hot lunch and dinner

stacey has been gone in san francisco all week

and tonight we had to pick him up at the airport

so alex and i spent a little time at the mall of america

while we waited

we had our favorite ... qdoba

checked out the hot lunch yarn art

which is super cool

and had some fun shopping

conference xc * 2017

today was the 2017 XC conference meet in elk river

we were given a beautiful - perfect for running - day

our boys JV team joined with the anoka boys JV team for their chant ... 

i have no idea why ...

all i know is the chant was led by someone with a minecraft sword

and they yelled something about running for diamonds and iron ;)

one of the many reasons i love cross country.

you would never see something like this at a football or basketball game :)

the course was like 85% hills

but ben came within 5 seconds of his PR

so he was excited

another nice run, ben!

a frost angel

as i leave for school this morning

i look over to the park

and there's alex ...

face down ...

making an angel in the frost ...

minnesota kid thru and thru

hoco2017

for a while now stacey and i have been craving old spaghetti factory

but haven't made the time to venture downtown and actually eat there

on saturday after running a few miles

we decided the time had come 

the boys set themselves up and then asked me to take this ...

i've trained them well :) 

* BDT *

since we were already downtown

and it was actually not bad out

we walked down by the stone arch bridge

there were MANY groups of dressed up teenagers

taking pictures for homecoming ...

we decided we should take advantage of the beautiful night

and great lighting

and take our own 

hoco 2017 pic ;)

me and my 3 dates

and then ...

because drew hadn't seen stacey's new building yet

we walked to the park before heading to the car

showed drew the building

and ate up what is probably one of our last

beautiful saturday night's of 2017 :(

dr. ben

friday was 'fun friday' for XC practice

so ben decided to change up his running attire ...

i think it works for you, ben.

maybe it's just what you needed to break 22 minutes.

my mailbox. every. single. day.

TC marathon * 2017

sunday morning was one of my favorite days of the year ...

the twin cities marathon

this year all 5 of us went down to cheer

drew made sure that everyone we knew that was running would not miss us

we watched the 10 milers

the elite runners

and watched for all of the friends we knew who were running

a few of our favorite runners were 

yoshi

emoji man

and the guy wearing a full suit

my favorite sign was this one ...

for so many reasons

while we cheered

we spent some time across the street from this guy giving out free hugs

i was surprised how many people stopped for a free hug from a stranger ;)

drew had so many people commenting - 

from go pack go to BOO ...

BUT ... he took their mind off the fact that they were on mile 25

and made them smile

so he did his job :)

one runner even stopped and pulled out his phone

to take a picture of drew cheering :) 

one of the guys we were cheering for was the boat driver from trout this summer

drew had gotten to know him

so when he saw him coming

and saw that he was struggling

he ran out with him for a little while to talk to him and pump him up

it was awesome!

i could've done without the rain that started around noon -

i was glad i wasn't running

because i probably would've quit

cold + rain = YUCK

to all of our friends that were running ...

and those people we didn't know ...

GREAT JOB!

wow

this weekend has been a busy one

but there have been so many fun things to do

first homecoming ...

then tonight we spent the evening at northwestern

this week was their homecoming

and the celebrate they had a worship night

that included an illusionist ...

harris III

as i anticipated ...

the boys thought he was very cool

he did several tricks

while incorporating a theme of not always asking 'how' in life

but sometimes just saying 'wow' ...

how our society has become so skeptical

that even kids are so quick to lose their sense of wonder

loved it.

plus ... an extra night of worship with the fam ...

never gonna turn that down :)