly, it was B's Captain's retirement.  I had never been to a formal military retirement ceremony before (or even a change of command), so I thought this was pretty cool.

Even though the guy was a submariner (a previous commander of the USS Pennsylvania), he decided to have his ceremony right under the replicas of the Blue Angel jets flying in the Naval Aviation Museum.  Hey, when in Rome . . .

If you look closely, you can see the Dolphins on his chest

I've only seen B in his dress whites ONCE before, and it was after we had driven for two days straight (to get to this duty station), so I didn't appreciate it much.  As this is the second and probably last time I got to see it, I was very excited, as he and the other LTs were Sideboys (that term cracks me up!).

B is on the left

One of the special parts of the event was a Flag Ceremony.  The MC read this poem while a flag that had flown atop the Captain's former sub was passed along the line, saluted by each sideboy, and then presented to the Captain.

Sorry some of those pictures are a bit blurry--I was actually standing at the back holding a squawking infant in one arm while taking pictures with the other! 

B was the lucky one who got to hand it off to the Captain.  He told me it was because he was the shortest, as they were in height order.

I also really liked how the Captain thanked his family, and they gave his spouse a certificate as she transitioned from "Navy Wife" to "Navy Wife, Retired."  It was also their daughter's high school graduation; her ceremony was the following morning.  The family got to leave on the red carpet as a Boatswain's Mate rang a bell and declared, "Navy Family, Retired, Departing."

During the ceremony, the MC read a brief timeline of the Captain's naval career.  He was commissioned a week before I was born in 1984, and for whatever reason, that was just really neat to me.  Actually, at the party that night, it was mentioned that it was my birthday, and the Captain asked me (slightly joking) if I was 22.  I said, "Nope, I'm the embodiment of the length of your naval career--this is what 28 years looks like," as I leaned into my husband and my baby.  "Looks pretty good, right?"

Yep, it looks VERY good.  :)

mardi gras

Happy Fat Tuesday, everyone! We took baby Cora to her first Mardi Gras parade on Saturday. It was just the family-friendly one here in Pensacola, but it was pretty fun!

Cora hung out in Daddy's arms for almost the whole parade

I had my hands up trying to catch beads and moon pies (my fave!).  Only got smacked in the head once (by beads, not moon pies).

Cora even got some of her own beads!

It was rainy and gross out and my ongoing physical recovery from the birth made it hard to stand up for so long, so we left about an hour into it.  Well, that, and the fact that Cora was screaming her head off.  I'm glad we got to go, though, since I don't know if we'll be living anywhere that does the Mardi Gras thing come next year.  The Gulf Coast doesn't have a ton of reasons to celebrate (hurricanes, oil spills, poverty, etc.), so I'm glad that Mardi Gras is such a big part of the culture down here.

I also had a nurse in the hospital use the term "Mardi Gras season" when referring to when we get cold weather around here.  It caught me a bit off-guard at first, but she's totally right!


 

our holiday stay-cation

Even though my protruding belly made it impossible to travel for Christmas this year, B still took two weeks off (the boy has too much leave I guess?) and I planned out a few fun things to do around the area. I even made an itinerary (albeit a very flexible one).

Here are some pictures of the fun things we did around Pensacola:

Museum Day at the Pensacola Museum of Art.  Tinier than I expected.

They had a beautiful exhibit of kimonos, and I loved this  one.

Across the street from the art museum is the T.T. Wentworth, Jr. Florida State Museum.  Lots of interesting Pensacola history in here!

One night we went to a Christmas celebration at the Pensacola Lighthouse on base.  Free cocoa and cookies!

B climbed the lighthouse (free!) while I took pictures.

Haven't been to a zoo in a while!  At the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo in Gulf Shores.

B made lots of new friends at the zoo.

And after this, a pelican tried to attack him.  Not kidding.

We took a day trip to Mobile, AL, since we've never been.  This is the USS Alabama Battleship.

Next to the battleship was the USS DRUM pre-nuke submarine.  Haven't looked through a periscope in a while!

B didn't let anyone there know he was on subs.  He wasn't nostalgic at all.

We also walked down Dauphin Street in downtown Mobile.

Beautiful cathedral in Mobile.

Inside of beautiful cathedral.

We grabbed some friends and attended a minor league hockey game--Pensacola Ice Flyers.  Gotta love a fight.

I'm mad because I told B to get us a drink to share and he came back with Dr. Pepper.  You would think after 2 years of marriage he would know I hate that stuff!!

Have you ever taken a "stay-cation"?

when life comes at you fast

Nothing says "fun Friday" like being 37 weeks pregnant and then getting rear-ended!

This past Friday afternoon, I had been out doing some last-minute baby shopping.  After I left Toys R Us (our pitiful excuse for a Babies R Us around these parts), I decided to call my mom and give her an update from my Wednesday doctor appointment and joke about some of the guesses in my online baby pool (my dad thinks my baby will be 25"--LOL!).  I stopped at a red light, still chatting away, then BAM!  I hollered into the phone, "I've just been rear-ended!" but I realized the phone had slid down and hung up.  The light was still red, so I called her back, but I started crying as I said the same thing and I guess the phone dropped the call right after.  Mom said she sorta panicked (and her office mates even asked if everything was okay), so she called B.

The guy and I pulled over into a restaurant parking lot, and my crazy pregnancy hormones had me crying as I got out of the car.  The guy, who was in some type of Army uniform, was so pissed at himself.  He kicked the remaining pieces of the cover off his front license plate, and I think he kicked his bumper, too.  I was trying to calm myself down, assuring him I was okay, but just crazy pregnant.  Neither of us really knew exactly what to do, and I was shaking as I copied down the info from his insurance card.  I called my mom back to update her and ask her if we should call the police.  She said I should, mostly because of the pregnancy.  EMS came out and didn't lay a finger on me, but offered to drive me to the hospital (which I declined).

My poor baby with a hole in her bumper!

We waited a bit longer for Florida Highway Patrol to come.  It didn't even cross my mind that the guy was gonna get a citation.  I felt kinda bad about this because as we waited, he told me that he's in the National Guard and has been having trouble finding a job since coming back from deployment last year.  He said he's seriously considering going active duty full-time, and this might have been the push he needed.  I guess I can't feel too bad, though, because I gotta look out for #1 here (and Baby W, of course).  I also decided that even though I turned down EMS, I should give Labor & Delivery a call and see if I should come in (answer was an easy yes--apparently big jolts may cause your placenta to detach).

Close-up of the hole.

After we got our police report filed, I headed to the Naval Hospital to get checked out.  It was right around the time B was getting off work, and I thought it was gonna be a quick thing, so I told him not to come.  Well, when I checked in, they told me they were gonna monitor me and baby for at least 4 hours!  Well, crap.  So B came to the hospital, and there went our plans to attend the Twelfth Night celebration downtown.  I had really been looking forward to that!  They also wouldn't let me eat anything as a precautionary measure.  I had hardly eaten any lunch, and it was nearing 5pm now.  And my 'labor popsicles' were still at home in our freezer, since I was pretty sure this baby wasn't coming yet.  They put me in the nice triage room with a TV, poked me with needles, took an ultrasound, and had me strapped to monitors and such.  I learned that I've actually been having contractions but not feeling them yet.  Very interesting!

Did I mention the bumper is falling off?

My doctor's husband was actually the doctor on duty, and my doctor dropped by to bring him dinner at one point so she came in when she heard I was there.  I think it was her who asked me if the other driver had been texting.  I actually don't know, but why hadn't I thought of that?  (Probably because I don't text that much and never while driving.)  All I know is that he said he looked away for a second, and then braked but his brakes locked.  So, hmm, I don't know, and probably never will.

There were a few upsides to this eventful day:

• Obviously, Baby W is okay and still happy in utero.
• I got a small taste of what it will be like the day I actually come in laboring.  My butt hurt sitting in that bed, and the hospital only has a handful of TV stations (at least in triage).  Luckily, we were able to watch some football.
• It was a beautiful day!  In the 70's, I think.  This made it a lot more bearable to sit around and wait for the cop.
• I didn't get everything on my to-do list accomplished.  I had actually planned to install the car seat that morning, but the fire station near me doesn't do those and you have to make an appointment.  I'm so glad that the car seat was sitting safely in the apartment, so that's one less thing we have to do.
• My car is drive-able.  No airbags deployed.  I was wearing my seatbelt (always) and had the lap strap below the bump.  And I wasn't at fault, so I don't have to pay anything for repairs.  There's a lot to be said for all of that.

Also, I'm hoping to keep this baby inside this week because my doctor (and her husband) are on leave!  We'll see how that pans out :)
 

a little Christmas music

This past weekend, B and I had the privilege to attend a performance of Handel's Messiah by the Choral Society of Pensacola.  I actually had hoped to be singing with the group we saw, but decided not to push it with the pregnancy.  I also purposely didn't join the other (less-involved) choir I had sang with in the spring because their only concert for the fall was on the same night as this one!  (I really think the directors need to get together to plan around each other.)

Anyway, the concert was being held our our beautiful church, and we showed up ready to buy some general admission tickets.  The ticket gal asked, "Do you want some reserved section tickets?  These were just returned and are already paid for, so you can have them for free."  Sweet!  So we sat 8 rows back and listened to beautiful music for the next 2 hours.

They actually did the ENTIRE Messiah oratorio (all 3 parts), not just the traditional Christmas section with the "Hallelujah" chorus tacked on like I was expecting.  The soloists and choir were fantastic, and I loved hearing the other parts that I wasn't as familiar with.  I was so jealous that I wasn't up there singing myself!  But at the "Hallelujah" Chorus part (end of the Easter section, of course), you stand up (it's tradition!), and at this concert, the conductor turned around and conducted the audience so it was okay to sing along.  I sorta sang, but I was exhausted, making me realize that I made the right call about pregnancy vs. singing.

Here is the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus performing the first choral part of the Messiah, "And the Glory of the Lord":

I must sing with a symphony orchestra once again!  I miss it.
p.s. If you want to hear the "Hallelujah" chorus, check out this post I did at Eastertime.

pregnancy vs. a music festival

This past weekend, B and I got the opportunity to attend DeLuna Fest for "free." I use that term loosely because we had to volunteer to sit behind a table for four hours on Saturday to get our tickets.  And we had to pay $20 for parking on Friday night when we went to see our bands (and the $1 toll both days).  At least we found free parking on Saturday.

DeLuna Fest is a 3-day music festival here on Pensacola Beach, and it's only in its second year.  I was originally interested in it because of some of the headlining bands, namely Weezer and Cake.  Linkin Park was also slate to perform, but they dropped out all of 2 weeks beforehand.  Lame.  The tickets were super-expensive, so I'm glad we were able to volunteer our way into it.

The two bands I mostly wanted to see both performed on Friday night, so we headed out to the beach.  The last time I went to a big musical festival with multiple stages was when I was in high school and went to Music Midtown in Atlanta (does that still exist?) and saw Hole, 98°, newly-famous Kid Rock (gag), and a pre-famous Jessica Simpson all in one weekend.  B had never been to anything like this, so I'm glad he got the experience.  The cool thing about DeLuna Fest is that the two main stages were right on the beach, in the sand. This was awesome later when I just needed to sit my pregnant butt down.

We got there on Friday night, just in time to see the last song from a duo called Matt and Kim.  (I'd heard of them before, but don't know their music.)  We realized then that we didn't have a program--actually, I'm not even sure if there WERE programs available--had no idea what stage we were at, and I couldn't remember which band I wanted was coming on first.  We also don't have smart phones, which is probably why there were no programs readily available.  Somehow we ended up running into an acquaintance (we know all of like 10 people in this town, so that was a slight miracle), and she looked it up on her phone.  It was sort of wrong, but I asked some other guy and Cake was indeed playing on the stage we were at in just under an hour.  So we sat around and waited.

Some people around us "lit up" in true music-festival-sense (if you know what I mean).  I knew the smell right away and was trying to get away from it, if anything, to protect my baby.  Somehow B cannot smell this stuff.  I told him to take a big whiff and remember that smell for later (especially when our kids are teens), and he kept saying that he didn't smell anything.  What.  The.  Heck.  The things I learn about my husband . . . guess I'll be the narc of the house.

Another thing that kept bothering me, especially once Cake started playing, was people walking by us and bumping into me.  (This is the opposite of what I thought would happen--I thought we were all going to get pushed forward and smooshed up once the band came on the stage.  Apparently, there is no pleasing me.) I've always been protective of my space, but now it's even more so.  We were pretty close up, and I just don't see why people find the need to mill around to get over there or leave only minutes into a set.  I was trying to perfect a certain stance with my hands on my hips and elbows out so that people wouldn't think I make a good passageway; it was semi-effective.  There were also beach balls and playground balls being bounced around through a lot of it, and one of the more rubbery playground balls totally smacked me in the bump during the first song.  B did a great job of protecting his pregnant wife from falling crowd-surfers though.

via Wikipedia

As for the music, Cake was really good.  Apparently they have some new stuff out, so I didn't recognize that (or even like it too much), but they mostly stuck to their crowd-pleasing classics.  Here's where DeLuna Fest needed to fix their logistics.  Cake ended at 9 and Weezer started promptly at 9.  A large handful of people left Cake early to haul it down to the other end of the beach to see all of Weezer's set, and the rest of us waited until the end, then trucked it down there.  I was in sneakers because I needed the support and hauling butt through sand was not easy.  Also, my knees had apparently locked during the hour watching Cake and it was so hard to move my pregnant behind anyway.  B refused to take me piggy-back.  Almost everyone at Cake went to Weezer, so it was just a cluster&*^$! of people trying to get down the beach as quickly as possible.

I made it through about 3 songs at Weezer before I plopped my butt down in the sand and just listened.  Weezer has a ton of good music that everyone knows, but for whatever dumb reason, they were playing a bunch of not-so-good stuff for most of it.  This included a cover of "Pumped Up Kicks," which is currently on the radio.  It wasn't even a very good cover, in my opinion.  I told B to take another whiff of the air when they started playing "Hash Pipe," and he still couldn't smell it.  Sigh.

The next day we saw a band that we'd never heard of (more on them later this week), and then The Shins later that night.  We made it an hour through that set then left because we were both really exhausted.  We also realized that we're getting old, especially being around all those beach-bum-hippies.  B's back was starting to hurt, and of course I had the normal pregnancy woes.  I've pretty much decided that my rock concert days are behind me as I didn't really enjoy the concerts as much as I once would have.  That's probably the last "standing up" concert I'll go to for a long while.  The next concert I see I will be sitting in a comfy chair/church pew with a bunch of gray-haired ladies around me.  And the only standing I'll be doing is for the Hallelujah chorus.

As for the volunteering we did, we were right next to the USO tent and they gave us Girl Scout cookies.  Can't argue with that!

 

friday fill-in

Link up with Wife of a Sailor

1. Do you think civilians, in general, understand the meaning of Memorial Day?
Well, like any holiday in America, it's been over-commercialized, but I think people sorta get it.  I think a lot of people just don't know how to honor our fallen military.  My family put out our flag, but if you don't live around a military community, there aren't many traditions going on to pick it up from.

2. What are your plans for the Memorial Day Weekend?
Tonight we're going to a friend's house and then tomorrow we're going to the Historic Pensacola Village, I think.  Then I don't know.  I think both of us forgot that he has Monday off.

3. What skill/talent do you wish you had? submitted by The 3 Turners
Playing an instrument (other than my voice), reading music effortlessly.  Or anything I could get good enough at to turn into a part-time career.  I wish I had some type of focused ambition.

4. Which came first: the chicken or the egg? submitted by I Married Into The Army  
I'll go biblical and say the chicken. 

God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems, and all kinds of winged birds. God saw how good it was, and God blessed them, saying, "Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas; and let the birds multiply on the earth." (Gen 1:21-22)

Although in the next chapter it says something about birds of the air being formed out of the ground, so who knows?

5. What is the best thing about your post (base)? The worst? submitted by Randomly, Robyn
NAS Pensacola is beautiful!  If you drive along the main East-West road, you get to see this stunning beach with white sand and usually some sailboats in the water.  The sun is usually shining, and it is just so serene.  There are no nasty steam pipes going over your head like I was used to in Norfolk.  Also, there are a few tourist attractions on base (aviation museum, 'haunted' lighthouse, an old fort, etc.), so you can spend a whole day there and spend very little money.

The worst part is that there are only two ways in and the one we live near closes at 9pm on weekdays (this cost-cutting measure started after we moved here).  This led to me speeding through base last night to make it out in time so I didn't have to drive all the way around, which would've added 20 extra minutes to my trip.  I made it with seconds to spare!.  Another bad thing about our base is that if a bad hurricane hits again, we're totally in the way.  Hurricane Ivan wrecked the place in 2004.  Oh, I suppose I don't have to mention how humid this place is from May through September?  At least we have a beach!

B's birthday weekend

My husband was born on Mother's Day.  And it hit this year on Mother's Day again (sidenote: the 8th is the earliest date Mother's Day can fall because it's the second Sunday in May).  However, I am not a mom yet (except to some plants on our patio), so there was no conflict of interest.  I let my wonderful husband choose all the activities for the weekend, and I think he chose pretty well!

On Saturday morning, we went kayaking on base (renting from the same marina where we took the sailing lesson).  Kayaking was also on my list (unbeknownst to B), so I'm happy I got to check it off!  I convinced him that we should get a double kayak just in case I had a panic attack again.  It was such a beautiful day here in Pensacola, and we spent a lovely two hours paddling around the Bayou Grande.  On our way back, we even saw some dolphins and paddled up near them.  That was definitely the highlight of the weekend!  In addition to the fact that it only cost us a whopping $4 to rent that kayak!  I would definitely love to go again--and maybe even get a waterproof camera along in case of more dolphin sightings.



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Saturday night, B chose a restaurant to go out to (more of a mom-and-pop diner near the Alabama line), and then we went to check out the Greyhound races they do here.  I know some animal lovers will probably get on me about supporting this, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but it was interesting to see.  I kind of have a "when in Rome" mentality sometimes, which is why I went to watch a bullfight when I was in Spain.  I had also been to horse races up at Colonial Downs in Virginia and actually enjoyed it a lot.  The Greyhound track here had the same kind of betting system, but the place was a freakin' dump.  It was a beautiful night, so I wanted to watch the races outside, not from behind the big window.  Well, the overhang from the roof was leaking and there was nowhere to sit outside near where the finish line was (most people were just out there to smoke), so we just stood there by our lonesome.  A poker room took up half of the building--which is apparently open 24 hours a day on the weekends--and there were tons of cars in the parking lot.  I guess most of them were playing poker because the people watching the dog races seemed to be few and far between.  We stayed for 6 races, placing dinky $2 bets on each.  We ended up spending a whopping $10 and leaving with half of it.  When we got in the car to leave, I commented, "I felt over-dressed in that place . . . and over-educated also."  Come to think of it, I feel like that a lot in this town.

These things were huge!

On Sunday, we did our usual church thing and then took B to get his birthday present.  A new suitcase, which he had to pick out himself.  After that, we came home and I made his birthday "cake": homemade cream puffs!  (and 2 eclairs).  I had apparently stumbled upon and bookmarked this tutorial online, which inspired me (don't know how I found it--I still don't follow that blog).  This blog doesn't actually give a recipe with measurements though, but I found this one in my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and I highly recommend it (Betty didn't have one--shocker, I know!).  Yes, I mixed it by hand, and yes, it was a workout.  But it wasn't terrible.  I did use the pudding/Cool Whip combo for the filling and chocolate frosting for the top, because it was just plain easier and tastes just as good.

28 isn't too old for blowing out candles, right??

a 5k and a song

This has been one of the harder ones so far, but it was awesome!

✔ 21. Run a 5k with B - use the Couch to 5k training plan to do it

If you just recently joined me here, or if you forgot, my first few weeks of Couch to 5k were summed up in this post.  Around Week 6 of my 9-week plan, I started getting shin splints.  The shoes I had been running in were ancient and didn't have much support to begin with.  I found some new shoes, but because of the extra support, they weighed more than the old ones.  I ran just fine with them, but it sounded like I was slapping the pavement the whole time even though I was running in proper form.  Some days I absolutely loathed running.  Other days, I was neutral about it.  I don't think I ever fell in love with the sport.

Anyway, I purposely got up super early Friday morning to catch the Royal Wedding and also as a way to adapt my internal time clock for the next day's race.  Saturday morn, we got up around the same time and headed to downtown Pensacola to catch the bus for our Fiesta 5k race.  It was a point-to-point race, so a bus took us to the starting line, and we would be finishing near where we parked the car.  We ended up catching the very first bus and had to wait almost an hour at the starting line.  B was whining about it the whole time.

I didn't bring my camera--this was taken after we got home and I'd taken off my knee brace by then.

However, it was a beautiful morning and a beautiful course that was mostly downhill.  I had a few goals for this race: not walking, not puking or feeling like I needed to do so (this happened the last time I attempted a 5k because I hadn't trained at all).  Another goal was to finish with B and maybe even hold his hand across the finish line.  You can imagine how he felt about the latter.  He picked up some speed on the downhill part, so I had to work really hard to catch up.  At the very end of the course, a 9-year-old boy bolted with the two of us to the finish line.  I was sprinting against B, and he was trying not to beat the kid and have everyone hate him.  I did grab his hand as I finished slightly ahead, so it kinda looked like I was dragging him.  We both finished with a time of 31:08, coming in 161st and 162nd.  It definitely helped that all the really fit people were running in the 10k and not the 5k part!  Also, the first 10k finisher did not beat us, so that's a triumph right there (his time was 37:26).

My sweet race bib, with electronic timing strips on the inside.  Fancy.

As much as I thought I hated running, I felt AWESOME after this race.  We even got free bagels from Bagelheads!  I think I might even do some more this summer, if I really love the charity where the money is going.  I may not do them with B though, since he'll just whine the whole time.  His co-worker likes to run though, so maybe I'll just do them with her.

So this weekend also included my two choir concerts.  While we were waiting around for the start of the race, I started singing one of our songs to myself.  It's called "Guide My Feet," and I know it's cheesy that I took a metaphor completely literally like that.  But I convinced B to record it yesterday, so here's the Gulf Coast Chorale singing it.  I'm toward the top left, behind everyone, the youngest-looking one in the group.



(Yes, this was at my fabulous church here in P-cola.  I love the color, and the acoustics were impressive.  It's hard to find a Catholic church built in the past 15 years that isn't stark white.  Also, B was sitting too close to get the whole group in the picture. This is about half of us.)

mardi gras on the gulf

Hey, guess what today is?!  I usually never did much to celebrate beyond eating pancakes, but now I live on the Gulf Coast and it's a huge deal here.  I'm Catholic and Easter is my favorite holiday, so I guess I should be celebrating this too!  They call it "Mardi Gras season," which is kinda weird since that literally means "Fat Tuesday" in French.  They also celebrate "Lundi Gras" (yesterday), but really this season is just Carnival and it culminates today.  The entire season actually started on "12th Night" which was Epiphany.  I think there was some type of celebration to kick it off here.  And with Easter so late this year, this is a really long season for parties!

Did you know that Carnival means "farewell to flesh/meat" (think of the Spanish word carne)?  Yep, we're partying here to prepare for our Lenten fasting, which begins tomorrow (Ash Wednesday).  Watching Protestants celebrate Mardi Gras and then not actually do anything for Lent always kinda bugs me.

When we took our New Orleans trip a few weeks back, we got to witness the first Mardi Gras parade of the season, the Krewe du Vieux.  (A krewe is just an organization that puts on a parade or a ball during the season.  Each parade float was made by a different krewe.)  All the locals (mostly our super-awesome hotel staff) told us this parade was "family friendly" and "satirical."  We were actually kind of underwhelmed by it (not drunk enough?), and also had to question the New Orleans definition of "family friendly."  This has got to be one of the most European cities in the U.S. based on this alone.  I (accidentally-on-purpose) punched a styrofoam sperm before witnessing this nightmare: 

Scarred for life.

To counter that experience, we went to the Pensacola Grand Mardi Gras Parade this past weekend, and it definitely fit the American-Puritan definition of "family friendly."  They also threw way more beads and moon pies.  The New Orleans parade didn't actually throw beads; they just handed them out because most people were walking, not actually on floats.  I actually couldn't get a ton of pictures from the Pensacola parade because I was too busy trying to not get smacked in the head with the deluge of beads!  There were a couple floats that were absolutely nuts.  It was so fun!

Pensacola Grand: people on floats, beads a-flying

Let's compare the "parade throw haul" from each parade, shall we?

From Krewe du Vieux.  I threw most of this out except the dreidel and the headband.

From Pensacola Grand Parade.  T-shirt, moon pies, Hershey bars, and silly bands, oh my!

Here's a dumb video of me receiving a plastic lobster by the skin of my teeth at the New Orleans parade, as recorded by my "boyfriend" (LOL):





Well, as they say around these parts, "Laissez les bons temps rouler!"  Until tomorrow, that is, because then my bum will be here:

This really is my Pensacola parish.  Gorgeous, but even more so in person when you see the stained glass.