Quebec City Marathon

 

Last weekend I ran my 8th marathon for run2buildschools! It was simply amazing. I raised $12,400 for kids and schools!!! I am so HAPPY and so GRATEFUL! ❤ ❤ ❤

Thank you so much Tripling Elephants for your incredible donation of $10,000. I don’t know who you are, but your kindness is helping me change lives! As Maya Angelou once said, my wish is that you continue to astonish the world with your acts of kindness and love. Sincerely, THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart! ❤

Thank you my beautiful friends from Germany, Liliana and Maria, for your amazing donations. You have been so supportive of my dream. I love you 🙂 Thank you Asha and Andrew for your kindness. You chose to donate your baby shower gift to schools. ❤ Thank you EVERYONE who has donated, cheered me up, and supported me in so many ways. Your help means the world to me. And it’s just so incredible to see how together we can truly do wonderful things for those in need.

Last but not least, thank you to my sister’s family and our dear friends who drove me from Montreal to Quebec City, took good care of me and cheered me up during the marathon. I loved having my family, their wonderful friends and all the kids out there with me. Their love and energy was everything I needed.

Quebec City is truly magnificent! I fell in love with it. The marathon was really well organized and the view was stunning from start to finish. Every other kilometer they had water and Gatorade stations. And the cutest thing was most of the volunteers were kids! Many families were out with their little children, cheering us up and giving away candies and lots of high fives. I highly recommend this marathon. I will run it again for sure.

I took all pictures with my Canon Rebel T2i and 18-55mm lens. Unfortunately, I don’t have many pics of Quebec City. I spent most of the time playing with the kids 🙂 and taking pictures of them. However, we did spent most of Saturday in Old Quebec, had so much fun with the kids and saw so many beautiful places – it was just perfect. I LOVE my family.

Here are some pictures, I hope you like them!

 

Race number 294!

 Kids  had SO MUCH fun at the expo! Above from left to right: Roxana, my niece’s best friend, Alex, my niece, and Victor, my nephew.

This is cute! One of the hardest thing was to get Alex to be serious in front of the camera. Haha, she would always make a funny face, jump up and down or come give me a hug. ❤ I ADORE HER energy and I LOVE her so much.

My sister’s family and our dear friends. I love you all. 🙂 Thank you so much for your love and support.  Our mini vacation was so perfect. I loved every second of it.

 

After we got my race number, we went to Old Quebec, walked around the city, watched a nice live acrobatic show, took lots of pictures of the kids, had really yummy ice cream and in the afternoon we went back home and had more fun 🙂

Château Frontenac – the beautiful castle like hotel, looking over the St. Lawrence River. Such a beautiful part of the city.

Tasty ice-cream by the Château castle.

My sweet little niece, Alex! Oh, I adore her so much. ❤

She is so PERFECT to me!  Je t’aime, Alex! ❤ ❤ ❤

Haha, look at Victor! I LOVE you Victor!!!

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More fun in front of the camera. I was literally their photographer 🙂 They loved being the models and then going through the pictures with me.

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❤ Alex and Roxana ❤

I was so touched to see how much love and care they have for each other. My sister’s family and their friends, all immigrated to Canada at the same time. They’ve been friends for a very long time. The girls were born only few months apart. They are truly like sisters. And their love for each other shines and it’s beautiful. ❤

 

Later in the afternoon, we went back home (we rented a nice, cozy house through airbnb, it was perfect!)  had BBQ, and prepared the marathon signs for the next day. I took more pictures of the kids then I choreographed a dance with them and gave a little show to the family. 🙂 It was so much fun. And I decided I can NOT twerk. Like, not at all. We danced a lot on Uptown Funk. The kids loooove the song.

 

First we stopped at Cosco. Parents did some shopping, we had more fun running around 🙂

Brothers. ❤ My gorgeous nephew, Vlad, is coming with me to Nepal this November to help me build our school for more than 150 kids.

Modeling session 😉

❤  Alex  ❤

❤ Roxana ❤

 

My cute little nephew, Victor – we loooove Spider Man. We wake up with Spider Man, we eat, brush teeth with him and go to bed with him.

Okay – this is what happens when a 5 years old and his father decide to cut his hair. Haha, I can’t stop laughing. So cute!

Proudly holding the marathon signs up! ❤   We tried so many times to get this shot. Haha. First, they closed eyes, then one sign was nicer than the other one, then parents got in…agh! Pretty intense but we got it. Patience is a virtue, friends! 😉

Next day, early morning I ran my marathon. It wasn’t a PR, but I nailed everything that I really cared about. I raised A LOT of money for kids and schools, I had an amazing time with my family and friends, and I enjoyed tremendously seeing Quebec City! It will go down as one of the BEST marathons I have run.

Medal is so pretty!

Kids were phenomenal. They all saw me 6 times throughout the marathon. Every time they cheered me up, screamed my name, kissed me and hugged me! Oh my…it was such a beautiful day!!! ❤

My dear brother in law, Radu, took this cute selfie! I LOVE IT.  Thank you so much Radu for all the help and getting the family all together to see me. You were so AMAZING! ❤

My traditional ice bath after running a marathon. This time I wasn’t alone 🙂 My little heroes wanted to keep me company. ❤ We listened to music and talked about friends and school.

On our way back to Montreal (my flight to NY was from Montreal) Alex and Roxana wanted to ride with me in the back. The fun continued my friends 🙂 We took selfies, sang, hold hands and I promised one day I will bring them both to NY. Just the three of us! ❤

 THANK YOU ALL so much for your Love and Support!

My next marathon is in Chile, Patagonia marathon. It is part of my 7 marathons on 7 continents journey. In about two weeks I will be  taking off to one of the south-est points of South America continent to run my 9th marathon for kids, schools and education. ❤

The dream continues.