Spring Breakin'

It's  spring break this week and the Bunger's are on a stay-cation.

We took a day trip to the Topeka Zoo and met my dear friend from high school, Amy and her two boys.  Having boys the same ages makes for instant fun together!

I am so glad we could both find a free moment in our busy schedules to get together and catch up.

There was some work involved in our spring break with the never-ending spring clean up of our yard.  And now that it's been a year since we had our 3 ginormous cottonwood trees removed from the backyard, we have been busy prepping this area to be grassed.

Which may sound like an easy task....accept when you dig up and transplant dozens upon dozens of flower bulbs, scoop out all the existing mulch from having the enormous stump ground out, filling said hole, leveling the area and then picking up all left over yard "stuff" that could get in the way of seeding this area to become a lawn.  To have an idea of just how massive these expensive cottonwood trees were, the boys are each holding up sections of roots that Chad had to hack out of the of the group with his ax while prepping this area.  The one Collin is holding up was easily the size of my leg.

Mitchell and I also dug up dozens upon dozens of flower bulbs in a massive front flower bed to transplant as we overhaul this area to make it smaller, add more grass and hopefully have a more manageable flower bed with less weeds and more actual flowers.

We also had fun seeing a movie in the new dine in movie theater and watching the second round of the NCAA Women's Basketball tournament.

The end of  our Spring Break 2017 Stay-cation will including my 13th half marathon on Saturday morning in Wamego.  I don't think I have ever felt so unprepared for running 13.1, so my goal will be to stay positive and be happy to finish.

It will be slow, but I am determined to complete it!

App Fail

The blogger app continues to be a huge fail on my phone so I have been unable to update my blog for several weeks. 

Mitchell finished up his last short course season in the 11-12 year old age group with his first appearance at MVS District Championships in Wichita a few weeks ago.  He had never qualified for this meet before and was very excited to see his hard work pay off, qualifying for 4 events. 

He didn't make finals for either day of Districts, but he did take more time off in half of the 6 events he swam and as always, he had a great time with his Marlins Swim Friends.

Mitchell has one more season of long course to swim with the 12 & under age group before he moves up with the big kids this fall swimming in 13& up sessions.  This will mean this is also our last season of having both boys in the same swim session (both in the morning or both in the afternoon).  Next fall, we will begin to start a "divide and conquer" approach on swim meet weekends!

 In other news that doesn't deal with swimming....we finally got to see a KSU game (their last of the regular season)

 Collin had the chance to have a small part in an internet commercial to promote teaching as a profession through KSDE!  While he wasn't sure about trying this out, he was a natural. :)

And I've still been training for my 13th half marathon!  I have come to terms with the fact that this will be my slowest finishing time to date.  It's been difficult to gain my endurance back and our hectic schedules coupled with a weekend full of the 24 hour stomach flu hitting our entire house has cut into training like I have in the past.  Right now I am just focused on finishing the race on March  25th.

Swimming, Running and Promoting

Just one swim meet left of the short course season before districts.  It's been a season full of growth and firsts for both of our swimmers!

Mitchell has qualified for the MVS District meet in Wichita this year for the first time and is very excited.

Collin keeps making huge gains this season and this last smaller meet Salina was a big confidence booster for him as he placed in most of his individual races.

While I'm not getting any faster, I keep moving forward with my half marathon training plan.  Next long run begins the double digits. 

The most exciting news in the past few weeks comes from the 10 years of hard work, commitment, leadership and dedication Chad has put in as a City Planner. He recently interviewed for and accepted the Assistant Director of Community Development position at the City of Manhattan!  This is so well deserved and we are very proud of him!

My Ideal

We were thankful to miss virtually all of the ice that was predicted for our area last weekend.

 Sunday was just slick enough to stay indoors and with rain most of the day, lots of snacking and hibernating indoors seemed to be the theme of our weekend.

Everyone was home on Monday and with a break in the rain, I decided try and get my run outdoors and not go to work out in the basement of Chad's work on the treadmill.  When I left for my run I told Chad I needed to run 4, but I may try to tackle my long run of 7 miles for the week to get it checked off my list of things to accomplish.

I'm not sure if it was all the unintentional carbo loading I did the day before, or the fact that I hadn't run in 2 days, but this run felt great.  My pace is still much slower than it has been in previous years, but with no wind, no glaring sun to sap my energy and temperatures that were cool, but not too cold, it made for my version of ideal running weather. 

Instead of running the 7 miles on my training schedule, I ended up running 8 miles on an almost foggy and dampish morning. 

True Blue Igloo

It was cold outside these past few days but the Bunger boys were heating up the lanes in the swimming pool during their latest short course meet in Topeka.

 The True Blue Igloo Meet turned out to be a successful two day swim for both boys.  Mitchell has really started to swim more aggressively this season.  He's such a laid back, kind and funny guy but seeing a bit of a competitive edge has been something we don't see often for him.

 He has never qualified for a district meet before and already has done so in 2 events for this season. 

 With several event times close to qualifying, it is great to see him continue to improve and become more confident in his hard work and training.

 And Collin had a stellar meet experience as well.  This was a large meet and Collin swam 4 events both days.  He was pumped to see that he not only didn't have a DQ in any events (something he has yet to master) but he also won in his heat.

 He was even more excited to learn he had placed in this event earning an individual ribbon.  Again, this was a very large meet so him placing was a big deal and a definite boost to his confidence. 

If you know Collin at all, you know he is not one to commit to much, doesn't like to try new things and is hard to get him to admit that he may actually enjoy something.  Yesterday he could almost admit to us that he may, in fact, sort of-maybe enjoy swimming and swim meets.  Maybe. :)

Growth and progress.  Each measured in different ways with our two different boys, but the end results is still the same...two proud and loving parents.

2017 Running Goals

I started 2017running  a 10K distance on January 1st!

My 13th half marathon is coming up soon in March and while winter is not my favorite season overall, it is my preferred season for long distance running (without any snow or ice).

I am still trying to back to my usual paces from last year and before.  It has taken a long time to get both my endurance back and now trying to also bring my pace back around.  That parasite I had this summer was no joke!

Over 13 miles logged in the first week of January before the arctic temperatures found their way to Kansas. 

EOY and Counting Our Blessings

Merry Christmas from the Bunger Family!

2016 saw many blessings for our family. Looking forward to all that's in store for us in 2017.

 I am not sure why I am continuing to have problems with my blog not uploading pictures or saving them when using my phone or tablet so these posts are a bit late...even though I tried multiple times before giving up until I had access to a laptop again.

 Chad pulled out all the stops on Christmas morning making Rudolph pancakes.  I love his creativity in the kitchen...it makes up for my sub-par skills. :)

Another year of present forts.  We had a laid back Christmas Day as a family where the boys stayed in PJ's the whole day.  This break has been a great recharge time from our usual busy schedules.