An Experience of a Lifetime...

We made it home safe and sound 1 week ago today from our journey to San Francisco where I am happy (and relieved) to say that I completed the Nike Women's Marathon. It was truly an unbelievable experience and I am so pleased that I was able to be a part of it! I am especially thankful that I was able to share these amazing moments in my life with my family by my side every step of the way.

I'm still waiting on a bunch of pictures from the actual race so I will post those as soon as I get them and I will make sure to describe how amazing all 26.2 miles were! It was nothing short of an experience of a lifetime!

The bus shuttle from the airport to our hotel in downtown San Francisco. Our flight left at 7:00 am on Friday so it was an early start for all of us. The girls enjoyed the freedom of riding in the bus with no car seats and being able to look out the giant window at all the things around them!

On Friday morning, once we arrived and got settled in, we all walked down to Union Square to the Marathon Expo to check in and receive all the race day items I would need like my race number, shoe tag which would keep track of my time and a bunch of other goodies. It was incredible!

My beautiful little Bentley having fun!

There was a giant picture of the course at Niketown and it was fun to see exactly what I was about to conquer. Notice between mile 6 - 7.....that's a MASSIVE hill!

The girls at the hotel. They had SO much fun just playing and chasing each other all over the place! I'm so glad that they had such a great time! It's the best thing ever to see them smile and laugh together!

We did A LOT of walking and sight seeing that weekend and the girls were incredible for us! They basically spent almost the entire weekend in the stroller, but we had so much fun as a family!

I especially loved going to NikeTown. It was like a girl's dream come true. It was completely centered on the marathon and being a girl and it was just awesome! The theme was "Run Like a Girl" and they had SO much cute stuff in hot pink and blue (my favorite color combination). Let's just say we spent a long time in Niketown!

On Saturday (the day before the race) the girls wanted to go swimming so bad! Jordan being the best dad & husband ever, let me stay in the room and relax and he took both girls over to the pool! They were ALL smiles! After all, they deserved it!

Saturday night, the night before the big day, we had a pasta party with the entire Team in Training group to tank up on carbs, good food and great company. It was incredible! Every marathon that I have run has been for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, but with the Nike Women's Marathon being dedicated towards the society this time I was in complete amazement! Every person standing in that building was helping to find a cure to beat blood related cancers. It was a VERY overwhelming and heart warming experience to be a part of!

As we walked into the Moscoe Center this is what we saw. Everyone was cheering and going crazy for us! It was really neat! I don't think my girls had a clue what was going on! They just stared with their mouths open wide! It was really cute! We had to walk down like a million stairs to get to the dinner hall and the man that conducted the evening later joked that if we survived walking down the stairs then we would have NO PROBLEM making it through the marathon. That made me laugh!

The Arizona Team - We all trained together and worked so hard over the past 6 months. Together as a whole the participants from the marathon raised over $18 million to benefit The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I was shocked when I heard the total amount!

Our family at the pasta party dinner. Jord took the girls back to the hotel after they ate and I was able to stay with my group and listen to the group speakers. It was a very inspirational and emotional evening. It makes you realize just how great life is especially when you are healthy and free of the challenges that cancer presents. The last speaker was a mother of two that had been fighting leukemia since she was 25 and her story was unbelievable of all the things that she had overcome. She would conquer it and be in remission and then a few years later it would come back and have to start all over again. At the same time she was dealing with this overwhelming challenge her 4 year old daughter was diagnosed. She ended up telling us that she was currently in remission and that she had just completed a marathon herself. What an amazing lady!

Race Day - Jordan woke up with the girls and got them all ready for the day! He even did Taylor's hair and I was SO impressed! They looked just perfect!

I left the camera with Jordan and the girls and these are some of the pictures that they took. What a great dad! I was so glad that he took some pictures of them during the race because I couldn't wait to see them! They had over 5 hours waiting in the cold (it was really cold that day) and they made the most of it and had a great time! I love my family!

The race was crazy! There were over 20,000 runners which included participants from all 50 states, 25 countries, 5,000 Team in Training runners, and only 1,089 men. And there were SO many people cheering along the sides of the course the entire way! But I couldn't have been more excited to see my family at mile 11. There they were standing & smiling and holding a "Go Mommy, We Love U" sign. My heart jumped and I was so happy!

I got to see them again as I was approaching mile 26.2 - "The Finish Line" and their faces helped me make it those last few steps! I love this picture because the bright pink finish line is right there and I knew there was NO WAY that I wasn't going to cross it!

I made it! Couldn't be more happy!

Celebrating with my favorite people!

The medal for this race was a great one! Every finisher received a Tiffany's necklace which was handed out to all of us by the San Francisco firefighters. They were dressed in tuxedos holding little blue boxes! It was pretty cool!

The front of the necklace.

The back of the necklace.

Me, Rhonda, Kim and Michelle - These girls are amazing! We all trained together and then ran the entire race together & we crossed the finish line as a group.

Back at the hotel after the race and ready for a WARM shower! This is the sign that the girls and Jordan made for me! It melted my heart BIG TIME!

Sunday night we had a Victory dinner all together and once again it was a ton of fun! Except this time we were all relaxed and happy to have accomplished our goal!

Me & Tay heading back to the hotel after the Victory Dinner! I love this little girl!

Monday was SO awesome! Our flight didn't leave until that night so we had the entire day to do whatever we wanted. It was a perfect family vacation and I felt so free after finishing my race! It even felt pretty good to walk around and losen up my legs a little bit which was nice. We went back to Union Square one more time for breakfast and to do a little more shopping. I was so happy to take a picture of just me and Jord together. I love him so much and appreciate EVERYTHING he does for me!

Outside of Niketown was a wall covered will all the names of the runners from the 2008 Nike Women's Marathon. It was really neat to see my name up there. Jordan took my picture by the wall on Monday morning and I'm so glad that we stopped by one more time to take a look at it!

We took a taxi on Monday afternoon over to Fisherman's Warf and started out by looking at ALL the Sea Lions just laying around being smelly and loud. The girls LOVED it!

Us looking out at Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. It was really beautiful in San Francisco and fun to see things that we don't normally get to see!

Of course we couldn't avoid a trip on the Merry-go-round. Jord took both girls and every time they circled around I saw THREE giant smiles!

We also stopped by a candy shop off the pier and bought - NO JOKE - a ton of salt water taffy. The girls also got these giant suckers which they loved. It was so funny though because they had like a million flavors and we LOVE salt water taffy! We just started filling up our basket and before we knew it we decided we better leave before we would have to grab another basket. While Jordan was standing in line this Brittish guy looked at him and then the basket and asked Jordan with his accent, "WOW! What's in that stuff? It must be something really good!" Then he yelled over to his wife, "Honey, maybe we need to get some more of what they got because they sure got a lot of it." It was pretty funny!

We also visited the "Aquarium By the Bay" while we were there and we really enjoyed it. We went underground and walked through tunnels with sharks and all kinds of fish swimming all around us.

We even got to touch some of the sharks, star fish and a bat ray. It was such a wonderful trip and something that I am so glad that we were able to do! Hopefully I can bring myself to commiting to another marathon sometime in the near future because it truly changes your life and we had such an amazing time as a family!