Apple Blossom

This past Saturday, our little town of Sebastopol held its annual Apple Blossom Parade. Saturday was by far the hottest day of the week, and probably the hottest day of the year as well, reaching 80 degrees by 10 am. I can remember quite a few times it rained on parade day so this gorgeously hot weather was pretty remarkable and made for a beautiful day. This parade holds a very special place in my heart. I was in band from middle school through high school and marched in the parade every year. Yes, I was a band nerd and damn proud of it! Even now, watching the Twin Hills Middle School and Analy High School bands march down Main Street sends chills through my body and makes me so proud to have been part of such a great music program.

This year my mom entered her gardening business, Cathy’s Corner, into the parade and my sister and I walked with her as the official sign carriers. This was my mom’s first time in the parade and by the big smile on her face, I would guess probably not her last.

Heading to the start of the parade

Getting ready to start!

The sign

So many people lining the street

Cathy of Cathy's Corner

Walking down Main Street

The three ladies

Dad wanted in on the action!

Dad and Mom at the end of the parade

Luke came out to see what his town's parade was all about

What's a parade without a horse wearing pants and a sun hat?

Easter Weekend

The first full weekend of April was a busy one. Saturday morning was my half marathon in San Rafael, then we were off to San Jose for a family party, and on Sunday we celebrated Easter and my dad’s 59^th birthday.

Let me tell you about my race. As you know, I wasn’t able to train much for this run so I really had no idea how it would go. Normally I like to try to either run or drive the course beforehand or at least run the last 1-2 miles of the course so I’m somewhat familiar with it. Well, none of those things happened so when I showed up at China Camp State Park at 6:35 Saturday morning, I didn’t even know where the race started. Everything turned out better than I could have ever hoped. The weather could not have been more perfect , the course was really fun with about 7 miles of roads and 6 miles of beautiful single track trails, and by some small miracle, all the aches and pains that I had experienced in my training runs never showed up. I started the run with the mentality of go out and have a fun run, don’t worry about time, all that matters is you are out here doing it. Well, that went out the window about two minutes after the race started and my competitive juices started kicking in. The course was by far the most hilly half marathon I have ever run so I knew there was no shot of getting a personal record time, but I really wanted to beat 2 hours.

My bib

My time - so happy to make it under 2 hours

Post race portrait

I was on such a runner’s high when I finished. I felt like I was floating on air, so damn happy that my body cooperated and got me across that finish line and that the race was behind me and I could enjoy the rest of my Easter weekend!

Family shot down at Chris and Michelle's house warming

Sunday, after Easter Sunday mass, Luke and I met my parents at the French Garden restaurant in Sebastopol for an Easter brunch buffet. Mmmm that was good. When we couldn’t eat another bite, we rolled ourselves back to my parent’s house to celebrate my dad’s 59^th birthday. Both my brother and sister were home and it was nice to all be together.

It was also nice meeting my parent's new chicks! Aren't they just the cutest?

Jimmy took some pictures of Kristin for her vet school graduation announcement and they were so good, I asked him to take some pictures of me too J These are my favorite two pictures of Kristin:

Congratulations Dr. Conover. Vet school graduate in a few short weeks! We are all so proud of you!

Jimmy was taking a picture of Luke and me when look who else wanted to be in the picture…

Luke and I with our actual black dog

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend.