Where Are We Now?

With so much going on the past couple of months I haven’t had a single moment, that I wasn’t too exhausted, to sit down and blog. This makes me sad:( I so love to document all of the craziness in our lives and it has been hard not being able to keep up. I will eventually find the time to blog about the MANA CONCERT we went to with Lucy and Joe. The CRUISE we went on with Rich’s parents, my mom and brother. Our LAST VISIT TO THE BEACH before we left Florida and the end of our Florida adventure.

*sigh*

Where are we now? We are at Rich’s parents house in Missouri. Thankfully, we have been so busy having fun that we haven’t really had too much time to be sad about leaving our Florida home. So, for now, that is what I’m going to focus on. The day after we got here, we drove out to Branson for my nephews baptism. Julian was so happy, it was such a blessing to be there for that special day in his life.

(all 10 of my mom’s grandkids)

(My sweet Julian with his grandpa, who baptized him, and his grandma)

We’ve been out in the sticks of Marshfield ever since and the kids have had so much fun! Maya loves nature. She has been mimicking the birds she hears.  Chasing bunnies, frogs and turtles. Admiring all of grandma’s pretty flowers and enjoying every “beautiful day”, that’s in her own words.

Have you ever seen “Puss In Boots”? Those eyes!!!!!

The kids have been having such a good time spending most of every day outside eating and playing.

I know he needs a haircut, but he has decided that he wants to grow his hair out longer. He specifically told me that I couldn’t cut his hair anymore. We’ll see how much longer I can stand it.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this we celebrated Father’s Day. Sadly, I was a lame wife on Father’s Day. I swear I feel like I haven’t even really had a chance to breathe! I think the awesome gift I ordered for Rich made up for it though:D Anyway, we celebrated with the whole fam.

(Beth’s fruit baby)

Much fun was had by all…

Happy Father’s Day, fathers!

All of the Baker kids with dad.

We are finally settling in and I’m starting to feel like I’m sort of developing a new daily routine. So much more to add but for now I will end with one of my favorite pictures;)

Thanks for the wink, Maya!

Dr. Baker Is In The House!!!!

Yes world, my husband IS a doctor.

Before I jump into graduation let me just post a few pics of us looking all fancy for the Pharmacy Banquet. It was so fun getting all dressed up and going out for a nice dinner.

Rich’s mom took some pictures of us before we left for a good time.

Showing off my haircut which I hated but now I actually really like it!

Ok, so now I shall move on to graduation. I can hardly believe that it has come and gone. What we started 6 years ago has finally been accomplished and I am one proud wife.

You know how on The Office, Angela always refers to her husband as “the senator”? Yeah, I’m totally gonna refer to Rich as “the doctor”, hahaha!

We are down to our last few days out here in Florida. We will soon be off on our next adventure with a short layover in Missouri. While it has been so hard to come to terms with the fact that we will soon be leaving Florida, I’m starting to get really excited about Utah. What does the future hold? I can’t wait to find out!

Nana Jackie

Why am I SOOO behind with my blogging? I will tell you why. Because of FAMILY and I wouldn’t have it any other way! Wow, let me tell you , it has been a busy, crazy fun week! Where to start, where to start…

On May 25, which was a Friday, we were joined by 3 really awesome people, Rich’s parents and Grandma! I love them so much! We took a little drive down to Miami to take them to see Coral Castle.

Wow, look! I’m actually in a family picture!

A picture with Nana Jackie:)

I think Rich’s parents and Jackie were more excited about their hotel than us! They raved about the breakfast and the pool so naturally we had to spend some time out there swimming.

 

Attempting the impossible, getting a pic of all 3 kids under the waterfall.

The kids loved Nana Jackie! She cracked them up and was so playful with them. They shared a special moment when Nana carried on Granddad’s tradition of giving the kids gold dollar coins.

With family in town we HAD to take them to eat our favorite tacos! Alegria Tacos got so many visits from us during that week and everybody loved it! We love our friends at Alegria.

Yum!

  

We so enjoyed our visit from Nana Jackie! She is a special lady. She is so full of energy and spunk. I’m really excited to live closer to her so that we can visit her and continue to build our family relationship.

Keys 100 Say What!?!?

I’m still a little in awe. MY HUSBAND RAN 100 MILES! It’s so hard to comprehend what this man can accomplish when he puts his mind to it. Since I’ve known him he has been into fitness and running but nothing like this! You can see all of his previous runs HERE.  He ran his 1st marathon 3 months ago and of course one would naturally think the next step is a 1oo mile run, right?

He left Friday the 18th in the afternoon and drove down to Key Largo for a mandatory meeting. He spent the night down there and was ready to start running at 6am on Saturday. Most of the runners had a crew that would meet up with them every few miles and give them whatever they needed like water, ice, food, dry socks/shoes, etc.  We had hoped that I would be able to crew him but with all 3 kids that just wasn’t possible. We decided that I was just going to stay home with the kids. Little did he know that I was planning to drive down there and surprise him all along:D

This is how it went down:

On Saturday the 19th in the morning he started running at 6am. Aidan had a birthday party to go to so I got everything ready in the morning, took the kids to the party then headed down to the Keys. He would text me the mile marker he was at every now and then. At 10am he was at mile marker 78. He maintained a nice steady pattern of running 25 minutes/walking 5 minutes during the first 12 hours. I got a text at mile markers 72 and 65 and then I called him. I met him at mile marker 59 which means he had run 41 miles! He looked great!

It was so fun being there for him and watching him actually accomplishing the goal that he had set and worked so hard for. We stuck around for a few hours and met up with him every couple miles to fill up his water and give him ice.

Waiting for daddy.

Here he comes!

High five!

We decided we would give daddy a little more uninterrupted running time and meet him at the 50 mile marker so I took the kids to Kmart to play with the toys. Then, Rich texted me when he was close to the 50mm and we rushed over to greet him.

So proud! He was doing so well. He looked even better than he did after his marathon! I couldn’t believe how great he looked and how positive his attitude was. A lot of the other runners were lying down, limping and just straight crashing at the half way point but not Rich, he was smiling and excited to get started on the last 50 miles! His feet were wrinkled from running in wet shoes but luckily he had a dry pair waiting there for him.

 

This was where we said goodbye:(

We wished him luck and sent him on his way. I made the drive back home, put the kids and myself to bed while Rich continued running and running and running…through the night. I didn’t get any texts from him all night and when I woke up in the morning and saw that he still hadn’t texted me I got worried. Was he ok? Did he make it or was he still running? At 6:45 am he texted me: “Mm11, long night, will call when I can, love you!!”

Holy cow! He was still running! As I came to find out later he had made a friend that couldn’t run because of an injury and he walked with him the whole night. He said that it was miserable walking and that it made his feet hurt more but he was glad to have a buddy who’s wife was crewing him so he was also taken care of through out the night. It was a miserable, rainy, cold, long night but he said that as soon as the sun came up in the morning he felt rejuvenated. He had told his buddy that as soon as the sun came up he was going to take off running and that is exactly what he did. With 11 miles to go he took off running! He said he felt fresh with a renewed energy and he definitely took advantage of it. He said that he ran his last 10miles at a 7:30 pace! He was flying, passing a ton of people who cheered him on for having the energy to book it after so many miles.

Then, I got this:D

I remember when he first showed me a picture of that buckle and said, “Wouldn’t it be so cool to get that?”.  There he was, holding the buckle. I was so ridiculously proud of him! I still am. It is so amazing to me that he can accomplish ANYTHING that he puts his mind to. Congrats Honey! You are incredible!