Jared's Half Marathon!

Hi everyone! So Jared did a half marathon this weekend with his dad and family friend Kevin! They did great and finished in 2:19:50.1!

For your viewing pleasure, the short but sweet video. Feel free to cheer Jared on and make fun of me in the background. :)



Seabrook Half Marathon from Madelyn on Vimeo.

Big Bend State Park

Hi everyone. I hope you are all doing great!

This last week was crazy for me. Tons happened at work, at home and we even took a trip! Jared has been building cross country time so that he can meet ATP minimums and so we decided to take a trip to Big Bend State Park.

Jared had been once for a spring break trip. He told me his first thought was, "Maddie would love this. I need to bring her back." His second thought was, "I would love to fly out here." Low and behold, both happened in one crazy short trip.

So we packed up our backpacks and I prepped some food and we fit it all in the airplane with weight to spare. We spent 5.7 hours flying one way with one pit stop. Then we tied down the plane and went to the office to check in. From there, they showed us our campsite and we set up right before the sun went down. However, as the sun gave way to the horizon we got the most spectacular star show during dinner. The view of the sky in itself was worth the trip for me.

It got cold quick. But thankfully, we had gotten a new sleeping bag and brought adequate clothing so that we were actually quite warm. Add on our awesome mattress pads and the incredibly silent scenery, it was one of the best nights of sleep I had ever had.

During the next morning we hiked and found a couple of geocaches before packing up and hiking back to the plane. Then another 5.7 hours later (with a crazy pit stop at Llano to get some amazing BBQ) we were back in Houston.

What I learned on this trip was that I am so glad I have an open attitude on trying new things. I have always loved camping. However, I was slightly apprehensive at the fact that we would be in the middle of nowhere (with no cell phones) with only what we had on our backs. I was also apprehensive about how cold it was going to be. However, we were adequately prepared, brought plenty of water and worked together. My old attitude would have thought, "That sounds way to uncomfortable and unsafe." However, if I wouldn't have gone, I would have never seen the amazing mountains, the crazy types of cactus, or the amazing stars. I found that this is the fact of life. Sometimes the best things in life are only accessible by paths that may seem uncomfortable or hard.

For your viewing pleasure, our camping trip video. :)


http://vimeo.com/61421779