I Think I can...I think I can

So Len, my dad, my sister and I completed the Ambulance Chasers 6KM Run/Walk in only 47 minutes. That was a lot faster than we had originally anticipated, we were much faster because we ended up running about half of it! Right up to the starting line we planned to walk the whole thing...and then the ambulance siren went off and I just started to run. I looked around me at the rest of my family and we sort of shared this look that said if you want to run I'll run. Which was pretty cool. We made it the first K without really stopping which is pretty impressive because my dad is the only one of the four of us who has run more than five minutes in any one session for well over a year. Go us!
The rest of the run we sort of played it by ear. I was prepared to stop running completely at any point if my leg gave out, but it didn't. Besides the fact that I was so excited that I was running again, I was also blown away by the view of downtown from the ridge. It is just beautiful. Once it gets dark the city looks magical with all of it's lights twinkling away. The temperature was perfect, in fact it was just a little bit warmer than the last time I ran the race.
We crossed the finish line running, and there were lots of wonderful people to cheer us on. We then went into Eau Claire and had some food (they were serving Spolumbo's sausage's-yum) and came across quite a few people we knew that had also run the race. There is always a great feeling of camaraderie after a race and a sense of shared accomplishment. I had really missed that and I was so happy to be part of it again.
After the race we managed to not only walk home from Eau Claire, but also go to Kelsey's birthday celebration at Well. Unfortunately we were pretty tired at that point, so we didn't very long (Sorry Kelsey) but it was great to see everybody.
All in all it was a perfect night.

And now something that's actually about the wedding...

So if you have visited Len's blog recently you'll know that we did some more wedding planning/budgeting this past weekend. While a few scary facts came out of the brainstorming session (ie. we will have to take out a line of credit so we can pay everyone for their services the day of the wedding), we have made some headway in other areas. Namely, I think I have finally decided on "the colours" for the wedding, and believe me if I had known how important that would be to everything else, I would have started to think about it a lot sooner.
Once the colours were chosen I was able to search for ideas for the bouquets and the boutonniers, and I found a great bouquet that incorporates black calla liles, which I absolutely adore. I also think that I have settled on the style of my wedding dress which Len's mom has so kindly offered to make for me when she comes in the spring. Also, my sister had provided me with an artists rendering of the cake which looks fabulous. Yes, she got all the art genes and most of the baking genes, damn it all.
Now my only dilema is whether to post pictures of what I decided on, or wait so that there are some surprises on the day of the wedding. For those of you that think that I should let the cat out of the bag now, don't lose hope, the wedding is still 10 months away and I can't usually hold out that long without sharing...

Hopping=Running?

So it's been about a week and a half since I started my newest physio exercises, which include hopping in place and running in place for a minute. I'm getting fairly desperate to start running again, but it's hard to tell sometimes if all things I am doing are ultimately going to help or not. In fact, I think my physiotherapist is starting to wonder too. On the plus side, I can walk without a great deal of leg pain now, so things have improved. There are days when someone runs past me and I just want to take off after them, pain be damned, but then I would just curse myself later, and hobble when I walk, so there is this internal battle in my head all the time. I am looking forward to walking the ambulance chasers race and I hope to finish in a reasonable time.
This weekend Len and I are going to see the Rachmaninoff concert at the JSCH which we are looking forward to. It is a fundraiser for a local Buddhist monastery and it should be really good. On Wednesday we saw the Goldberg variations, adapted for strings, with the CPO and it was excellent. I love the sound of the harpsichord, oddly enough it gives me the same great feeling as the sound of the pedal steel guitar. I know they have very different sounds, but they both make me happy. I am looking forward to the Handel and Co. concert on Oct. 19 because they are going to be playing the Carthy organ, which I haven't heard yet, but apparently is awe inspiring.