I hope you had a weekend that was half as good as mine. Because if you did, you had a great weekend. Is this how the rest of you live? I can’t wait until next year, when I get to spend two days a week with my family and not working! What a concept!
Real quick, just in case you’ve never been here before, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I want to try to make a difference, and I want Jack to have an impact on the world, so I’m attempting to run 61 full marathons this year and raise money and awareness for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. I named this endeavor Operation Jack after him, because I wouldn’t be doing this if not for him.
On Friday, I ran marathon No. 56 of the year, the Wishbone Run in Gig Harbor, Wash. It was a pretty challenging run on trails covered by snow, ice and mud. You can read my recap here.
Anyways, I frequently run down my weekend adventures in my blog. Normally, I’m out of town somewhere and I have anecdotes to relay. This weekend, since it was the Thanksgiving holiday and I raced on Friday, I actually got to take two days off and spend time with my family — something I haven’t been able to do since I ran in Texas on Friday, January 1, then flew home that night.
Thanksgiving Day
I spent the day with my family, sleeping in and then eating pumpkin pancakes with my kids. I hate to brag, but my wife Tiffany makes some incredible pumpkin pancakes.
We hit Thanksgiving Dinner #1 at my in-laws’ house, where I loaded up on turkey and stuffing. My father-in-law is a big Cowboys fan, so it was nice watching his team fall down big in a hurry. When I ran my mouth about the score, he asked me if my Kansas City Chiefs cheerleaders were on TV as much as his Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. I told him they had a much better chance of being on TV in January!
We headed over to Thanksgiving Dinner #2 at my parents’ house, which was about a mile away. I loaded up on my stepmom’s sweet potato dish, plus peanut m&ms and ice cream cake. I had to leave straight from there to go to the airport to fly to Seattle, but it wasn’t too terrible, because I knew I was going to be home and on weekend on Friday night.
Me and Ava at dinner #2.
The flight to Seattle was pretty empty, plus I had free wi-fi. I got a little bit of work done and posted some pictures to Facebook. My dad was amazed I could post pictures to Facebook from a plane. I was more amazed he was on Facebook.
Then I Ran A Race
I already mentioned it earlier in the blog. It was pretty darn tough for me. Oh well, five to go!
One Of The Benefits Of Operation Jack
Just about every week, I get to meet up with people who have been a part of Operation Jack. This week, it was Melissa Gillespie and her family. I met up with them in June when I was up in town for Seattle Rock ‘N Roll. They drove close to 80 miles to see me. This time, I figured I’d head over their way, especially since I had a considerable amount of time.
Melissa is awesome. She’s a mother of three, including a son with autism, so we have a lot in common. She’s always there as a voice of reason for me. I love to throw pity parties for myself, and she’ll always drop me a note behind the scenes that gets me back on the right track.
Her husband Quinton is in the Navy and I didn’t get to meet him in June, but I did on Friday. It was fascinating talking to him about his duties. I won’t get into details, but I’ll just say that I have huge respect for what he does to make sure we can enjoy peace and freedom. Melissa has to make sacrifices, too, and I have a ton of respect for her, too.
Anyways, I told Melissa I wanted to take a picture with him because I had a caption I wanted to write and I doubt I’ll ever have another opportunity to use it.
Sam Quinton
Cashing In My Birthday Present
Last Monday was my birthday. Tiff bought me a gift certificate for a massage and scheduled a 9 a.m. appointment for me to go in and get it. It was awesome and it came at a perfect time. I was in a ton of pain — much more than normal — after Friday’s race. It hurt for me to roll over in bed! So the massage was pretty nice. I had a sports massage once, but that was it. I had never had a relaxation massage before. The only problem was having to drive afterwards. I was totally groggy!
I Still Have Friends!
About a week ago, I coordinated having a barbecue at my house with a couple of my best friends and their families. Late Saturday morning, we were all on the fence about whether we should have the barbecue or make an In-N-Out run, so we combined the two and had everybody over and brought In-N-Out in! The food was great, the kids all played together, and the grown-ups had a great time hanging out. I’m somewhere in between a kid and a grown up, but I chilled with the big people.
Is this what you guys all do — have friends and spend time with them? It was awesome!
Date Night (Almost)
Tiff and I were going to go to the movies, but babysitting fell through at the last minute due to a family emergency. Everything is fine, but we stayed in. She rented Eat, Pray, Love from Redbox and I’m proud to say that we squashed that after about 20 minutes. What a boring flick!
We hung out, ate nachos for dinner and watched a special about Woodstock on the History Channel, then polished off some mint chocolate chip ice cream. It was nice to hang out with Tiff on a Saturday night. We haven’t done that very often this year.
I Managed Some Shopping On Saturday
From the comfort of my kitchen table, I purchased my airfare to Jacksonville on Saturday night. I now have ZERO airline tickets to purchase the rest of the year! Yeah!
Zinger Of The Week
We went to church as a family on Sunday morning. My race on Friday was on a trail course with tough conditions, so it was the slowest marathon I’ve ever run. We sat with some friends and we sat down, one of them told me, “Wow Sam, good to see you. I didn’t know if you’d still be here or if you were still finishing up that race in Washington.” OUCH!
I got my maple old-fashioned donuts I like and the message was good. This “good weekend” thing was still rolling and I was loving it!
Housecleaning Competition
Tiff took Jack to go grocery shopping and we had some housework to do. The playroom needed to be cleaned, as did the kids’ bedrooms. I had Ben and Ava competing against each other to see who could clean better. I took care of the staircase and then the kitchen. I also snuck in a little bit of the Green Bay-Atlanta game.
They both did pretty well and Tiff was pleasantly surprised when she came in. That’s all that really matters, right?
No Weekend Is Complete Without …
A trip to Home Depot, right? I didn’t do a ton of stuff around the house, but I did fix our front door handle, which was loose, plus I changed out a bad light switch. I also caught some of the Philadelphia-Chicago game.
After I got back from Home Depot and before I did the work, I had lunch with the kids. We had grilled chicken panini sandwiches. Those sandwiches Tiff makes are amazing. Absolutely my favorite sandwich. And she hooked me up with sweet potato fries!
No Weekend Is Complete Without …
A trip to the park, right? I took Ben and Ava yesterday afternoon for a little while. They had a good time. Actually, we had a good time. You know what I’m saying.
And then …
We went to Target, then came back and played with Jack as part of his therapy session for a little while. He was having a blast and was in a great mood. He was getting pretty wild, which was a lot of fun. Tiff made homemade soup for dinner (chicken noodle with chicken) that was pretty good and we ate together, which was nice.
Irony Of Ironies
If you’ve been following along this year, you know I love ice cream. I had a streak of 166 consecutive days eating ice cream or frozen yogurt this year. Well last night, Tiff sent me to the grocery store because she wanted me to pick up ice cream for her! Maybe there’s something in the air in my house and she caught the disease?
She wanted Dreyer’s Candy Cane flavor, but they were out, so I picked her up Dreyer’s Apple Pie instead after texting her to let her know what was available. Good stuff — only 120 calories per serving, plus it has chunks of apple and crust in there.
We put the kids to bed, then chilled on the couch. I wrote this blog, then got some ice cream. She ate ice cream and watched some ridiculous housewives show.
All-in-all, an amazing weekend. I can’t wait for 2011! Is this how y’all live? It was amazing!
Have a great Monday, everybody. I’ll see you back here tomorrow!
Adair Renning says
Sam Quintin……how long have you waited for an opportunity to use that?
Glad you had such a wonderful weekend. You’ve earned every minute of it, and more.
Rachel Boyd says
Your relaxing weekend still makes me feel very lazy.
Seriously, very happy you had a wonderful weekend with the family!
Jackie Sullivan says
I love hearing about good weekends. It’s the small things in life that mean the most. Good luck in Vegas, so sad I won’t be there. 🙁