Everyone needs a little Joy in their life.....

Thank You!!

2012-01-20T00:11:00.000-08:00

These are words that I uttered over and over on race day. They just don't seem to cover my gratitude for all the people that helped me get to the finish line. My race weekend started like any other....off to the expo. Bought my traditional pin (I have one from every race), necessities, and walked around for a bit. The next day brought our TNT Inspiration Dinner which always puts things in perspective. We heard from a teenager from Tucson named Gabbi, who is a survivor who has seen more in her 15 years of life than any girl should. We got out last minute instructions and took pictures. We all headed home where we would try to sleep but most won't. Of course I didn't, I was too busy getting updates and then watching my friend, Jennifer, get 3rd runner up to Miss America. What is even cooler than that is the fact that her platform helps kids with life threatening illnesses and her ambition is to be a pediatric oncologist. So, she helping the fight in her way while I am helping in mine.

Race day is here! I got up too early....after getting very little sleep due to my hacking cough. One thing that I have not had happen before a race is getting sick. I had come down with the crud that everyone had right before Christmas and had the lovely residual cough, one that would haunt me for 26.2 miles.

So, we all meet up and head to the start. Check in our gear bags and head to the corrals. Almost all of us were in corral 8, so it was really cool starting with all my friends, even though we all run at different paces (waaaaaayyyyy different in my case). Our rolling/walking pit crew, Denise, Mary, and Sarah were at the start as well. I knew that I was going to appreciate their jobs, but at that time, I didn't realize how much I would. Delayed start. WHAT? I just want to get this show on the road for pete's sake! Finally! We are off!! Here we go.....no turning back now!!

I was doing pretty well for a few miles when the cough started in. Bummer! I was trying to keep my run/walk intervals going but this cough was making it a little hard. It made my first half slower than I would have liked. Thank you Coach Sara for walking most of this with me!! I loved hearing your opinions on the different houses we passed and just chatting with you. Luckily, you got the normal side of me before things got ugly.

Before I forget, our rolling Pit Crew: Denise aka Ribbon Girl, Mary, and Sarah - they were on bike/foot/car and each time I saw them, they had different signs, gu, crack beans, and anything else anyone needed. Some signs were for any runner, but some that were inside jokes for just me. They made me laugh and helped me get to the next time I would see them.

Next up, the second half.....the half that I was so eager to see. Saw Ed at mile 14, which was nice. Love that he's a realist and said, "See you in 3 hours." Yep, you sure will.......more than that even. LOL!! Was still doing okay until about mile 18. Here's the wall that I had never experience. Judging from the text sent Mary, it was about 18.5 where I, and I quote, "wanted to die." Who shows up when I am feeling horrible? My rolling pit crew. Mary sent Denise my way with a sandwich that I really couldn't eat but tried, crack beans that helped later, and moral support that was much needed. Thanks Coach Gary for getting me through this portion of the race.....the ugly one where I got really quiet and you just walked or talked to me. I heard you were good at the "ugly" part of races. Yes, you are!!

Mile 22: An obstacle that I tried to avoid and will remain nameless for now. I was feeling pretty defeated because of this and who should appear but Denise, Mary, Sarah, Heather, and Vanessa. We walked for a bit longer and I heard my name again........Meredith and Amber from the LLS staff. They joined up and walked with us too......at the wrong time because not far ahead was a hill. I may not have looked like it or sounded like it because I had become pretty silent at this point, but all of these people walking with me was keeping me going. I wanted to give up so many times at this point but knew that I couldn't. I had gone so far and trained so hard, I wasn't going to let a stupid cold keep me from finishing a race that I was running for people who can't. At one point, I remember Amber saying, "remember those names on your back....you are doing this for them." Thank you Amber for reminding me of that.....I needed it!

Okay, now I see the Mill Ave bridge......the greatest bridge ever at this point. The last mile of the course. I think it was right before the bridge that more coaches joined us, including my own coaches, Emily and Tom. Not that I don't love the other coaches because all our TNT coaches are amazing, but it was great to see faces that I had trained with every Saturday and who had helped me each week get to this point. Later on the bridge, more coaches, including another one of my EV coaches, Steve joined us. I had a posse! Somewhere on the bridge, my sister, Hope was there. She joined in the posse. I am pretty sure that at this point, the race officials just wanted the stragglers to be done, so no one said anything about a quarter of my posse not having race bibs!

Almost to the finish line: LLS Staff - the girls I had worked with for 6 months and gotten to know and love so much. They had made good on their promise to me at the finish line.....LOL.

Finish line: Greatest feeling ever! Finished something that I said I would NEVER do and I did it with the support of people I love for a cause that I love. While I said I didn't want to be the last TNT participant to cross the finish line, I would not have it any other way. While I love every race and every experience, nothing can top this one.

THANK YOU!!

My Teammates who waiting around hours for me to finish: It meant so much to have you at the finish line! Seeing you guys as I came around that curve is where I started to lose it. You all have been there for me through a lot this past year and I could not have gotten this far without you.

LLS Staff: I really had no idea what you folks do until I helped do it myself and I will be forever grateful for all you do for us participants. Thank you so much for what you do to help our mission. So many people have no idea what they don't see that goes on behind the scenes. I very much enjoyed getting to know you guys a little better and will forever have your backs! How can I not?

EV Coaches: Emily, Tom, Steve: You all rock as coaches and I could not have done this without you. Whether it was out on the canal, in the Biltmore loop, in an email, or out on the race course, your encouraging words got me to the finish line. Thank you so much for all you do to get all of us to the finish line for this cause.

Pit Crew: I cannot emphasize the fact that I probably would have keeled over and called a cab if it weren't for you guys. Denise: I am so thankful that you biked the course and helped me, as well as other runners. It was comforting when I felt bad knowing that I would see orange in the distance and know you were there. Mary and Sarah: Your signs were amazing!! They brought laughter when I needed it the most!! I wish I could do the same for you guys in CA but know that I will be there in spirit and someday, I will repay you for that race course support. Mary: My playlist was amazing and made me laugh several times. Thank you so much for that as I know it was a little time consuming!! I hope you think of me and that you guys get a space blanket after Tinkerbell!

Family: Whether you were cheering for me from afar or the race course, you always support me in whatever I do. Thanks for those who have supported me financially or through kind words. All of it means a lot! I do every race in memory of Grandma Vanderlin and thank you all for being a part of that in your own way. Thank you Hope for being out there! I know it was a long day for you but I don't think that I could have walked very well, let alone danced at the victory party if it weren't for your magic hands. I know you know how it feels to be out there and I am so glad you were there and part of my posse at the end!

Ed: Thanks for being the best finish line photographer ever! I appreciate that you don't care that my new found love for races takes you different places and that trips end up getting planned around marathons. I also appreciate that you end up getting the raw end of the deal when I get up the stairs and won't come back down and you end up bringing me ice packs, water, food, and anything else needed post race. You are the best and I love you!

So, for those who weren't out there, here is video courtesy of Mary and Sarah:

http://youtu.be/PCQ1uQ3DMqg - Part One

http://youtu.be/YJ3EAcooDKA - Part Two

Thanks again to everyone involved. I apologize if I forgot anyone. I am grateful to everyone who helped me get to the finish line! If you are interested in having an amazing experience of your own, visit http://www.teamintraining.org/dm/ to find out how. You can join me in San Diego this summer!!

Love,

One Proud Marathoner!

One Week From Right Now......

2012-01-08T10:16:00.001-08:00

I will be on the race course.....hopefully about halfway there. We had our last group practice yesterday and got all the necessary details about race weekend. I am by no means a first timer to this scene but this time, it's different. I love each Team in Training event I do but there is not the same nervous feeling for me before half marathons because I know what to expect. Sure, I still get excited and love the whole race experience but it's not the same as I felt before that very first half marathon.....until now.

Those of you who have talked with me in the past about marathons know I have said numerous times that I would NEVER do a full marathon. I would say I had no desire to find out what happens to someone after 13.1 if they keep going. I am not sure what changed in me but something did and I did want to see what it feels like to keep going when I would normally cross the finish line.

So, once I uttered those words to my Team in Training family, there was no turning back. I said it out loud and had to move forward and make good on my statement. Next, I decided that in order to finish in the cutoff time that the Rock n' Roll races have, I would have to do more than walk. Up to this point, I had walked each half marathon that I had completed and loved it! I would take pictures along the route and enjoy the race either by myself or with my crew. I never thought I would even entertain the idea of adding running to the mix because I hated running. Let's be realistic; there is a lot of me to run around with and that was one of the reasons I hadn't wanted to in the past. Knowing I had to buck up and bite the bullet, one of my coaches gave me a run/walk plan for this season. He was a coach I had not worked with in the past and I was kind of nervous because he is all business when it comes to running. I love all my coaches that I have had and they are all my good friends but I think it took an outsider to come in and say, "you should run for this long and then walk for this long and see what happens." And so it started. I coined it "Project Hurt Less in January" because I am not dumb. I know it's going to hurt but if I did everything in my power to prevent it from hurting less, I was going to.

We had our Kick Off for the Season in August and I followed the training schedule to the letter. Man, I was not ready for this part-time job called training for a full marathon when you have never run before. What is this sweating thing? I used to be able to run errands after going to the gym but not anymore; I was gross! And why didn't anyone warn me about the whole legs feeling like bricks thing? Sheesh! What I didn't expect was to enjoy it so much! Running is truly therapeutic and I needed that after the whirlwind of a June I had.

At the same time, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do about a job. Luckily, the part time opportunity of working for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society fell in my lap thanks to little Katie and her mommy's maternity leave, so I was still busy. In addition, I ended up having the opportunity to teach in the classroom for the first time in a community college setting. This was something I could not pass up since I had no previous experience and the department chair was willing to give me one. Man, that is one time consuming activity! I am so glad I did because I know that I can do it and know what to expect. I was also still teaching online classes so technically, I had 3 part time jobs and was training 5 days a week for this race. I was busier than when I actually had a full time job!!

So the training months went by and I think what I needed during this hectic time was a goal to reach for; something that I had never done. In the process, I lost some poundage; which made running easier and and continued to enjoy the whole new experience of running and walking. I have always known my TNT peeps were supportive but in embarking on the uncharted waters of a full marathon, I remembered why I am with this organization outside of the obvious mission of curing cancer. Every week, there were encouraging words and high fives, which was no different than any other season except for the fact that I really needed them this time. I was doing something so new and foreign to me and I forgot how much that support helps in the process. I cannot tell you how much it meant to have people tell you over and over again how proud they are of the progress being made and how excited they were to see me accomplish this goal. As the Saturdays flew by, I started running more and the intervals increased, which is still something that I laugh about since I said I would never run. Along comes the Women's Half in November, which was my first race where I was going to see how this run/walking thing works during an actual race.

What I needed at this point was proof that I had progressed and the Woman's Half game me that! I finished with my best time yet: 3:02. Many of us had personal bests that day and I have to think it had a little bit to do with the fact that we were all out there running/walking in honor of our friend and TNT Teammate, Heather. She is a breast cancer survivor and this was her first race back after treatment. We formed our own little team - The Purple Nurples! Heather is amazing and such an inspiration to all of us and we wanted to do this for/with her to celebrate her battle and that is exactly what we all did!

Here come the holidays.....I was so excited because I had made it this far in the season with no new injuries. In fact, my shins and feet were fantastic, which was a worry because of issues I have had in the past. Nope, my main source of pain was just the stress related knots that always exist in my shoulders. That's not going to go away completely until this household is fully employed and I know that. And it happens.....I catch the crud that is going around. Down and out for a good 10 days with a hacking cough that is not okay. One trip to Urgent Care and some drugs later, I am okay. I accepted the fact that I didn't get another long run in because I was so sick and decided that I had trained hard for this race and that I was going to be okay......with a little help from my friends of course.

The last practice of the season is always a little bittersweet because it means the season is almost over. All of our locations come together and run the last few miles of the course for PF Chang's. As we are getting our info and directions for the weekend, the group was asked who was doing their first half or full marathon. I never raise my hand because it's not the first time for me so I kind of spaced the question. I heard my name and it was one of my buddies from another training location telling me to raise my hand. I love that my role as Mission Captain for the past 5 seasons has given me the chance to get to know people from all of our training locations because there are some really cool people I would have missed out on. I have so much support on race day and I am so fortunate because that is what is going to get me to the finish line.

Speaking of support on race day......I believe that I have a pit crew that rivals Ricky Bobby. What happens when your friends decide to do a different race? One hops on her bike with a pack filled with snacks and supplies and the other two do their own mini full marathon as spectators. I swear I feel like I have known these people for years and years but in reality, it's only been one or two if that. My circle of friends who have come out of these different race experiences have been the one's who have been there for me the most when I have needed them. Checking on me long after the supposed friends from my old job stopped caring. I really found out who were my real friends during that whole ordeal and it never failed, my TNT peeps were always there. So, nothing less will happen on race day. What is amazing about this group is that I know there are people who will finish their race hours before I will and they will be at the finish line when I cross. That's what we do; we are a TEAM.

So, I felt compelled to share my thoughts as race day approaches (and I am avoiding grading...again) and really just send out a huge thanks to my friends and family who have helped me along this journey these past months. Those who I saw every Saturday, or every trip to South Mountain, or our long runs. Those who have emailed me in response to mission emails or those who have responded on facebook. My family who have donated this or past seasons and who will be out there for me this weekend and have supported me each race that I do. Ed for putting up with this hobby and always being at the finish line. All your support and encouraging words mean so much. Thank you!! And to my TNT family.....a huge Go TEAM to you and good luck next weekend or in a few weeks in CA.

Stay tuned on facebook for updates.......I am better about that than blogging as you can tell.

Who's Coming with Me?

2011-06-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

"Who's coming with me?" This is currently my favorite line from Jerry Maguire. If you aren't familiar, take a look:

This came to mind as I was being walked out of the building on Monday after being let go. Almost 7 years of service and my position was "eliminated." Whatever. I think there is more to it judging by some of the people in the company who are still around but who am I to say anything? So many emotions in the past few days.....anger, fear, sadness. Monday is just a blur but Tuesday...well, that is when it hit me. Didn't have an alarm go off....didn't get in the car with my carpool buddy to ride to work....nope, that is when I realized that Monday was not a nightmare and that it really happened. The way the whole thing went down was awful and I hope that no one has to go through that because it's a horrible feeling. Now, I am more sad than anything that I have no closure with the people who made coming to work okay when it really wasn't. I know I will see and talk to you all again but it's so different.....you are who helped me through the last year or so when work got so bad. The carpool therapy sessions, coffee clubs, visit to the 2nd and 4th floor when I needed to get away from my desk, dominoes, bake sales, co-workers/friends who really understood me, and the kind people who just listened. That is what makes me so sad.....I know things can't stay the same forever, but it sucks that they ended so abruptly.

So, don't think that you are safe in your job, because you aren't. Don't keep a bunch of stuff at work because having to pack it up at a moments notice sucks. Have your resume up to date now.......you never know what the next meeting planner is going to bring you.

Thank you to all of you who are my friends.....you know who you are and I am thankful for you. Thanks to all who called, emailed, texted and posted on facebook and who have showed interest in my well being. I am so appreciative to all of you for caring.

I am headed to Alaska bright and early tomorrow and I am so excited. I am going to forget the events of the past few days and just have fun with my teammates and have a great time taking care of another 13.1 miles in the name of blood cancer research. My loss of job is nothing compared to what others go through so I will never stop helping in that arena, no matter what. You can keep up with me on facebook of course or here....I will try and blog during race weekend but can't promise anything. Thanks again for all of your support that got me to my fundraising goal for this trip....I couldn't have done it without you.

Stay tuned......

Shine Bright Ronan.....

2011-05-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

I have been away for awhile....mostly for lack of time but this has been a rough week to say the least. Have you ever felt so connected to someone you have never met before? I had not until about 9 months ago when I heard that the son of a classmate of mine from Sunnyslope had been diagnosed with Stage 4 Neuroblastoma. This is an aggressive childhood cancer that has no cure and the treatments are pretty aggressive themselves. That is when I met Ronan and Maya Thompson. Everyday, I was checking my email for updates on the blog to see where they were at or how his treatment was going. Every day and every night, I would check in to see if there was an update. Monday morning, there was no update. My heart sank and I hoped that it was because it had been Mother's Day and Maya was having a nice day with her family. I wish I could say that was why. Rockstar Ronan lost his battle early Monday morning.....the day after Mother's Day, days before he was to turn 4 years old, and less than a year from when he was diagnosed. I was so sad and angry all at the same time. How is it that we have all this technology and we don't have a cure for these diseases? It reaffirms why I am involved with Team in Training fighting for a cure for blood cancers. I am connected to this cause because I lost my Grandma to leukemia but with all the research, finding cures in one form of cancer can lead to progress in another. While cancer sucks for everyone, seeing someone who had such a life ahead of him lose it at such a young age made me sick to my stomach. Seeing these little kids who are bald from chemo and think that needles and ports are normal is not okay.

I write Mission emails to my teammates every week as Mission Captain and here is my letter for this week:

Hello TEAM Arizona!

I hope everyone had a great weekend and all the Mom's out there had a great Mother's Day!!

Normally, I send out my mission emails towards the end of the week but today is different. Today I am reminded of why I continue to get up early on Saturdays and why I ask people for money until they ignore my emails for awhile....it is for people like Ronan, the little guy we have been talking about more for the past week or so.

Sadly, Ronan lost his battle this morning with cancer, an ugly childhood cancer that is so aggressive that it took his little life 9 months after he was diagnosed, the day after Mother's Day, and 3 days before he was to turn 4 years old. Why? That is one question I will never understand but one that make me fight even harder.

www.rockstarronan.com - if you need inspiration, there it is. In the form of the most beautiful blue eyes that are now looking down on all of us from above. So many tears shed today across the country for this little boy; tears of sadness and anger. Disgust that there is not a cure for these cancers.

I know that I sleep better at night knowing that I am doing what I can to make a difference and that people are helped because of the money I raise and you should all feel the same way. Your hard work and dedication to this cause makes a difference in many lives and for that, you should be very proud. I am...proud of all of you for sticking with this goal you set months ago. Not only are you completing an endurance event, which not many people can say they have done. You are doing so for a cause, which makes the experience a much sweeter one in the end. Thank you for being here and for fighting for those who are currently fighting, who have fought and won, and for those who fought the good fight and did not win.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week and a great practice this weekend...whether you are running, walking, or hiking. You are inspiring to those around you.

In honor of Ronan, a huge fan of Star Wars, I leave you with a quote from Yoda, "Do or do not, there is no try." Thank you for going above and beyond trying and just doing what you are with TNT for all those affected by a blood cancer.

May the Force be with you as we approach all of our events.

Go TEAM!

Joy Gaeraths
Mission Captain

LLS Mission: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.

Helping to fund research to find a cure for blood cancers.....one step at a time in memory of my Grandma - http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/anchor11/nautweety - Thanks for your support!!

Ronan - take care of your amazing family - Mama Maya, Woody, Liam, and Quinn need you to get through this. You have touched so many people all over the world.....thank you. Now, you can be our Yoda and show us the way....May the Force be with you, Ronan.

Las Vegas Half Marathon - 2010

2011-01-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

So, I am too busy and lazy to add the pictures of the marathon here. I am gearing up for another half marathon here in Phoenix in a little over a week, so follow this link to my pictures on Facebook of LV. I don't believe you have to have a Facebook account to view them.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2223245&id=27705154&l=db479e043a

So, think of me as I do another 13.1 miles on January 16th in memory of my Grandma, in memory of Leonard, in honor of Ronan, Drew, Tommy, Melissa, and Heather. Cancer can suck it.

Have a nice night and stay tuned as I attempt to keep this updated more often.....

Adding another race to my belt this coming weekend....

2010-11-28T15:15:00.000-08:00

Hello my few friends who follow my sometimes updated blog!

Just thought I would check in here and get ready to blog another race weekend! A few friends from TNT and my friend from work and I are headed to LV for the Rock n' Roll Half Marathon this coming weekend courtesy of our driver, Ed. We leave Friday, so check back for some updates of our adventures. Should be a fun one, even if it's going to be really cold!!

Stay Tuned.......

Joy's Alaskan Adventure!

2010-11-15T19:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am crazy and short on time today. To make a long story short....I have signed up with Team in Training to do the Mayor's Half Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska in June 2011. So, I am hard core fundraising again.....visit my site! I will update more later.......so excited!!

Visit my Fundraising Site for Alaska!

Lots going on in this head lately.....

2010-09-16T00:40:00.000-07:00

Hello strangers! Yes, I have neglected this poor blog since I returned from San Diego. So, I have decided to try and post more here.....

So, I have been involved with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for a few years now....the first few were just walking in the Light the Night walk with my family and then more recently, with Team in Training starting in 2009. My reason for getting involved was to walk in memory of my Grandma, who had Leukemia. She was diagnosed in her 80's and was pretty much told that there was not much they could do because of her age and the side effects of the treatment. So, my inspiration has been to help raise money to fund research that will hopefully find less toxic treatment for all cancer patients, but the elderly in particular. My Grandma passed away in 2006. I have always hated this dumb disease but recently, I have had way too much exposure to it.

One of my Team in Training teammates lost her dad to Leukemia a few weeks before we went to San Diego for the marathon. That was rough to see as he was one of her biggest supporters when it came to her running and marathons. I never met him but you could see it in his eyes in pictures. We rallied around her and conquered our long run on the canal behind Sunnyslope with his name on our jerseys.

Last month, a guy I went to high school with found out that his 4 year old has Stage 4 Neuroblastoma, which is a common childhood cancer, but can be aggressive. I have not really had any contact with Woody over the years and then everyone joined the facebook bandwagon, so that is about it for a connection but that doesn't matter when you take one look at Ronan. Strangers have taken to his story because his beautiful eyes just pull you in, whether you like it or not. He has begun a journey that is not going to be easy but all you have to do is read his Mom's blog and you will see that he will be just fine. I don't know her but her personality and determination is very evident in her writing. The Thompson family will get through this and I can't help but follow their story and keep them in my thoughts and prayers. Follow his story at www.rockstarronan.com

Two weeks ago, I read an update from a friend of mine that just set the waterworks off. I am sure you get tired of hearing me talk about how much I love Team in Training and how great of an experience it is. All of that is true about both seasons that I have completed but there was something about our San Diego/Seattle group that was different. We clicked instantly and spent every Saturday on the canals/mountains and smelling up either Einstein's or IHOP, depending on the week. We invaded the track at Andersen Jr. High every Tuesday and did so with smiles on our faces and determination to raise money and awareness about blood cancers. In the end, everyone was raising money for each other to make sure everyone met their goals. I had not seen that happen in my previous season, which just said a lot about the friendships that had formed during this training season. No matter how fast or slow you were, we were all together at the end of practice and either ate together or continued on our merry way each Saturday.

We headed to San Diego and I went by myself, so I needed a roommate. I just indicated on my paperwork that if there was anyone from the East Valley group that didn't have a roommate, I would rather room with them over someone from another location. So, I looked at the name on my envelope at our send off party and found that Heather would have to put up with me for a weekend. We all had so much fun and she was the best roommate ever! So, when her little announcement to us was, "I have cancer," I was shocked. So now, she is one of our heroes. Her positive attitude as well as all the support she has is going to pull her through being diagnosed with breast cancer at 29 years old. She heads into surgery tomorrow and we will all be there for her whenever she needs anything. In only a few hours, we filled up a spread sheet of people who love her and will provide dinners for her and her Mom over the next few weeks while she recovers and then heads into her chemo treatments. That is what a TEAM does. Heather - kick cancer's ass!

Thanks for being my free therapy this evening. I have had so much running through my head dealing with this horrible disease called cancer and how it's affecting everyone from small innocent little boys to women too young to have to decide on what kind of surgery to have, and everyone in between. Hopefully, with all the research going on out there, we can find a cure and not have to deal with all this garbage. Seeing all of this over the past month or so has put things in perspective for me personally. I may have issues going on right now that are stressing me out but it's nothing compared to what Ronan and Heather are going through.

So, find a cause that you are passionate about and get involved. Every little bit helps....

Yes, I am doing this again.....

2010-07-04T12:49:00.000-07:00

So, I have signed up for the next Team in Training event, which is the PF Chang's Half Marathon in Phoenix! I am a Mission Captain again but this time, I am working with all three marathon groups, not just my East Valley training group. It's going to be exciting to do a home race with Team in Training. Anyone else interested? Let me know! Visit my fundraising site as well!

http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/pfchangs11/NauTweety

Stay tuned!!

Go TEAM!!

Monday, June 7th, 2010 - Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

2010-06-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

So, wedecided not to take our assigned shuttle to get to the airport because we hadto get on it at 11am for a 4pm flight. That was simply not acceptable, so we stuck around the hotel and enjoyedthe beautiful weather a bit longer. Wehit up the deli for lunch and sat outside knowing that we would not be able to dothat when we got home…..the first piece of news I paid attention to was theexcessive heat advisory that we were under at home. YUCK!

We headed tothe airport and proceeded to celebrate our victories as well as my roomie,Heather’s birthday. We made some noisein the airport and stimulated the economy in the bar and talked about how muchfun we had, despite the blisters and sore muscles.

It was pretty funny to see us all maneuver around. We boarded the plane and headed home….back toreality I suppose. I was not too sadthough…..my LMT sister was picking me up from the airport and taking me to herplace where her massage table was ready to go!! I got my post race massage, which was awesome! The greatest thing about this race experiencewas that the only thing that really hurt after this was my back. No shin pain, no pain in my feet. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! My close friends and family will rememberthat I was in some pretty horrible pain after Seattle because I let my feet gountreated. I was worried about my shinsbecause of some horrible pain I had a few weeks prior to the race. I was not going to put all this training andhard work with my TEAM and then not be able to go myself! Luckily, I had nothing but my back, whichbothers me on a regular basis anyway. Hopefully,the next race, I will just have the normal aches and pains associated with 13.1miles of fun! Thanks to my favorite peopleat Alpha Chiropractic for taking care of me and making sure I was ready to getout on that course and finish. If youhave any need for a sports therapist, chiropractor, or anything of the sort, Ihighly recommend this office. Not only dothey know what they are doing, it’s a fun time in the process. I won’t lie and say I enjoy going there allthe time, because it is not pain free for me, but it hurts less when you arelaughing in the process. You can tellthem I sent you….at your own risk. J My walking peeps are also treated there, so we took this picture postrace to thank them for taking great care of us:

Another racein the books for me and I am already signed up for PF Chang’s with Team inTraining in January as the Mission Captain for all the marathon teams. I am excited because most of my team is alsosigned up, so we can continue to motivate new people and have a good time doingit. I am telling you, if I can be amorning person on the weekend just to put in the miles and can raise money forsuch a great cause, anyone can. Ask meand I will put you in touch with the right people to get you signed up!

And so, Ileave you with another GO TEAM!! TEAMARIZONA & EAST VALLEY ROCKS!!

Stay tunedfor my next adventures, whatever they may be……

Sunday, June 6, 2010 – Race Day!

2010-06-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

*****So, I know that I am horrible at blogging at the time things happen but I figured better late than never, right? That is pretty much the story of my life. Anyway, here are my tales of the rest of my San Diego trip....only a few weeks later, but who cares, right?*****

So, it’s the crack of dawn and I actually got up on time! I even have proof:

Everything is laid out, so it’s just a matter of putting clothes on and gathering the necessary items and heading down to the lobby in order to catch the first shuttle to the start of the race. Funny that now, after the shuttle issues yesterday for the Inspiration Lunch, there were two busses waiting to take us to the start of the race. We all got on the bus and took the obligatory bus pictures to prove that we were up this early and then headed to the Start Line.

Of course, the first stop, per Hank’s advice is to get in line for the “bathroom” and take care of business. This is the only time these lovely port-a-potties will actually have toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Once this was taken care of, we headed to find our team so we could hang out for a few hours and stretch and kill time. What was funny as we sat in our circle, most of us were updating Facebook on our phones. Then, we would laugh and talk about how the only people updating their statues at this ridiculous hour were the people sitting in our circle. Hey, it was early and funny at the time….

Then, it was time to head to our corral - #39. This is where all the fun takes place….the last corral.

After another stop at the pretend bathroom, we were all off to our respective corrals.

We waited for almost an hour before we were told by John Bingham, the “Penguin,” to just go! He lumped corrals 38 and 39 together and just sent us on our way out onto the streets of San Diego. And we were off…..

ROUTE PICS – I will be posting a slide show here eventually.

So, there is no way I could blog everything that took place over the next 4+ hours. One story I will tell happened at about mile 4. Even though Coach Hank said to use the “bathroom” (and I use that term loosely) several times before the race started, I didn’t have to. My theory when it comes to nasty Porta John is that if I am going to get in that nasty closet of doom, I had better have to go and go fast. I didn’t have to, so I decided to wait….and so did Mary. Rita and Sarah had used it right before we went to our corral, so they were good to go. Mary ended up being the first to go at the first set of Porta Potties. We were on our way and were all good until we headed out of Balboa Park and I had to go. So, we stopped at the next set of Port-o-Lets and I proceeded to use the facilities. I was just “sitting down” when someone started banging on my “house” and said, “Please Hurry.” What the? I thought it was one of the girls giving me crap (pun totally intended) but I didn’t recognize the voice. I said, “I am hurrying as fast as I can.” I then heard, “If you don’t hurry up, we will have to take you to the end.” Again, WTF. We were at mile 4, not mile 10, not even mile 12. There is no reason why the Sag Wagon should have been giving us a hard time this early on in the race. Oh, for those of you who are not familiar with race lingo, a Sag Wagon (or SAD wagon per Mary) is a vehicle that drives after the last participant has started the race. It is their job to make sure everyone finishes in the 4 hours allotted for the half marathon so that they can open the streets back up. They are supposed to pick people up and take them to the finish line if they aren’t keeping up the appropriate pace. I am perfectly fine with you harassing me at mile 12 if I am falling behind but give me a chance to start for the love of my sanity!! When I got out of the Port-O-Loo, my teammates had started walking a bit and had grabbed my fuel belt as they were told they couldn’t wait for me. Geez already….give me a break! So, this was the funny story heard throughout the rest of the weekend.

So, to make 4+ hours short, we laughed and complained and Rita tried bribing officers of the law to give us rides to the finish line. Sarah race lifted a flag from “her mile” and carried it as long as she could without it bothering her. Rita and I took pictures of everything under the sun. She looked like she was talking a walk in the park…..rightfully so, since she is a serious marathon walking veteran. Mile 12 was the most interesting as our newbies (Mary and Sarah) developed a bad case of “I hurt, are we there yet, I can’t believe they are walking back with their medals” syndrome. There were other words inserted here that I cannot repeat as my mother reads this blog as well as other people that may shrivel up and die if they read what was being said during that that last 1.1 mile of the race. I believe that was my favorite leg of the race next to being told to hurry my pee break. This was not my first half marathon either but it was the first time I had people to walk with the entire time. In Seattle, I was by myself most of the race as my teammates were quite a bit faster than me. In Phoenix, my friends were a lot faster than me and both times, we all started together and then went at our own pace. The four of us in San Diego have relatively the same pace…..Rita is probably faster but slowed down to enjoy the entertainment that we were all providing. When one of us needed a pit stop, we all stopped and either took one too or stretched. So, I had my walking peeps with me the entire race and we all crossed together, which I would not change for the world. This is the first race where I didn’t turn my I-pod on once, which is unusual for me. I like my music, but the company of these people was far more than a little device could have given me for over 4 hours. I may not have had the fastest time in the world, but that was not the goal this time around. What I do have are memories that will last a lifetime and lifelong friends……and a story that prompts people to tell me to hurry up and pee on a regular basis now. I cannot wait to do the Vegas half marathon and Phoenix again with these amazing people. Not only do we all have a passion in common….raising money and awareness about leukemia and lymphoma, we have a damn good time in the process. I can only imagine the new words I will learn at the end of each race and I can’t wait!

We finished and headed through the line for pictures. We got a group picture and then our individual picture and then we headed to find the TNT tent. After seeing where the UPS trucks were with our gear and where the TNT tent was, Mary made an excellent suggestion to go and get our gear first and then hike to the TNT tent, which was probably another mile away. Okay, maybe not a whole mile but it sure felt like it. We found some of our team in the tent and hung out there for a bit……had some food, obtained some much needed ice, and then headed to the busses back to the hotel. Kudos to whoever had those busses right behind the tent because in Seattle, they were nowhere near where we were.

We headed back to the room and rested for a bit before heading to the Victory Party. The funny thing about this is how we all said we were going to party and live it up and we were all so tired, we just hung out and walked around a bit to see what was going on. We got Mary’s feet temporarily taken care of and then we headed back to the hotel. At that point, I was out. Probably the best night’s sleep ever though.

So, this is a little late but that was race day in a nutshell. I wish I had the time to write it closer to when it actually took place but oh well, that’s how I roll. Keep checking back for updates on the pictures here since I am still gathering pictures from my teammates.

Go TEAM!!

This one is for you, Grandma...please help me get up at 3am.

2010-06-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

Saturday, June 5, 2010 – A Day of Inspiration and Relaxation

2010-06-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

Today, all we had planned for us was our Inspiration Lunch. I pretty much vegged out until it was time to head to the lobby to catch the shuttle. Too bad they never really showed up for the 3 bus loads of people that were waiting at our hotel alone. We ended up taking a cab so that we wouldn’t miss out on our lunch. Team in Training has an Inspiration (usually dinner) meal for the participants where you load up on the carbs and then you hear some speakers that will amaze and inspire you. This time, we heard from Jenny Hatfield, a motivational speaker and coach who happens to be married to John Bingham, who usually speaks. He said hello via taped segment and wished us well. You usually also hear from a survivor or a honored patient and this time, we heard from a man from MN who lost his 10 year old daughter to Leukemia. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house. Once we were done, we got some last minute instructions from our coaches, one of which was very disturbing. Due to the shuttle bus snafu, we had to change our meeting time tomorrow to 3:45am out by the bus stop. Excuse me? Yeah, you heard me…..so; my roomie and I are getting up at 3am. I am mortified but I will get over it.

We headed back to the hotel and just hung out. We got our stuff ready for tomorrow and laid it all out for a photo op:

I spent some time in the lobby where there was free wireless updating the blog and posting some pictures. We met up for dinner at a deli on the water over here and had something to eat. One last minute East Valley meeting and it was time to wrap it up for the day….but it’s early!!! Everyone keeps saying, “Bye…see you in a few hours.” UGH!

So, the next time you hear from me, I will have a 3^rd 13.1 mile jaunt under my belt, and my 2^nd Team in Training event. This organization is amazing and I can’t wait to start another journey with another group of awesome people (and some of the same from SD) in August….yes, I have already signed up as a captain for PF Chang’s in AZ in January. I can’t stay away.

So, as I write this, a perfect stranger just came up to me and gave me a hug and told me to have a good race. I look like a blubbering fool right now in tears in the lobby on my laptop. What incredible people I have met or encountered along this journey. I am telling you, if you ever have a chance to do this with TNT, do it. I will help you fundraise if you are worried….I just think that everyone should experience what I have experienced, twice now.

I will see you at the FINISH LINE.

GO TEAM!

PS...I love our TEAM Arizona shirts!!!

Friday, June 4, 2010 – We are on our way!

2010-06-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

It’s finallytime to leave! All our status updates onfacebook this week talked about how excited we were to get to race weekend andhow we wanted the week to go by faster. Finally! We boarded our plan and headed to beautifulSan Diego (SD). Here is one thing that Ineed to share because it’s flippin hilarious. Since we traveled as a group, we were given paper tickets. When is the last time you saw these badboys? I believe my words were somethingalong the lines of, “Moses delivered me my tickets on tablets today.” I justhad to share…I guess it was funnier the first time.

Back to theplane: It was neat because the crew onour plan talked about us over the speaker and let the plane know how much moneywe raised as a chapter. We are prettyloud and obnoxious, so we made some noise. We also had a group from Kentucky on our flight. It was cool to see people from other teams inour airport on their way to SD. We(captains – Jennifer, Cathy, and me) decided to do a little something for ourteam for race weekend. We had some FairyTale brownies, which I have never had before…..holy crap they were good! Since I am the queen of quick, easy, cute,and cheap good luck gifts in mass quantities, I whipped up a little brag bookfor our team from us. Pretty fittingthat I chose something to hold pictures since I am pretty infamous for mylittle orange camera that goes everywhere and takes a ton of pics. We gave everyone their goodies on the planeand we were on our way!

We arrivedand picked up our bags and headed to the bus that would be our transportationfor the weekend. We hopped on and lessthan 5 minutes later; we were at our home for the weekend. We are at a marina, which makes for a coolview from our 8^th floor balcony!

We gotsettled in and headed to the Expo at the Convention Center via our friendly TNTShuttle Bus. We got there and got theimportant stuff done first…..race packets. Look at us checking in!

Once we took care of that small important business item, we headed intothe main part of the expo. I usually buya bunch of stuff but they really didn’t have anything exciting, which was disappointing. They didn’t make the beanie bears that theother two races have had and I have on my desk at work, so I was prettybummed. I got my pin for my hat and wason my merry way. The best part were the fitting rooms. Anyone who has completed a race knows why this is funny:

Funny, since I preparedto blow a wad of cash on souvenirs. Westarted walking around and hit up all the free stuff. My walking buddies were a little overwhelmedas this is their first race. At onepoint, I narrowed down the important stops: TNT booth, PF Chang’s booth, and the MDG booth. We hit those up and then just started to walkaround. Here are some more pics from teh Expo:

Before we knew it, it was almost5pm, which is when we were supposed to be back for a group run. While it’s not mandatory, we should have gonebut after walking around so much at the expo, we had done our own version ofthe 20 minute “run” which we don’t do anyway. So, we hopped on the next bus in the hopes of avoiding our team since wedidn’t make the run. Lo and behold, theyfinished their run right at the bus stop as we pulled up. BUSTED! Awkward. Oh well, it’s allgood! We headed upstairs to figure outdinner. After a mad texting war betweenmy team and my friend who lives here, Carrie, we managed to figure outdinner: Panera Bread. If anyone knows me, I love Panara and prayfor a day that they will set up shop in Az….which will never happen.

We gatheredin the lobby and headed to the front of the hotel to see about getting a cab toPanera, which was only about 3 miles from our hotel. We were set up with a van driven by a crazyguy who proceeded to bash anyone who would need 4 hours to finish a halfmarathon. Okay shuttle driver man, let’ssee you get off your seat and do something. Weirdo. We arrived at our yummydestination and he proceeded to charge us $4 a person (7 people).

We werewalking towards Panera when everyone but me saw my friends who live here:

Verycool! It’s always great to see theseguys as they are a fun couple to hang with. I grew up twirling with Carrie and, even thought it was a short visit, Iam glad we had a chance to catch up. Myteam headed to get ice cream and the grocery store while we were yappingforever and then they were ready to head back to the hotel. After hearing ourstory about the shuttle guy and finding out he totally ripped us off, Robert sograciously volunteered to make two trips back to the hotel and take us back sowe didn’t have to call the driver back. While he made his first trip, I headed to get my Gatorade and water withCarrie, Mary, and Sarah. This trip toVon’s produced the necessary race day items as well as a cooler to hoard ice infor after the race. Sorry Mary, I amonly thinking of my shins…..not the world this weekend.

Robert cameback and picked us up and we headed back to the hotel. I am sure they weren’t prepared for ourgiggle fest. Once the Three WalkingMuskateers get going, someone is bound to pee their pants. Thanks guys, you rock!

I headed upto the room and thought I was going to head down to the lobby to take advantageof the only area with free wireless internet access. It turns out; I was more pooped than Ithought, so I headed to bed. Day One isover and it’s on to Day Two!

Summer Season – 2010 – San Diego/Seattle – Team in Training

2010-06-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

HelloFriends! So, I have done a horrible jobat updating this blog…….last you heard, I had just signed up for the San DiegoHalf Marathon with Team in Training as a captain. So, I am in San Diego…..where the heck didall that time go? Yeah, I am not sureeither. Our training season wasamazing! I have met some incrediblepeople who are all working towards a few common goals……completing an enduranceevent and helping to raise money in the hopes of finding a cure for bloodcancers. Here is a brief glimpse of ourtraining:

I am soexcited for race weekend! Here is tocramming 4 months of training blog into one entry. Time management has neverbeen a strength of mine…..probably never will be.

Go TEAM!!

My Next Adventure....

2010-02-22T23:16:00.000-08:00

So, about a week after I returned from Las Vegas, I attended Kick Off for the Summer Season of Team in Training.......YES, I am training to complete another half marathon!

I have signed on with TNT again but this time, I am the Mission Captain for the East Valley Marathon Team. My job is to help make sure everyone knows why we were all coming together to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. This organization is awesome and I love being a part of it! One of my duties is to make a Mission Board to help track our fundraising and to help keep us all aware of the people we are walking in Memory of or in Support of this season. I love my board! I will post pictures later....but if you know me, I am into scrapbooking, so it looks pretty sweet!!

Our Summer Season consists of the Rock n' Roll San Diego and Seattle events. I am so sad that I cannot go to Seattle again but UOPX Graduation is that weekend and because I am staff in the College of Social Sciences as well as faculty, I have to be there for the whole weekend. The cool thing is that I will be going to San Diego and they have designed a new course and all the proceeds from the entire event go to Leukemia & Lymphoma, which is AMAZING!

So, stay tuned for updates on my training and how I am helping to motivate others. So......I am still raising money as well so please visit my fundraising website and help me get to the finish line in San Diego in memory of my Grandma!

http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/rnr10/jgaeraths

Thanks in advance for your support!!

Go TEAM!!

January 26 - January 31st - Miss America in Las Vegas!

2010-02-22T23:02:00.000-08:00

So, the next week after PF Chang's, I headed to Vegas to cheer on my friend, Savanna, in her quest for the Miss America crown. Yes, I am a supporter of the Miss Arizona Scholarship program and have been volunteering at a local preliminary, Miss Twirling Athlete, for over 10 years now. My twirling coach, Becky Hewitt, is the Executive Director and I have been helping her with her competitions since I returned from Flagstaff in 1998. Twirling was a huge part of my life for so long and I have lifelong friends as a result, so I give back. Did I compete in pageants....no, never did but I certainly support these girls earning money to further their education! We have had two of our twirlers make it to the Miss America stage and I wasn't able to go in 2004 in Atlantic City because I had just been hired at UOPX. Now, it was closer and I had the opportunity to go. I figured if I was going to go, I needed to do it all, so I flew out Tuesday. Ed drove up Wednesday and we drove back Sunday. Ed even went to the final night so he can say he has been to Miss America.

Yes, that is a very long time to be in Vegas and I don't think I will be doing it again for awhile. It was a neat experience, to see how the big pageant works and to support Savanna every night of the preliminaries. On Tuesday night, Savanna performed her talent and she rocked the Miss America stage! On Wednesday night, she answered her On Stage Question with poise and confidence! On Thursday night, she looked amazing in her swim wear and stunning in her Evening Gown! She looked awesome and represented Arizona with class and grace and I am very proud of her accomplishments and all she has done to promote higher education, which is her platform.

Originally, Ed wasn't supposed to be driving up until Thursday, but since he is not employed at this time, he came up earlier. So, he didn't have tickets to the preliminary nights of competition. I spent the majority of the week with the Niemiec's, a family I know through twirling. Katelyn is our Miss Arizona's Outstanding Teen, which is the teen pageant to Miss America. Katelyn is also a twirler and represented Az in Orlando this past summer and has done amazing as well. Her and her mom and grandma were staying at the Stratosphere where we were, so I hitched a ride with them to the prelims. I have known them for awhile now but never spent more than a day or so with them for baton competitions. I had so much fun hanging out with them during the week and Katelyn and I had some fun adventures. I am scared that her mom will never leave her alone with me again......HA! Just kidding. We just had a lot of fun and I was happy to have that time to get to know her a little better.

My buddy for the week....she will never be the same! :o)

So, here are some pictures that I took over the span of the week.

January 17, 2010 - PF Chang's Rock n' Roll Half Marathon

2010-02-21T22:59:00.000-08:00

Hello! Here is my feeble attempt at keeping up with my blog. Not too long after our Holland adventures, I completed my 2nd half marathon here in Phoenix. I walked the PF Chang's half marathon with Team UOPX. My work, University of Phoenix, joined the Get Fit challenge and paid for our entry into the race. How can you pass up a free race entry, right? Let me remind you that I didn't train for this race as consistently as I did for Seattle. The cool thing is that my feet are fixed (Thanks Dr. Carson Robertson and his staff at Alpha Chiropractic), so it should be a different experience. I had done a few 5K's and some walking on my own in addition to my weekly visits to Joan, my personal trainer at the YMCA but no weekly walks on the canal.

We hopped on the light rail during our lunch hour (we have a stop right in front of our building) and headed to the Expo in downtown Phoenix. We got our race bibs, shirts, and went shopping for souvenirs. We walked around and got our free stuff. Here are some pics from our lunch time adventure:

My favorite inspirational runner...John Bingham, the Penguin.

Angie and Sione Fa from the Biggest Loser. She's a fan of the show and was excited to meet him!

Angie and I went to the Pasta Dinner that UOPX had for all the participants the night before. My favorite speaker that night was Rob Wiley. He's training to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Trials and was a great motivational speaker! We headed home to get some rest before race day!

So, race day came and we were off. My race buddies, Angie and Gen, met up and carpooled to a light rail park and ride and took the light rail to the finish line. See, I read the fine print that stated that the closest light rail stop to the Start line was a mile away. No thanks! We wanted to save the feet for the important 13.1 of the day. So, we caught the shuttle at the end that took us to the Start of the race.

Here we are.....in our hi-liter yellow shirts. Yes, this was the team shirt that we were given by UOPX to wear on race day. I believe that at one point while we were waiting to start that Gen told me that looking at my shirt made her eyes hurt. We had a good laugh when we picked them up on the Thursday before the race. I called it the "remember me because I am important information" shirt. That is why you hi-lite stuff, right? Anyway....we don't have to worry about anyone not being able to see us, right?

We hung out....visited the lovely port-a-potties a few times and the headed to our Corral.

I was in Corral 25 of 27 I think. Here is our view while waiting to start:

The girls were ahead of me but came back and started with me so we could start together. It's a good thing because they would have never experienced the time of their life at the back of the line! By the time we got to the start of the race, this is what we saw behind us:

We were laughing so hard at the idea of the tearing down of the start area before we even started. I was determined not to be the last person to finish this race...even if I was one of the last to start!

Almost to the Start Line!!

Mayor Phil Gordon and Senator John McCain helped to start the race. They stayed until the very last corral (us) had started!John Bingham starts all the Rock n' Roll Events. He's an awesome motivational speaker and speaks at all the Team in Training Inspiration dinners. I heard him speak in Seattle and he's just amazing!

This was a random running coach cheering on all the participants. It made me miss being a member of Team in Training because no matter where you were, anyone who knew why you were wearing purple would yell, "Go TEAM" and you could get a little further down the road.

So, here is a slide show of my pictures I took on the course. I love my little camera and wish that I would have had it in Seattle. Oh well....enjoy 13.1 miles from my perspective.

Yipee! I finished another one! I never thought I would enjoy these types of events but it's so much fun and if I can do it, anyone can! I could definitely feel the difference in how it feels to complete a half marathon with consistent training verses without and I believe that the first thing I said to Hope when I saw her is, "I will never do this again without training properly!" Here are some pics that Ed took:

Hmmmm, you can't find me, can you? Too bad I am not wearing a bright color. Oh wait, I am!!

There you have it.....my second half marathon but the first time I have completed one here in Phoenix. I was really missing Seattle's course while walking this one. The half marathon here is a pretty ugly route. That was my only complaint!

We caught the light rail back to the van and we headed home. Our lunch plans with Aunt Betty and Uncle Richard didn't work, which was probably for the best since I could smell myself at this point. I ate my Subway for lunch and took a nap. I was hurting pretty bad for the rest of the day and once I headed upstairs, I never came back down. I moved around between my bedroom and my computer room, but I never went back down. Since we are a family of technology, a little bell was not needed to alert Ed that I needed anything from downstairs. I simply instant messaged him or just yelled down the stairs. It was pretty comical. I am not sure he felt that way and was missing Seattle since we were in a hotel room where I just shuffled to the bathroom and everything was within my reach. Thanks for being my post race servant, Ed!

What was pretty cool is that the only painful part of this adventure was right after the race. Of course, I was sore for a few days, but I didn't have trouble walking like I did in Seattle. All the torturing of the feet has paid off!!

Will I do another one you ask? Stay tuned.......

January 6, 2010 - Our Security Adventure

2010-02-21T21:27:00.000-08:00

*****Yes, I am aware that I have been back from Holland for well over a month now but I forgot about this entry. The story must be told though....so here it is.*****

My alarm went off at 5am and I snoozed it, just like anyother day. Ed told me not to rushbecause the plane was already running late. That was a bad idea because I just stayed in bed for a little whilelonger. I am still feeling like crap, soa few minutes of extra sleep was nice!

We got ready and packed the rest of our stuff. I was getting nervous because we were reallycutting it close with our luggage. I amsure something is going to be over the weight limit. Oh well, we just have to wait and see.

We checked out of the Tulip Inn and headed to theairport. We did the normal routine ofreturning the rental car and heading to check in. Again, I was nervous about this whole processbecause of the lovely “underwear bomber” as I like to call him. Little did we know what we were in for!

We got to the ticket counter and began the check inprocess. The lady was very nice and Iwanted to make sure not to get upset at any time because that sure won’t helpthis whole situation. At first, Ithought she was telling us that we had way too much luggage but after talkingto her about when we booked our flight and the rules now, we were okay. Now, it’s time to weigh the luggage. Oh spirits of luggage weight please be withus! So, she weighed our luggage and itwas all okay except for one….which didn’t even have souvenirs in it…it was alldirty clothes! This particular suitcaseended up being almost twice the weight limit. At this point, we just decided to pay the $50 and get on our way. We finished with the ticket agent and headedto the kiosk to pay the penalty for having too much crap. Ed went to pay and there was no option on thekiosk to pay so we jst went on our merry way.

So, we headed to the dreaded security line. We waited for about an hour and a half beforeit was our turn. I have four words foryou: Full body pat downs. This is what happens when you are leavingfrom the same place a guy did with explosives in his pants. Have I mentioned how much I dislike thisguy? Anyway, after getting searched up,down, and sideways, we got through the pat down process. Now, it was time to watch the TSA guy gothrough our luggage piece by piece. Iwas worried when we checked in because our carry on luggage had food in itbecause we figured that they were going to make us check it in. British Airways pretty much took all ofMarsha’s luggage, so we were planning for the worst. So, when they let us keep our backpacks withlaptops and our “trolleys” (rolling carry on suitcases), I was scared that wewould lose some of the precious cheese that was causing our luggageissues. So, I watched the guy go throughmy luggage and he looked at the cheese and, for a minute, I thought he wasgoing to confiscate it. He startedtalking about how good the cheese was and each piece of cheese he pulled out, hetalked about. Finally, I was done and Ilooked over and the TSA guy going through Ed’s luggage had my little medicinecabinet and was going through it. Hepulled out the Rubbermaid ice packs that I had in there in case I needed to icemy feet. I totally forgot about them andnever used them anyway. When they arethawed, they are gel….which is not allowed. The scary thing is that the TSA guys had no idea what this was and werereading the package and talking to each other in Dutch and in my head I wasscreaming, “I am not an ice pack terrorist!! I just have foot issues!” I musthave said, “You can toss that,” a hundred different ways before they finallysaid, “We are going to have to take this.” PLEASE DO! This is what I wantedto yell. Finally, we were throughsecurity. My only complaint is thatthere was nowhere to buy water at this point and I was still hacking a lung. We finally got on the plane and I am reallynot looking forward to this leg of the trip. We got settled and I got the aisle this time because of my illness…wedidn’t want to totally freak someone out by making them sit next to me. The flight went fine. Since I was coughing so much, I didn’t sleepat all. I went through most of a bag ofeconomy cough drops and before I knew it, 10 hours had passed.

We arrived at the airport in Houston where we were tocatch our connecting flight to Phoenix. This was where it got interesting. We got off the plane and went through Customs with no problem. It was probably about 20 – 30 minutes orso. We headed towards the gates andpassed through baggage claim. We weren’tsure if we were supposed to get our luggage or not since this was the firsttime we took this airline. We werelooking around and saw the cutest drug sniffing dog ever! It was a little Beagle and I wanted to take apicture so bad but was afraid to get in trouble, so I didn’t. We started to walk through to the rest of thegates and overheard an employee asking someone else why they didn’t have theirluggage. She kind of followed them so wehurried up and went back over the line to get back to the baggage claim sincewe realized we were supposed to get our luggage. We retrieved all our crap and headed throughthe next set of gates. There was anothercheckpoint and they had us go into another room and put all our luggage throughan X-ray machine. We did this and thenheaded down the hall to put our luggage that we had checked in on a belt to goback on the plane. Then, we had to gothrough security AGAIN! Off come the shoes,the jacket, out comes the laptop, liquids…..what on earth could I have donewith all this stuff in the time I got off the plane? Of course, I didn’t say a word for fear ofupsetting someone and went through the whole process again. I am exhausted by this point and realize thatI am drenched. I think that I may havehad a fever on the plane and then it broke right before we had our airportworkout. Finally, we got to the gatewith only a few minutes to spare. Thelesson learned on this trip was to allow more time through security and plan alonger layover. At least I was able to buy my coveted bottle of waterto take on the plane and Ed could charge his cell phone.

I think I had forgotten that Ed told me before we leftthat our flight home was on a smaller plane. I looked out the window and saw what I like to call a “choo chooplane.” The first thing that came tomind was a vision of the pilots running down the runway with their feet throughthe bottom of the plane like the Flinstones used to run in their car. Really? Hacking a lung on this plan may cause turbulence! On the left side of the plane was a row ofone seat and then on the right side, there were two seats.

Ed and I sat down and then a lady sat down in the seatacross the aisle from me. Yes, Ed tookthe window seat. Anyway, this lady satdown and I looked over and she had a mask on. Seriously? She is in the wrongseat. I tried not to cough but my firstbought came on and seconds later, she hit the flight attendant call button andwithin minutes, she was moved. Sorrymask lady, I couldn’t help it. I caughta foreign bug. This was the last that Iremember of this flight because after that airport workout, I slept the entire2 hour flight. I felt like I had seen bothJoan and Jenny in the same day (personal trainer and massage therapist).

Finally, we were home! I was never so happy to see Sky Harbor ever!! Since we flew into Terminal 2, we had notrouble getting our luggage. No,Terminal 2 is not a runway……just a really small terminal. Love it! We ended up having to wait about 30 mintues for our ride because, getthis, we were EARLY! About half an hourearly! They really know how to buildextra time into flight schedules!! Continental was pretty prepared for this increase in security…..we havea new love for this airline! We leftAmsterdam about an hour and a half late and we arrived in Phoenix a half anhour early.

What a day!! I ammaking notes for the blog now and I can’t wait to get home to my own bed, mydog, cough medicine and hours of sleep! No work until Monday and a massage tomorrow.

I had a blast on this trip but home is always a greatplace to be. Just like last time, I willbe catching up on the blog after my trip has ended.

January 5, 2010 - Our spare day.....hanging in Amsterdam

2010-01-27T01:28:00.000-08:00

So, I woke up from my druginduced coma to find no one in the room. It’s kind of weird to wake up like that in another country! I am still feeling pretty crappy and almosthacked up the other lung. Edcame back from the airport and had scoped out where we needed to go as well asa place to buy an extra bag if we needed it. I really hope we don’t!

We got ready and walked to a tram station and took thetram into Amsterdamto do some last minute shopping. It wasnice out…..either I was totally numb to the cold by now or I had adapted as Ireally wanted to take my jacket off. Ihad put my gloves away at this point. Weird.

We stopped to eat at McDonald’s. Why, you ask? Well, they had a McKroket which is basically what we had eaten at 1am onChristmas Eve but it was on a bun. Itwas also fast and there were open seats, so we sat down and had our lunch. It was quite yummy!

We walked around and did a little shopping and thenheaded back to the tram because it was getting dark, which meant that walkingon the icy streets would be a little bit more difficult. We waiting for awhile and then caught thetram back to the stop near our hotel.

We ate dinner at the restaurant in our hotel. The menu was really small and there wasn’tmuch to choose from. I saw a hamburgeron there and thought that would be safe. It was the weirdest hamburger I had seen ever. It ate some, mostly because I needed to takemore drugs. I am really starting tosound like a total addict here. I amsure there is a meeting somewhere for NyQuil abusers like me.

We headed back to the room to organize our luggage andget to bed since we had to be up pretty early. We got most everything packed and then I was out like a light!

January 4, 2010 - Our last day in Elburg.....Off to Amsterdam

2010-01-27T00:58:00.000-08:00

Today is our last day in Elburg before heading to thehotel by the airport in Amsterdam. I am sad but I am also missing my doggie andam really not feeling well, so I miss my own bed. By this time, I also have a hacking cough,which will be loads of fun on a 10 hour plane ride. Thank you Wal-Mart for my bag of 100 coughdrops. It will come in handy!

I got up super late because of the drugs I took the nightbefore. Wendy and Erik had to work andthe girls had school, so we were the only one’s home. Ed was already downstairs on his laptop andMarsha and Bill were on their way over to do laundry. The only thing I wanted to do today was towalk up to the market and get a flavor of tea that I had recently tried andreally liked. Ed is afraid that we don’thave enough cheese, so he wanted to buy more. Marsha and Bill took the car into old Elburg to do some shopping whilewe walked up to the market. We did ourshopping and headed back to start our packing process. I hate this part of the trip. We have way more crap then we came with and notonly because of things we bought but because of all the cheese and coffee thatsome of the relatives are sending back to family in Mesa. Since we live in Chandler,it appears that we were designated to take all the stuff back to them.

Packing was a pain because I can’t breathe very wellright now and after a few minutes, I end up needing to take a break because Iam tired. This cold I have contractedsucks. Anyhoo, we ended up needing totake the suitcase that Marsha was going to get rid of because of a brokenzipper and messed up handle and using it to transport some of the food in. We may even need to buy another bag inaddition to that tomorrow in Amsterdam. Since we are here an extra day, we are headedback into Amsterdamto pick up a few souvenirs. Carrieinformed us of where to shop in the Red Light District as they have the bettersouvenirs. No, not those kinds ofsouvenirs’!! Sickos!

We finished packing and headed back to Theresa’s fordinner. We visited a bit and Marsha andBill finished their packing. We waitedfor Shirley to arrive as we needed a second car to help with luggage. There was no way we were fitting all of ourluggage AND Bill and Marsha’s luggage in our little car. We had to wait until the evening as everyonehad to go back to work. Erik and Shirleywere driving with us into the city with half of our luggage. We said our goodbyes (which takes about halfan hour) and headed to Tante Olly’s to say goodbye to her as well. We also gassed up and then headed towards Amsterdam. It was pretty foggy and ended up raining partof the drive. It took about an hour anda half to get to our hotel. We unloadedall our crap and went up to check out our room at the Tulip Inn. Holy crap! This room is crazy! It’s huge,which is good because we have a lot of luggage and crap between the four of us.

We made tea and had stroopwaffles in our room while wesettled in:

I have taken my NyQuil and will not be joining Ed when hetakes Marsha and Bill to the airport. Iam trying to get as much sleep as possible in order to try and knock out thiscold. I really don’t want to travel onthe plane for 10 hours straight and not be able to breathe. At one point this evening, I hacked up a lungand immediately worried that we didn’t have enough room in the luggage totransport it home. Here’s to not keepingthree other people up in our room with my coughing!!

Only one more day in Holland……I can’t believe our trip is almostover! It went by way too fast! Good night!

January 3, 2010 - Rotterdam is a no-go...Utrecht, here we come!

2010-01-27T00:30:00.000-08:00

Today was nice because we got up late because there wehad no concrete plans. The thing thatsucked is that I was not feeling well at all at this point. My sore throat was worse and I wascongested. At this point, I was tickedoff because I had done everything to try and prevent this…including a flu shotthat left my arm beat up. Luckily, I hadpacked every over the counter drug known to mankind, so I was set!

This is our only completely free day…..the original planwas to go to Rotterdambut because of the weather, we scrapped that idea. We were supposed to meet Justin, our cousin,in Rotterdamand he was going to give us a tour. Ihad messaged him last night to tell him that we didn’t think traveling into Rotterdam was a safe ideaanymore. Marsha talked to him today andhe gave another option of taking the train into Utrecht where there was shopping andsightseeing as well. We decided to dothis so that we could hang out with Justin a bit more and then see somethingdifferent. Since we had problems in thepast with using our Visa debit card, Ed looked online to see how to use it atthe train station so that we wouldn’t get stuck. Well, we went to the train station in t’Hardeand it didn’t take our card or paper money or coins. So, we just drove to Utrecht and met Justin there. It turns out that he wasn’t feeling welleither and ended up taking us to see where our other cousin, Reza worked andthen leaving to go home. We walked aroundUtrecht and sawa really awesome church and went in a few stores. We ate at café inside a department store andwalked around more and took pictures. Here are some pictures of Utrecht:

What would a day be without some sort of food. This is the best kind:

The stores close at 5pm, so we headed back to the parkinggarage. This was equivalent to a shoppingmall and we had to pay for parking. Wereally missed our free parking at home at this point.

We ran into Reza on the way out and said goodbye to himand then headed back to Elburg.

We met up with the rest of the family at a Mongolian BBQrestaurant in t’Harde and had dinner as a big group one last time. The food was interesting…..I decided to havesome kip (chicken) because it is easily recognizable and I know that word inDutch.

We headed home and did the usual: checked in on the internet. We added some laundry into the mix and thenheaded to bed. I was in a cold druginduced state by this point. I am hopingI fight this off because traveling with this crap will not be fun.

January 2, 2010 - Next stop - the Geeraths/Gaeraths' Reunion in Diemen!

2010-01-11T21:05:00.000-08:00

Of course, ourday starts as any other day of this trip….get up, breakfast, get ready, thenoff to the next stop. I was a littleirritated that I woke up with a sore throat today. I was hoping that it was only because I waswearing my retainers** and the window was cracked open a little.

**SideNote: Yes, I still wear myretainers. I paid way too much money andturned 30 with braces to not follow directions (2004 - 2006). So, I wear them every night. Forthree years, I have been faithful….except after my half marathon, when I passedout before even brushing my teeth. Thanks Dr. Nathan T. Davis for my smile. Never say I don’t refer professionals after a good experience.

I digress.

Today marks thethird reunion of our trip. This oneconsists of anyone who has the last name of Gaeraths/Geeraths and was held inDiemen, Netherlands. It was supposed to takeplace in October but due to lack of response as well as finding out we weregoing to be in the neighborhood over the holidays, they moved it to today. We are kinda a big deal……

We saw somefamily we knew and met some that we didn’t. They provided us with a family tree to that went back about 9generations. So, if you knew the name ofthe stranger at the next table, you could pretty much figure out how you arerelated. It was pretty neat!

At some point,Tante Olly pulled out some old pictures from her purse and we started lookingat them. It was pretty fun to seepictures of everyone as kids.

At first, wewere worried that there wasn’t going to be any food because we really didn’tsee anything but snacks on the table. Weshould have known better. They just didn’tset it all out at once. It kept comingout of a little room tray by tray. Iswear, there were elves back there.

Here is another attempt at a family photo. I think we had too many people to fit but here is a glimpse:

After ourvisiting went past the time that they had rented the facility, it was time togo home. No one had noticed that it hadstarted to snow……little did we know what we were in for. It seemed to just start coming down harder aswe drove. Ed compared it to the blizzardwe experienced the first trip we took to North Dakota when he met my Grandpawhen I was still in college. It wascrazy! Ed did a good job, although, I knowhe got nervous at times. I am suredriving a stick shift in the snow was a real treat he doesn’t wish toexperience in the near future.

It took us 2hours to get home on a drive that should have taken a little over an hour innormal weather. Thanks to Ed and Garmina(our Garmin GPS who is female and tells us where to go), we got home in onepiece.

At this point,we just hung out for a bit and then headed home. Once again, another tiring day of visitingpeople and being the main attraction…those Crazy Americans!

January 1, 2010 - Happy New Year....bring on the reunions! First stop - The Stook Family

2010-01-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

Happy New Yearfrom Holland!

After gettingup, eating, and getting ready, we headed to Zoetermeer where we were meeting up with theStook Family for New Years. This is Ed’sMom’s side of the family and there are people that they haven’t seen in manyyears, if at all. So, this was anexciting day for both us and the rest of the family. I like to say that Ed has a glimpse into howI felt when I met his family for the first time. You don’t know which cousins go with whichaunts/uncles and which kids go with which cousins. It’s fun to memorize all of this. Bill and I always say we need to have nametags with pictures on them!

Here are some pictures ofthe kids:

Random pictures of thefamily visiting:

Of course, my day would notbe complete unless I had a picture of the ridiculous amounts of food that weconsumed. The special thing about todayis that we got to have Indo food similar to what Ed’s parents used tomake. It was yummy but I think we weresad for a minute too because it’s never going to be the same as Mom G. used tomake.

These are a few of Ed’saunts. It was amazing how much theylooked like his mom. On one hand, it wasso nice to meet family that I had never met but I know that seeing these auntsthat looked so much like Mom G. was hard for Ed and his siblings.

Of course, a day would notbe complete if more food wasn’t brought out of nowhere. More food…dessert like items:

We visited more and then itwas time to leave. We made our attemptat a group picture. Let me remind youthat this is not everyone. There areStook family members in Australia as well as people who weren’t able to attendand who were taking the picture. We arecontemplating a trip to Australia……right after I obtain Valium or some sort oftranquilizer for that flight.

After the normal half hourlong goodbyes, we headed home. What a great day to catch up with family as well as meet people we had not met before! We caughtup with family where we were staying and then headed to bed. It had been a long day and we werewiped! We needed our rest for the nextreunion we had tomorrow!

December 31, 2009 - New Years Eve

2010-01-10T16:54:00.000-08:00

We got up lateand did the usual morning activities of eating and visiting. We got ready to hit the little market that iswithin walking distance from Wendy and Erik’s house to get our goodies to takehome. I wanted to get some tea andcookies to share at work and Ed wanted to get more cheese than our share fromthe wheel that we went in on with Andy and Marsha. We ended up with more than we could carryback so Ed and Bill walked back and got the car to put our goodies in.

While we wereshopping, we saw a car that is smaller than a Smart Car (if that ispossible!). It was called a Micro Carand it was pretty cool:

We walkedaround the shops and then headed back to the house.

We visited, atea snack, and checked email while waiting to head over to Theresa’s fordinner.

Around 5:30pmor so, we walked over to Theresa’s house to eat and hang out until closer tomidnight. This picture is just funny tome…..Ed looks like a cross between the Unabomber and a gang member with a caseof Heineken walking in the streets:

We visited andplayed with the kids while the food was prepared. Once again, Bill is themost popular American!

Of course,there was food all over the place. Hereis a glimpse:

Of course,blowing up things is something that has to be done on New Year’s Eve. Christian was coming in and out of the houseand looked like he was in the midst of making trouble.

The young folks headed outside with a bigmilk jug looking can, a basketball, water, a homemade torch, and some oil andproceeded to make noise with it. Wefinally went outside to see what they were up to. It was pretty cool but probably scared someof the neighbors. I didn’t grab thecamera for this outing….I just wanted to make sure I was warm. So, no pics here….I will have to steal somefrom one of the youngsters who might have snapped a few.

In the meantime, some had trouble staying awake until the new year hit.....people of allages were falling asleep!

Around 11:30pm,we headed back to Wendy and Erik’s because there were younger peopleliving on that street than where Theresa lives. They would be setting off fireworks as well, so the plan was to go overthere to set off ours as well. We counteddown to midnight and then wished everyone a Happy New Year (three kisses, justlike saying hello and goodbye). We wentoutside and set off mass amounts of fireworks. Here is a glimpse into some of what was set off:

It was crazy to see this taking place in a neighborhood. Ed and I are used to setting off our ownfireworks because, for the past two years, we have spent the Fourth of July inFerndale, WA with my family, where fireworks are legal for the weekend. This was insane! Here are some pictures of our lightshow as well as some video.

Don't even think that the food was left behind. It was walked down the street along with the rest of us. After about halfan hour of fireworks, we went back inside and ate more, if that was possible. We also talked about how much we eat, whichwas pretty funny.

I also found anew drink that was quite tasty! Apparently, Bacardi Breezer is adrink that the 14 and 15 year olds drink in the clubs…..pretty much equivalentto Zimas for us. My cousin, Christian was making fun of me because I likedit. He also made me a drink with some orange juice and some other kindof alcohol that I have never heard of. It was quite tasty.

After an houror so, we were all fading pretty fast, so some headed back over to Theresa’sand we headed upstairs to go to bed. Aftersurfing the web a bit, we were getting ready to go to sleep when the power wentout. Apparently, it was the wholeneighborhood. I guess that’s whathappens when you set off fireworks in a residential area. It was off for a few hours and then came backon, so we were told.

I would have tosay that this was the best New Years we have ever celebrated. They sure know how to party it up inElburg! Happy New Year! Bring on 2010….it has to be better than 2008and 2009!!

December 30, 2009 - Den Haag and Zaandam

2010-01-04T08:09:00.000-08:00

Our days startthe same….get up and eat breakfast and then get ready. This day was nice because all the young folksgot up early and headed out on their own, so we didn’t have to fight for theshower. We finished up getting ready andpacking up our things to switch places with Marsha and Bill. I should havetaken a picture of Ed and Bill hauling all of our stuff up and down the steepstairs, but I didn’t think about it at the time.

Once that wastaken care of, we headed to Den Haag, where Marsha and Bill were going to visita man whose wife was friends with their mother. He had been in contact with her until her death, so they thought itwould be nice to visit him while we were here. He only thought that Marsha and Bill were going to visit him and freakedout a little when she mentioned all of us going, so they went alone. We dropped them off and had an address for amall we were going to kill some time at. Unfortuantley, we never made it there. Our GPS, (we have named her Garmina) gave us weird directions and wecould never get to the ramp that led us into the parking structure. Instead, we ended up in this area that wasrestricted and we had to turn around on the sidewalk to get out. It was frustrating because I wanted to seehow this “mega store” compared to the malls at home.

By this time, Iwas starving and we just wanted to find somewhere to eat. For some reason, the GPS was sending us inweird places. We ended up in, what I calledthe hood and found a chicken place there. We figured we just needed to stop at the first place we found because bythe time we ate, Marsha may be done and we needed to go back and pick her up inorder to head to our next destination. Hereis where we ate. The last picture translates into something like, "Fried Chicken like the Americans." I thought that was funny.

After eating,we headed back to where Marsha was. Theonly problem is that traffic was horrible and the streets were similar todriving in NY. It took forever to getback to where Marsha was. The cool thingis that we had to turn on this street:

We finallypicked her up and headed to Zaandam where we were meeting Oom Paul, Ed’suncle from his mom’s side. He came outto the US for her funeral and this is how we started talking about meeting up withthe Stook side of the family when in Holland again. We visited and heard stories about family weare not familiar with as well as telling them stories about Andy, Marsha, andEd. It was fun to get to know part ofthe family we didn’t know as well. OomPaul and his wife, Mary, have one child, Jamie. He is married and has twins, Lyndon and Rodney. They are too cute! There will be more pics of them from the Stook Reunion entry.

Of course, weate like fools! Mostly because it isgreat food but also because we don’t get Indo food much anymore since Mom G passedaway. Mary (Andy’s wife) knows how tomake some things but they live in CA, so it’s not as convenient as it used tobe. So, we were all determined to eatup! Apparently, I was in such a hurry to eat, I failed to take a food picture!

We headed homeafter a nice dinner with Oom Paul and his family. The drive home was about 2 hours, so I sleptmost of the way. Marsha and I have atalent for falling asleep pretty quick after the car starts moving if the tripis long. It’s a trick I learned back inthe days when I would get car sick. Afew times of puking in the car and one time actually on my cousin taught methat sleeping through a car ride was safer and less embarrassing. Now, I can pretty much do it on command.

We droppedMarsha and Bill off at Theresa’s and headed to Wendy’s. We visited for a bit, checked in online, andthen headed to bed. A long but fun day!

December 29, 2009 - Amsterdam

2010-01-02T14:50:00.000-08:00

Today was a relativelylaid back day. We decided that we wantedto hang out in Amsterdam and just walk around with no concrete plans. We spend an entire day in Amsterdam led bythe cousins in 2006 when we were here last, so we didn’t need to see the entirescene, we just wanted to get out of the house and walk around and shop alittle. We drove to Weesp where we tookthe train into Amsterdam because parking is a pain in the city. Here we are on the train:

We got toAmsterdam and just walked around and went through some of the shops. We didn’t tour it extensively like we didlast time but it was still fun. Wewalked around for awhile and then stopped to eat some yummy Greek food. Here are some of the choices where we wereat:

We didn’t gointo any of these places or eat any of these delicacies, but we just observedand smelled it a little. Ha Ha!

Here I am in front of a church in Amsterdam.....representing the Lumberjacks from afar!

We walkedaround more and then stopped to have some tea and a treat:

Once it startedgetting dark, we headed back to the train station as Ed was warned by twodifferent people to try and get on the road before it gets too slippery. We took the train back to Weesp and headedback to the car to drive home.

Once we gothome, we visited for a bit before we headed upstairs. We were switching where we were staying with Marshaand Bill. The first half of our trip, westayed with Theresa and Ewald and family and the second half; we will bestaying with Wendy and Erik and their family.

It just startedsnowing again!

Last trip, we ended up wearing our respective school shirts in London....on accident.

The same thing happened this time:

Now, we are off to bed. Good night from Holland!

December 28, 2009 - A bittersweet day for us.

2009-12-30T17:08:00.000-08:00

Ahhh……my backdoes not hate me as much today. I willbe quite overdue for a visit to the torture chamber known as Alpha Chiropracticwhen I get home next year. Ha ha, soundsfunny to say that. I am still trying tofigure out where 2009 went and it’s almost 2010.

Today is a sadday as we will have another funeral service for Mom and Dad G. The happy aspect of today is that they havebeen brought back to the place they called home for many years before moving tothe United States. They are being buriedin the same plot as Ed’s Oma (Grandmother) and a nice plaque has been made forthem as well.

We headed Oom (uncle) Kono’s house to visit before the service. We were sitting around talking when Carrie asked if we had Oma here. Bill had Dad G’s urn and everyone kind of looked at each other and Andy thought Marsha had it and Marsha thought Andy had it and Ed just looked at everyone and didn’t say anything. So, after checking the car, Oma was left at home. Geoff, Renee, and Ewald headed back to Elburg to get the urn with Mom G’s ashes so that we could head to the cemetery.

Seriously, can anything else happen on this trip? You might as well call us the Griswold’s at this point.

We had the service and it turned out very nice. Theresa and Wendy sang as well as Oom Kono. Everyone brought roses to put at the gravesite. Once everyone left, Geoff filled up the hole with the rest of the dirt and we spent a few minutes there alone with Mom and Dad G. This cemetery is like no other in that there are trees everywhere and people plant different things around the grave sites to make them look nice. It’s a very beautiful place and we are happy with the decision to bring them home where most of the family reside.

Some family history for you regarding the name since you will notice that Ed's Oma's name is spelled differently than ours. When Frans (Ed's Dad) was born, his last name, Geeraths, was misspelled on his birth certificate. For some reason, his parents never had it corrected, so our name is spelled differently than anyone else's. Andy claims that the "a" stands for America. Anyway, that explains the difference in spelling. The dates on the plaque for Mom and Dad G. are arranged differently as that is how it is done in Holland. The day is listed first, then the month, and finally the year.

After theservice, we all went back to Oom Kono’s house to have more food and visit. Both sides of the family were there: the Geeraths/Gaeraths and the Stooks. It was fun to see Ed and his siblingsvisiting with family that they had not seen in a very long time, or atall. We spent more time visiting andeating (of course) and then we headed back home.

Now, I am justcatching up on the blog and getting ready to head to Amsterdam tomorrow. It’s been a long and exhausting day.

December 27, 2009 - Leaving the Family Compound

2009-12-30T16:54:00.000-08:00

Our last day atthe family compound….we got up and did the usual - eat and visit. After breakfast, we took our showers and thenBill and Ed headed to see a former concentration camp that was nearby. Yeah, not my idea of fun (or Marsha’s), so westayed back and packed up as this was our last day at the Scooby DoobyHouse. We waited for the others toreturn from their adventure and then packed up the cars and headed to Shirleyand Rudi’s house to eat leftovers for dinner since we had so much food from theweekend.

Here are some pictures from Ed's visit to the concentration camp:

On the wayhome, we got a bit sidetracked and ended up getting split up from thegroup. If you want the whole story, youwill have to ask Ed. Once we finallyarrived at our destination, his business was aired to the whole house in twolanguages. Good times.

We ate and visited, it's what we do. Understandable when you don't see each other but every few years, with the exception of 2008, when we had two funerals that brought our Holland relatives to the US.

We also had a runway show by some of the little girls. They are all too cute and strutted their stuff down the runway that was formed by all of our chairs!

Home again,home again, jiggity jig. Warmth andinternet….two beautiful things.

We had a greatweekend, once again!

December 26, 2009 - Happy 75th Birthday Tante Olly!!

2009-12-30T16:15:00.000-08:00

Today, I woke up even more sore after sleeping on the precious bunk beds. At this point, my back and neck are counting down the hours until we leave and get back to a normal bed at Theresa's house where we have been staying since we arrived. We ate our normal breakfast and then were hanging around talking about how we wouldn't mind taking a walk since the snow had melted some and it was a bit warmer out. At first, I thought it was just going to be Marsha, Bill, Ed, and I but it turned out that more people were walking and the adventure was headed up by Ewald, Theresa's husband. He is in the military here and is quite the character who loves the outdoors. I should have know better but went anyway.

It was really nice out and with all our winter gear on, it was not that cold out. We started out on a road and headed into the woods:

We walked for a bit and then the snowball fight started. Mary and I decided we were Switzerland and were neutral territory. I was the photographer anyway.

Kim needs to play softball because she has quite an arm on her!

Oops....Bill fell on his bill (bill is actually Dutch for butt...which is funny when that is someone's name. The kids love it!)

Here is the ringleader himself - Ewald.

Ewald getting Ed.

Bill's snow angel.

Here is where the walk got tricky. See my midget foot in the snow? It only got deeper on our tromp in the snow. This is where the pictures of this lovely walk end because I ended up falling and twisting my ankle a bit. It was fine after awhile, but hurt at first. Not to mention that I was wet at this point and cold and pissed off. So, the camera got hurled at Ed and put away.

Horses!

Of course, when we found these guys and were on solid ground, I got the camera back out and took more pics! Here is our walk back to the house. It really was pretty but more than I bargained for in my not so good for my feet snow boots. Oh well, what can you do?

We got back to the house and more people had arrived for the party we were having later for Tante Olly's birthday. These Dutch folks love to get together, eat, drink, and play games! When they all get together, they do it up right!

Happy Birthday Tante Olly!

Of course, no celebration would be complete without children running around and playing while the food is being prepared. Bill even gets in on the dancing action!

Of course, they have to have their games too!

Dinner time!!

I think this is one of my favorite meals so far!Sutay - Chicken, Pork, Beef with Peanut sauce!Ed, get your eyes off my krupuk (bowl of chip like things that are so tasty!!)

After dinner, we got a Salsa lesson from Oom Kono....who would have thought I would learn the Salsa in Holland taught by a Dutch/Indo?

There is nothing like a friendly game of musical chairs to pass the time:

Bill got a little brutal during this game to keep his chair!

It's down to the kids!You're out!

The winner: Kim!

Limbo anyone?

Modified Limbo for the smaller kids:

These kids loved to dance and Michael Jackson was their favorite! Apparently, there is a movie called, "Moonwalker" that came out in 1998 with MJ in it. None of us had heard of it, so we assumed that it was a Europe release only. Back home, we pop in a Disney movie to calm the kids down or keep them entertained. Here, all you have to do is pop in this movie with MJ and they are either dancing to it or watching intently. It was pretty funny to watch. Here are some of their sweet moves:

Okay, don't let this sweet face above fool you. This is Pascale and she is a riot! She will bat her eyes at you one minute and karate chop you the next. She is the ring leader in picking a victim and torturing them in some fashion. All other children follow. I was one of the firsts. Ewald is the regular victim but it was time to choose a new one and on one of our first days here, when we were patiently waiting for more of us to arrive, I became the first American victim. I have slippers that my aunt gave me at Thanksgiving (Thanks AB....they were a lifesaver here!) and I have been wearing them all the time we are in the house. A few of us were sitting at the table talking when the girls crawled under the table. They started tickling my feet on the bottom of my slipper. I played along and laughed until someone got smart and stuck their little hands inside the slipper and started tickling. I thought I had lost all feeling in my feet like that after months of torture to fix them but apparently, when there are six little hands in your shoe tickling your feet, you laugh until you cry. That went on for awhile and my slippers were stolen and thrown up into the Christmas Tree. They are so cute yet so evil. It's situations like that where I am sad that I don't know Dutch to play with them but somehow, they manage to play with us without words. Pascale, for example, likes to give a mad stink eye and play a little staring game.....it's a bit scary until she cracks a smile and you know you are okay.

She put Bill to sleep when we got to the house. It kind of reminded me of Olivia "packing me up" at my aunt's house. Pascale would sit Bill down and proceed to take his glasses and watch and yell, "Slapen!" which is Dutch for sleep. She would then make a noise resembling a rooster and yell, "Opstaan!" which is Dutch for wake up. She would put his glasses and watch back on and make him sit up. She did this several times and it was hilarious!! Here is a looky loo at her game:

Carrie became a victim tonight as well!

Now, it was time for the honored guest to come back downstairs (where she was basically being kept hostage until her surprise arrived). Tante Olly's daughters, Wendy, Theresa, and Donna (along with the rest of the family) hired a Gospel Choir to come and sing to her as she loves this type of music. So, they arrived and set up as she was being kept upstairs as she had no idea. Here she is!

Theresa, Wendy, and Donna presenting her with a birthday card.

The Gospel Choir

It got emotional for a minute.Oom Kono sang a song to Tante Olly in Indonesian.

The peanut gallery at the bar.One of the last songs was "We Are Family" and we were all up dancing and clapping. Fun times were had by all!

After that, we all tried to stay up longer and some leftover dinner was brought out but after a drink or two and some food, we were all exhausted. We headed up to bed. What a fun night!

December 25, 2009 - Christmas Day

2009-12-28T23:32:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!! I woke up with a gift from the hard beds we slept in.......a kink in my neck and some sweet lower back pain!! Someone loves me, I know.

We got up and headed downstairs to eat breakfast in our usual fashionable pajamas. Gotta love chocolate sprinkles on buttered bread for Christmas!

Now, we braved the showers! First, I have to tell you that the temperature of the water in all the sinks is ICE cold!! So, brushing my sensitive teeth sucks! Anyway, I was worried that the showers would have temperature issues as well. You know how in some public bathrooms where you push the faucet and the water runs for a bit and then shuts off by itself? BINGO! That is how the shower worked, only I didn't know that at first. So, I am in the midst of washing my hair and the water turns off. I had flashbacks to fire drills at NAU in the middle of winter where people were taking a shower and had to stop. When that passed, I realized you had to push the button again. Good times! Needless to say, I was nice to my peeps and warned them when I got back to the room. At least the water was warm.....the drawback was that you couldn't control the temperature. Oh well, at least there were showers, right?

We visited for awhile and then the kids opened their presents from all of us. Watching kids open gifts is always fun!

More visiting took place throughout the day. Then, it was time for dinner. I can't imagine doing this all the time because the family is so big! We had different kinds of meats, potatoes, brussel sprouts, and some other dishes that I tried and am not sure how to explain. They were just different. I will say that Marsha did bring up Aunt Betty's cheesy potatoes and we were having withdrawals from our regular Christmas food, but had a blast anyway! Here is a glimpse into our dinner:

Theresa and Andy toasting to all of us here and those who are not.

The kids sang Christmas Carols while Theresa played the guitar. It was so much fun to hear them sing in English!!Yum!

After that, more hanging out and then off to bed. We were pretty tired because we had no sleep the night before and everyone was sore from the beds. Many folks stayed up late again and visited but I didn't want to end up sick from lack of sleep, so I headed to bed.

Merry Christmas from Holland!

Thursday, December 24, 2009 - Christmas Eve

2009-12-28T13:34:00.000-08:00

A little Dutch history for you folks: Sinterklaas is Dutch for Santa Claus and is celebrated on St. Nicholas Day, which December 6th. So, Sinterklaas had already come to all the kids earlier in the month. While they do celebrate Christmas Day, the majority of the presents happen on the 6th and the 25th is reserved for celebrating family (with food, of course).

Today, we got up and packed to head to the house in Friesland, which is sort of in the middle of nowhere. We would be there for 4 days and 3 nights and needed to pack up one suitcase for the time being as we didn't want to lug our huge luggage. We were to leave at 1pm, so we were packed and ready to go. With a group this size, punctuality never really happens, so we ended up leaving at around 2pm or so. We headed on our road trip in a caravan of about 6 cars full of people, luggage, and food.

Ed is our driver for this trip!Our saving grace!Andy and family in front of usEd hasn't driven one of this in about 2 cars!

All three cars are filled with family and there are more behind us!

Yes, we are driving a Ford in Holland. Weird!

We stopped for a photo op along they way to prove that the Americans from CA and AZ have seen real snow!

The snowball fights have begun! Theresa is hiding behind Andy because Ed is getting ready to fire!

Carrie, Marsha, me, and Renee

After about an hour and a half, we arrived at "de schaopedobbe," which would become our home for the next 4 days. Ed called it "scooby dooby" because he couldn't pronounce it at first.

We took a tour of our new temporary home. Here is a look:

After we got settled in, we had dinner. The Dutch folks cooked for us the whole weekend! What a treat for us!! For dinner, we had frites (fries) and croquettes. I was excited to have frite sauce again, which is sort of like mayonnaise and is everywhere and so yummy! Below is Carrie at the kids table with an adult beverage, which was pretty funny.

After dinner, we visited for awhile while the kids played. In the midst of this visiting, different kinds of alcohol are brought out and we all try them to see what we like. Of course, there are the bottles that we recognize, but there are also bottles we have never seen. I tried this drink that was very good when sipped, and I mean sipped! It was called, "Cuarenta y tres" and was sweet and almondy. Imagine finding a drink that has a Spanish name in Holland. Here it is:

I also drank a lot of tea and continue to do so. It's so much better here!!

At this point, the kids were still playing and Marsha and I had not wrapped their gifts yet. We went upstairs to track down some wrapping paper and tools to take care of this task. Luckily, Mary (sister in law/Andy's wife) had wrapping paper, scissors, and tape. So, Marsha and I took care of this before the kids went upstairs to go to bed. Once this was done, we headed back downstairs to do some more visiting and watching kids play. Here is a breakdown of the kids:

Shirley and Rudi have Inez (5) and Anouk (4)
Sandra and Wil have Quentin (11) and Pascale (4)
Theresa and Ewald have Victor (21) and Christian (20) - they weren't playing, I just didn't want to leave them out.
Donna and Jean-Pierre have Kim (9)
Wendy and Erik have Noah (10) and Carmen (7)
Fabian has Tara (3)

Victor is on the left, and Christian is on the right and they are looking over Geoff's (our nephew) shoulder.

Tara

Inez, Pascale, Kim, Anouk, Noah, Carmen, and Quentin in the back. Poor guy is out numbered!

Finally, the kids went to bed and the Dutch folks prepared their game for us. All we knew is that there was a pile of presents in the middle of the floor and we did not have a clue:

So, the game finally started and it turned out to be similar to the normal white elephant game that most workplaces have during the holidays. This had a few twists though. There were good gifts in the pile as well as gag gifts. It was fun to see what people picked but, knowing how these games worked, you probably would not end up with what you opened. There were a few gifts that were more popular than others....one was a lamp that could only be used in Holland because of the plug and the other was a fancy pair of underwear. As you can see, fun was had by all in the pictures!

The first picture is funny because all the people who ended up with ski hats live in the desert. Rudi (next to Ed) ended up opening the other hot item, which he is so fashionably wearing as a hat as well. The lovely lamp had a special place in Andy's heart because it ended up following him everywhere! You see, after all the gifts were opened, there was a die that was rolled and each number had an instruction. Some of the instructions were to switch presents between two people, take something that you wanted, move to the left, move to the right, steal something from someone sitting two people to your left or right, or the most popular option (#5) of everyone getting up and moving one space over. Somehow, the magic lamp followed Andy everywhere! In the end, the last twist was that all the gifts were for us. I was excited because I ended up with a little box for thee (tea) that I wanted to find and buy to keep my tea at work as well as different boxes of tea and some yummy chocolates. My favorite item was the magnets that have universal signs on them (gag gift). This game took forever but was so much fun!! Here is my stash:

After the game, we hung out for awhile when another cart of food was brought out. Below, you will notice the time.....this is not an uncommon thing in this family.

In the meantime, someone put a movie in and we ended up watching Firewall, a movie I had not seen before. Otherwise, I would have gone to bed. The movie ended at around 3:15am when we headed upstairs to go to bed. Marsha and I walked into our room and just about died! The heater had never really come on and it was an icebox!! We were trying to figure out how we were going to sleep like this...at one point, she talked about going downstairs and sleeping on the couches but we knew the kids would be up early because of the presents under the tree, so that was not a good idea. We had an empty room next to us, so we went in there to see how the temperature was in there. I think the room was smaller and had two bunk beds as well as one single bed in it, so there was not a lot of room, which is why I think it was warmer in there. Once the heater started working, it was a lot warmer than the other room. Here is what we called our new room:

By the time we decided to just move rooms, it was about 4am. Tomorrow was going to be rough! What a great Christmas Eve though!! The only time I did miss home was when I realized that I was missing Aunt Betty's famous seafood dinner. I know it's only one year, but boy, did I miss that food!! I will make up for it next year!!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas Eve! I was happy to experience it in a different country with a huge family that is loads of fun!!

More pics from December 21st - December 23rd

2009-12-27T15:50:00.001-08:00

A little explanation before I continue....

2009-12-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

So, something that needs to be explained before I get into the events of the weekend is the value of food to this family. Eating is something that is done constantly. Time is not a factor; if people are up, food will be served. It's kind of like Las Vegas where you have no concept of time. When we eat, a LOT of food is served! Cooking for an army is what these folks do. Having seconds is required. So, that gives a little insight into some of the upcoming entries.

An example of a breakfast item:

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 - Out and About!

2009-12-27T13:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (Tuesday, December 22, 2009), we just ended up hanging around the house andvisiting, so there is not much to talk about.

Today, my day started out a little weird! I was eating breakfast and the news was onthe TV in the background. All of asudden I heard, “blah blah *Dutch I don’t understand* blah blah TUCSON blahARIZONA *more Dutch.” It turns out thatthe dust storm that caused that horrible crash near Casa Grande made internationalnews. WOW!

Today, we braved the cold and headed out to Zwolle to dosome last minute Christmas shopping for some of the children. We went to Shirley’s house to meet up withher and her husband, Rudi and then we formed a caravan into a local shoppingarea. It was pretty cool because the buildingsare so old and it’s not your typical shopping mall. We had been there before, but it was so hotthe last time we were there; we would stop at each place that had colddrinks. We seem to bring extreme weatherwith us each time we come here!

Shopping in ZwolleThe Dutch still ride their bikes in the winter!Brrr!!So much snow!

We ate lunch at the same café we went to last time wewere here, found the gifts for the kids we had left to buy for, and then headedto another town to visit another family member.

We made our way back to pick up Tante (aunt) Ollie andhead to Hardewijk where we met up with Donnaand her family at their home. They livein a little city that has everything they need at their fingertips! Their house is right across from a bakery! The house blends in with the shops aroundthem so much that people accidentally walk in if their door is open thinkingthat it is another shop! Their house isover 300 years old and they keep the old look and feel to their place. In the middle of the development, there is anice skating rink for the winter. Therewere many people out skating, which is something we obviously don’t see at allat home. The streets were decorated withlights and Christmas decorations. It wasfun to walk around and see everyone out, even though we were freezing!

Once we weredone here, we headed to dinner. All ofus were meeting at a Pannenkoeken Huis (Pancake House) for dinner. I believe there were close to or just over 30people there. We had a buffet ofpannenkoeken, which resembled crepes and had different things to put onthem. Some of them had kaas (cheese) orsome had ham. Others were plain and youadded either chicken or fruit and chocolate sprinkles. They were so good! We visited and ate and then headed home.

Each night, we would wind down with some kindof alcohol and more visiting. I actuallydrank a whole beer…..Heineken (for my peeps who told me to have one foryou. You should feel special knowingthat I don’t drink beer.

We finally wentto bed so that we could get up and get our stuff ready to head to the house weall rented for 3 days over Christmas. Itshould be a great weekend!

Monday, December 21, 2009 - Today started out uneventful....

2009-12-21T16:25:00.000-08:00

So, we just kind of hung out today....getting over our jet lag and waiting for Geoff and Renee to get here. We uploaded pictures, updated blogs, and whatever else we chose to do. More family came over and visited and then we ate dinner and did more visiting. The family finished up the planning for the service to bury the remains of my mother and father in law as that is the main reason we are here. All throughout the night, we kept logging onto the British Airways website to check on the status of Geoff's flight. It was on time for a bit and we started joking about what we affectionately call the "Gaeraths Curse" when we noticed the time for landing kept creeping later and later. Each time Marsha checked the arrival time, the phone rang and it was Christian letting us know what we had already found out online. Later on, we get another call stating that the car rental desk was not open past 11am and their plane was scheduled to land at 11:12 or so with a good hour to get through customs and to get luggage. To top it off, the car that Carrie and Christian drove to meet them and have them follow home in was not big enough for 4 people and luggage for two. This is when the hilarity ensued.

Andy is yelling in Dutch about how this trip has been nothing but bad luck so far and now he has to drive to the airport at 11pm in the snow in another country....yadda yadda yadda. We were all laughing at this point. The final decision was to get a start on the road to the airport and then if they called and could fit the luggage, they would call back and let us know. So, we wait and the guys leave. A little later, Teresa gets a call and they fit the luggage in the car, so she then calls the guys and they turn around. They threaten to keep going and go to Amsterdam and she said, "Your pajamas will be hanging outside if you do that!"

All in all, it was a slow day until the very end and then it was just funny. Obviously, this didn't directly affect me, so I wasn't as irritated as Andy was. You can't make this stuff up that is happening to the family and it seems to be centered around Andy's immediate family. Luckily, we have managed to escape unscathed. I probably should't say that...I may have just jinxed Ed and I.

Tomorrow....who knows what tomorrow holds?

Schipol Airport on December 20th

2009-12-21T04:56:00.000-08:00

Ed at the airport. He is pretty proud of his baseball jersey that he had made after the World Baseball Classic this year. Everyone loved it!

These are pictures from the arrival of Marsha, Bill, Andy, Mary, and Carrie. We forgot to take any when we arrived. Everyone in these pictures are part of our family....airport arrivals are a big deal. Everyone comes to greet you at the airport. It's so much fun and reminds of me of the old days when you could meet someone at the gate when they arrived. Of course, we can't meet at the gate, but it's still fun!

These are the doors that we came out of after going through customs and getting our luggage. Cute!

Here is our luggage. We get made fun of a lot for the amount of luggage that we bring but I am all about being prepared and this winter weather requires bulky clothes.

Here we are greeting the AZ/CA gang that was stranded in London for a night:

Now, we wait for Geoff and Renee to arrive tonight. More family will come over and we will eat and visit, which is what most of this trip will consist of. It's so much fun to watch everyone catch up on lost time and tell stories. I am even starting to pick up a little Dutch after 12 years in this family. Don't ask me to speak any, but I can follow little conversations here and there. Someday, I will learn it!

More to come....we are going to take some snowy pictures later today.

I heart Continental Airlines

2009-12-20T14:09:00.000-08:00

Hello from Holland! Yes, we finally made it here, but not without hiccups along the way. Not too much that directly affected us until we got to Amsterdam. We boarded our plan in Houston and had a pretty uneventful 10 hour flight to Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. We had plenty of movies to choose from on the flight, so I didn't sleep much...maybe a few hours, but I don't know if I would call it real sleep. I followed each piece of advice given to me by different folks at my chiropractor's office to help prevent any foot and back pain. I drank a ton of water and got up and stretched a few times on the plane. Thanks to my actions as well as getting worked on before I left, I had a successful 10 hour flight with no swelling and little to no back pain. I have love for the torture chamber known as Alpha Chiropractic for a second...and then that feeling passes. HA! Just kidding....or am I?

So, we get to Amsterdam and go through the greeting of many relatives as well as meeting some for the first time. We hung out at Starbucks to wait for the rest of the US peeps to arrive from their trip from hell. Then, Marsha calls and says that they are stranded on the runway because the airport we are at is closed due to weather conditions. We just missed that event. In fact, the flight we were on was the best I have ever been on in my life. We hit a little rough patch, but that was about it. We didn't even feel the guy land the plane, or brake for that matter. I should have thanked him. Continental Airlines rules!

So, back to waiting at the airport. Marsha reports that they will be 2 more hours. This is tacked on to the 2 that we found out about right after we landed. So, after arriving at the airport at 8:30am, we finally left with our entire family in tow at 2pm. We got to our rentals, which were smaller than we had anticipated. So, we crammed our mass amounts of luggage into our cars and made our 2 hour trek to our home. I wish I could tell you about Ed driving a stick shift in the snow, but I slept through the whole thing.

We arrived at our cousin's house and ate and visited until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Now, here I am with my second wind. I think I have had a handful of hours of pretend airplane sleep since Friday when I got up. What a past few days we have had!! I am going to get some shut eye and report back later.

Oh, by the way, it's freakin' cold here. I will get some pics tomorrow and post them. It's more than we Az folks can handle. :o)

Stay tuned......

Playing the waiting game....

2009-12-19T12:08:00.000-08:00

So, I am sitting at George Bush airport in Houston waiting to board the second leg of the trip. It's been a packed week! My mom came into town on Wednesday and my brother and his girlfriend arrived on Thursday for my sister's graduation Friday. Hope graduated from Arizona School of Massage Therapy yesterday in a nice ceremony at Souh Mountain CC. My aunt and uncle threw her a nice little party after the ceremony.

We were on our way to the house when Ed gets a call from Marsha (sister-in-law). Their plane has been delayed and instead of leaving Friday night at 9pm, they weren't leaving until 2am. Even better, Andy (brother-in-law) and family were held up at the border of AZ/CA due to an accident and sent on a horrible detour that would have caused them to miss their flight anyway. So, after we visited with family at my aunt's house, we headed to Marsha and Bill's house to take them back to the airport at midnight to catch the 2am flight to London. Unfortunately, there are no more flights going from London to Amsterdam, so they were put up on London for the night. Now, we will end up arriving in Amsterdam a few hours before they will and we left at 8:15am Saturday morning. HA!

So, we decided not to go to bed last night because we weren't finished packing anyway. I ended up taking an hour nap but have realized that I am too old for this all nighter crap! How did I do that back in the day? Sheesh.

This morning, we left our poor doggie for an extended period of time where he will go on a hunger strike until he is really hungry and finally decides to eat and just spends all day and night on our bed. So sad....sorry Buddy G....we will be back soon!

Now, we wait. I am dreading this leg of the trip for several reasons. Hello? 10 hours in a confined space? My feet and back are not really excited either. My feet were a little mad at the 2 hour flight from Phoenix to Houston. We shall see how my various ailments hold up during this long flight.

Congrats to my sister on finishing her massage therapy program!! She is going to continue her education in a few weeks as well. I am so proud of her and can't wait for my massages! Congrats Hope!!

Jay, Jen, Hope, Mom, Me, Ed

Holland 2009/2010 Trip

2009-12-17T23:39:00.001-08:00

Stay tuned for updates and pictures of our upcoming trip to Holland!!!

The sequal to the Steelers Cake and my new favorite creation!!

2009-12-17T23:37:00.000-08:00

My first half marathon - Seattle Rock n' Roll - June 2009

2009-12-17T23:22:00.000-08:00

I did it......13.1 and I am DONE!

2009-06-29T10:56:00.001-07:00

Holy Crap! I flippin' completed a 1/2 marathon....and I didn't keel over trying! I wasn't carted off the course and I am still lived to tell the tale! I will write a lot more later when I have time to sit down and tell stories but I wanted to give you a little preview. I have a bunch of pics that I have to get from Mary, one of my walking peeps and my uncle. As soon as I have more pictures, I will post them. Here's a few for now....

For those of you who know my love for early mornings and my inability to get places on time.....I was up at 3am and down in the lobby at 3:45am as planned. CRAZY!

A pic that Ed took. He was in between miles 11 and 12.....

Almost there....approaching mile 12 and I just want to be done by this point!!

Woo Hoo! I ROCK! My time is about an hour less that that picture says. That time is how long the race had been going. I didn't get started until 8am because I was in a back corrall.....where all the cool people were!!

I will certainly post more but for now, here is a glimpse of the awesome weekend I had in Seattle!! Stay tuned.......GO TEAM!

Having a blast so far!

2009-06-26T20:26:00.000-07:00

Hello! Just checking in before I get ready for my 3am wake up time! Crazy!

Thursday: Our flight was just perfect and they announced us on the intercom and explained what we are doing. We got a round of applause from the plane when they said that our group raised over $90K for Leukemia & Lymphoma. Pretty cool!

We got in and headed to the Expo to check in and get our bibs. I promptly donated back to the race in the amount of souveniers I bought....sue me, I am a first time 1/2 marathoner.....I deserve to spend a little on myself! We walked around the expo for about 2 hours and ended up with so much free junk it looked like we had been to the grocery store. Fun!

I am hanging with two captains from our East Valley Team because they are walkers as well so we have gotten to know each other over the course of our training. They are a blast...Mary and Peggy. They give me a hard time because I am "just a baby." I hope I am still going strong when I am their age! We walked around and found a neat Italian place to have dinner. We headed back to our hotel to hit the sack since we had a "fun run" with our teammates at 6:30am the next day.

Friday: We got up and did about a mile of walking before heading to Pikes Place to walk around and shop. We spend most of the day just hanging out around there. The guys at the Fish Market were scaring little kids with this Monk Fish by pulling on something to make it jump up. Poor kids were crying....sad but funny at the same time. I think they were more embarassed than scared because when the Fish guys came over and gave them a sticker, they were fine.

We headed back to our rooms because I had to let Ed in when he arrived and then we had to meet in the lobby to walk over to the Pasta Party. We ate some yummy pasta and heard from John Bingham, who is an awesome speaker! He is the national spokesperson for Team in Training and has a great story. Most runners know him as "The Penguin" as he advocates for those of us who waddle towards the finish line. We also heard from survivors of blood cancers that benefitted from the fundraising that we do during our training. It was amazing! More pics from that at a later date. Now, I am just getting ready to try and go to sleep so I can get up early and head to the lobby to catch the shuttle to the start of the race. I am sure you will be thinking of me when you are sound asleep.....or just getting to bed.....you know who you are!

When I sign on next, I will have 13.1 miles added to my shoes and quite an accomplishment achieved. Good stuff I say!

See you at the FINISH LINE!

GO TEAM!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane....

2009-06-24T23:47:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time....where did the last 5 months go? The big race is this weekend and I am so excited!! Not only that, we are staying in Washington to hang out with family so I will be gone for 10 whole days!! Boy do I need this vacation!

Here is a picture from one of the last practices of the season. These are my Team in Training coaches - Coach Hank and Coach Maria. They are AWESOME!! I am confident that part of the reason I will cross the finish line is because of their support and knowledge about training for endurance events! Hank just had knee surgery and you wouldn't even know it. Maria just took a little trip and competed in a small marathon in BOSTON......you might have heard of it. They come out week after week and help us along and are amazing! I will truly miss getting up every Saturday to walk with these fine people.....yes, you read correctly. I will miss getting up early.....but, once I take a little break I plan on going back to Freestone Park and walking on my own. I can't stop now or I won't afford to be able to eat Thai Elephant every week anymore!!

Yes, I look pretty rough in the early morning hours but I did it and that is what counts!

I must go finish packing but I will be updating throughout the weekend and my trip. Thanks to everyone for all their support! I couldn't have done it without any of you!

GO TEAM - EAST VALLEY ROCKS!

See you in SEATTLE!

The Very Sucessful Bake Sale!

2009-06-02T22:59:00.001-07:00

So, since I bake so much, I had an idea to have a bake sale as a fundraiser for Team in Training/Leukemia & Lymphoma. I asked some of my baking friends to help along with my aunt and together, we made a crap load of yummy goodies and made a wad of cash! Here are some pics from the event:

Here is a before picture. I had so much stuff! I didn't even take a breath to take a picture of the tornado that went through my own tiny kitchen. I baked the Sunday before my Monday bake sale from 9am until about 1am. Of course there were breaks in between but for the most part, I was working on something having to do with the bake sale all day long. I wasn't the only one......a huge THANKS to Aunt Betty, Katie, Sheila, and Gen for baking for me! You guys are awesome!

Here's the after shot. While we had some stuff left over, it went throughout the day and then I passed along the kindness and donated my leftovers to my sister's friend, Jen, who is a youth minister and is taking some of her teens to Africa to build houses! She had a bake sale a few days after mine.

I have had this hanging outside my cube for awhile now. It generates some good conversation!

One of my first customers!

Me and my bake sale!

I made these cute things....just in case you can't tell, they say, "Seattle or Bust" and the other cupcakes have "13.1" on them. One person bought the whole box for her team. Awesome I say!

My donation can. Long live Don Francisco and his coffee cans! When all was said and done, I made a total of $425.63 on my bake sale. I could not have done this without the support of my peeps at work. I must say that my friends at work are awesome and have really shown their generous side during my adventure. Not only do they watch me limp around some days, listen to me talk about the stress of fundraising, and cheat on their new healthy lifestyles with baked goods, but they genuinely care about a good cause and are excited about my little adventure. Thanks for all your support.......you know who you are!

Next stop.....Joy and Hope's Excellent Garage Sale on June 6th! Stay tuned........

Finally....an update!

2009-06-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

So, this whole process of fundraising and training for a 1/2 marathon is sucking the life out of me. On top of that, I am still teaching online classes. So, that is my story when you ask why my blog has not been updated. I am wrapping up my last online class that I will be teaching until after my trip, so hopefully, the updates will be more frequent. I have still be baking for my cause. Here are some examples of my latest work:

One of my co-workers, Angie, just graduated with her Ph.D. recently. We just did a last minute cake once we found out she was successful at defending her dissertation. It's the "Better than almost anything" cake with a chocolate diploma on top. Congrats Dr. Angie!

We had a bake off in our college at the suggestion of one of the other girls on the team because there are a few of us that bake. I got the award for the "best presntation" with my "Check Me Out" checkerboard cake. It turned out kinda funky but it was pretty tasty! Chocolate and Vanilla cake with a homemade raspberry jelly in the middle (thanks Aunt Betty) and my homemade cream cheese icing on top. Good stuff!!

One of the new schedulers got married and so my old manager asked for something for the teams to celebrate Priscilla's upcoming marriage with. Here are some cupcakes and a cake for the bride and groom. Congrats to Priscilla and Javier!

So, that led to another set of cupcakes and a cake for Gayle to take to a bridal shower:

Needless to say, my kitchen and stove hate me so I am giving them a rest.....well not really.

All of the proceeds from these scrumptious goodies went to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to help me meet my fundraising goal. More to come on that adventure! Check out the Official Race website - http://www.rnrseattle.com/

You can help sisters out at the same time!!

2009-04-14T22:07:00.001-07:00

So, my little seestor is currently in massage therapy school and just started selling Mary Kay on the side so that she has a product to use when she starts practicing on people. Well, they have a nifty program where she can donate a portion of her profits to a charitable organization. Guess who she's supporting???? ME!

So, go to her website and buy Mary Kay products from her and we will both reap the benefits:

http://www.marykay.com/harmonyhope

XOXO,
Joy and Hope and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

Don't forget to check up on my progress....

2009-04-13T22:50:00.000-07:00

Hello all my people! I like to think I have people.....

Don't forget to check back on my fundraising efforts at my main page:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/rnrseatl09/jgaeraths

I like to caption that picture of my Grandma with something along the lines of, "Why haven't you donated to Joy's Deal?" You see, everything was a "deal" to Grandma. It was a universal word for everything. So, in honor of my Grandma or anyone else that you know that has been touched by a blood cancer in any way, shape, or form......donate to my Deal......many people thank you who will benefit from these fundraising efforts.

Happy Monday........or happy case of the Mondays.......which is usually my story. On to Tuesday!

Where the heck did March go?

2009-04-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

Hello friends and family!

Wow, I have been busy! I opened up a can of worms at work when I emailed everyone I had ever worked with and offered my baking services in exchange for donations to LLS for my 1/2 marathon. Don't get me wrong, it's a welcome busy schedule but this past week was my first "cakeless" week and it was beautiful! I have had a break so bring on the requests! Here are 2 of the three cakes I did in March:

Happy birthday to Erika in our Payroll dept....hence the dollar signs. :o)

One of the schedulers I used to work with just left to go on her mission in Kentucky. Her going away party had a Mexican theme because of the food and because she is learning Spanish for her mission as well. Everything but the little sombreros are edible. Buena Suerte Tina......see you in 18 months! :o)

Hopefully, the Super Wal-Mart near me opens because if I send Ed out late to get me baking stuff one more time, I may just be on my own. :o)

Today's practice was at South Mountain. This is the 2nd time we have had practice there and our mission was 6-8 miles, depending on which event you are doing. For Seattle, our goal was 6 miles. So, I get up at 5:15am or so because we had to be there at 6:30am and it's about a 1/2 hr drive for me. Running late as usual, I eat my peanut butter toast and banana on the road and watch as the drizzle turns into rain. Rain or shine, we train......only lightening will keep us away! I should have taken a picture of what I looked like when I was done but that would have been pretty bad, so you will just have to use your imagination. Lets just say all my clothes went directly into the wash and I was darn lucky to have a dry sweatshirt in my trunk to change into. The joy of walking a 1/2 marathon is that you can take pictures along the way. Here are a few pics of today's practice:

So, this is what I walked in today. Yes, I am crazy but it's worth it!

For the past couple of Saturday's, our mileage has been 6 so it's about to increase......so it's going to get interesting! The coaches and captains that we have are so awesome and always checking up to see how we are doing. I didn't even finish last today! That is my usual role but with a bigger group, I was able to actually finish before a few other people....not many, but I will take what I can get. Next week, most of us are doing the Pat Tillman run instead of practice so I will be doing 4.2 miles with a zillion other people. It will be good practice to see what it's like walking at a faster pace around so many other people. Plus, it's a good cause.

Happy Easter to everyone and thanks for your continued support!

Off to soak my feet.......

So I am horrible at updates so far.....

2009-03-17T21:52:00.000-07:00

I thought I could keep up with this but so far, I have not done a very good job. Training is coming along nicely. Last Saturday, the 1/2 marathoners did 5 miles and that was the furthest I have gone this far. Let's just say the calves hurt on Sunday and into Monday but it's a good burn, right? On a good note, my new running shoes are awesome!

Thanks Run Az......they are a Friend of Team in Training so they give us discounts!

What used to be my scrapbooking/card making area has now turned into Fundraising Central.

Speaking of Fundraising........anyone need a cake? I am willing to bake you a cake for a donation to my cause. I am no professional by any means but they turn out pretty nice and are tasty! Here are some of the fun cakes I have done:

Happy 5th Birthday Keiley! My March birthday buddy!

My friend, Mandy's baby shower. Love the Ducky....

Part One of Matt's going away cake

Part Two of Matt's going away cake......my scheduling peeps at UOP will understand.

Again, the UOP scheduling folks will appreciate these tasty cupcakes that celebrated the doing away with time zones at Axia!

A birthday cake for a Steelers stalker....uh, I mean FAN! You know who you are! :o)

Cupcakes for Alicia's baby shower at UOP.

Alicia's cake! Welcome to Cade!

I have a few regular cakes that I do for work such as the Chocolate Mint Bundt Cake that I am willing to do for a donation to my cause so let me know! Don't forget that I am teaching online classes and training for a 1/2 marathon so at least a weeks notice would be appreciated! Don't forget to visit my fundraising webiste:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/rnrseatl09/jgaeraths

There are some donations that haven't hit the site yet so I am on my way but have a long way to go to my goal so every little bit helps!! Stay tuned.....

My Newest Adventure!

2009-02-17T21:53:00.000-08:00

Hello! So, I have been talking about putting a blog together for awhile and have been too lazy to actually do it. Now, I have a reason to! Most of you know that 2008 was not kind to us as we lost Dad G. on February 7th and then Mom G. on November 7th.

Mom and Dad G.

Well, we are determined to make 2009 a whole hell of a lot better than the last one! So, we have some trips planned and I have also set a new goal that I never thought that I would......I have started training to walk a 1/2 marathon! I have joined Team in Training to help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in memory of Grandma Vanderlin. She was diagnosed with Leukemia in her mid-eighties and was pretty much told that the treatment for this disease would take her life before the actual disease. So, she was left to let the disease "run it's course." Well, I don't that because of one's age, they should have to just let something "run it's course." I am raising money in the hopes that a less harsh treatment is found that will help our elderly folks who are diagnosed to live out the rest of their lives like they deserve to. So, please help me reach this goal and visit my fundraising page and make a tax deductible donation. Stay tuned as I will keep you posted on my progress as well as our travels over the next year. So far, we are looking at Las Vegas in a few weeks, Seattle in June/July for the Rock N' Roll Marathon and then off to Ferndale, WA for a fun filled Fourth of July jam packed with our own fireworks! Our year will end with a special trip to Holland in December/January 2010 to spend Christmas and New Years with Ed's family and take Mom and Dad G. back home. I am sure we will throw some small trips in there somewhere....we have to make up for lost time! Thanks for checking in and stay tuned.....

Grandma Vanderlin

Please visit my fundraising page: http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/rnrseatl09/jgaeraths

Tell your friends!! :o)