Boricua en la Lima

Well, Memorial Day isn't celebrated in Switzerland.  Here the long weekend is NEXT weekend (something about Ascencion and who knows what else but hey I'll take it especially because it's longer than Memorial Day Weekend). In any case, we had our own unofficial kick off to summer by attempting the beaches around Geneva for the first time this year.  The weather was great and the kids had so much fun, mostly because this beach is so shallow they can walk around on their own for a really long time exploring the little "islands". Here is Gabi coming back from one of those little "islands". Next weekend we are going to the Cote D'Azur which kicks off our "crazy summer of traveling".  The husband has planned so much travel I don't know how we're going to fit it all in, but I won't complain!  We gotta take advantage of the fact that we're here for another year because we don't know what happens after the year whether we stay...

I finally did it! Best thing about the half-marathon yesterday? First, that it's over. Second, that I can rest for a couple of weeks before getting back into running. The weather was terrible on Saturday so we had no idea what would happen on Sunday for the race.  But we got really lucky because we got PERFECT weather -- not too warm, not too cold. And the rain held off until the moment I literally crossed the finish line.  There were actually moments when the sun was shining bright where it was actually a bit too hot. I had my iPhone GPS to help me keep pace (since all the markers were in KM and I still get confused about that) and I was doing really well.  I think I was on pace to finish between 2:03 and 2:05.  At mile 9 I saw Jose and the kids and that was so exciting I had to hold the tears in (cause otherwise I get kind of an asthma attack while running if I'm too excited).  Then right after I saw them my iPhone died.  There went my music, and th...

The best thing about Mother's Day yesterday was Jose letting me "sleep in" (even though with the kids screaming it was actually impossible to do) and then letting me nap with Sebas while he was napping.  Which of course I wasn't able to fully do because I wanted to read and stuff.  But I think I did get in about a 20 min. nap in there which is better than most days! We had wanted to make it a beach day but the beginning of the day was cold and dreary.  However, after we woke up from the nap it looked like an amazing day.  But by that time it was too late to go to the beach and next week I have the half-marathon so hopefully in a couple of weeks we can actually go to the beach.  After nap time we went to Scooby Doo Live, not my idea of how to spend a Mother's Day but at least the kids sat still for 2 hours! Gabi made me this card at school together with a really nice framed "painting".  My favorite part is that I've officially transitioned from ...

While my friends back in Cincinnati were getting ready for the Flying Pig yesterday morning, I was in the middle of my longest run before the half marathon a couple of weeks from now.  12 miles.  I went for a morning run this time just so I could try to get it over with earlier.  At the beginning Jose called me and by picking up the call I kinda messed up the whole GPS so the whole time I wasn't sure what was going on from a pacing standpoint.  But from the looks of it I was able to keep up a 10 min. per mile pace which I'm comfortable with for training.  Now I don't know if I'll be able to take that down to about 9:30 during actual race day so that I can beat my last time of 2 hours 10 minutes, but I'm honestly less concerned about the time than I am about actually finishing.  Because let me tell you my biggest lesson from this year's training is that doing those long runs solo is a really painful experience.  A very challenging mental exercise. ...