Unexpected Gift

Today while I was putting Jackson down for a nap, we got an unexpected knock at the door! It was our mail man who is just awesome by the way and he's holding a box. I didn't order anything or maybe my mom finally sent the package she's been telling me about for a month now?! Well, I sign for it and take it in the house when I have finally looked at the return address. It's from my Aunt Sally! This is a surprise and totally unexpected! So Jackson is at my feet asking, "Mama, what is it?" I get the scissors and open it up and see a note and a quilt. I read the note and then pull out the quilt that her and my cousin have made and start crying. These are good tears, but what a surprise. I absolutely love it and Jackson was checking it out too. Obviously this is for him, but what a surprise! Did I already say that? LOL

Jackson received 2 knitted blankets as gifts, 1 at my baby shower from a distant cousin Maggie and 1 from our neighbors John and Carrol. Both I love dearly, but this is awesome! The detail of stitching and the colors! They just pop when I look at it!

So, here it is! The theme is Frogs & Dragonflies and the stitching all around the quilt even has frogs and dragonflies.

Close up
Jackson says, "Thank you great aunt Sally and cousin Beth!"
Backside of quilt
There is a patch on the back and it says,
Frogs and Dragonflies
for
Jackson Blaufuss
Aug. 2009 Columbus, MS
Pieced by: Great aunt Sally
C. Sierra Vista, AZ
Quilted by: cousin Beth
H. Phoenix, AZ
Thank you so much for thinking of us and Jackson! I have always been a little jealous when I see people receive home made gifts and now we got one, especially a quilt! It makes it that more special and it will last forever! Thank you!!!!!

Duathlon at Lowndes Lake

My friend Lindsey forwarded this email to me last month telling me to sign up for a Duathlon. It is a 4 mile run and a 13 mile bike ride. I was like yeah right, me run 4 miles! I can do the 13 mile ride only because I have been riding around perimeter road for the last 3 months. I knew I could run the 2 miles before the the bike ride, but wasn't sure about the 2 miles after. So, I ask Cecilia if she wanted to do it with me and she said "yes!" Cecilia asked Tara to join us as well and she agreed.

Well, the race started at 8:15 and we (Cecilia & I) finished at 9:53. I think Tara was 10 or 15 minutes ahead of us. I didn't finish off the last 2 miles all that great and I totally took a wrong turn on the last mile of my bike ride. So in all reality I finished last and probably should have been disqualified! But what the hell, I did it for fun and the exercise! My first 2 miles weren't bad considering all the hills, when I got going on the bike and started up my first hill it wasn't to bad. It was halfway through when I thought I was going to fall off and have to lay there for a while. On one hill we went down we got up to 34 miles an hour, so that kind of tells you how steep they got. When I got back from the bike ride, I totally talked myself in to walking, but ended up running half and walking the rest.

I am really proud of myself for even doing it!

Here we are after everything. Cecilia is on my right and Tara is on my left!

This is us getting ready before the event started
All of the runners

Cecilia and I taking off

Coming back from my bike ride

Crossing the finish line!

All in all, I had a really good time!