All Blacks: New Orleans Weekend

On the weekend of Feb 11-13th we loaded up the sexy van and headed to New Orleans for the weekend. We would include: Shane, me, the girls, my mom, and my grandma. Colleen and I had decided a while back to train for the New Orleans Mardi Gras Marathon. Well, a few weeks before the race, Colleen found out she had a tournament to coach that weekend and wouldn't be able to do the race! I was SO sad (as was she) but decided that since I had already done all of this training that I was going to try to run it anyway. We had been wanting to take the girls to the New Orleans zoo for a while so we decided we would just do that while we were there for the race. SO, Friday we headed over to New Orleans. It was the first time the girls had ever stayed in a hotel room so we knew that they might have a rough time. We had adjoining rooms: The girls were in one room and Shane, me, my mom and grandma were in the other. I know...that's a lot in one room :) Needless to say we didn't get much sleep because 1. My mom and grandma both snore like crazy-even if they won't admit it :) and 2. The power in the ENTIRE hotel went out at 2am and woke the girls up and they didn't go back to sleep until 5:30am. Shane and I were both in there room laying down with them and they just would not go back to sleep. Jocie kept sitting up and saying "is it time to go to the zoo yet daddy???" and then she would just bust out singing random songs at the top of her lungs. GEEEEEEZ. It was def. a rough night. SOOOOO, we weren't too sure how the zoo outing was going to go but we decided to give it a try anyways.....

Here we are at IHOP eating breakfast before we headed to the zoo...

The girls were incredibly pumped about the zoo....Jocie just kept asking to see the hippos....I know, that's random, huh?!

The fam....with hippos in the background :)

Gabbie mesmerized by the real live elephants...

Very cool...

This is how they were the whole time we were there....sprinting ahead to find the next animals. It was so cute.

Watching the monkeys....

He just sat there the entire time like he was a statue....

He was reading the newspaper....hilarious

They LOVED the gorilla statue. Jocie kept rubbing his chest and saying..."He has big boobies". Nice.

Watching the sea lion show...

Chasing chickens :)

They kept asking if they could ride the giraffes :)

Shane and the girls on an obstacle course....

Jocie petting an alligator.... :)

They loved watching the chimpanzees. It was one of their favs....

Carousel time....

Yep, they petted a real snake. No, thank you.

Trying to get to the armadillo...

Turtle petting....

Their favorite part was the petting zoo. They put on these little hand brushes and went to town....

They had a playground on the way out that was really cool. The girls shocked us with how well they did at the zoo with such little sleep. But we knew that they HAD to have a nap after the zoo or it was gonna be UGLY :)

We put the girls down for their nap back at the hotel and my mom and grandma stayed there with them so Shane and I could head downtown to the race expo so I could pick up my race packet for the next morning. We met up with Morgan, Scott and Annie at the expo. It was so fun. They gave away a bunch of free stuff and the atmosphere was super exciting. I COULD NOT believe that the next morning I was going to attempt a full marathon.....ahhhhh!!

Morgan and Katie were doing the half and Annie and Celeste were running the full. We were all so excited!

Toasting ourselves for the next day!

Well, I didn't sleep hardly at all that night either and had to get up at 5:15am to try to eat a little something before the race. Scott dropped us off near the starting line about 30 minutes before race time. There were like 20,000 people running in this race so they started us all in different corrals so that it wouldn't be so packed. With Shane having the girls and not really knowing his way around downtown New Orleans, we had decided that he wasn't going to try to see me during the race b/c it would just be too difficult. He was just going to make sure he was at the finish line. That's all that really mattered to me anyways....I just wanted someone at the finish line when I crossed it. Well, at mile 17, I see Shane and crew standing on the side of the road cheering me on....what a fun surprise! He was getting text messages during the race that was telling him what mile marker as I at and my time. To my surprise I was still feeling pretty good when I saw them but it def. gave me a fresh burst of energy having someone that you know cheering for you :) The last 6-8 miles were totally a mental battle. I mean, your body is so tired and wants to quit so bad and each step you take is mind over body. I've never experienced anything like it. I saw Shane again at mile 25.5. I couldn't really talk at this moment...I just smiled and waved and assumed that he was going to sprint over to the finish line which was just a half-mile away so he could be there when I finished. I crossed the finish line at 4 hours 11 minutes. I ran it faster than I had ever anticipated that I would. My ultimate goal was just to finish. I would have been ecstatic to finish in 4.5 hours, so I was shocked that I finished with the time I did. I didn't hear Shane yelling my name at the finish line but, there were thousands of people there so I probably just didn't hear him. I had never been so happy to walk in my life. I did it! I ran a marathon! I could not believe it. I got some water and fruit and kept thinking I was going to see Shane at any minute. NO Shane. I walked around some more. NO Shane. I was so sad (and mad!). There was no one there for me! After about 20 minutes I see Shane walking up pushing the girls in the stroller. He looked so upset. Immediately he started apologizing...He had asked several people what mile marker he was at when he saw me the last time and they all had told him 24. He thought I had 2 or so more miles to go. Then just a few minutes after he saw me he got a text message saying I had crossed the finish line. He felt AWFUL. He know all I wanted was a pic of me crossing the finish line and him and the girls to be there. I was sad but I knew it was totally not his fault. Bless his heart, he had been dragging the girls all over New Orleans for hours and they were just all done. Jocie REFUSED to pee in a port-a-potty and hadn't pee'd in like 5 hours and was crying b/c she had to go so bad. It was sad. Shane FINALLY got her to go in the "baby potty" aka urinal b/c there wasn't any SCARY stuff in it. She did pee all over Shane's leg/shoe before he got her "aimed" right over the urinal. FUN TIMES :) Needless to say, we didn't stay all afternoon for the after party. We cheered Annie and Celeste on as they crossed the finish line and then we started walking to the van which was 6 MILES AWAY. That's right. After I just got done running a marathon I had to walk another 6 miles. That was pretty much torture :). But, we finally made it to the van and then made it back home. What a weekend!

Mile 17!