So much to tell...so little time

I have finally recovered my Blogger password, I had forgotten it and that is my excuse for not posting for so long. So I will just quickly summarize my life in reverse order for the last few months:

Tyler and I are in the process of painting the downstairs suite at my parents and getting ready to move in hopefully this weekend. Finally I will be able to fully unpack and fell at home for the first time since before I moved to France. I am very excited! But we still have to wait for the tenant to move out the rest of his stuff and to find time after work to paint and move in.

Sunday 4 months of hard training culminated in my racing the Vancouver Half Marathon (21+ km). My original goal was to be able to run the entire distance, which eventually changed to running it in under two hours and finally I hoped to perhaps run it in about 1 hour 40 mins. As it turned out I completed it in 1:40:21. I was 10th in my age group and the 78th woman to finish overall!!! I really surprised myself and am very happen with my time. It was a lot of hard work and I did very well considering I was fighting a cold and could hardly sleep the night before. Tyler and my Aunt Sue got up at 5am with me and supported me the whole way. My friend Erik ran the marathon in 3:09 and ended up qualifying for the Boston Marathon! Pictures of my from the race are at www.marathonfoto.com - just look up my race number 7354 and you can see them. I am still trying to decide if I will run the full marathon in the fall or not - it's a whole lot of work so we will see.

Friday Tyler and I went to the U2 concert in Vancouver - the only Canadian stop. It was an awesome concert and I am so glad that Tyler was able to get the tickets. We had great seats: first row in the balcony facing the stage. Great music with a little bit of a political flare.

Wednesday (April 27th) I returned from 12 days in Cancun with my family. We went there to celebrate my Grandma's 75th birthday. We had a rental car and were able to visit the Mayan ruins at both Chichen Itza and Tulum. It was great to be able to walk among the ruins - amazingly they still let the tourists walk all over everything! We also got to lay on the beach and get some sun and relaxation. Tina and I both got our Scuba Diving certificates in March and therefore were able to Scuba dive in the beautiful warm Caribbean waters at Cozumel. That was quite the experience due to the sketchiness of the scuba tour company. But we survived. It was a great vacation - a little bit of laying on the beach, a little bit of shopping, a little bit of touristy stuff - all in all it was great and I didn't want to come back to work.

What else? Before all this excitement, I was just taking my French class, running lots and training hard, and still working for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Tyler and I met Cari Goulard and her friends at Whistler at the beginning of March, but unfortunately there was little snow. We had a good time and it was great to see Cari and finally meet Becka, her housemate.

Future short term plans include moving into my own space, visiting with the other Rogers over May long weekend, going to Nick Skytland's wedding in Houston June 23-27, and likely running, running, running.

So that's my quick update. Hopefully I will remember my Blogger password this time and be able to update a little more frequently.

Check out www.spacealumni.com to see what Nick and Will have craftily created. Also if you are from BC, please remember to vote May 17th in the provincial election.

Send me an email to keep in touch and let me know what has been going on in your own lives!