Number 3

I know what you were thinking. It's not THAT #3.

BJ ran his third marathon at the end of April. His third since December 15th. Crazy huh?

My parents kept Emerson and Ella for the night and we made the drive to Oklahoma City. He ran the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. They have it every year on the anniversary of the OKC bombing. I have never been to OKC before, but it was really great. We weren't there very long at all, but we really enjoyed it. We want to go back already. I really reccomend going if you ever get a chance. From where we live, it was only 3 hours and the drive was super easy.

We left Saturday morning around noon and drove straight to Oklahoma City. For some reason, my usually smart and organized husband decided we didn't need to book a hotel before we left. Remember this was a special marathon. There were 19 thousand people running this marathon...and we didn't have a hotel. Anyway, when we got to the city we went straight to the convention center to pick up BJ's packet and t-shirt. Then we decided to walk around downtown Oklahoma City and find a hotel. Again, 19,000 people in downtown Oklahoma City. We walked around for a couple of hours just admiring the downtown area. It was so great to be in the middle of a large city but we felt like we were in Lubbock. It was a small town feel in a large city. I LOVED it.

We decided we should go to the memorial that evening because Sunday would be really busy. Unfortunately, we got there too late to visit the museum, but we did get to see the memorial site. It was very sombering to be standing on the site of such a tragedy. The memorial itself was beautiful.

The first picture represents 9:01. The minute before the building exploded.

This picture represents 9:03, after the building exploded. The water in between 9:01 and 9:03 was when the building was actually bombed and lies in the area that was the street in front of the building. The Murrah building was just to the left of the water.

This is a little bit closer view of one of the structures.

These chairs sit on the site of the Murrah Building. They represent a life that was taken that day. Each row of chairs represents a floor on the building. Each chair is in the row (floor of the building) they were on when the building was bombed. There are smaller chairs for the children. At night the clear boxes glow. I know my picture doesn't do it justice, but the site was incredible.

This is a tree that sat in between the building on the left and the building that blew up. It was an incredible miracle that it was left standing. They call it the 'Survivor Tree'.

This is a piece of the bottom floor of the building that was bombed. The stairs are part of the memorial.

While we were there, I saw a double T on a man's shirt and was excited because we were in OU territory. When I looked at his face, it was our college minister from FBC Lubbock, and his wife...and our Challenge Leaders!! Yay!! It was so exciting. John and Wanda Strappazon had left Lubbock before we did so it had been ages since we saw them. Melissa and Tyson Williams were our Challenge Leaders the last year we were in Lubbock and we adore them. What a God thing and such a blessing to run into them. Before we left them (to find a hotel) John prayed for BJ and his marathon. So blessed!!!!

After we left the memorial site, we found a great place to have dinner. Toby Keith's resteraunt. I Love this Bar and Grill. It was way yummy. I would totally reccomend it. After dinner we did get a hotel!! We didn't get to be downtown close to the race, but we weren't too far away. On Sunday morning we got up at 4 am and got BJ to the race just in time. While he was busy running 26.2 miles, I got to walk around the downtown area again and get some reading in. If you are a mother of 2, or any number, you understand how my reading has been cut to nearly zero since having children. So it was really great to get to spend some time reading. I sat at the memorial site and read for several hours. It was a beautiful day!

When BJ finished running we headed straight home. It was a great weekend but we were very excited to see our babies. Thanks mom and dad for playng with the E's for the weekend.