37

Back in November I turned 37. It's pretty close to 40 and I'm not happy about that, but what are you going to do. I was surprisingly shocked when we went to the airport Friday night to pick up our nephew (who is a pilot and flying all over Florida right now) and in walks my best friend.

I really can't believe the hubby pulled this off. Obviously he had a lot of help from Shannon and a little help from my friend Beth, but I give him a lot of credit. I was completely surprised. I woke up Saturday morning and participated in my first 10k race. Nice little run to start of my birthday. Runs, and birthday's, are a lot more fun when you have friends with you.

 That's a photo finish right there.

I had one birthday goal and that was to finish this race under a 10 minute mile. Well, there you go.

The day was full of surprises. My friend Magaly, who had no idea that Shannon was even in town, decided to stay the rest of the weekend. We all went for massages and then we were off to dinner that night. But before dinner, a competitive round of Bingo. They didn't even let me win.

 Taken before we walked in the restaurant.

Where, guess what? Another surprise was waiting for me. A table full of friends there to celebrate me. Here I was thinking it was just the 3 of us and then I realized Shannon pulled another fast one on me. She had been in Facebook communication with a group of my workout friends and coordinated this whole thing from NY. See people. Social media is sometimes a good thing.

It was a pretty special 37th birthday. Definitely one for the books. You guys better start planning my 40th for me. This one is going to be hard to beat.

scuba diving, part two

I felt better the next day. My ears bothered me a little, but I was prepared for that. I was ready to tackle those last two dives so we headed off to Devil's Den. I lived around Gainesville my entire life and have never been to this place. You start at the top of a narrow and steep staircase...

And then you go down a little further...

Until you get to this. Why didn't anyone ever tell me about this place? It's incredible!

I loved everything about it, except for the cold water part. We finished up all of our skills on the first dive so the second dive was all for play. Mark took his camera down there and we got some cool shots of us pretending like we knew what we were doing.

 All we had left to do was to log our dives and have Mark sign off on everything. That was the easy part.

None of this would have been possible if it wasn't for Mark and April. We've been neighbors now for 10 years. But honestly, they are so much more than that. We've been through all kinds of highs and lows with them and they truly are some of our dearest friends. I love this lady.

And there you have it. We are now certified divers!

And let's not forget about Timmy. He curled up in our bags and hung out with us all day. I really wanted to bring him home. He was the sweetest thing.

Now we're all ready to dive the Keys in August.

scuba diving, part one

I thought to myself, there is no way I'm ever going to make it through this. When our friend Mark said we could become certified divers, Michael was thrilled! Me? Not so much. I have this little fear of drowning that caused me to almost hyperventilate every time we talked about it. But I figured I give it a shot. The lessons start out in the pool that is only 4 feet deep so what's the worst that can happen. I can just stand up. 

Those first few breaths underwater were pretty terrifying. Breathing underwater is great for fish. Not so natural for humans.

I had a whole new level of confidence the next time we got in the water. And I figured that by the time we got to our open water dives I would at least feel like I wasn't going to die. 

The time had come. We drove over to the springs outside of Gainesville. I had to make it through four 20 minute dives in two days. We walked down to the entry site at Blue Grotto and my palms were sweaty just looking at this hole in the ground. 

I was really worried about two things: my breathing and my ears. Much to my surprise I had no issues with breathing. I jumped in that freezing water with three layers of wetsuit on and not once was I nervous about drowning. I did have some trouble with my first descent. Learning how fast or slow to go down is something we couldn't practice in the pool. At a max depth of 6 ft you don't have to worry about clearing your ears. On our second dive I went down face to face with April. I modeled her pace and how often she was clearing her ears. It helped me tremendously! I realized that it wasn't a race and I could go as slow as I wanted. It's so nice diving with people who have been doing this for 20+ years. You learn a lot just by watching.

Two dives down. After all the required skills were complete we spent a little time just looking around. We saw a neat school of fish and Virgil the resident turtle. That thing is friendly, but scared the crap out of me when he came up on me from behind, swam under me, and came up near my face. April got a good laugh out of that one. I got a good laugh every time we entered the water. That 72 degree water rushing into your wetsuit and down your spine is no fun. All sorts of girly screams came out of us. That night we had a nice dinner with Mark and April and took our final exam back at the hotel.

For the record, I scored higher than Michael.

i had a birthday

It's been a month since I turned 36. The day was pretty uneventful. I went to work, had a salad for lunch and then hung out with my favorite people that night. And since it was my birthday, I let the kids jump on the bed.

I really want to blow one of these up and hang it above her bed.

I got a lot of extra hugs and kisses that day.

The weekend before I did celebrate with my bestie. Shannon took me out for a night on the town and I danced until my feet hurt.

Not a bad way to turn 36.

costumes, round two

Morgan was allowed to dress up for Halloween at school. Instead of candy they trick-or-treat for their lunch. For the second year in a row she opted for the tiger ensemble.

 

 Her teacher was kind enough to snap this one for me.

 Maybe I took a million of almost the same picture. Doesn't matter. She's the cutest!

pumpkin carving

We cut it close this year. We waited until the week of Halloween to get a pumpkin and who knew there was a pumpkin shortage? The patches were out and most of the stores were as well. Good thing the fancy patch at Publix came through for me. Addison chose a cat for her pumpkin and Morgan an owl. Addison was very hands on this year.

They quickly got to work. They started with spoons, but I encouraged them to get their hands dirty.

Addison had no problem digging in and getting those guts out.

Morgan was much more girly about it. She didn't like the way it felt or how it was going to make her hands dirty. After checking it out she decided to give it a try.

But it didn't last long. She went back to the spoon.

I yelled out that it was time to go carve pumpkins and asked them to put shoes on. Morgan goes into her room and comes back out with just this leotard on. I was dying. I sent her back in to at least put some shorts on. Not your typical pumpkin carving outfit, but I guess it works.

Addison insisted that she was old enough to actually use the knife and carve her pumpkin this year. We some serious supervision and help I let her give it a try. She actually did the majority of it by herself.

Yes I'm white as a ghost, and yes I have pumpkin all over my legs. Carving is definitely a messy job.

Another successful year of pumpkin carving.