Heather's Home! / Chicago Marathon 2008

Sorry we are late posting photos on the Chicago trip! Here is a slide show of images from our stay and the marathon that we ran.

Heather was excited to be back in the states from her 25 day student teaching trip to Ireland. Sharon, Kevin and I picked her up in Chicago and had a great weekend. We saw the play 'Wicked,' which was hysterical. We would love to go see this production again when it comes to Detroit.

Kevin and I ran the marathon and we both survived. The heat was pretty intense this year as well and we did a good job managing the water stations dowsing ourselves with water ever 1.5 miles.

I went out the first 16 miles pretty relaxed and did not want it to feel like work. I hit 6:45s on average with the occasional 6:25 as I was getting ancy to drop the hammer. Once I hit mile 16 I ran a 6:09 mile split for 17 and the last 10 miles overall was 6:22 pace, which was faster than my 10 mile Crim race back in August. The pain started to set in at about mile 22 and was pretty grueling the last 4 miles. Needless to say, after the race Kev and I could barely walk, but it was such a rush that we can't wait to start training for the next marathon.

We are back home now and Mav and Phoenix were excited to see Heather! Heather has some more pics from the last few days of her Ireland trip that she will get up on the blog shortly.

Donegal - Wig Walk for Cancer

This weekend I traveled up to Donegal with some teachers from my school where we walked 8 miles around a peninsula. The terrain was very hilly, up and down mountains and it was along the beautiful coast of the Atlantic. As you can see, I'm sporting a very fashionable wig. Everyone on the walk wore wigs, as it was a cherity walk to support Cancer. In the below picture you can see many funky wigs. I think I got one of the more fashionable wigs :)

It was a very rainy day, or a very 'typical Irish Day' as the locals were calling it. Although it rained for most the walk and the skies were very overcast, dark and grey, it was still absolutely gorgeous. It made Ireland look even more mystical and how you would imagine Ireland to look... low clouds over lush green mountains and the dark blue sea.

We passed many cows and sheep on the walk, this particular cow was watching us all go by. I think we were a sight for him as were walking in our multicolored wigs.
In the distance you can see the Atlantic Ocean.

There is a road in the distance, that was a road that I would soon be walking on.


If you look close you can see a thatched roof cottage, right next to the sea.
This white house was right on the Atlantic coast. What an amazing vacation home!
The Irish people who used to live in this area over a hundred years ago would have been very impoverished people who struggled to survive. Since this area is so far north there really was not much for the people to do other than have a very small farm with a couple hens, maybe a cow and a small potato crop. During the Irish Potato Famine in 1845, many of the people living in areas like this would have either died from starvation or would have tried to immigrate to the US. The Irish people that lived in this absolutely georgous area would have not seen the beauty that we saw today. They would have looked only at tomorrow and only thought about a way to feed their family. We live in such a blessed time today!
If you look really closely you will see another thatched roof cottage. This cottage is probably over two hundred years old.




I of course got to see a dog on my walk. I'm not sure if this cute little dog had a home or not but he was seeming to enjoy the view.

I'm nearing the end of my walk and I'm still wearing my wig!
After the walk we decided to take a walk on the shore.
I'm standing in front of the bed and breakfast that we stayed at while we were in Downings, Donegal.

It was a great walk and I got to see one of the most beautiful areas of Ireland.

Singing In The Rain!

Today was a fun day of Shopping! It was a great day :)

My very sweat teacher Seana, took myself and Rachael out today to several different shops. After 6 hours of shopping we came home with all of these bags! But don't think I spent loads of money (don't worry Ben) Seana knew where all the bargin and reasonable priced shops were. She also very generously bought me and Rachel dinner and a couple bottles of wine. We defiantly got spoiled today! It was a fantastic day!
Yesterday was a very rainy day and in fact my journey to school rained (I should say poured) the whole way there. We got completely drenched! I felt that it was very appropriate to start singing 'I'm singing in the rain' the whole way to school. Rachael was not in Cheery spirits as I was and refused to sing along with me. I find it hard to find other people to be silly with me :)
I even have my 'chip and diet coke time' in N. Ireland. This picture is just for Charlie :) I wish he was here with me to enjoy this special time.
my P1 students. they are 4 and 5 years old. aren't they all just lovely looking!

I would like to add a couple bits about how N. Ireland schools are different then the schools back home.
First, Christianity is very much apart of their culture and curriculum. When we had an assembly yesterday, all of the songs they sang were christian hymns and Sunday-school songs. I recorded some of them but I'm having difficulties uploading videos. They study religion as part of their subjects and do work right out of the bible. Every time before snack and lunch they say a prayer. Students are taught about morals, values and character building through reading Bible stories. How sad that the United States has completely stripped all religion out of schools.

You can not hold or retain a child back in school

Students change for PE in their rooms...strip down to their undies and change... boys and girls in the same room.

Teacher's don't keep track or give out grades in Primary schools.

There is one very large standardized test that students take when they are in the fifth grade called 11+. This test determines if they will go onto grammar school or secondary school. Only the top 25% will go onto grammar school. Grammar school is considered the academic route, where as secondary school can lead you to college it will not be as of a prestigious university. Students can also learn trades in Secondary school.

Currently, N. Ireland wants to do away with this 11+ test, however they have not figured out what they would put in its place or how to decide which kids would go to grammar school and which kids would go to secondary.

A Day at the Beach!

Thursday night we stayed late in Downtown Belfast and got to see the Belfast wheel all lit up.
Saturday was a day at the beach! Myself, Colleen, and Tami traveled out to Portrush where the White Rocks are. The White Rocks are right off the Atlantic Ocean and is located at the very top of Norther Ireland. The White Rocks are made out of Limestone.
To get to White Rocks we had to take a beautiful 2 mile walk on the beach to get there. Behind me is the town of Portrush. It was a gorgeous day but a little windy.
In the distance are the White Rocks
These two dogs reminded me of my dogs! actually there was a Phoenix dog and a Patches Dog (black lab and collie mix). I saw lots of dogs on the beach, these two dogs were going after a ball that their owner was throwing into the Ocean.

There was even a large sand dune, which reminded me of Tawas. There were lots of body-boarders in the Ocean too, catching some waves. Every person had on a wetsuit. It was way too cold for me to get into the ocean, but these kids did not seem to mind, I think they are used to the cold water.

Behind me in the distance is a small little waterfall running down the cliff. White Rocks also has many caves inside of them. Those holes on the sides of the rocks are actually small little caves.

I'm getting ready to explore a cave...
Breathe taking! I just sat on a rock along the shore for about 45 minutes just listening to the waves crash up on the rocks and shore. It was a very peaceful day!





I got my dog-fix today! If you look closely, a golden retriever is climbing the sand dune, going for a ball that their owner is throwing up the hill. Talk about workouts! I saw this dog run up the dune at least 10 times, I'm sure he is exhausted once he gets home.
We then traveled to the Dunluce Castle ruins. Dunluce Castle sits right on a cliff, along the North Antrim coast (just up the road from White Rocks). In the 1700s part of castle actually fell off into the Ocean during a bad storm, killing 3 servants. After that event took place, the people living in the castle decided to move out and moved to a different castle several miles away.Mermaid Cove, is right underneath the castle. if you look closely you can see the tide rushing into the hole.
This is the view from the side of the castle. I would not want to move if I lived here!





Dunluce Castle, if you look at the bottom middle of the picture, you can see the top of Mermaids Cove.

It was a wonderful day exploring more of Northern Ireland. We did lots of walking and were on the Ocean for almost the entire day. It was a great Saturday!