Mermaid Dash

Okay, this is now becoming our 'thing'!  The Hot Chocolate 15k/5k is tomorrow but we found this cute race that we just HAD to sign up the girls for today!  Luckily, it's only a 1.5 mile "dash" so they won't be too tired for their big race tomorrow.  The mermaid theme was just too perfect for us NOT to have them do it so out came the tutus, colored extensions, mermaid press-on nails and of course...blue lipstick!  This race was a 1.5 mile all out sprint that Koko ended up winning!!  Kalissa was pretty disappointed but I had to remind her that she's not a sprinter, she is a distance runner.  And the lesson to this loss is that if she can't win it herself, she should be THRILLED that her friend won!  In addition, they looked awesome and had fun!

 

 

 

A Star is Born

Kalissa's 2nd grade class put on their Spring performance today.  It was an adaptation of Tikki Tikki Tembo.  I'm not quite sure what part she had, but it had solo speaking parts and came with this cute costume!  She did a great job of not messing up her lines! 

She's always been our little performer and I suppose that's not going to change any time soon!

St Patrick's Day 5k

A couple months ago I blogged that we were training to run the Hot Chocolate 5k (I run the 15k) at the end of March.  Since then, we ran the Hip Hop 5k and today we participated in another family fun 5k.  This time it was the St. Patrick's Day Half Marathon and 5k in El Cajon.  We had such a good time getting into the St. Patrick's Day theme and running this 5k as a family!  Kalissa and her bestie, Koko, even made the morning local news tv segment!  Unfortunately it was live and we cannot find a taping of it :(  We did find this cute video put together by the event organizers and she appears a couple of time in it (beginning at the :42 mark and again at the 2:10 mark.  Bonus points if you can spot Al and me in there too!).

After the race, we tried to sell her Girl Scout cookies but were swiftly kicked out by another troop who had actually purchased a booth at the event to sell their cookies.  WHOOPS! LOL!  Cookie selling is a cut throat business let me tell ya!

It was a great event, easy course...pretty much flat, and the weather was overcast which is WONDERFUL for running so we ended up posting good times:  Kalissa & Al (he always runs alongside her) finished in 33 minutes flat and I crossed at 34 minutes 53 seconds.

Ebony and Ivory

As if she didn't have enough extra-curricular activities on her plate....Kalissa requested to add piano lessons a few months ago.  We had actually talked about piano lessons last year after her 1st grade teacher recommended them to assist with her math learning.  We didn't move forward with it then but since she was now interested on her own, we went ahead and did some research.  It wasn't easy to find an instructor but we finally did!

She now attends 30 minute weekly lessons and we had to invest in an electric piano (not to be confused with a keyboard) for home practice.  At the advice of her instructor, Mr. Fernando, we purchased a Casio Privia px160.  Apparently the difference between it and a keyboard is the feel of the keys which is paramount for learning piano. At her first lesson last week, Mr. Fernando assessed her sense of rhythm with a metronome and found that our baby has so much soul that he didn't think it necessary for us to buy one for home use 😁Last night was week 2's lesson and she has some major homework practice to do before next week.

She seems to be extremely motivated & eager to get better and Mr. Fernando thinks she's doing great so far.  In the meantime, we will be heavily utilizing the headphone jack on her piano at home!!

Hip Hop Run 2017

Hip Hop music + Running = Our definition of a great family outing!  A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across an ad for a Hip Hop Run in San Diego.  My interest was immediately piqued by the promise of DJs lining the course, spinning hip hop for the runners and the super cute finisher’s medal.  I checked with the family and they were all in so I signed us up for the 1/29/17 race!  If you know me, you know I LOVE a good theme.  And once I get started with a theme, there’s no stopping me!  I knew I was going to represent LL Cool J in this hip hop race…that was a given.  But who could Kali represent?  We decided on Salt N Pepa and she was TOOOOO cute!  The fact that she already knew “Push It” made it even better!  Daddy was going to be the hard one.  I knew he would not be overly happy to “dress up” and I didn’t want to push it (no pun intended) too hard, for fear he would nix the whole dress up part entirely.   He settled on Eric B & Rakim and even wore a fat gold chain! J  I was waaaaay too excited for this run!  The thought of being able to practically dance a whole 5k was sending me over the moon!  And it did not disappoint!  Kali and I were actually sick last week (and we only found out about this run 2 weeks ago) so we didn’t get much training in.  We had time to get in one 2.5 mile run two weeks ago and that was it so I wasn’t expecting great time results.  But I was wrong!  33 minutes and 30 seconds for Al & Kali and I crossed at 33 minutes and 37 seconds! I am super happy with this result because we hadn’t been training at all and we were just getting over being down with some pretty wretched colds. 

All in all, we had such a great time and I’m hoping this run will come back to San Diego next year!  ....but how ever will I top this year's costumes??

To top it all off.....the organizers of the event named us Best Dressed family!  How cool is that!?! ...and we made a cute cameo in their video ( :34 mark).

 

Training Days

The Whitakers are in official race training mode! On March 26, Kalissa will run her 2nd official 5k (alongside Daddy) while I take on the15k at the Hot Chocolate Run.  Last year, Kali ran the last 1/4 mile with me to the finish line but this year she will be an actual participant.

To get prepared, we hiked Cowles mountain yesterday.  This hike is nothing new as we've been climbing it for a little over a year now but we tried to add some speed to it for a true training session.  We completed the 3 mile, 1,592' ascent, trek in 65 minutes.  Not a bad benchmark but next time our goal will be under an hour.

Since I'm always lagging behind them, I get to hear other hikers comment on her athleticism and enthusiasm as she passes them up!  We try to make being healthy fun and rewarding so hopefully she will want to keep fitness as part of her life as she gets older!

Happy New Year!

Welcome 2017! 
Last night Daddy and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary with a delicious dinner at Fleming's Steak House. Kalissa and Qiana joined us for dinner this year with Kali giving us another heartfelt toast.  She's so profound! : )

After dinner, we went home and played board games until midnight, then toasted the New Year with sparkling cider and bid 2016 farewell!!