WE DID IT!!

Today (being Sunday during my pre-post blogging marathon), Matt and I participated in the OKC Memorial Marathon for the first time. We started the day by waking up at 4:50 am only to find out that it was supposed to be raining, hailing, tornado-ing, lighting, and thundering during the race today. But luckily, none of those things happened.

Here is the gang before we headed up to the start line.

As if getting up early wasn't enough, there was some crazy man in charge of hyping everyone up for the race that was super annoying. We were standing about1 foot from the speaker so the annoyance was magnified by about 100% and then he kept using the phrase, "ooooooooooo yeaaaaaaaaaaahhh" in a creepy voice all day long. That was not the highlight of the day! The picture above is the start line.


Here is Derek at his half-marathon half way point which was also the first exchange in the relay. This is where Matt picked up and ran the second leg for our team.


Aaaaand hes off! (On a side note, I was trying to not have to use the sick port-a-potties that day but had to give in and go TWICE. But at least I was able to squat, hold my breath, and not touch anything whilst I was in the germ pit).

Matt ran the first 5K with the time chip and then he ran the second 5k (4th leg) with me which was the one I ran with the time chip. Here we are after my leg with are medals of honor for completing the race. The leg I ran was harder than I was expecting because I had to run into the wind which was gusting like crazy, uphill over the highway and into a snow storm (just kidding about that last part) but I survived. However, I did run a lot slower than normal because of that though. And I got somewhat embarrased because after we had run a mile into my leg, I said really loudly "It's only been 1 mile!!!" because it honestly felt like it had been 2 already and all these people who had just finished their 18th mile were busting up laughing at me! Oh well, I guess I brightened their day and made them feel better about themselves.

Here is Josh waiting across the other side of the finish. He ran the 3rd leg but I didnt get a picture of him finishing because it was my turn to run next.

We got to see Leo finish his first marathon. Good job Leo! I dont think I could ever run a whole marathon. Thats just crazy.

And last but not least, John, the fifth member of our team, finishes!

I am so glad that we did the race and plan to run some more later this year. It helps me to have a goal to work towards to keep motivating myself to run when otherwise I might just stay home and do something else. Good job everyone and congrats to everyone who ran farther and harder than I did! I had a funny picture to post of this kid at the end of the marathon laying and sleeping on the gound but I cant get it to work right. Oh well...

Caught Being Onry

Here are a few pics of our "fur" kids being onry this week:

I have been super busy this week and didnt keep up with the laundry very well so it got piled up on our bed and we slept in the spare room last week. But apparently, Lucy decided a pile of clothes and pillows wasnt going to stop her and she slept on Matt's clean clothes all night long one night. This is how I found her when I woke up :) - At least she didnt sleep on my clothes!

Then on Friday, Grant and Rob came over to watch the Rockets. All the boys were super loud so the animals retreated to our room and I found them this way, semi-cuddling. I guess they do love each other deep inside.

And lastly, today (which is Sunday since I am pre-posting), when we came home from the marathon, we fed Lucy and the cat was starving apparently because he started eating the dog food. He has attempted this before when Lucy has been disinterested in eating but she usually puts a stop to that quickly by eating as fast as possible after she notices Jack's interest in her food. Today however, she let him eat her food with her. It was sweet and funny at the same time. It took a whole year for the cat to become tolerant of the dog and a year more for them to become buddies. And as always, they are very entertaining for us!

Flower Power

I just L-O-V-E planting and working outside this time of the year. Last Saturday and today, my mom and I went plant shopping around the city and ended up with some really good deals and some beautiful plants. As of today, I have most everything I want for the front porch and yard, with the exception of two plants, I will have to get those later. I havent started on the back yet so that still needs to get done but so far I am happy with how great the front looks. We only rent this house so I am not big on landscaping, since we cant take that with us when we move, so I usually plant in pots or barrels. Here is what I planted in the front:

I have two baskets like this, one has Oxalis (above) which opens in the morning and closing in the evening. I also blooms little pink flowers that do the same thing. In the other basket is Lemon Licorace vine (not pictured).

This is an agave plant. I bought it with 3 baby plants already groing from the base so I hope to have a few more later this summer growing independantly.


This is a Gallardia plant which I am told is the state flower however, Matt and I thought the state flower was Indian Paintbrush. I guess I need to double check that.


This is plant is called Royal Candles. I bought a purple plant and a pink plant.

In this barrel are orange and yellow Million Bells, Blue Laguna and magenta geraniums in the middle.

In this barrel are two orange bromeliads, a Lemon Licorace plant, and a Cordyline (the tall purple leafy plant - the leaves are green when they are new then they turn dark purple).

This is a red hibiscus and I also bought some yellow ones as well but it didnt have any blooms yet.

This is a purple dollar cactus that I bought last May in Phoenix. It is the only cactus that survived the winter and it actually started budding a flower or another limb in the middle. Right now it looks kind of like a wart :) And behind it is a big red geranium plant that the Meredith's brought me for my birthday when they came for their last visit.

This is an orange Kolancho. I keep calling it an Kolache!

And these are the beautiful Irises that I salvaged from the backyard when we first moved in. I moved them last year this time so they never bloomed but this year they did and they really add a lot to the front porch area.

Here is the whole thing! The pictures arent as vivid as real life but I wanted to share with you all that dont live here or havent been to our house in a while. Also on a good note...today I offered to bring the owner of Trochta's our leftover cardboard boxes every week from work and she in turn said she would hook me up with lots of flowers!! I am pretty excited about free flowers! As I said before, the front almost complete, I am still going to get some more water hyacinth when I go to Jenks next and a plant called a Bougainvillea plant which blooms beautiful pink flowers all over. Sorry for the long post about flowers and stuff but it makes me happy to have lots of pretty plants to look at so I had to share. Now, I just need to find those porch chairs that I want for a good price!!

End of the Year Gala

Last weekend was Matt's annual Chemisty Banquet. Last year he was prez of the Chemistry nerd club so he had a lot of responsibility but this year we just went and enjoyed the evening without any obligations and responsibility. It was pretty fun and the speaker was entertaining (even though I had only a miniscule idea of what he was talking about)! Here is a picture of us in the middle of the crazy communicating robots in the Stephenson Research Center. I dont think they do anything really important but light up when they are "talking" to each other, they just look cool :) This is the building I worked at briefly for a semester about 3 years ago in a Zebrafish facility. It is the fancy new research building by the fancy new National Weather Center in Norman were they take prospective students to convince them to come to OU and do research!!

Chicken Pasta - Shannon Style

Well it seems that I have been having a hard time keeping up with the blog yet again so I guess I am going to have to do a whole bunch of pre-posting so that I can catch up with whats been happening around here.

Recently, Matt and I decided we would start a fun weekly tradition where we cook a new recipe together one night out of the week. We try to do this weekly but sometimes we just dont have time. But it has been really fun and I always like to try new recipes! The last time we made a new recipe, Matt typed in some ingredients from the kitchen and he came up with a recipe that was titled: Chicken Pasta - Shannon Style so obviously we had to try it. And I must say it was very delicious. Click here for the recipe if you would like to try it out!

Chemcakes not Cupcakes

I am posting out of order but I wanted to take a moment and say how proud I am of my husband and to show you these awesome Chemcakes we made tonight for his presentation!! Tomorrow (Friday) is Matt's last big presentation before he defends his thesis later this fall. He has been working hard for almost 4 years and I can be more proud. He is one of the smartest fellows I know. But anyway, enough of the sappiness. For my birthday, Katie gave me this supercool cupcake recipe book that has so many great ideas. While looking through that book, we had this fun idea to make these cupcakes. In case some of you arent as inclined to know the periodic table in depth (and why would you want to), i'll explain. Each cupcake represents an element in the periodic table with its atomic number in the right corner and its atomic weight below the abbreviation. Also, they are all colored according to what their natural color would be at a solid state (with the exception of Ne which is neon and that is a gas). This picture doesnt do them justice because they are much cooler in person but its all I have. Matt made all the icing colors and I of course did the icing and piping. Matt was afraid to do any of that. Anyway, they are pretty nerdy to the average civilian but to a whole room of science people, they should be a hit! If you ever need a batch of Chemcakes, you know who to call :)

OC Fun Run

Here is the scene BEFORE the race last Saturday morning. All of us are running in the Memorial Marathon next weekend and also ran this race as a preparation and for fun. However, Leo is the only one running a full marathon (which is crazy by the way). I definately don't love running enough to ever do that. Anyway, next Sunday morning is D-Day...hopefully it wont be freezing and raining like last year was apparently.

My newest sewing adventure

My newest craft that I have been trying to make are baby slings. I have seen several but decided on this one to make because it is a one-size-fits most thing instead of size specific to the individual and therefore, easier to make for anyone about to have a baby. Also, this sling design allows the mother to carry her baby in several positions and it can be used as a nursing cover (unlike the more fitted designs) because of the extra material. The pattern itself is easy but the final sewing step is difficult because of the thickness of the material. Many of you mother probably have heard of Maya Wraps and that is what this is with a few additions. I am still perfecting the design but here is the first prototype. I used a few of Lucy's stuffed animals to act as the baby in my sling.

Silly Pics...

Well as I have been out of the blogging world for about a month, I have been pre-posting this weekend in hopes to catch up to more current events. Here are some fun pictures that didnt quite fit in to any blog I wanted to write so I am merging them all in this one:

Matt took this one of Lucy one night cuddling with her Christmas Monkey that makes monkey sounds. As of last weekend it has been laid to rest because she and Charlie played tug too hard with it and it died. However, the voice box wasnt harmed so I will make a new toy with it...

And here is Matt modeling some yoga pants that Shay gave me. I told him they were waaayy to long but he needed his own proof I suppose :) They are too long for me but too tight for him (and too girly).

This one is of Charlie and Lucy cuddling after a long day of playing last week.

Matt atempts the sun salutation yoga pose on the Wii Fit! I didnt put any of the pics of me that he took because they arent as funny as his :)

And finally, here is one of Matt and Lucy from the weekend the Meredith's were visiting.

Late Birthday Post

About 4ish times/year, Matt goes all out and fixes me a really great dinner all by himself. One of those times is on my birthday. This year, he made me apricot chicken, roasted garlic and lemon broccoli and peanut butter pie for dessert. Now usually I stay out of the kitchen for 2-fold reasons: 1. So that I dont start helping and get in the way and 2. because he always makes a really BIG mess!!! But at least he cleans it up :) I was a little nervous about the chicken but it turned out really great. As did everything else. I was very impressed with everything :)

On Friday, Matt, Rob and I went to Royal Bavaria for dinner. I really like German food alot and this place is pretty authentic tasting to me. I really like schnitzel and spatzle so thats what I always get and Matt always gets so kind of man-meal full of lots of meat. It was delicious as always!!

For the grand finale to the birthday weekend, we went to Tulsa on Saturday to spend time with my sister and grandparents. We ate at a great new Mexican restaurant called El Guapos (owned by the same people who own McNellies). And we also went bowling which I havent done in a while at a new place in Tulsa. The best part about it is that it is smoke-free!!

My mom was super excited when she got her first strike. She did really well on her bowling game that day!

The plans for this weekend changed about one grazillion times but it ended up being really great. Thanks to everyone who made my birthday special. And Happy Birthday again to: Leo, Rob, Derek, Jack (our cat-since I know he reads this), David, Beth and Zach --all of us have birthdays in March within the same week!

A Mini College Reunion

About a month ago, Matt and his jazz band buddies from OC had a wedding gig in Norman and tagged along to hear them play. We didnt know the bride or groom except the fact that it was Cary's sister and fiancee but it was still fun. I havent seen some of those guys in FOREVER so it was really good to visit and catch up. Here is a pic of the gang:

Janoah always has to be different :)

Just like the old days when I would sit and listen to jazz band and Matt's solos!

And here we are all fancied up! Matt even broke down and wore a tie for the whole evening!!!

I took a video of one of his solos but it was too dark for good quality video viewing. However, you can still listen if you want.

It was a fun night even though I didnt know the bride or groom (that was a little awkward) but I always enjoy listening to live music...especially my when hubby and friends from college are playing!

A Feast Fit For Kings and Queens!!

What a great way to return to the blogging world with a fun night of birthdays to celebrate!! Sorry for the lapse in blogging but my life has been entirely too crazy and tiring and unfortunately my blogging has taken a toll. When I come home at night, all I can bear to do is just sit and watch television or fall asleep on the couch. But alas, I have returned and with a fun event to share with you all. Tonight we had a big combo birthday party for the animals. Lucy's birthday is today, Jack's birthday that we made up for him is March 13th,ince he was a stray we dont know what it is for sure) and Charlie's is sometime in May but I forgot what it is for sure. This past week Charlie (Katie's dog) has been staying with and we had a birthday extravaganza to top off the slumber partay fun!! I fixed the dogs a gourmet casserole made of eggs, chicken, bananas and peanut butter (Lucy's favs) with a lovely dog food garnish and the kitty had his favorite, Starkist Tuna topped with seafood cat treats!!! Doesn't it look delicious?

I started putting it all together a little too early because they could harly wait for Matt to get home and were pacing around the bowls and begging until it was time to eat. Below is a our attempt to capture the excitement but I dont think it does justice.

Anyway, it has been a fun week and Lucy will be sad when Charlie has to go home. They have been playing constantly, destroying toys, digging holes, etc. until they are too tired to play anymore or we make them go to bed (whichever is first).

Animals are the best and always make me smile no matter the circumstance :)