Field Trips, Good-byes, and Running

Yesterday was a full day.  We spent the morning on a field trip.  We visited a nearby museum that featured a display called "Springs, Sprockets, & Pulleys".  It was so cool.  The artist, Steve Gerberich, takes old discarded stuff and repurposes it all into art.  He then attaches motors that that drive a little pulley system he has rigged up to make all his things move.  It's kind of like a giant I-Spy game as you see how he's made various things.  Here is Abby looking at a band playing music.  My pictures really do not do it justice at all.  Way better in real life.

Here's another partial display.  The kids really liked it and had fun seeing how everything worked.  It was actually quite interactive art.  I'm glad we went. 

After the museum, we had one final lunch out with Grandma before taking her to the airport - it feels like I've made that trip a little too often this past week.  Here's our final hugs good-bye.  We sure did enjoy having Grandma out for the week.  The kids always love Grandma time.  We'll see them again in January when we meet in Indiana for our family Christmas. 

Here is my one and only picture from our TX weekend - courtesy of Dave, husband to Kim.  Kim is a runner and Aaron is a running coach.  The two of them started talking about running one night and became oblivious to the world around them.  Can you tell?

Anyway, the upshot to this intense running talk is that a group of us all want to work on increasing our speed (I met some other really cool running folk too in Texas) so we are starting a running group.  We are spread out through TX, IN, and IA so we're a virtual running group.  But Aaron is our running coach/advisor.  He's really excited about it, but a bit nervous too as he's never coached adults before.  So this week and next week is all about getting our baseline/starting points.  We are all running a timed one mile this week and then a timed 3 mile next week.  I did my mile yesterday out in the cold.  Brr.  I forgot to bring a hat, so my ears and face were quite cold.  But I did it.  I ran a 7:17 which is pretty decent for me at this time in my life.  I'm pretty nervous about next week's timing as I haven't pushed myself hard for more than a mile in a VERY long time.  But it helps knowing that all my newfound running buddies will be out there doing the same thing too.  Gives me an extra kick in the pants to get it done and get it done well!