The color purple

Purple as in the color the entire town of Manhattan, Kansas is covered in!

This weekend was filled with family fun! JP and I flew down to Kansas on Thursday for my brother's graduation. My parents picked us up and we headed to Manhattan, Kansas... home of Kansas State University.

Friday my little brother graduated with his Master's degree. His degree was in counseling and higher education and he's accepted a Residence Hall Director job at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. I'm so proud! We had a great time and toured the beautiful campus, meet his friends and rocked out on Guitar Hero. :)

We flew back on Sunday morning, at o' dark thirty, and it was a trip in and of itself. It was a tiny little airport with one security line and the gates were immediately after you collected your bags off the belt. Should be easy... but it was one of the WORST security check points ever.

Now, I may sound like a snob on this one and I really don't mean to. JP travels every week, so he has the drill down to a tee. I'm a semi-regular business traveler and know the drill, too. These other people? Not so much.

The family behind me consisted of a mom and three teenagers. They were the picture example of what NOT to do while flying. To begin, they each had jumbo, super-sized pops in their hands and full sized luggage (something you normally check in). While I was putting my shoes in the bin and my quart-sized ziplock bag filled with 3.0 ounce liquids, the mom behind me asked if she had to take off her shoes. I said yes and all liquids. Her family then started to INDIVDUALLY put in perfume, full-sized toothpaste, etc. Seriously. Did you miss the eight signs from the front door to the front of the security line explaining that this doesn't jive?

Moving on... the security officer notice this walking disaster and makes them throw away their drinks. Their luggage goes through. Fast forward to the folks in front of JP. One chic had her luggage pulled aside because she put through a bag with FULL-SIZED shampoo, sun tan lotion, etc. Seriously. How do you miss all the signs and the security people reciting the rules over and over?

JP's bag got pulled ... because he had some electronic stuff in his work bag. Major airports are probably more use to business travelers and the gear they carry. My bag got pulled and it took them about 15 minutes to figure out what the "mysterious object" was showing up on the x-ray machine. A chunky bracelet that I've traveled with many times before. I wouldn't have been too upset, except first the guy blamed it on the fact that I was traveling with two belts, something he obviously disapproved of. Then, as he was going through my bag, my bras and underwear were popping out for the world to see. Thankfully I packed the super cute ones ;)

We finally got through and made it home safely! Exhausted, but happy to be home.

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Official marathon training started today.

Ran 3 miles at approx. 9:00 pace tonight after work. I'm so excited about this race and really looking forward to the training. I've decided to wait until next week to start the weight training part of it. Since I was gone most of last week, I didn't want to start training so hard, so quickly. Most of all, I'm excited that I'm looking forward to this so much. Last year I thought about it, but when it came to getting up to run, my heart just wasn't in it. This year... sub 4:00 marathon here I come.