Changes for the Malcolm's

So much has happened this last week, I don't even know where to begin! Changes have officially arrived at the Malcolm house. Not to get into any details, but I will be going back to school in January. I haven't officially decided on what I am going to study, but it will either be radiology tech or a physical therapy assistant program. Both community colleges in town have 2 year programs so it wouldn't take me very long to finish and it wouldn't cost that much. After asking around and talking to some medical professionals I am leaning more towards the radiology program. It pays really good money and sounds really interesting; no two days would ever be a like!

Thursday night Tia and I went and helped all of the Spokane Swift girls fill out race numbers and stuff goodie bags for our Monster Dash race that was today. Tia had so much fun hanging out with all of the girls.

Getting ready to go to Heather's in her Halloween dress

Home from Heather's and so sleepy

The weekend came and went by really fast. Cam went out with friends on Friday night and Tia and I stayed home and watched TV. Saturday I volunteered at the all city JV championships for cross country. It was so much fun; it made me really want to get into coaching. I helped compile the results so I got to stay inside where it was warm for most of the day, but it meant that I missed out on watching most of the races. After the championship races for the high schools, Tri-fusion had their Oktoberfest 5k run that a lot of the Swift girls ran in. I took the weekend off for once. :) When I got home I checked the mail to find my official letter confirming my entry into the Boston Marathon on April 19th, 2010. I had gotten an email last week saying that I was in, but this was the official notice. I am really excited!

                                     

Tia hanging out at home

Saturday night Cam and Tia stayed home and I went out with Heather and her roommate Natalie. It was Natalie's last weekend in Spokane before moving back to the westside. We had so much fun! At the Safari room we got to meet Michael Roos (Tennessee Titans) who was in town to have his football jersey retired at the EWU homecoming game. He is HUGE!!!!!

Heather, Michael Roos, Me

Sunday morning was our Monster Dash race at Manito park. It was 22 degrees at 6:45 am when I had to be at the park. It was f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g!!!!! The race went great. We had a lot of people sign up for it and we are already planning on doing it again next year. Tia and Cam participated. It was Tia's first 5k!!!! She did so good. I was working the finish line and I looked up to see a little bumblebee running around the corner with her little wings flopping everywhere. It was so cute. Of course she came home and went right to sleep. :)

Modeling her Halloween costume

Cutest little bumblebee ever!

After the really stressful week I had, I was thrilled when Cassie called last night to tell me that her and Scott booked their flight and hotel for Boston. The marathon is on Cassie's birthday and I am so excited that they are coming. It's going to be a really fun trip!

Looks like it will be another busy week in the Malcolm house. I have to finalize my school stuff, get ready for Halloween, and possibly plan a quick trip to Seattle to visit Adrienne. Then it will be the week of birthday celebrations with Cam's on the 3rd and mine on the 8th of November.

What a weekend!

I got home from work on Friday to have Cameron waiting for me in the kitchen to tell me that he had gotten me my birthday present already. I was slightly shocked because we had said we weren't doing gifts for eachother since we just bought the table and my birthday isn't for another couple of weeks. He pulls this pink cloth bag out of his backpack and produces a pink motorcycle helmet with matching gloves. Oh man! He figured that since the weather has been so nice that I really needed this gift. I have been riding on a motorcycle before, but never with Cam so I was kind of nervous. He just got his endorsement a couple of weeks ago, but I figured I had to trust him at some point. We went for a short ride over to his mom's house and then up to the grocery store and Hasting's for a movie. Of course, I got stuck wearing the backpack full of our grocercies. I think that's the only reason why he wanted me to go in the first place; so he wouldn't have to wear the backpack. The checker at the grocery store had to comment on my helmet and tell me how cool it was so Cam felt pretty proud of himself for picking it out. We went for another ride later that night to return our movie that we had just watched. All in all, Cam is a safe driver and I had fun. Who would have thought! I called my mom to tell her wait Cam had bought me for my birthday and all she did was laugh and say "well at least its something you can do together." Here is a picture of my helmet- I think Cam did good!

My pink helmet! :)

Saturday morning I took Tia to Manito to go for a walk through the park and play with her frisbee. She LOVES Manito. At home she will play with her frisbee until she drops. She wouldn't touch it at Manito! I would throw it and then she would look at me like what are you doing, you expect me to chase after that????? I don't think the frisbee will be going with us to the park anymore.

Miss Tia in the car

Manito Park

After I got back from the park I started to go through the wedding proofs, yikes! Out of the 944 pictures in our proof book I selected 202 for the first round. I need to narrow the photos down to about 150 in the next week or so. At least its a start and I am pretty proud of myself for not picking at least half of the photos in the first round. :)

Saturday night we went to Post Falls and got dinner with Emilie and Jason. Our intentions were to go to the haunted house and the corn maze after dinner. The haunted house was a bust because they weren't doing it all month like they have done in previous years; it will only be open the last 2 weekends of the month this year. By the time we drove past the closed haunted house it was pouring down rain. We drive to the corn maze and then wait in line for about an hour in the rain. At least the four of us were smart and all brought umbrellas! It wasn't cold which made the wait more comfortable at least. As soon as we did get into the maze it stopped raining, go figure!

On Sunday we had a cross country race at Seven Mile in Spokane. I took 7th place for girls and Cam took 20th place for the guys. He did such a good job!!!!! It was a hard course and he pushed it for the entire race. That was Cam's last race for the year. In two weeks we have Qualachan which is about a 7mile race that is all on trails. Its super hard. I ran it last year and said I would never do it again, and, of course I am running it again this year.  Cam is using it for his volunteer run and I am going to race it. I am pretty sure that we have both won our age group in the BRRC race series this year. WooHoo!!! I just looked at last year's results from Seven Mile and I ran 1min 11 seconds faster than last year. Here are some pictures from the run:

Cam right before the start of the men's race

Cam and Brenda

The start of the men's race....where is Cam????

Go! Cam! Go!

The super steep hill that you get to run up twice :)

Looking good!

....Almost done

DONE!!! Great run Cam!!!!

7th place and 20th place

Brenda, Cam, and Me :)

Wedding Photos!

I have been anxiously anticipating, not sure about Cam, the arrival of our wedding photo proofs. I was thinking that they might be ready once we got home from PR, but I thought for sure I would have them within a month. After the month had passed I waited about a week and then I emailed the photgrapher-no response. Another week went by and I almost contemplated calling him and then TADA!!!! He called me! Proofs were ready and my proof book had arrived today. I was so excited; went to get them right after work. They are amazing. Everything I had anticipated. There are tons of great photos to choose from. I only have 45 days to pick out photos for our album- that's not very long. Looks like I will be busy! Cam did a quick "glance" of the proof album and liked what he saw. I think that he is happy because I am happy....Here is just a quick glance of some photos in our proof book.

Lastly, here is a photo of my haircut! :)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

I figured that yesterday was the perfect day to break in my brand new Kitchen Aid Mixer! Considering fall has arrived and our yard was full of leaves and pine needles the best thing I could think of to bake was my mom's famous pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. They beat our Starbucks pumpkin cream cheese muffin by a long shot. Simply put, they are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I managed to make the hugest mess possible, but the end result was perfect; they were my best muffins yet! I made cute mini muffins, large muffins, and bread.

Cute Mini Muffins

Large Muffins & Bread

Of course, I had to sample a few. :) I am sure as soon as Cam gets home from Seattle he will munch on some too!

This was the first time I had used my new mixer before and I love it!!!!! Next up? Birthday cakes, cookies, holiday goodies, you name it!

Here is the recipe for the Pumpkin Chip Muffins:

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups veggie oil
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 cups chocolate chips
15oz pumpkin
Mix all ingredients together and bake at 400 for 16-20 minutes.


For loaf of bread bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean

Enjoy!!!!!!

Weekend Fun

In true fashion, we were busy all weekend. It seems like we are always doing something. Sometimes it would just be nice to do nothing for once.

On Friday, Cam and his dad went and picked up our used (new to us) kitchen table. Its HUGE!!!! It seats 8 people and has a leaf to put in the center. Its not my first choice of color, but its in great condition and the chairs are comfy so thats a bonus. We posted our 2 not so nice tables that we had on Craigslist and sold both of them yesterday. Now our sunroom has more room, but now we don't have a place to pile our junk. Ooops. :)

New Table

We were going to go to the EWU football game on Saturday, but decided not to go because it was so cold. By game time it was supposed to warm up to a tropical 30 degrees. Cam persuaded me, it wasn't that difficult, to go have breakfast with him at Twigs instead. How can you say "no" to breakfast at Twigs???? Its the best! After breakfast on a total whim I went in and had my hair chopped off. I hate long hair and had only grown it out for the wedding. I cut about 5 inches or so off....it feels so much better. It looks better too, my hair was starting to look ratty.

Saturday night we went to the EWU Library fundraiser (Oktoberfest) out in Cheney. They had both a live and silent auction and burgers provided by the Sonic in Spokane. There was a ton of stuff to bid on for the silent auction. They had 2 pet baskets that I really wanted to get for Tia, but we lost the bid. We ended up winning a gift card to nursery for flowers this spring. The live auction had tons of cool stuff, computers, trip to Cancun, white water rafting adventure, vacation in Sandpoint, etc. I really wanted the vacation in Sandpoint, but Cam wouldn't bid on it. Maybe next year????

Cam left really early this morning, about 4 am, to drive to Seattle for the Seahawks game. Crazy person! I wanted to go, but instead decided to torture myself with the Spokane 1/2 marathon. I think it was 20 degrees at race time? I couldn't feel my fingers or my toes. Never the greatest feeling when you still have 13.1 miles to run. I actually felt pretty good in the run. I had a 5 min course PR for me, but not good enough to place. I started out slower than normal just because I knew how hilly the course was. My pace was 7 min and 40 second miles which I will take. My slowest mile was at 9 because of Doomsday Hill. Last 5k felt pretty good, but it got windy, which chilled me down a lot. I am very proud of Cam's sister, Lindsay, who ran her first 1/2 marathon!!! Whoop! She did amazing!!!!!! Hopefully she will come out to more races because she just survived the hardest 1/2 marathon around. :)

Okay...time to lay in bed with Tia and watch some TV!

Blogging

I used to have a blog that I used for personal stuff, but decided since Cam and I got married we should have a family blog for people to keep up on our adventures. :)

The wedding was amazing. Everything that I could have hoped for and more. I hope that everyone who came had as much fun as Cam and I did. The day was long, but went by fast at the same time. I am anticipating getting our proofs back any day and I am super excited to finally see our pictures. The pictures that people have posted on facebook are fabulous so I can only imagaine what the professional ones will look like. Here is a link to some photos that I had:

http://picasaweb.google.com/woodwardtasha/Wedding?authkey=Gv1sRgCNfz2YH8uIjoYg#

We went to Puerto Rico for our honeymoon. It wasn't my first choice on a desitination, but it exceeded my expecatations. The island was beautiful and the people were so friendly and welcoming. We got a rental car to save money on the excursions by driving to the locations. Old San Juan was a lot of fun so we spent a lot of time hanging out and looking in the shops. Some things that we did were: Bacardi Rum Factory, Fort San Cristobal, El Yunque National Rainforest, and Culebra Island. Here are some links to our photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/tashamalcolm/HoneymoonPart1?authkey=Gv1sRgCMLXiru5ufu0Vw#

http://picasaweb.google.com/tashamalcolm/HoneymoonPart2SanJuanPR?authkey=Gv1sRgCMTL8OK6ho2AsQE#

http://picasaweb.google.com/tashamalcolm/HoneymoonPart3?authkey=Gv1sRgCIvpsq_H-qm5kwE#

http://picasaweb.google.com/tashamalcolm/HoneymoonPart4?authkey=Gv1sRgCKrXh7rJ36aZiwE#

I tried to be deligent about posting captions on most of the photos. Our trip started in Seattle where we flew out so there are some pictures from Pike Place also. Enjoy!

Since we got back from Puerto Rico we have been busy settling and going through all of our wedding gifts. Its been so nice to get rid of the college dishes Cam and I had both combined. I can't even count how many times I broke a spoon while eating ice cream. We also just recently bought a new kitchen table so we can actually entertain and have people over for dinner.

I finally got a new car and I love it! It wasn't my first choice; I really wanted an Acura MDX, but we found an '05 Jeep Grand Cherokee that only had 20,000 miles on it. It was such a great deal that would have been too hard to pass up on. Cam also just bought a motorcycle. He officially passed his WA State. Motorcycle Class last weekend so of course he had to buy a bike. Haha. It makes me incredibly nervous, but as long as he is happy so am I.

Tia just turned 2 years old! I can't believe how fast these two years have gone by. She gets sweeter and more precious every day. I am excited that the weather is chaning and my favorite season is here. The change has been slightly brutal....freezing in the morning already! I enjoy my seasonal pumpkin spice lattes and the fall colors. Fall also means that its cross country season!!!! :)

Running has been going good. Cam and I just booked our trip to Boston so that I can run in the Boston Marathon on April 19th, 2010. I am very excited to go, just not looking forward to the training so much. Especially since I will have to start when there is snow on the ground. :(

Cam has been getting into running a little bit more. He is competing in the BRRC race series with me and he is doing good! I admire how he won't run for a couple of weeks and then he just goes out and does a race and posts a decent time. He did his first 1o mile race at the Sunday Sundae in September. I think that he is gaining more self confidence and that eventually he will try for a half marathon.

I hope that you enjoy our blog....I will make it a point to keep it as updated as possible.

~Tasha