I love BOB

Some of you have met BOB, he’s amazing. He is so helpful, I truly love him. BOB is the double jogging stroller that joined our family after Danica was born. He has been on several family vacations, trips to Cedar Point, Geauga Lake, Disneyworld and Disneyland, SeaWorld, Legoland, Knotts Berry Farm, half a dozen zoos and was key to our survival through endless customs lines on the move and the weeks of being carless upon arrival. In fact, BOB is the reason we bought the van we did, none of the other Japanese cars had a large enough trunk, we actually took BOB car shopping to make sure he would fit! Needless to say we’ve put miles on him! Currently, I have the luxury of not running with him but I use him every day to walk Hayden to school. I noticed a small tear in the seam of one of the seats and emailed the company to ask what I should do about it. Within a week they had sent me an entire new seat for FREE! That’s customer service! Now BOB looks brand new again. As Tom has been trying to teach me for years- you get what you pay for! BOB was, and is, worth every cent!

“Why do I do it?” I’ve been asked this question several times in the last few months and have decided it’s time to answer it. My current "passion" in life is running. I’ve enjoyed running before but things always seem to get in the way (like babies, snow and moving) and so the answer to the question “Why do you get up at 4:45am to go running?” is “because I CAN!” I live on a tropical island where even in January I could go at 5am and have the weather in the 60’s. Currently it is usually 70 degrees at 5am. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, in a few short years I will give up this luxury and I can’t afford to waste it! Secondly, I do not have a have newborn, I am not nursing and I am not pregnant- it’s been a long time since I could say all of those things at the same time! Plus, I live on military base with street lights, video surveillance and heavily armed guards at all the gates! I can run alone in the dark with ever so stylish reflector belt- It doesn't get any safer! Tom leaves for work at 5:50, so if I get up before 5 I have just enough time to get ready, eat and hit the road. I can do a quick 5 miles and be back before he leaves. Then I have about 30 minutes to cool off and read my scriptures in a quiet house before everyone gets up and we get ready to take Hayden to school at 7:00. It’s fantastic and leaves me a happy healthy person for the rest of the day.

Tom and I are training for a half marathon on a nearby island called IE. We will take a ferry over to the island and then the half marathon runs all around the coast of the island. Pretty awesome. It’s on Saturday April 11th. I’ve often been a consistent runner but never a distance runner so this is new for me. We are doing Hal Higdon’s training schedule and it’s going well. It seems to be working since we are both improving our speed (every time I get faster Tom feels the need to get faster too!) This week for our training we run 10 miles, I’ve never actually run 10 miles so I am really excited for it. We’re looking to do a marathon here on Okinawa in November, it’s a twilight marathon that starts at 3:00pm on a Saturday. Hopefully it will work out so we can do it. It would be so great to do a marathon (I think, ask me again after I do the half!)