The Rim Fire

If you haven't heard there is a huge fire burning outside of Yosemite, one of the largest in California history. The fire has burned 280 square miles and is only 20% contained. We are about 2 hours away from Yosemite, so the fire is not really near us, but we are still feeling the effects. Apparently the smoke has a direct path into Carson Valley, so the air out here is super smokey.  The Air Quality Index has the air quality in Reno rated at a 193 today.  Air quality rated at "Good" is between 0-50. 193 is considered "Unhealthy" meaning "Everyone may begin to experience health effects; members of sensitive groups may experience more serious health effects." Reno has been rated in the Unhealty atleast once every 24 hours since the smoke blew in the middle of last week. I know that the first day the smoke blew in the air was rated at Very Unhealthy (between 201-300). You could see the ash in the air it was so bad.  Unfortunately the AQI isn't measuring in Gardnerville specifically. I wouldn't be surprised if the air is worse here. The way the valley is formed we got smoke before Carson City and Reno did.  Anyway, the smokey dirty air is keeping us inside. We'd love to get outside; our lawn needs mowed and has for over a week now. The garden needs weeded. Timmy is getting horribly restless (Greg and I are too.) But the unhealthy air quality is making all of that impossible at the moment.  Seriously smoke, we haven't seen blue skies or the mountains (that are only 10 minutes away) for nearly a week.

Here are a few pictures from the first day of smoke. The air was yellow and the sun was bright red.

Lillian - 8 Months

Lillian is 8 months old today. She's a little expert at the army crawl and is always exploring around our house. She has 2 teeth. She can get her self into a sitting position. She still isn't a big fan of solid foods, like pureed fruits and veggies, but she seems to like dry cereal like Cheerios and Kix.   Today for her pictures she got to dress up like a Cowgirl.

Liquid Gold 5K

We signed up to run the Liquid Gold 5K for breastfeeding awareness. We figured since it was an easy going race for not so serious runners it would be perfect for us. We could push the kiddles in the bike trailer/jogging stroller and take our time. No need to go our fastest, just enjoy the run.  It was a great plan, but everything that could go wrong went wrong.  

The  race was scheduled to start at 8:00 am up and the UNR campus. Packet pick-up started at 7:00 am, but we decided we didn't need to get there right away. We set the clock for 6:00 am, so we could leave at 6:30 am and arrive around 7:30 am, giving us plenty of time before the 7:50 am line up time. We got up, Greg packed up the car. I got the kids dressed. We ate breakfast and didn't get out the door until 6:40 am.  We drove for a while and then Greg realized he forgot the handle to the bike trailer, a very vital piece to turn it into a jogging stroller. We didn't have time to turn around and go back for it. The best we could do with so little time was to stop at Walmart and get a couple of cheap umbrella strollers. Umbrella strollers are definitely not designed for running. Small wheels, low handles. Luckily, Greg and I are short enough that the handles bars weren't too awfully low for us.  Anyway, we arrived at the race at line up time, luckily they were running behind. We grabbed our packets, pinned on our numbers  and Greg decided to run to the bathroom real quick. But, he wasn't quick enough. While he was gone, they had us start lining up. Someone sang the national anthem and then they asked if the runners were ready and said, "Go." Greg was running towards the finish line, so we got little bit of a late start.  The difficulty didn't end there. We ran about 100 yards and then we hit a hill, a very steep hill. There were a couple more nice steep hills during that first mile of the race. We had no clue UNR was so hilly and didn't really train for hills, so we may or may not have had to stop and walk a few times.  

By some miracle the strollers worked out okay, the hills didn't kill us and we finished the race. We clocked in at 00:42:58.3. Definitely not our best time, but it the end we finished and we had a great time. I guess that's what really matters.

Let me tell you, when the 5K is in support of breastfeading. Expect to see a lot of people running with strollers. There were probably more people pushing strollers than not. The lady who finished in 3rd place ran in 23:06 and she was pushing a stroller! The only 2 people faster than her were men, without strollers. Crazy!

Look at all the strollers!

Carson Valley Days 5K

So I have no Idea why this post didn't publish months ago when I wrote it.

Greg and I have been training really hard for our 5k. I started the C25K program back in March and Greg would join me on a run every now and then.  When we finished the program we mapped out a practice 5K and ran it. We took turns pushing the stroller and when I checked the tracker on my phone it said we went 3.15 miles in 39:00 mins. We were excited to see how well we would actually do on race day, when we'd be able to run with out the stroller.

Well, we finished in 34:45! That's right we cut over 4 minutes time off without the stroller.

After the race we met up with our friend Katy and watched the rest of the parade.

We also stopped by the carnival. Timmy had fun in the bounce houses.

Timmy totally got wrestled down by a baby half his size.

Danger!

She is getting really mobile