Happy 5-Friday!

Welcome to the end of a very very busy week! School is finally out, YAHOO!!! Chris is so happy to finally be out of school. Cheryl's been out for a month already, she starts back at college summer school next week. Jim has started his part-time summer route... Welcome summer vacation!!!

It's still Friday... just barely... and here are my Friday-5! I noticed today that I have five library books on my coffee table waiting to be read.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Airman by Eoin Colfer

The Ironhand (Stoneheart Trilogy, Book Two) by Charlie Fletcher

City of Glass (Mortal Instruments, Book Three) by Cassandra Clare

The Awakening (Darkest Powers, Book 2) by Kelley Armstrong

I hope you enjoyed my Friday-5... See you next Friday, if not before!

Now I've gotta get reading so I can finish all these before they are due, LOL!

Friday-5

Some of my friends participate in the Thursday-13, where they make of list of 13 random items on their blogs on Thursday. My friends Beth and Mara participate in Friday Favorites, where they make a list of their favorite things on Friday.

Well, I like the randomness of the Thursday 13 but I think 13 items are just too many! I like the Friday Favorites, but I want to list more than just my favorite things.... So, I've come up with my own blogging list called Friday-5! Hmmmm... now I think I need a blinkie. Oh well, that's something else I don't have time to do, LOL!

I've had music on my mind more than usual this week (probably because I've been without it). I went running at lunch on Monday and got caught in the rain... my poor little MP3 player didn't like that one bit! Yep, it gave up the ghost... I miss it. I ordered a new one from Amazon (with twice as much memory, YIPEE!) and I'm impatiently waiting for its arrival.

With music on my mind... here are five of my best running songs:

1.Born to Run - Bruce Springsteen

2. Beautiful Day - U2

3. Fame - Irene Cara

4. Let it Rock - Kevin Rudolf

5. Dreams - Van Halen

Free Photoshop Class

I usually don't post these types of things, unless there is a prize entry for me involved, ;oD ... This is a free online Photoshop class by the super talented Jessica Sprague. Her classes are always in such high demand (and most people pay to take them).

You can find all the info HERE:
http://www.jessicasprague.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=976:free-photo-editing-class&catid=1:latest&Itemid=148

All you need is Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. I have Photoshop, but I'm going to use the class to learn how to use Elements better.

Sign-up is on June 22... Hope to see you there!

Happy Birthday Jane!

My friend Jane (card artist extraordinaire) is having a Bloggy Birthday this month! She's celebrating with a great prize giveaway on her blog. Go check it out!
http://whoopsiedaisy-jane.blogspot.com/

Happy National Running Day!

It's been a wet wild Wednesday! We had thunder and lightning this morning, but I still managed to get out for a run at lunch. Cheryl even drove over to come with me. Chris ran after school. So that is our family's contribution to National Running Day!

I've been a bad blogger. Chris had a soccer tournament last weekend. The team did great!

His team lost their first game 0-3. (The team that they lost to went on to win the tournament.) Chris's team won their next two games. Chris showed his conditioning in the third game, when he was one of the few boys who could still run. He was moved to mark the fastest striker on the other team and was able to overtake him. They made it to the playoffs and were supposed to play for overall third place, but the other team didn't show up. So, they all came home with third place medals. I asked Chris if everyone was happy or sad that they didn't play. He said, "The ones that could still move were a little sad, but everyone else was happy!" LOL!

Cheryl was in a tournament Memorial Day weekend... now you know what a bad blogger I've been... Her team lost their first game; won their second game 3-0; tied their third game... and that put them in the semi-finals. They had to come back and play two more games Monday... both were loses. They came home with 4th place medals. The girls were so tired! I can only remember one other tournament where Cheryl played 5 games. On their one win of the weekend, Cheryl scored one of the three goals, and assisted the other two (one on a through ball to the striker and the other from a corner kick). I'm so excited, I actually caught her goal on film! Look at the placement of that ball!



Cheryl is playing in a tournament this weekend at World Cup. These will be her very last recreational soccer games.
Saturday - 2:15 and 7:15
Sunday - 10:30

PTI Blog Hop

This is my first blog hop for PTI. I've been hearing such wonderful things about their stamps, and now that I'm working, I finally ordered a set for myself.

The set I ordered is called Star Prints. I love using stars on layouts... maybe it's because I think my family are such super stars! LOL!

The challenge this month is to use yellow on a project. Here's my project. It's a layout of my son's cross country season... their school colors are black and gold.

Weekly Sports Report

Cheryl's little girl's team picked the name, "Quakes." How apropos since we just had an earthquake today! Anyway, her team won their first game, lost their second game, and won their third game on forfeit. All the teams in the pool were tied on points, but the Quakes went on to the finals because of goal differential. They ended up losing 4-3... it was an exciting game. They all came home with silver medals and were very happy!

Galaxy is hopeless! I guess you can agree with Galaxy PR that Galaxy is in an unbeaten streak... they've only lost one game this season... BUT they've only WON ONE GAME this season too! Another tie today against Columbus (the last place team in the MLS East)!

Next Week's Sports Schedule:
Chris: No Sports
Cheryl: Cheryl is skipping her BOB game since she has finals this week. She will be playing in a Soccer tournament in Cypress this weekend (SAT&SUN)

Chris and I have signed up for the 10K Turkey Trot. We couldn't convince Cheryl to run it with us, so it will be just the two of us. Still no luck finding a summer half-marathon... fall is out because it's during Cross Country season... so, it's looking like our next half-marathon won't be until winter. Lots of time for me to get out of shape {sigh}...

Have a great week everybody!

Our next race...

We had a conflict with Rock and Roll Seattle... Chris has a soccer tournament that same weekend. So we looked around and found a MUD RUN! ... and it's just down at Wild Rivers. We had the choice between a 5K and a 10K. Cheryl decided that she wants to run with us so we picked the 5K. Following the 5K is the EcoFest! It looks like a blast! See you there, July 18th!!!

There aren't very many choices for summer half marathons.
We're still looking!

Weekly Sports Report

We had a very quiet weekend... I hope you all had a great Mother's Day!

Cheryl was supposed to play with Team Bob on Tuesday, but when she got to the game she realized that she forgot her inhaler. She sat on the sidelines and watched Bob win 3-2. On Saturday, she had a scrimmage with another Mission Viejo team. They tied 3-3, with Cheryl scoring 2 out of the 3 goals for her team!


Here are some more photos of the OC half-marathon! This first photo is the only one I have of the great scenery through Newport Back Bay.
The next two are us in the sprint for the finish line!


...And with so many great photos, a layout is a MUST!!!

We've picked our next race!
I'll tell you more about that later!!!

Weekly Sports Report

We had a great sports week this week. We'll start with Cheryl... Cheryl had an amazing shot on goal playing with Bob Tuesday night. The keeper just managed to do a jumping dive and tip the ball over the top of the goal. Bob tied 2-2.

Cheryl did score with her AYSO team this weekend... She shot at least 30 yards out, curving the ball in with the outside of her foot (she just learned how to do that last Friday). It was an amazing goal! She also assisted another one of the goals. Her team won 3-1!

Chris had his last track meet of the season and matched his PR from last week... finishing the mile in 5:12. The coach was so pleased that he let Chris skip the 2-mile. Since I didn't get out of work in time to see the one mile, I didn't get to see Chris run at all.

Chris was amazing in his game on Saturday! He played all game running up and down the midfield. His team won 1-0. His team also had a game on Sunday (the won 2-0) but Chris didn't play because...

We ran a half-marathon!
The photos Cheryl took were pretty bad. I should have had her use the soccer camera.

Anyway, Chris and I started together. We both texted our mileage to Cheryl. Cheryl said that by the time I reached mile 7, Chris was already 2 miles ahead of me. Chris finished with a new PR (personal record) of 1 hour 33 minutes! HE CAME IN 4TH PLACE in his age group!!! The three boys that came in before him were all older than he was. If he came in 2 minutes faster, he would have come home with a trophy! He was so excited with is time! He came in 94th overall!... and was the first 16yr and younger runner to cross the finish line!

My goal was to finish in under 2 hours... I finished in 2 hours 14 seconds (sigh) oh well... I came in 53rd in my age group.

A guy tripped me up at the mile 6 water station. He was in line for water... I was running past the water line and he stepped out of line in front of me. I ended up tripping over his feet... I reached up and grabbed onto him. I'm sure glad his shorts were tied on tight, lol! I was stumbling for a good 5 seconds (I had so much momentum going). I'm also glad I didn't hit the ground, because that would have been the end of my race. I came in 1192 overall.

Chris is super excited about half-marathons again... this happened after the last half-marathon again too. He wants to run another one. We are considering... ARE YOU LISTENING BETH?... Rock and Roll Seattle!

Cheryl's new job

Cheryl has a new job! She's still tutoring 4th grade math, and now she's a Club Soccer Coach. She's assistant coach for a Girls U10 Bronze team at Saddleback United Soccer Club. She has a class to take to get her Level E coaching license before she can coach a game, but she starts showing up at practice on Monday!