What a great weekend we had with our youngest daughter, Lindsay, home for the half marathon on Sunday. On Friday, we were waiting so long in the doctor exam room, we forgot we were not alone and started singing old Beatles songs to pass the time. (Here’s a tip that might make the doctor come in a little sooner. It didn’t work for us, but it is worth a try) A nurse popped her head in the door and said shyly, “I’m just going to pull this door to a little bit. . .” What? Nobody wants to hear us sing and forget the words to songs written 40 years ago? We laughed, mostly because we’d been in the room so long; we thought everybody had gone to lunch. . .or dinner. She got the all-clear to run on Sunday and we were well into the weekend.

Saturday morning, Mike and I left bright and early for the ranch to talk with the builder, carpenter, and crew, and we made lunch outside with hot dogs, sausage, chips and beans with Abby, our dog, thinking she found heaven on earth. Everything tasted so good in the cool sunshine. As we were finishing up, Lindsay called and asked if everyone could come to our house in Houston for dinner and a pumpkin carving contest. We put it in high gear and ran home to clean madly, and put the real flowers where they go instead of by the water faucet so we’ll remember to water them. I made a dip and salad; Lindsay’s boyfriend’s parents brought the spaghetti and dessert, so we were in business for a fun evening competition. We didn’t finish until after ten, and everyone had to get up to be at the race start line by 5:45 AM on Sunday! We all rushed to get everyone together to go home and hit the sack, but not before we saw the Rockies come close, but lose badly to the Sox again. As a mom, I just have to point out in this picture, that Lindsay is wearing a camisole, and that is not skin you see there in the gap between sweater and jeans. You know, always a mom first…

We barely blinked, and it was time to get up. Lindsay, Andrew, and Andrew’s mom all ran the race, and Mike worked as a spotter since he couldn’t run yet after his knee surgery. Lindsay finished 23rd in her age bracket (20-24 year olds) and there were some 3,000 runners altogether. She said older men and women passed her like she was standing still. She was amazed at how good some of them were. She averaged a 9 1/2 minute mile, and felt good after the run. Andrew and his mom both finished well also, then everyone headed to Cadillac Bar for some fajitas. After a welcomed nap, we had comfort food again for dinner, and heated up the spa for a long soak outside. We have a family tradition of ice cream on Sundays (sundaes on Sunday) so we ate our ice cream to cool off to better enjoy the hot water. Since Lindsay ran, we all justified the extra calories. After all, Mike and I participated vicariously. And then we slept for a very long time. Here are the pumpkins. We declared them all winners for the race and the pumpkin heads.