Run This Year

I've come almost to a standstill with my May month off, but now I'm trying to get back into the swing of things.  I'm erging and rowing so that's helping, but I'm still working on getting my run back on.  I can't believe how hard it is to start running again, once you've taken time off and broken the habit.  Today was Graduation.  We had 17 seniors graduate today, including the Valedictorian, so I really wanted to go to the ceremony.  I had to row this morning from 7-9am and the ceremony started at 900am, so I thought might as well just run up to the ceremony when practice ended.  I mean, I'd already be in my workout clothes, there's no way I'd be able to find parking, so running made sense.  Until I started running.... Sweet Jesus, what the hell was I thinking??? Just "run up to the school" in 90 degrees and humidity.  Obviously, I'd lost all my sense!  It was horrendous!  But I did make it up to the school in time to hear the speeches and watch the ceremony.  So very bittersweet.  I can't believe in one year, Zack will be taking part in the ceremony.  I'm really just ignoring that as much as I can.  I'm so not ready for Zack to leave and go to college. I don't want to be an empty nester.  Not yet anyway.
My "run" did accomplish one thing... I finally hit the 500 mile mark on my Run This Year challenge.

Hopefully my mileage will pick up as soon as school lets out and I have a little more free time. 

Radford Graduation Fest - Last Day

We headed home today.  John and Dad left early, I followed a little bit later after helping Brenna finish up packing. She's going to stay one more day for some final time with her friends.  It's very bittersweet today.  I think she is very excited about what's ahead of her, but at the same time I know she's had a wonderful college experience and is sad to leave her friends, boyfriend and comfort zone.  I give her a lot of credit!  I'm sad for her, but trying to keep it to myself so I don't influence her with my feelings.  I'm sure I'm projecting a lot of my repressed feelings from when I was her age.  I'm sad to see her leave Radford, it's been so good for her!

This picture makes me very sad.  It's so sweet!   The drive home for me was very reminiscent of our first ride home after dropping her off freshman year!  I tried not to think to much about it, but I cried a good part of the way home.  I don't think it would be so hard if we were going to have a little more time with her, but she and John leave for Wisconsin on WEDNESDAY!!  Just not going to think about it for now.

Radford Graduation Fest Day #3 - THE DAY!

I can't believe the day finally arrived!  I'm not even sure how to sum it all up.  Maybe the day in pictures is the best way.

On their way

That's a lot of chairs to fill

Getting ready to head out 

Walking into the general Radford ceremony

Biology buddies

Coming into the College of Sciences Ceremony

There she goes

And she is GRADUATED!!

Proud Mama and Papa!

Roommates and Biology buddies

It was a really nice ceremony.  The weather was beautiful and we really couldn't have asked for a better day.  Once the ceremony was over, we headed to Brenna's house for their party.  They had food catered and brought in plenty of booze and we were able to hang out in a nice relaxed atmosphere.  Grandma and Grandpa Art and Grandpa Bud lasted for a couple hours, but then they bugged out and went back to the hotel.  John and I lasted a little bit longer.  We finally got to meet "the boyfriend" - Kiefer - seemed very nice.  Seems a shame that they decided to pursue this right before she is leaving - he has a year left.  But, when you're young anything seems possible, so we'll keep our fingers crossed for them.

So freaking proud of our girl!  I can't believe how fabulous she has done and what great things are going to be ahead of her!  I'm still in denial that she's leaving for Wisconsin on Weds.  Just trying to live in the moment and enjoy our time with her!

On a side note... State Championships for Zack today... I followed along on twitter.  They needed to finish in the top 3 to qualify for Nationals.  Only 4 boats in his race, so we were hopeful!  I waited in anticipation has race time drew close.  I must have refreshed twitter 1000 times!  They DID IT!  3rd place by 0.4 seconds!  Holy cow, I think I'm glad I wasn't there, I probably would have had a heart attack!  I'm not sure today could have been much better on all fronts!!

Surrogate Moms looking out for my boy while I was gone!

Heart attack race!

Radford Graduation Fest Day #2

What Brenna neglected to tell us, was that she hadn't done ANY packing or cleaning before we got there.  I guess that's what graduation guests are for!  We spent all day packing up and throwing out stuff.  I'm not sure 2 cars are going to hold it all!

Grandpa Bud was even injured in the line of duty!

Gang signs in the house... for Zack!  He may not be here, but he's always on our minds!

Art and Karen arrived just in time to hit the next 2 bars on Brenna's list... Sharkey's and Riley's.  Long Island Ice Teas were the drink of the evening.  I didn't even make it through one! :O)  Graduating from college is hard work!

Radford Graduation Fest Day #1

Really the best way to sum it up... in pictures...

I think this is probably one of my all time favorite pictures of us.  It really just sums up Dad.  Vodka, Mores, his sunglasses.  I love it!

I guess when you are leaving college, you want to hit all your favorite bars at least one more time.  And she wanted to drag us along with her.  Sometimes it's hard to keep up with the young 'uns!  But we sure tried.  Double Gin and Gingers at BT's, a Radford institution.

The countdown begins...

I can't believe in less than 5 days our girl will be GRADUATING.FROM.COLLEGE!!  Every once in a while I relive those dark freshman and sophomore high school days and I am just amazed at how far she's come!

Dad arrives tomorrow and we road trip down to see our girl on Thursday.  Zack is staying here because he's got his State Championships on Saturday.  First regatta for either kid that I've ever missed, but I think this is a pretty damn good reason.  Seems like just the other day, we were dropping her off at Muse Hall and I was crying all the way home!  I am one proud Mama!

This shit is getting real!

While Brenna was home over Easter, we worked on her Graduation announcement.  We decided to go homemade instead of shelling out the big bucks for the professional ones.

It's still completely unreal to me that she is going to be graduating from COLLEGE and moving to Wisconsin in just over a month!  I really don't want to think to much about it.  I know it's the natural progression, and most of the time in my life when I've been dreading some milestone that is coming up, but the time it gets there - I'm ready.  Kindergarten, B leaving for college, Zack going to high school - it all worked out and we were all ready and navigated it just fine.  But somehow having her move away to Wisconsin, I don't think I'm going to be ready for that.

It's not just a cliche, time really does fly!

Kindergarten

Senior portrait

I don't really even know where to start.  How did we go from this sweet little Kindergarten angel to this amazing, beautiful practically adult?  How can I be the parent of a High School Graduate?  I mean really???  I can still remember high school like it's yesterday.  I don't remember a lot of my younger childhood, as a matter of fact when we were growing up my dad use to always tell us he'd never been a child when we asked.  We thought that was hilarious, until I grew up and now I realize he probably just couldn't remember any of it!  The same holds true for me, except I CAN remember high school, so that must mean I'm not old enough to be the parent of a graduate.

The graduation ceremony was great.  Woodbridge Senior High School is one of the few schools in our county that still has it's ceremony outside in the stadium, so weather is always a factor.  But this time it was relatively cool, stayed overcast and really we couldn't have asked for better conditions.  I didn't cry, but I did get a little teary eyed when they first walked down into the stadium.  But after that I was too busy trying to get pictures to even really think about what was actually happening.  Probably a good thing.

Grandma and Grandpa Art and Grandpa Bud all made the trip down for the events and that helped to make the weekend even more special.

















We finished the evening off at the Melting Pot Fondue restaurant where we gorged on food, laughter and fun.

I'm still processing before I can blog in earnest

Enough said....