Blue Ridge Relay from September

I know I am so behind, but I had to blog about one of the neatest experiences I have ever had, The Blue Ridge Relay. It is a running relay made up of teams from 4-12 people. There are 36 legs in the relay and the distances and difficulty vary from leg to leg. It starts in Grayson Highland Park in Virginia and finishes in Asheville, NC, for a total of 211 miles. There were 100 teams in the relay and the starts were staggered throughout the morning of Sept. 11. This relay takes you through the back country of NC mountains, through some towns, on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and up a 1400 foot mountain, which I will get to. You must stay in order of the legs you run. Our team had 10 people so that meant 6 of us ran 4 legs of the relay. My legs were 1, 11, 21, 31. Teams usually have two vans and you drop the current runner off and pick up the one finishing at the exchange zone (usually a church parking lot) and drive to the next zone to wait. The relay runs through the night into the next day. We finished around 2 pm on Sat. I was lucky enough to be asked by a group of professors from the PT dept and athletic training dept at Western Carolina. They knew Grant's wife was a runner and needed another person so that is how I ended up in this crazy, insane, exhilirating, inspiring relay.
I ran the first leg for our team, which was 4-miles downhill. It was wonderful! I talked with a PT from another team the entire time and we ran it in 26 minutes! I handed off and hopped into the van to rest and eat and take a break before leg 11. It was so fun at exchange zones chatting with other runners from other teams and watching and cheering for others as well. I even met a team from Memphis and one of the guys knew my brother, Andrew. Go figure!
Leg 11: My second leg was 6.2 miles, rated difficult, on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I am sure the people passing us in the cars thought we were a little crazy! I think this was my favorite leg. It was hard, but I was still feeling good and not sleep deprived yet. Oh, and I was wearing my, "Running is my Prozac" shirt!
Leg21: By this time I had used more port-o-johns then I ever cared to in my entire life. I had trouble getting any rest and it was around 2am when the bracelet was handed off to me. Luckily, this was a very short leg of only 2.4 miles and fairly flat. It ran through downtown Spruce Pine, NC so I had some street lights. At night the runners had to wear head lamps, reflective vests, and blinking lights. I was looking good :)! I handed off in a 24 hour Ingles Grocery parking lot and had to go in to get some cough medicine and fluids! I was tired and questioning my sanity at this point knowing my last leg I would run is arguably the hardest leg of the relay.
Leg 31: Okay, I had hardly any sleep, more port-o-johns, an upset stomach, and telling myself I will never do this craziness ever again! This leg is famous and known as mountain goat hard. It is 6.5 miles straight up a mountain. You gain 1400 feet in elevation and never go downhill. Oh yeah. I took the bracelet about 8:30am. I told myself it was okay if I had to walk. However, my competive nature and mental games kept me from walking. Just run 10 min, then it was go another 10. I passed some walkers and felt inspired I was running. As vans passed to go to the exchange zone at the top they would cheer very loudly and one team even jumped out of their van and made a bridge for me to run through as they encouraged and said, "you're our hero"! I didn't even know these people. Just as I thought this leg would never end, I saw the promised land. The top! Waiting were my teammates cheering along with some other teams waiting on their runner cheering and giving me high fives. As I handed the bracelet to my teammate, Jeremiah, for his 9-mile downhill run, I had never felt a feeling of victory for running the entire mountain in under an hour (barely), but also a feeling of "dang I am done. When can we do this again?".
We were all able to run the last 100-yards across the finish line together as a team at around 2 pm in Asheville. Our team finished mid-pack of the 100 teams, but that was not the point. The experience and challenge is incredible and I am a relay junkie now! Ready to do it again! Can you tell??

Graduation and Perdido Key, FL

Grant graduated Physical Therapy school on Aug. 7, 2009! We are so proud of all of his hard work. He has passed his boards and is now working at Haywood Regional Outpatient here in Waynesville. On Aug. 8, we left for Perdido Key, FL. We met my mom and brother, Andrew, AKA "Ah Ah" there. We had a great time and had great weather. Maggie really liked the water and liked eating the sand even more! Ellie had fun playing in the waves, but this year wanted to go to the pool every chance she got. We got to go see the Blue Angels practice in Pensacola, which was awesome. We also toured the National Aviation museum and Ellie loved getting to get into several planes and pretend she was flying. We also ate at Wolf Bay Lodge, which is somewhere we used to eat as kids when we went to Gulf Shores. My cousin Rebecca and her family were at the Beach as well and came ove one night. Ellie loved big girl Tiley and Tiley was so sweet to read books to Ellie and play hide and seek with Ellie and Andrew. Ellie kept calling the condo, Lynndy's house, so I told my mom she will be disappointed next time we go to Lynndy's house and we don't go to the beach! Enjoy the pictures.

Pics from DC and 4th of July

I am backing up a little bit to our trip to see my brother, Bo, and family in Washington, DC in June. Ellie had alot of fun playing with Brinson and Maggie hung out and watched most of the time! Brinson did a lot of loving on Maggie, which is good since he is about to have a baby sister. We also visited Arlington National Cemetary. My great-great uncle, George Grant, is buried there so we found his tombstone. He is buried near boxer, Joe Louis.
My younger brother, Andrew, came to visit over the 4th of July weekend. Ellie refers to him as "Ah Ah", which is the sound a monkey makes. We went to the river, East Laporte, and swam and played around. On Sat. we went to the festivities on Main St. and then that afternoon we headed to our church, where I was in charge of the 4th of July festivities. I was busy making sure everything went as planned, but we all had a wonderful time and the fireworks were fantastic as usual.

Maggie loves to climb!

This is a video of Maggie climbing into a stroller yesterday. She is spiderwoman! Good thing we were near her the first time she did it! She is so different from Ellie it is amazing. She loves to climb up the stairs now, too! And she can be up them in no time! We used to sit Ellie on the bottom step before the landing and have her practice standing up and taking steps to us. SO we tried this with Maggie. She sits on that step for a second, looks at us, turns around, and starts climbing! We have to watch this one like a hawk.

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Hotty Toddy!

I am a proud mama! Ellie has learned all the words to the G-rated version of the Ole Miss cheer, "Hotty Toddy". She was so cute doing the cheer with the pom poms. The words to the G-rated cheer are "Hotty Toddy gosh almighty who the "heck" are we. Flim flam, bim bam Ole Miss "yes mam".
She is quite the little girl these days and is so amazing. She has her daddy's memory and can sing a song after only hearing it one time. I asked her the other day if she was going to be a dcotor and she said, "No. Maggie, doctor. Ellie, climber. I climb hills!" Another funny story is that we tell her when she is naked that she is "naked as a jay bird" an old saying that both Grant and I heard growing up. SO the other day she was naked and I told her to put some clothes on. She looked at me and said, "I wanna be jay bird". :)
Maggie is slithering everywhere. She is now pulling up on everything and standing on her own for several seconds. She is trying to walk so she can keep up with her big sister. She is into everything and we have to keep an eye on her at all times!

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Maggie's Baptism- June 14, 2009

Maggie was baptized on June 14 at our church, Longs Chapel United Methodist Church. Our wonderful pastor, Rev. Chuck Wilson, along with our associate minister, Alan Mears, performed the baptism. It was so sweet. Maggie did great! When Pastor Chuck took her she started to grab his microphone off his shirt. She grabs everything! The cutest was when they put the water on her head she sneezed. Pastor Chuck walked her up and down the aisles and sang, "Jesus Loves the Little Children" to her and then had the congregation sing along as well. It was a wonderful celebration and blessing. Our Sunday School leaders also stood up front with us. We had many friends there as well as family for the celebration. We went to Lake Junaluska afterwards for pictures, but Maggie was zonked! We still got some good pictures.
The dress Maggie wore is the same one Ellie wore when she was baptized last year. It was made for and worn by Grant's sister, Maigan, and also worn by his cousin, Allyson. It is a beautiful dress and very special that both girls have gotten to wear it.

Ellie's 2nd Birthday Party!

We had Ellie's 2nd birthday party on June 13th. It was a princess celebration! She wore her special outfit and thanks to my mom, Lynndy, Ellie had a party fit for a princess. She made a castle for Ellie and turned our garage into a fairy land. We had several neighbors come and some friends as well as many of our family members. I believe everyone had a great time. Ellie really enjoyed opening her presents! Maggie even snuck some cake when we were not looking! It was a grand day and we were all very tired after all of teh festivities!