life lately {april}

Posted in Random by Kendra G.

kenley got to have lunch with meemaw and grandpa at school to end their spring break visit.

kenley’s artwork was selected to be in the wolf pup art gallery at school for the last nine weeks of the year. they held an opening reception for the art gallery for the students, it was awesome!

our little artist!

twinning on a run!

ucf celebrates the arts!

more twinning.

kenley is certainly outnumbered.

april supper club

soccer saturdays continued.

when you play against one of your besties.

as did tee ball!

more art from the school wide art fair!

kenley lost another tooth!

we celebrated hudson’s birthday at the science center!

saturday morning run.

easter cookie decorating at 4rivers!

easter sunday at church!

easter brunch!

the kids had a blast looking for easter eggs

post-easter brunch brewery meet up

symphony under the stars on campus

on kenley’s half birthday, i was the mystery reader in her class! she was so excited.

beer garden in avalon

baby cam!

we loved visiting with the rosemans while they were at disney!

first grade field trip to dinosaur world!

sunday brunch with scott and katie while they were in town!

***

it was a busy april with games every weekend and lots of time with friends.

24Jul2019

Indiana {March 2019}

Posted in Family, Travel by Kendra G.

To kick off spring break, we headed up to Indiana for a long weekend. The weekend was full of family, friends, and celebrations before heading back home.

We were so thankful to see so many family members in such a short time, most of which made the trip to visit us.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, we ran the Shamrock Beer Run 5k in downtown Indy. It was our first beer run and probably our coldest run to date. It was freezing! Thankfully the beer stops helped us warm up. Downtown Indianapolis was absolutely beautiful on the brisk day.

We ended the day celebrating Grandma Sue’s 80th birthday! We had a lovely dinner with family to celebrate our special lady.

We also got to visit with several old friends and meet new little friends while we were there! Again, we were so thankful that everyone made room for us during their busy weekends.

One major highlight of the long weekend was the snow! Yes…in March…during spring break…the kids saw snow for the first time! They loved playing outside as the big snowflakes fell to the ground. It didn’t last long, but it was memorable.

We made one more quick stop to visit the birthday girl before heading to the airport.

We had a great, long weekend which was action packed. Needless to say, it took a bit for all of us to recover.

25Jun2019

BDR Orlando + Smile Mile {march 2019}

Posted in Running by Kendra G.

On March 2nd, I ran the Best Damn Race 10k in downtown Orlando. Much like previous years, it was a great race! We did run/walk intervals the whole time and finished in 1:07.02. As always, there was a great crowd, including many friends, and a lively after party.

After a quick celebration, we headed over to Blue Jacket Park for the Track Shack Smile Mile! This was Kenley’s second year running the mile and she did far better than last year! Since Crosby already turned five years old, he could run the race, so I signed him up with our elementary school even though he wasn’t in kindergarten yet. I was nervous for him, but he did a great job!

Showing off our hard earned medals! It was a great morning of running.

10Jun2019

BDR Savannah {February 2019}

Posted in Running, Travel by Kendra G.

In February, Greg and I headed to Savannah, Georgia with several other couples to run the Best Damn Race 5k and half marathon. It was our first time in Savannah and the inaugural Best Damn Race in the city!

After packet pick up and checking into the hotel, we headed out for an Italian dinner with the group.

The next morning, we headed over to Forsyth Park for the start of the race.

Our group was a mix of 5k runners and half marathon runners. The half marathon started before the 5k, but they obviously finished well before we did, so they set up shop to cheer for all of us as we rounded the last corner and headed to the finish line.

It was great to see their smiling faces as I rounded that corner. Overall, my race was pretty good. There were definitely some picturesque portions of the race, and some that weren’t so, but I don’t have many complaints. I felt pretty good for most of the race and ran a 2:25.09. Considering where I currently am with running, I was pleased with that time.

Greg had an awesome 5k race and got to ring the PR bell! He wanted to run it under 30 minutes and came in at 29:56!

In the afternoon, we headed out on the Savannah Slow Ride bike tour.

We had so much fun spending the weekend with our friends. We’re already ready for BDR Savannah 2020!

7Jun2019

Shark Bite Half Marathon {race recap}

Posted in Running by Kendra G.

Back in January, I ran my first half marathon of 2019, the Shark Bite half marathon in New Smyrna Beach. Fun fact: New Smyrna Beach is the shark attack capital of the world… hence the race name.

This was my first time running this race. The best part about it was my dear friend from college, Kelly, was in town so we ran it together!

The morning started out a bit chilly (remember: January), so I had on a long sleeve shirt. I did not think, however, that we’d be picking up our race packet that morning and the race didn’t have a gear check. Therefore, I started the race wearing a tank, t-shirt, and a long sleeve shirt. Needless to say, the long sleeve shirt was stripped off very quickly once I warmed up.

We ran a solid 11 miles, then opted to do more walking for the last two miles. Overall, it was a fun race. Mostly because of the company. I loved getting to run and chat for 2+ hours with Kelly!

After the race, we got our beers and our pint glasses and walked along the beach. It almost felt colder with the wind coming off the water after the race, so it was a short lived beach walk.

Hands down, this was the largest medal I’ve ever run for!

Thanks for a good run, NSB!

6Jun2019

Lady Track Shack 5k {race recap}

Posted in Running by Kendra G.

I’m not sure if you all still remember us… it’s been a while! I have some serious catching up to do.

The girls got together in January to run the Lady Track Shack 5k. This was my fifth year running the race and Kenley’s second year! If you take a look back at last year’s photos, you can see there was far less whining along the course. We had our watches set to run for two minutes and walk for one minute, which worked out great! She ran twice as long as she walked along the way.

Thanks for another great run, Track Shack!

11Feb2019

my weekend in photos

Posted in Random by Kendra G.

after being sick for too long, i finally got out for a run on friday.

kenley says this is her favorite ride in all of disney and she truly loves it, but this is her face every single time, without fail.

the rock-n-roller coaster group.

we finally made it on slinky dog dash!

so excited and well worth the wait.

slinky!

sweet girls.

goofy kids.

tower of terror!

this is one of crosby’s favorite parts of hollywood studios.

vamprina!

we had such a fun day with this group!

kicked off the week with four miles!

***

we had a great day on saturday and a low key sunday. overall, a fun weekend!

how was yours?

1Feb2019

life lately {january}

Posted in Random by Kendra G.

I have been slacking on my blog posts in the last couple of months, so here is a quick (or, not so quick) recap of what we’ve been up to this month.

We kicked off the new year with the Fiesta Bowl! Unfortunately, the Knights started the new year with their first loss in a long time. We hoped for a better outcome but celebrated a great season and winning streak.

Christmas break ended and we resumed our regularly scheduled programming. Meemaw had to go home, and we headed back to Disney for the first time in a over a month.

Kenley played indoor soccer every Sunday in January and wrapped up her season this past weekend. She had a great time playing and it was exciting to watch.

We celebrated Tracy’s birthday with a chilly run and surprised her to cheer her on at the Disney half marathon over the weekend.

We had one brewery stop this month at Orlando Brewing.

We had several chilly runs this month, which was amazing!

We celebrated at four different birthday parties this month, two of which were at Double Down! Kenley got to go to Drive Shack and I am now realizing we need to get clubs in her hands more often.

Kelly was in town for work, so we got to hang out and run the Shark Bite half marathon together! I’ll share more pictures from the race soon.

We had a great family day at Epcot and enjoyed the winter weather.

The kids celebrated the 100th day of school! Crosby made a necklace out of 100 different Legos and Kenley dressed up as a 100 year old grandma… a stylish one, I may add.

Kenley and I joined some other girlfriends to run the Lady Track Shack 5k. She did awesome! I’ll definitely share more pictures from the race soon.

Greg headed up to North Carolina to see Mango and go to the Metallica concert this week. They had a great time!

We ended the month with the flu taking down Kenley. She’s on the mend now, but she missed four days of school! I did a lot of purging of a lot of things in the house while we were home on those sick days. It feels great to start the year off with less stuff laying around.

I hope to resume normal blog posts soon! I also have a bit more catching up to do, so stay tuned.

28Jan2019

Wine and Dine Half Marathon {race recap}

Posted in Running by Kendra G.

In November, Heather and I ran the Wine and Dine Half Marathon! This was my second Run Disney race and yet again, it did not disappoint.

I headed down to the expo on Friday night after work. I went by myself which gave me some time to browse the booths and do a little bit of shopping, but the expo closed at 7pm, so I didn’t have a ton of time.

It was a good thing I didn’t have the kids, because there was a lot of walking involved between picking up the race bib and the race shirt. I’m talking two completely different buildings here…in the rain.

We did not stay on Disney property for this race as Greg had to work the whole weekend. Thankfully, my mom came to town to watch the kids while I ran. We started the morning around 3:30am and headed down to the Epcot parking lot and finish line to park the car. From there, we hopped on a bus to take us to the Magic Kingdom parking lot to start the race.

Since I registered for this race well enough in advance, I was able to submit a proof of time earning me a spot in corral C. We started the race after about only 20-25 minutes of waiting. Oddly enough, it started raining when we were in the corral.

Our first park was Animal Kingdom! We took a slightly different route through the park and were able to run through Pandora at dawn. It was the perfect amount of light, but it was also dark enough to see the glow of the lights through Pandora. The picture doesn’t do it justice.

From Animal Kingdom, we had several miles of open road before reaching our next park. Along the way, we saw a toy soldier! We were in line to get our picture with him, but then he started making the runners do push-ups, so we were out!

We entered Hollywood Studios around the ten mile mark. It’s amazing how the worst part of the race (miles 10-13.1) is filled with the most fun stuff! It’s such a great distraction. We ran through the back of the park by the Tower of Terror and saw Mr. and Mrs. Incredible just as we entered. Hollywood Studios is our favorite park, so we stopped a couple times for some pictures before heading out.

We made our way through the Boardwalk on our way to Epcot and most importantly, the finish line. We saw the Swan and Dolphin resort, the Boardwalk resort, and lots of spectators!

We entered Epcot at the entrance coming from the Boardwalk and ran down through England. We circled back towards France to run through the rest of the countries around the world.

As we made our way towards the finish line, we passed the giant golf ball and headed into the Epcot parking lot.

We unintentionally timed our finish perfectly and headed into Epcot as soon as the park opened at 9am. We celebrated with mimosas in the Wine & Dine Festival Center.

One of the best perks of the race this time around was that I was able to download all of my race photos since Photo Pass is included with our annual pass. We made every effort to get our picture taken by every Photo Pass photographer we saw!

It ended up being my worst race on the clock, but my best race on the course. I absolutely love running though the parks, seeing all of the Disney characters, hearing all of the entertainment, and enjoying the entire Run Disney experience!