During the late winter/early spring my friend Ashley and I decided that we were going to sign up to run a half marathon. Neither one of us had ever ran one before so we were so excited to dedicate ourselves to running one. In fact, I had never ran further than 6 miles before so I about messed my pants when I pushed the purchase button on the website. For those of you who know me well know that I am a true sprinter and struggle going slow and struggle even more going for a long run but I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. 
Ashley and I started our training off really well but the closer it got to the race the harder it became to train. Both of our schedules were crazy. I was still teaching and coaching track and it was really hard to find times where we both could get together to run. I decided to see if I could beg others to run with us so we could have other training buddies. I called my sister in law Lynette and convinced her and her son Jesse to sign up and run with us. The race was on June 11th which was a week after school got out.
The night before the race I couldn't sleep because I was so nervous. We had to wake up at 3:00 am because we had to be there by 4:00 even though the race didn't start until 6:00 am. When we got to the start of the race it was so cold. They built little fires all around for us to try and get warm. As the race got closer to starting I told our group to go to the very front because I didn't want to run further than I had to. When the race started we took off at a faster pace then we normally run. Ashley and I both looked at our pace on our watch and saw that it was a lot faster but we both said that we felt awesome and thought that we would be fine (we later realized that was a stupid decision). When we got to the 6 mile mark we were at 43 mins which is a little slower then a 7 min mile pace. We slowed it down some but not enough. We were both doing awesome until about the 9 mile mark, which is where my family was watching. After I passed them I realized that there was no way I could finish the race at the pace I was going and that I better slow down or I won't make it but Ashley kept going. When I got to the 10 mile mark I thought that I was going to die. I remember thinking that there was no way I was going to be able to run another mile. I don't know how my legs kept going. When I had about 2 miles left I saw Ashley ahead of me and it looked like she was in the same boat as I was. When I got to her I thought about running the rest of the way with her but I thought if I slow down any more I will stop and I made it my goal to not walk so I passed her and kept going. I finally finished with a time of 1 hour and 58 min. My goal was to run under 2 hours and to run faster than Jason did when he ran his last year ( 2 hr and 20 min). I remember the last two miles the thing that really kept me going was telling myself not to let Jason's time beat me.
As I was at the finish line I kept looking for Ashley thinking that she should have been right behind me. A couple mins go by then I noticed that two race workers were practically carrying Ashley because she was so out of it. I felt so guilty for not running the last part with her. We took her to the medical tent where they tried helping her with little success. The whole time we were in there she was saying the funniest things becuase she was so delirious. We finally decided to take her to the emergency room where she had 3 IV bags put in her, that is how drained she was. Luckily everything turned out okay and we can now look back and laugh at all the crazy things she was saying
In January Jason and I went on a cruise with his sister Tara and her husband Brandon. The cruise departed out of Galveston Texas and stopped at Jamaica, Grand Caymens, and Cozumel.
I was the only one out of the four of us who had ever been on a cruise before. I told them all that cruises aren't bad and that they won't even tell that they are moving. I was way off!!! When the ship set sail it was stormy and really cold in Galveston. That first night was really rocky and I think that we all got a little sea sick. We had to go to the nurses station to get motion sickness medication. After that first night it was smooth sailing from there. 
Jason loved the cruise. Constant entertainment, sports, sun, food... One of his favorite things was the dinner options. He loved that he didn't have to pick which meal to eat because he could just get one of each. 
He also loved that there was always some type of sports competition going on at the sports court. In fact, every activity they offered we won!!! 
Brandon and Jason took first place in a three on three basketball tournament, the four of us took first in a volleyball tournament, Jason and Brandon joined with some other guys to win the dodgeball tournament, Jason took first place in the foul shot competition, and the last night Jason took first in the hot shots shoot around competition... and believe it or not I took second place. All together Jason and I took home 6 gold and one silver medals. Brandon enjoyed wearing all the medal to watch people stare.
After we climbed the falls we drove to a different location to do some tubing down the river.
As we were driving back to our ship we got in a huge traffic jam. We were suppose to be back on the ship at 4:30 and it was 4:25 and we were still miles away. It was the longest ride of my life. The clock was moving but we were not. The ship had warned everybody that when the time came they would leave no matter who gets left beind. This was one of the most nerve racking moments of my life. If the ship left us we would have been in trouble because we only had small change with us and all of our ID'S were on the ship. When we pulled up they were getting the ramp ready to pull in. The people at the entrance were yelling at us to hurry. When we were going through the metal detectors we heard them radio the captain saying that the last four were on. After we left that building and headed to the ramp the whole side of the ship was full of people staring at us and they all started clapping. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. 
The first place we decided to go was the Mayan ruins. We were hoping they would be bigger than what they were but they were still pretty cool. As we were walking around we saw some of the biggest Iguana's I have ever seen. Jason and Brandon kept trying to get close to take a picture.
On our drive back out to the shops we decided to stop at a little stand and grab some drinks (Jason really wanted to grab a coke).
The last place we stopped was the beach.
