Busy, busy, busy

I feel like for the most part we aren't really ever very busy. Sure, we've got the day to day stuff like every family. Usually if we are invited somewhere or want to have people over it's not too hard to get planned. But I have been looking at our schedule for the next few months and just realized we are going to be super busy, like every weekend busy.

Here's what the rest of the month looks like for us:
Tomorrow we have a birthday party to go to, that I still have to buy the present for...
We are also having friends over for dinner tomorrow night after we get back from the birthday party.
Next week we are going to see Henry Rollins speak, which should be awesome, we saw him a few years ago when he came to Knoxville and he spoke for over 3 hours. We are also going to dinner before the show. Which will be awesome because while Dylan is getting better about not being such a pill when we go out to eat, it will still be nice to have a grown up night out!
March 18th is the Atlanta marathon. We will be heading down the night before, luckily it's only a 3 hour drive.
Guess what? The weekend of March 24th we are open!! While I would really like to sit around that weekend and recover, I am hoping it will be nice out and we can go up to the Smokies and do some hiking.
I am heading to Charleston to meet up with my mom and sister to celebrate (late) my mom's 60th birthday the last weekend in March. We didn't realize when we planned the trip that the Knoxville marathon is April 1st. I don't think we made the whole March/April same weekend connection, so Grandma Carolyn is coming down to visit that weekend to help Dave out with Dylan. She will get to see a race too. I'm bummed out that I am going to miss the marathon, the Knoxville one would be fun since it's in our hometown. Maybe next year! I am very excited to go to Charleston though, we have reservations at Husk and Lana and countless other restaurants we want to try. At least we should be doing a lot of walking to burn off the calories from all the food we are going to be eating. :)

I don't even want to start talking about April, our co-ed league volleyball starts (which I am so incredibly excited about!), Dylan's swimming lessons start, Dave will still have his Tuesday night running group and that's just during the week!

I am pretty sure that we are just going to keep getting busier as Dylan gets older and we will find ways to manage it. I wanted to sign him up for tee-ball too, but I think we are going to wait a year for that and soccer. Or at least until the Fall when hopefully we won't have so much going on.

I'll have marathon updates coming up, hopefully a restaurant review from wherever we go before Henry Rollins and Charleston re-cap so stay tuned! Oh, and Spring photos! The Spring flowers and trees are blooming, so I will try and capture some of the gorgeousness of East Tennessee and share it with you!

12 in 12ish

Well sort of...Dave and Andrew are planning on running 12 marathons next year. They've already signed up for the first three, Miami, Myrtle Beach & Atlanta. Then comes the Knoxville and Nashville marathons in April followed by Pittsburgh in May. June, July and August are slow months for marathons and really, who wants to be running a marathon when it's super hot (really who want's to be running a marathon at all...wait these guys I guess)?

Fall marathons up for consideration are Chicago, Minneapolis, Omaha, Savannah, Huntsville, and New York. There may be some others, the schedule for the second half of the year hasn't been set yet.

I know Dave needs to start getting more miles in to really start getting ready for the tough schedule next year. He is always in pretty good shape and he started distance training again in October. He is running in the Santa Hustle in Sevierville on December 11th, which is a half marathon that should help in getting his miles up. But he just needs to do better running during the week, other than on the group run night.

We will be chronicling the marathons here on hamtowne and if I can get them to do it, maybe we will even have a few guest posts from Andrew and Dave. This would also be a great excuse for me to get a new lens for my camera. You guys want to see good photos from the races, right? A zoom lens would be excellent to get photos of Dave and Andrew from a distance and at the finish. It would also be a great pain and suffering present, I get super nervous for Dave before a race. Maybe I need to get Xanex and a new lens :)

We are all going to Myrtle Beach and staying a few days. Hopefully the weather will be nice enough to spend some time on the beach! If anyone wants to join us for the marathons let me know. Dave and Andrew love to see friendly faces in the crowd cheering them on!

Let me know if there is anything else you want to know about the crazy year we have coming up!