What a Weekend!

This weekend was jampacked full of activity from the minute I got off work on Friday. Friday night was spent prepping for a garage sale the next morning. The best thing I can say about garage sales is that you get paid a little for the stuff you would've just given away to Goodwill. Guess what we did with everything that was left after the sale? Yup, it went to Goodwill. Frank & I ended up with $160 we didn't have before the sale, so it was all good.

Saturday evening was big fun. I met up with Leslie, Jessica and Darla to decorate the patio & party room at Juan in a Million for Jed's surprise birthday party. Last year, home renovation that needed to be done before the guys completed the process to become adoptive parents took up Jed's entire birthday weekend. His 30th birthday weekend, a milestone. After a year of hearing how "the house ate my birthday" Frederick planned a super surprise for Jed. The family had ventured out to L.A., to visit Jed's best friend Amy and celebrate Adie's adoption finalization. They flew back on Jed's birthday at the crack of dawn. Unbeknownst to Jed, Amy took the next flight out so she could be here, too. How cool is that? Frederick arranged the day so that it was low key and relaxing and included meeting Leslie and her husband for dinner at Juan in a Million. To say Jed was surprised when he walked in and the lights came on, confetti flying, and all of us screaming "Surprise!" is an understatement. He was floored. Happily.

The party was a rousing success, complete with a "Turn Back Time" group card showing a clock with hands pointing first to 31 then back to 30, a cake with 31st crossed out and 30th written in, good TexMex party food and karaoke. Freddy started off the singing with his rendition of Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time", dedicating it to Jed. We even got the birthday boy up on stage wearing a silver wig with a definite mullet shape to it singing Joan Jett's "I Love Rock & Roll" and smashing his guitar shaped piñata at the end. It was filled with his favorite fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls that Leslie moved heaven and earth to find in Austin. (They're more abundant during Halloween).

I only hit the stage twice, to help mangle "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "Love Shack". Little John and Sean held true to tradition and joined the girls onstage for the Cyndi Lauper song. Amy & Freddy rocked the crowd with "Summer Lovin'", Leslie sang her beloved Neil Diamond tune and Caley broke out with "Brown Eyed Girl". The only tradition we didn't stick to was our Tom Jones panty tossing. I forgot to buy XXL polyester granny panties for us to throw & autograph for the honoree. There's always next year, Jed!

Sunday morning we scraped ourselves out of bed for the Decker Challenge, a 20k (12.43 miles) run over the hills around Walter E. Long park. The temp was in the low 30's with winds between 15-20mph. Not runner friendly weather. I left Frank in the Expo Center, staying warm before the start while I took off to help set up the Mile 4 waterstop. As you can imagine, pouring water & Powerade in this weather was a challenge. You had to start to fill the paper cup as soon as you set it down or it would blow away. Handing out the drinks meant wet hands and wrists for most of us, as the runners grab them while running by. Luckily, we had mimosas to help us feel somewhat warm. The picture above is of us toasting before the first runner arrived. Note: the high school students did not drink anything, not even plain o.j.

The race would have been difficult just for the terrain, but the headwind made it worse. I am very proud of Frank's time, as he finished in 2:05:45. Ten minute miles in those conditions is pretty damn amazing. He's on course to pare a whopping 45 minutes off his last marathon time. Way to go, baby! I was glad that our water stop was packed up in time to see him cross the finish.

I was thrilled to see Gerard Martinez, who zoomed by me at the water stop had finished at #9 overall. He's simply a great runner with his 1:13:38 time. I bumped into Tom Wills after the race, who started running a month ago. He's training for Freescale and looks like he'll pull a 4.5 hr time for his first marathon. I heard that one of the attorneys I work for had run but never saw her. Aimee Reneau ended up with a time of 1:55:47 for this race. Wowsa!

I will admit that the mimosas went straight to my head. After a yummy Threadgill's lunch with the Tanner clan I went home and straight to bed for an afternoon nap/recovery. Ahhh, what fun we had this weekend! There were other good times in the course of the weekend, but in order to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent I'll simply say that there doesn't always have to be a barfull of people for everyone to have fun. You guilty parties know exactly what I'm talking about. Hope your weekend was just as entertaining as mine. Let me know what you did!