Catching up with the Paxtons

More Fall

2011-11-07T12:51:00.002-05:00

Fall

2011-11-01T22:29:00.000-04:00

Sleeping on the porch.

2011-08-11T02:17:00.001-04:00

Night Float is hard.

2011-08-10T04:04:00.002-04:00

Night float is hard, but not really on me.

Tonight when I left for work around 7PM, Leo was surfing on applesause that he had spread all over the kitchen floor, Elise was crying at the dinner table because she didn't want any sauce on her noodles, and Chloe Hazel was MIA, but I think she might have been in the restroom.

Happy Birthday to Juli!

2011-08-03T16:25:00.003-04:00

It seems like only yesterday that I was trying to woo her in the Halls of Helaman at BYU, and now she's a mom and everything. She is a pretty awesome mom too. You should see her with the kids and teaching them piano and everything. And she is a gourmet chef. And she runs crazy fast. And she keeps getting hotter as she ages! She is pretty much perfect, and ask Omaha steaks if I judge leniently.

Also, Happy Birthday to Juli!

2011-08-03T12:18:00.001-04:00

It is working.

2011-08-03T12:10:00.002-04:00

Ever since Elise clearly favored her Mom since birth, I have been working really hard on winning the favors of daughter #2, Chloe Hazel, as Elise was a lost cause from the start (she has just recently started talking to me willingly).

I think it is working well, as Chloe has been sticking up for me around the house a lot, telling Juli that I am right and that she loves me, etc. It is nice. Today I got this story from Juli on her birthday (Juli's birthday, not Chloe Hazel's).

Juli: "Chloe asked how old I was today and I told her 32. She said I was the same as Daddy now but that Daddy's birthday was coming up and he'd be older than me then. So I said, you really love daddy more than mommy don't you? And she said I will only love you more if Daddy dies."

It is working everyone . . . it is working.

It hurts.

2011-07-25T22:16:00.002-04:00

So Elise started kindergarten this week. My heart hurts. I'm losing her already people! This wasn't supposed to happen until she went to college.

Beach Trip

2011-06-28T21:04:00.003-04:00

Ok, so this is my first attempt at a slideshow. Thanks to Courtney.

We went to the beach. It was awesome.

You haven't lived until you have seen Leo scream like one of the warriors on Braveheart and charge the waves. The rest of the time he was chasing seagulls.

Choices

2011-06-23T13:03:00.004-04:00

The other day I came out to the kitchen and told the girls that I was making waffles for breakfast. Elise responds: "No daddy. You have two choices. You can get me cereal or you can get me cinnamon toast."

Chloe Hazel turns 4

2011-06-22T22:32:00.002-04:00

Seriously, this one is growing up too fast. She has gone from a little squeaker to a little lady. The time is definitely going by too fast. I need to focus on being present/awake every day.

Ok, dance pictures sans slideshow

2011-06-20T22:58:00.000-04:00

Elise is ready.

So is Chloe Hazel

Streching?

Does anyone know how to do a slideshow?

2011-06-19T18:16:00.001-04:00

Not funny picassa.

2011-06-12T20:43:00.001-04:00

Not funny.

Help?

2011-06-12T20:41:00.000-04:00

Dance Recital

2011-06-12T17:14:00.000-04:00

So Elise and Chloe Hazel had their dance recital last week. They were great. Second year of dancing for Elise and the first for Chloe.

(PS I made this slideshow myself! Enjoy the sample music I found on our computer)

Winning!

2011-06-01T20:19:00.002-04:00

I am happy to announce that Juli and I were recently awarded the "Fastest Boston Couple 2011 Award*" for being the husband/wife pair with the fastest combined marathon time.

*Unofficial results for an award that I just made up. I will accept outside applications for the award from any couple who can provide me with confirmed chip times from the 2011 Boston Marathon and a valid marriage license within 15 days.

Look at these eyes!

2011-06-01T20:10:00.004-04:00

Nothing photoshopped. I just took some pictures in the backyard before dinner. They are the awesomest green/hazel hue that I've ever seen.

2011-05-10T22:34:00.002-04:00

Interesting article from the Trib that I enjoyed a lot.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogsfaithblog/51785971-180/healing-mormon-women-church.html.csp#disqus_thread

It's clear from temple ordinances that women hold priesthood. Just saying.

Juli's Race Report

2011-04-27T20:48:00.003-04:00

So this race report is by Ben since Juli refuses to do one. Apparently, she does not believe that it is important to reflect, internalize, and learn from a racing experience. So I will do it for her. I think her coach needs to have yet another futile talk with her.

Here are Juli's 5K splits up to 40K:
21:50
21:59
21:43
22:21
22:21
23:18
23:56
23:56

So Juli's first 13.1 miles were run at a blistering 7:04 min/mile pace in 1:32:41! Her second 13.1 miles were run in 1:39:09 at a 7:34 min/mile pace. Her time was 3:11:50, a 7:19 min/mile average and good for 295 out of 10,000 women and 248 out of 5200 women in her age group! A PR by over 1o minutes as well!

I know that Juli's race plan was to go out as fast as possible and to see how long she could hold it. So her plan was executed well. She was also sick for the race and having some respiratory pain that I know slowed her down in the second half. (I got her an appointment with our PA who prescribed her an albuterol inhaler that was helping with her training runs, but in all the Boston excitement she forgot to take it on the race morning!). She and her friend Jenny were also late getting to the corrals, so instead of taking off with corral 3 of wave 2 (people who were much too slow for her to begin with) she was running with the last corral of wave 2 (people who were much, much to slow for her). This is hard because with the narrow streets of Hopkinton, you are shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people for a few miles.

I don't know whether it was the breathing or the hills in the second half that slowed her more (I suspect in was the former), but she had a great race and she is already planning an encore performance!

If you want to know the fun details of Juli's race (how she was feeling at different points in the race, her obstacles during the race, triumphs, favorite sights and memoris, etc) you will just have to ask her because she won't write them down for us.

Easter 2011

2011-04-26T19:54:00.007-04:00

So I was doing a 24 hour shift and missed some of Easter morning, but I was there to witness the following:

Juli made the following dresses with some fabric, a sewing machine, and her hands. Her hands!

The girls do not hold still.

I call this shot "The Professor." I had philosophy professors in college who looked exactly like this. Seriously. He looks like he is expounding on Kierkegaard.

Happy Easter!

Paxtons are back!

2011-04-25T16:55:00.004-04:00

Ok, so the 2-year hiatus was mostly to weed out the people who we didn't want reading this blog. If you are still reading, and I think only Camilla still is, thanks--you are a true friend.

But anyway, I was thinking today about the Boston Marathon now that we are a week out. I've decided that running the Boston marathon was the best experience of my life. I know that I am supposed to say that getting married was the best, but the Boston marathon only took 3 hours, and we were standing in line shaking people's hands for longer than that on our wedding day, so the marathon was better, and less boring. Also, being there for the birth of our children was pretty good, but those days were all about Juli and the new babies--running the marathon was all about me! People cheering for me for 3 hours. Awesome! So there you have it, running the Boston marathon was the best experience of my life.

Ben's Boston 2011 Race Report--City of Miracles

2011-04-19T22:25:00.009-04:00

Ben’s Race Report:

Boston—The City of Miracles

Elevation map at the top for reference.

Four days before the 2011 Boston Marathon I developed a severe pain in my side, that limited a Thursday run, making me stop several times during that 6 mile run. It hurt to breath, move, and especially run. I figured it was some freak thing that would go away. However, on Saturday, two days before the marathon, the pain was so severe that I could not complete a 3-mile run, and had to stop several times during those 3 miles. (I actually went into the hospital and ultrasounded my abdomen without finding the etiology.) As you can imagine I was quite discouraged that this pain would limit my marathon. At the runner’s expo the day before the marathon, I attended a lecture by a Dr. of sports medicine/injury from MGH. Afterward I curbsided him, and he thought I either had costochondritis, or tendinitis of the diaphragm. After I told him that I had had 7 days of cold/flu symptoms and coughing, he was fairly confident that I had costochondritis. It is a self-limited condition, but there was little that I could do to cure it before tomorrow’s race. He said about the only thing I could do would be to take NSAIDs, but to be careful of hyponatremia during the race if I did since anti-inflammatory use during racing is not advised.

I tried to jog down the hall after this lecture and had to stop due to discomfort; I pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I would be walking the Boston marathon. Juli and I were going to start in the same corral and run it together, but I told her I would start ahead in wave 1 and I’d see her when she passed me. My side hurt all through the day walking around with our luggage.

The morning of the marathon was windy and crisp. We made it to the Athlete’s Village where there was a sea of people lining up for portapotties. I didn’t do any warmup running because I didn’t want to waste any pain-free running time. I missed Juli while I was walking to the starting corrals, but thought that I would see her soon when she passed me. There was a mass of people at the starting corrals. The anthem was sung. And we waited for the start. Pretty soon the people started moving slowly down the street, then walking, then some broke out in a trot around me. I walked all the way to the starting line and then started to run. I started running very easy since I knew I would soon be hurting; I tried to soak up the whole marathon during that first mile—looking at the sea of runners, giving every little kid five, cheering with everyone around me. It was a fun mile (and the slowest of the day except for mile 24!).

Mile 1 split: 7:27

There was no opportunity to go faster during that mile since I was shoulder to shoulder with thousands of people, and I didn’t want to go any faster anyway. At mile 1 the pain in my side predictably returned, and my hopes that my costochondritis was cured were dashed. My pace slowed. The pain grew in intensity from miles 1 to 2.

Mile 2 split: 7:03

By mile 2 the pain was very severe and at a level that was affecting my breathing. I knew that costochondritis was a pain tolerance issue and my plan was just to keep on running until it forced me to stop. During miles 2-5 the pain continued at a consistent severe level; I wasn’t running well, but just tried to gut through it. I really wanted to stop several times during miles 2-5, but I kept myself running. I spent a lot of energy keeping myself going during these miles. I figured that I would be walking soon anyway.

Mile 3 split: 6:55

Mile 4 split: 6:53

Mile 5 split: 7:04

At mile 5, the pain in my side was getting out of control. I wondered how much longer I could keep this up, and started looking for places to pull over. Then suddenly a miracle happened, in the form and guise of a tangerine powerbar gel. I took my first gel at 5.5 miles, and immediately after, from one step to the next, the pain vanished. I knew in that moment that 1. I would be able to run the rest of the marathon without the costochondritis pain in my side 2. This run was now a race. 3. I had just experienced a miracle. It was as if I was tapped on the shoulder by a higher power. I ask you, reader, when was the last time you had a pain instantly vanish? A side ache (which this was NOT), a muscle strain, a stubbed toe, a bump or bruise, a pulled hair, all pain stimuli that we experience resolve gradually—it is how nocireceptors work. This pain vanished instantly and let me tell you reader that I was born again. I was a new person, and a new runner. I picked up my pace and got into the race.

Mile 6 split: 6:49

My first order of business was coming up with a race plan on the fly. This is how I operate in Boston (Boston 2009 reference). The only thing I knew about the course was that the hills started at 17 and went through about 21 and that there were 3 or 4 of them. I hadn’t studied the course beforehand due to depression over my injured costal cartilage. I figured that I wanted to stay easy and loose during the first 13 miles and take advantage of the elevation loss over the first half of the course. In order to keep it easy I kept my breathing to strictly every 4 stride, any time it inched up to every 3 strides I pulled back. (Breathing every 3 strides is generally my tempo pace). I had only my breathing, perceived effort, and mile splits to guide me as to my pace since Juli had the Garmin GPS.

Mile 7 split: 6:52

Mile 8 split: 7:00

Mile 9 split: 6:49

The next few miles felt great. I was back in the race and running comfortably. At mile 10 my quads started to complain, but I figured it was due to the downhill pounding they were receiving rather than fatigue.

Mile 10 split: 7:00

Mile 11 split: 7:00

Mile 12 split: 6:42

Mile 13 split: 6:49

My original race plan conceived at mile 6 in a semi-euphoric state called for me to pick it up during miles 13-17 before the hills. I scrapped that plan at mile 13 since I felt pretty good. I thought I’d keep motoring along and pick it up at mile 17. My quads were complaining quite loudly now, stupid downhills. At mile 13 I got a real side ache on the right, and I laughed out loud at how pathetic it seemed. It went away shortly. I was still coughing throughout the race and blowing snot rockets everywhere, but those were the only lingering effects of my viral illness.

Mile 14 split: 6:52

Mile 15 split: 7:03

Mile 16 split: 6:51

Ok, let me tell you reader, that I am sure that I have been told that the hills start at mile 17 when you turn at a firestation. I am pretty sure of that. So what is the deal with the wicked hill at mile 16? It’s the biggest of the marathon. As you can see my mile 16-17 split jumped up to 7:20. Anyway, I kept my breathing in check and kept my pace steady. My quads were on fire now, but I thought that the uphills would “stretch them out.” Ha.

Mile 17 split: 7:20

Ok, with that out-of-the-blue hill done with, here is the firestation. Ok, now I’m ready for the newton hills. At this point I started running hard. I let my breathing inch up to one every 3 strides, in keeping with my tempo efforts. If I’m running the Boston Marathon, I wanted to lay it out on the course during the newton hills!

Mile 18 split: 7:08

Mile 19 split: 7:06

Mile 20 split: 7:19

Mile 21 split: 7:23

The hills were hard but fun. I really attacked them and had enough in the tank to keep it up. I passed a lot of runners. My quads were not stretched out or helped out by the uphill effort, as I was pretty sure they would not be. My legs were hurting. But cresting heartbreak hill at mile 21 at Boston College was pretty sweet; the crowd seemed to carry you up over the last stretch. Coming down off heartbreak hill I turned it on; there was a nice downhill stretch and I let my turnover increase and I let my respirations loose. I was passing a lot of people during this mile (which was my second fastest of the marathon). It felt like sledding.

Mile 22 split: 6:47

Ok, no more sledding. My legs are done and I still have 4 miles left to go. I don’t know what time I am on track to get. I really wanted to break 3, but was pretty sure at my 13.1 mile split that it wouldn’t happen today. So I thought I could still stick it in BAAs face and requalify at their new standard of 3:05. Yeah, that seems like a good new race goal. I probably could have eased up and coasted in for the victory like I did in the Delaware marathon at this point, but it didn’t seem proper. I didn’t just want to qualify this time. I wanted to run as fast as I could. My legs were really hurting, and these miles were interminable. But I focused on my turnover and breathing and ran as fast as I could.

Mile 23 split: 7:23

Mile 24 split: 7:08

At mile 24.5 I started to get dizzy. It is scary. My lips and fingertips were tingling. I was seeing through a bit of a tunnel. I didn’t think I would be hyponatremic as I took in no water, and what for me would be a normal amount of Gatorade. Regardless, my primary goal of the race changed from hitting a 3:05 to staying alive. (The last thing the sports injury Doctor warned me about was hyponatremia in athletes taking NSAIDs during racing. Apparently just last month a 35 year old physical therapist died from hyponatremia while taking them.) Thus, my pace slowed during the last 2 miles.

Mile 25 split: 7:45

Last mile. I’m still kind of dizzy so I am not pushing it, but I don’t think I will die. I round the last turn and see the finish line. It is amazing. I start to run as hard as I can. I finish with my arms up. I cry. I pray. I see lots of bloody nipples waiting for Juli. Juli comes in. She ran great. It is awesome. Next year we’ll run it together.

Mile 26.2 split: 9:05 (7:34 min/miles over 1.2 miles)

Time: 3.05:51

Other highlights: I shook Dick Hoyt's hand at the runners expo, and saw team Hoyt running on race day! I got a lot of free crap. I bought a sweet runners jacket that was the last M in the whole joint.

2010-11-16T20:27:00.001-05:00

Photo magic

2009-04-06T08:21:00.005-04:00

I love my new camera but I was disappointed to realize when I first got it that pictures don't automatically come out of it looking amazing and professional and all that. They come out looking like regular pictures. So I read about lighting and aperture and shutter speeds. All very good stuff but not really keeping me awake the 10 minutes I have to read to myself before I go to sleep. But then I discovered the real secret. People use computers to make their pictures look better! And then they use these same computers to tell you how to do it too! Well, I know how to use a computer.

I'm only writing this because I was amazed out how well this picture turned out after a little tweaking. I was sad when I first saw how this picture came out because Elise is actually looking at the camera with her big beautiful eyes, but she was also advancing on me dangerously fast on her little purple tricycle so I just snapped away and the picture turned out weird and washed out. And of course the next picture turned out beautifully but her mouth is all twisted up. But that is the story of Elise. Anyway, here are the two pictures, before and after. Much better right?

Bonus picture!

If I had a Picture of the Week post like my brother, I would nominate this one. We found a little frog in the backyard yesterday and when it was little Chloe's turn to hold it, it sensed her weakness and decided to make its escape. I wish you could see it better but the wood pile's kind of in the way. I'm not that good at Photoshop yet. Before and after editing pictures included at no extra charge.

Elise makes her daddy proud

2009-03-19T13:22:00.003-04:00

Elise has been busy developing into her own little person. I know she's growing up and everything, but it comes on so gradually that you don't really notice it all the time and you go about feeding them and cleaning up after them and breaking up fights. And then, bam, all of the sudden one day she says to you:

Elise: "Mommy, what did the ear say to the other ear?"
Me (a little confused): "I don't know."
Elise: "I want a hot dog!!!" (hysterical laughter)

So, I guess now she has a sense of humor. She repeated this over and over with other body parts. And it was still funny. That's a sign of a good joke right there. Pretty soon she'll be writing her own blog. And it'll probably be funnier than mine.

Family picture fail

2009-03-11T13:07:00.010-04:00

My brother Josh was here last week visiting and while he was here he introduced us to http://failblog.org, a blog dedicated to documenting people falling short of success in various activities (click the g-rated version if you must, trust me.) And since he has a nicer camera than us still, we also tried to have him take some pictures of the four of us. When that turned out to be a complete disaster I realized that we are our own little family picture failblog. We have never been coordinated enough to hold our children down while making them smile and act like they love us and are enjoying the time we spend together. We like to keep trying, but we know it all amounts to nothing. Here are a few choice ones. (And yes, I just spent 10 minutes typing "fail" on all these. It makes it funnier.)

I like Ben's face here. Granted, Elise is yanking is his hair, but we're trying to take a picture here!

Trying to bring Elise into the fold

Take out Chloe and this might have actually be a decent picture. She kind of puts a damper on the whole picture though.
Sometimes parents make mistakes too.
I like the lady staring at us struggle with Elise.Chloe decides to take a little snooze during the picture taking.

Elise's pants have become unbuttoned while struggling to take this picture. That pretty much sums it all up.

A big thank you to family and friends for attempting to take pictures of us. We know it's not easy!

Karaoke time!

2009-02-24T16:57:00.002-05:00

This video is just too good not to post. My mom gave Elise a book of Japanese children's songs last summer. It was an instant hit, annoying my entire family while they were here visiting and the object of much fighting. Elise has always been happy just to listen to the songs, but I should have known this day would come someday. Can anyone translate this? I don't think she's speaking Japanese anymore, though I know she thinks she is.

With any luck, the batteries will die soon. Though it is powered by Japanese technology so we might be in for the long haul.

Glamour Shots

2009-02-09T09:55:00.005-05:00

Ben called me a jerk for putting up those bad pictures of the girls so I am attempting to redeem myself here. We have had some crazy sunny weather the past few days and for us that means taking walks, bird watching, riding bikes and most importantly, crazy good light for pictures.

2009-02-01T23:05:00.007-05:00

Proof that even the most adorable children and a new camera cannot make a good picture:

Linguistics 101

2009-01-21T13:18:00.008-05:00

It's been a little loud throughout the house lately. Chloe's really trying to show Elise up and have the talking thing down before her 2nd birthday. She's doing pretty well. I can understand about 67% of what comes out of her mouth. But this is only after an intense period of sequestration where I spend all day observing and interacting with her. We call this "welcome to my life."
It helps that almost every sentence starts with "I want ..." and that approximately 88% of what comes out of mouth is "no," especially since it doubles as both yes and no.

Elise got a book of fairy tales from my parents for Christmas and it's just about her favorite book ever. We've read them all a million times already and she talks about them all day long. She's insisted on "porridge" for dinner two days in a row, courtesy of Goldilocks and the three bears, and has started chanting this gem around the house. Watch out all you Englishmen. Elise is on the prowl.

A confession

2009-01-20T15:43:00.002-05:00

Dear blog,

It's been a while since I've last posted. I'm sure you've probably been suspicious for a while, but it was the holidays and we were gone for a few weeks so you let it slide. But now it's gone on too long and I feel it's time to come clean. I've been using Facebook. It started out innocently enough and then suddenly I was posting pictures, family pictures, pictures I should have been posting on you. And I saw how easily I had been seduced by the ease and instant gratification of its flashy interactive features, the status updates, the picture tagging, the wall writing, catching up with old friends. It was thrilling, and a little addictive.

I don't want to make excuses, but I am a busy mom and I only have so much time during the day. Still, I think all 3 of us can coexist together. I miss writing more than one line about my life at a time. So with your forgiveness, I'll start blogging again.

And to anyone reading this, want to be Facebook friends? :)

2009-01-11T13:09:00.001-05:00

Ben (after church): Elise, what did you learn about in Sunbeams today?

Elise: I learned about snacks!

C is for cookie

2008-12-15T14:56:00.007-05:00

We've had a good past few days. We've been baking treats, trying to give them away, and then getting way too many back. Luckily I ran a half marathon on Saturday and burned off some calories there, though at this point, I'd probably need a marathon to do that!

The race was lots of fun. I'd never done a half before and it went by so fast. It was great. About halfway through I thought to myself, I wonder if I'm going fast enough, but decided to be safe and not push it too much more and thanked myself for that around mile 11. The race was in Charlotte, a little over 2 hours away, and we'd planned on all going up the night before and having a little family outing, but then Ben had to work so I ended up waking up at 4:30 in the morning and driving there that day, running the race, and then driving home all by myself. But, I had a good race and ran a 1:30:29 averaging 6:55 miles so it was pretty much worth it.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the treats I made this year so I thought I'd share. Nothing original here, everything I made I found on other cooking blogs. I made chocolate turtle cookies from My Kitchen Cafe, Sugar cookies and the best icing/glaze ever from Our Best Bites (it looks much prettier there), hot chocolate mix from here, and orange cranberry bread from King Arthur flour.

I wish photography was as easy as baking. The cookies looked even better in real life.

It's never too early for presents

2008-12-15T10:25:00.005-05:00

Christmas came a little early for Ben and I this year. We've been eyeing my brother's camera all year and finally decided to take the plunge into the world of digital SLR, or fancy pants , cameras. It's a little intimidating. We just stared at it the first few days, too afraid to touch it, but we finally broke it out of the box and read just enough of the massive manual to figure out which button to push to take a basic picture. Hopefully we'll get a little braver soon and check out some of the cooler features that I assume it has, but here are some of the better pictures we've taken so far. Laura Bruschke here we come!

Dancing to the beat of a different drummer

2008-12-07T00:21:00.000-05:00

Today was Elise's last day of ballet class. I'm not sure how much ballet she actually learned, as seen in the videos, but she had lots of fun with her little friends and was always good for a laugh and some awesome moves.

How to make your children love you

2008-12-03T14:32:00.005-05:00

Go out and buy them a $10 used slide on craigslist, even if it doesn't fit in your car's trunk and you have to make the man you just bought it from tie it down for you. This will make your children happy and pleasant to be around.*

* This effect is, unfortunately, only temporary. And some fighting will occur as a natural result of the acquisition of a new toy.

Bonus: How dads can make their children happy while the moms are away on a long run.

See how easy it is?

Take a closer look

2008-11-17T19:02:00.001-05:00

Yeah, I know. All you see is a bunch of leaves completely covering up our driveway and sidewalk. But take another look.
Ok, I'll break out the zoom lens here.

Yay! Our first deer sighting at our house. I've seen lots while out running, but none right next to our car like that. I looked out our bedroom window this afternoon and saw a deer browsing through our bushes. I showed it to Elise and she loved it and we went outside to look at it before she scared it off.

Oh, and I was shamed into raking those leaves up for an hour afterwards, even though I know they'll just be back.

Birthday girl

2008-11-11T22:31:00.006-05:00

Elise’s birthday is the day after Halloween, and to be honest, it’s kind of a pain. I know it could be worse, on Christmas or Thanksgiving, or Columbus Day, but I get into the Halloween zone and kind of forget about her birthday. We get home from trick or treating and all I want to do is go through the candy and pick out all the good stuff, but I still have presents to wrap, decorations to put up, and a cake to plan.

I've been thinking about starting her in some sort of dance class for a little while and when some other girls we know decided to sign up for one we decided to along with it too. Luckily for us, the first class was on her birthday so we went along with it and told her it was all part of her birthday present. She looked so cute in the dress she picked out and was spinning around all morning in it. Her class went pretty well. She hasn't shown a huge amount of natural talent for it, but it’s only for 6 weeks and she’s having fun so it doesn’t matter. And it puts a smile on your face Saturday mornings to see 8 little girls prancing about in ballet dresses.

She saw a Barbie cake at the grocery store a few months ago and was very impressed by it so I thought I would give it a shot, though Ben really wanted to do this cake for some reason. I am horrible at decorating and I had some issues with drippy homemade frosting, but she loved it. Opening presents took forever because she wanted to play with every single thing immediately but she got plenty of new books and toys to at least keep her busy for another month until Christmas hits. We got her this Princess laptop with a bunch of learning games which I know she likes because I had to take it away to punish her for something yesterday and she completely flipped out for about 15 minutes. That was fun.

Looking back on this year, I can't believe how much she has changed. She has become her own little independent person who now talks back to her mother and bullies her baby sister and will only eat Life cereal. But along with that she loves to cuddle and read books, she's incredibly generous with her hugs and kisses, she gets so excited over the littlest things, and mostly is just the cutest thing ever and scares me with how much she learns every day.

Halloween finally

2008-11-09T10:47:00.008-05:00

Our computer crashed last week and even though we got everything up and running again the next day, the one thing that didn't work was the internet. Computers are funny right? Anyway, we finally got everything up and running and I am back to play catch up.

The girls had lots of fun on Halloween. I didn’t want to revisit the sushi costume with Chloe so I tried to put her in a few different things lying around the house. She was very anti-costume and resisted strongly being put into anything so finally I threw her in Elise’s ballet leotard I had just bought and there was no crying so one girl was done. I asked Elise if she wanted to be a Japanese princess again or Snow White and she said Snow White so we threw her in last year’s costume and away we went.

I wasn’t sure how long the girls would last since they both had colds and we already had plenty of candy from the trunk or treat, but after going to a few of the neighbors’ houses they were loving it so we decided to go to another neighborhood more conducive to trick or treating (all the houses in our neighborhood are kind of spread out and have long driveways). By the time we finished in the other neighborhood, Chloe was spitting out an approximation of “trick or treat” at every house and a pretty good “thank you” too. She was super excited and wanted to walk everywhere all by herself.

Elise was cute and told everyone she was Snow White. I was worried some of the houses were a little too scary for her. There was a house with 2 boys with scary masks passing out candy but they took their masks off and she said, “Silly boys,” and laughed really hard to herself so I guess she was fine.

I’m glad the girls had fun, but now we are stuck with way too much candy.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Those plastic pumpkins hold way more candy than they should.

Comparing candy the next morning. This was before they really realized what it was they were holding.

Sushi-phobia

2008-11-07T23:00:00.005-05:00

When I was in college, I used to make sushi sometimes for social functions and there were invariably people there who refused to eat it. Maybe it was the seaweed or the suspected association with raw fish, or even the smell of the rice; there was just something about sushi that bothered to them to the point where they wouldn’t even try it.*

I’m afraid that Chloe is now one of these sushi-phobic people. I spent several hours putting together an adorable HANDMADE Halloween sushi costume for her. And either it was the claustrophobic large cardboard roll, or the smell of the Styrofoam peanuts, but something about the costume screamed no way to her. Our ward’s Halloween party was the Wednesday before Halloween. I put the costume on her that afternoon to make sure it fit ok and she punched out the front panel. I knew the costume was doomed, but the selfish part of motherhood kicked in. I spent hours on that costume and she was still young enough to be able to force her to wear it. So we took it to the ward party and we put it on her for a little bit. She looked so cute, but she bawled the whole time, unless I was forcing candy down her throat, so we took her out of it after a while. Elise wore a cute little kimono. I told her she was a Japanese princess and she was adorable. I wish we had taken more pictures of her, but we were so focused on getting pictures of Chloe while she was still in the costume that we skimped on Elise. She had fun running around and getting way too much candy.

As for Chloe, I’m hoping this incident doesn’t have any sushi repercussions, though luckily she had no idea what her costume was so I think we’re ok.

*Other notable sushi-phobes: My brother’s 5th grade class. He used to ask my mom to give him sushi for lunch so he could gross out his entire class when he opened his lunchbox.

Chloe learns some manners

2008-10-22T15:41:00.000-04:00

Chloe finally learned to say "please" and "thank you." Some of the other finer points of etiquette still escape her, she loves to eat cereal with her hands, milk and all, but I think we're moving in the right direction here.

Halloween ideas

2008-10-09T18:13:00.003-04:00

I totally want to do this costume for Halloween. I'm thinking for Chloe since she's slightly more Asian looking and because she won't care what I put her in. Because let's face it, most kids don't want to be a piece of sushi for Halloween. But Chloe will still do anything I tell her to do, and look cute doing it! Go Chloe!

A recap

2008-10-09T08:20:00.019-04:00

I haven't blogged for over two weeks. The answer why is hidden somewhere in this post. Extra credit to whomever can guess it first. Anyway, this is what we've been doing the past 2 weeks. It sounds much more exciting when you put it all in one big blog. We are really fun people, I promise. Look at all the interesting things we did!

Elise started a really adorable dinosaur stage. I love hearing her say all their names. "Stegosaurus." It cracks me up.
Chloe dropped her morning nap but still refuses to sleep longer than 1 1/2 hours
10k for me two weeks ago (41:05). It was really small and I hate to brag, but I totally beat all of the guys (and girls) in this race by a lot. It was pretty fun.

The girls built a slide in the family room with some help from the big fuzzy red chair.
Ben read lots of CT scans (at least I think that's what he does all day).
Elise refuses to wear pants while at home. Even putting panties on her is something of a struggle.
Chloe came this close to jumping all by herself
Elise stopped napping altogether
Another 10k a week ago (40:26)
Our friend Jenny qualified for Boston!
We watched most of conference. It's hard with 2 squirmy kids so I'm looking forward to reading the talks when they come out.
I made Vietnamese food; it was pretty good.
I held a butterfly at the science museum. It miraculously escaped Chloe's swatting unharmed.
The weather is suddenly perfect for running.
We rode on the carousel at the mall. I wasn't sure if Chloe liked it because she was just kinda starey eyed the whole time, but when we passed it again she ran right up to it. Elise loved it. The whole time she was yelling, "This is fun! Wahoo!" At the end of the ride she climbed off very nicely and said sincerely, "Thank you merry go round."

Chloe's current word of the week: "flower"
Last week's word: "more"

Chloe fell and hit her head approximately 37 times

The girls just keep getting cuter and cuter! Isn't it weird how that happens?

Overheard

2008-10-09T08:19:00.003-04:00

Elise handing Chloe Ben's credit card (she loves to go through his wallet): "Here you go baby. Don't spend it all in one place."

Sisters

2008-09-23T22:35:00.002-04:00

Sometimes my girls seem completely different from each other. Chloe is super clingy (STILL!) and Elise has always been completely independent, and they don't look anything alike. But when it comes to playing, they can be exactly the same!

Yesterday Chloe was running around in the morning with the doll stroller, stuffing everything she could think of into it and having a great time and for some reason I flashbacked to some pictures of Elise around the same age, wearing the same pajamas, playing with the same stroller, and having a ball, just like Chloe. Can you tell which one is which? (Of course you can. They look completely different remember?) Isn't it funny how sometimes the pictures stick more in your mind than the actual memory? Thank heaven for digital cameras, and cute girls!

A pig pickin' good time

2008-09-23T12:02:00.002-04:00

Here in North Carolina they have these things called "pig pickins." Let me show you why.

We went to one on Saturday courtesy of the Duke Radiology dept. It was actually at one of the faculty's house/farm/fishing hole/basketball court/giant tract of land. Please let that be us at the end of this residency. Though the guy was kind of old too.

There was a hayride for the kids and lots of eating. Elise was pretty unfazed by the pig. I asked her whether she wanted chicken or pig, and she said pig. She's going to grow into a little Southern girl after all.

Playing together on the gigantic hammock

Elise and her friends, Trent and Aubrey. At least they know how to pose for a picture. Getting ready for the hayride with Daddy. I don't know how the tractor pulled so many kids!

An update on the apple situation

2008-09-22T10:39:00.003-04:00

Is it normal to have eaten so many apples in just a week??

I blame Chloe. Elise just ate the last of the fruit leather this morning too so we have truly eaten that many apples. Notice how Elise likes to take a few bites and toss it back in the basket.

I heart farmer's markets

2008-09-18T15:43:00.007-04:00

We went to a farmer's market after my stupid race on Saturday and maybe it was the disappointment from not officially winning or maybe it was our love for a good deal, but we found ourselves buying, amongst other things, this basket of apples (yes, it came with the basket, how cute is that?). Now, it doesn't look like that many apples. Sure it's more than you normally buy at a time, but would you have thought it was half a bushel of apples? Ok, I can tell you're still not impressed. People's knowledge of bushels not being what it once was, I'll tell you that 1/2 a bushel is 24 pounds of apples! We bought 24 pounds of apples. All at once. All because it came in a cute little basket. And it was $15.

When we got home I decided I needed to do something creative with the apples before we all got sick of them. So I decided to make fruit leather, because I just bought some for the girls and they were going nuts over them. I combined the apple cooking part of this recipe with the baking technique of this recipe and made a batch of blueberry apple and strawberry apple (I threw frozen fruit in the blender with the cooked apples). It was so easy, the girls loved them (see Elise shoving large amounts into her mouth at once below), and I feel like the best mother in the world, for at least a few minutes.

Elise antics

2008-09-17T15:33:00.004-04:00

Elise is getting to that point where she doesn't really need a nap every day, though I still try and do it because I need every children-free hour I can get. The other day she came out of her room because she needed to go potty and after she went, she wouldn't go back in to sleep, but I had already planned on doing some yard work outside during that time since Chloe was asleep too so I told her she could play on the computer for a little bit and I would be outside. Of course she was thrilled and barely noticed me leaving.

Ben came home about an hour later, walked inside to change and immediately came back out and said I had to see something. My first thought of course was that Elise had started dismantling the printer or something, but I walked in to this sight. I guess she does need a nap more than she thinks she does!

We also discovered that she had got into Picasa, our picture software, and randomly started "touching up" some pictures. I think she's got a pretty good eye for detail! The pictures are Halloween. At first we thought the last picture was one of Ben's MRI pictures, but then we realized it was a close up of one of our pumpkins!

Blatant Discrimination, North Carolina USA

2008-09-16T09:29:00.001-04:00

eNow I'm not one to really complain about things, or to blather on about my accomplishments, but something really irked me this weekend and I've already complained about it to everyone I know, so why not share it with the whole world now?

I ran a 10k on Saturday. It was only my second 10k ever and my first race in a long time so I was a little nervous for it. The race was down in Raleigh on the NC State University campus put on by the ROTC, so everything seemed pretty kosher. When I registered online it said the winner of the 10k would get $300. Now, not a lot of 10ks have cash prizes. Most of them are trying to raise money themselves so they don't give out any cash. So when a race has a cash prize it's kind of a big deal. I noticed the website did not say that the winner of the men and women would each receive money though so I pointed it out to Ben and he optimistically said, "Of course they'll each get the money. It wouldn't be fair if they didn't." I had my doubts, but I went along with it.

Along comes race day. I'm nervous but I run a decent race (43:05) and I know I cross the finish line as the first woman, though there were a few guys in front of me. Ben gets all excited and thinks I've just won us $300, I'm still not so sure, so he goes up and asks the race director if the women's winner gets $300 too and he tells Ben that the prize money is just for the "overall" winner, in other words, just the men. Disappointing and unfair, but not wholly unexpected. Ben does insist on us staying around for the awards ceremony since he wants to see me get at least something for winning. This means us waiting around for an extra hour waiting for everyone else to finish while our 2 girls start melting down as we gradually run out of snacks and drinks in the heat. Not our finest hour. And then, in the awards ceremony they break the prizes into age groups but again it's just overall age group winners, which is of course all guys again!

I don't want to go all Title IX* on everybody, but it doesn't seem quite fair to me that I didn't get a single thing for winning. Now, I don't run because I expect medals and prizes to be showered on me whenever I race. I run because I like it and I like to see myself improve from all my hard work. But if a guy is going to get $300 for winning a race and I'm not going to get a single thing for winning the same race, I think something's wrong with that. The best thing for them to do is at least split the money in half, or if they still want to be sexist about it, I'd even take a 60-40 split. I'm not greedy, I just want to be treated fairly here. Every single race I have been to always splits up the men and women and awards each accordingly. And last time I checked, the Olympics gave out gold medals to BOTH men and women (though they didn't even make the women's marathon an Olympic sport until 1984).

So, that's it. I'm still somewhat bitter a few days later but I'll get over it. There are more races to run and more important things to expend my energy on. Like my giant pile of laundry.

*A special thanks to my brother Josh for showing me it's ok to use nouns as verbs and that footnotes in blog entries can be cool.

"1 2 3 4" Elise style

2008-09-11T15:54:00.001-04:00

As requested, some video of Elise dancing to the 1234 song. She imitates her pretty well, from the casual strolling in the beginning to the hipshaking and bow at the end. Occasionally screeching and interruptions in music courtesy of Chloe.

Earworms

2008-09-09T07:59:00.001-04:00

I've been reading Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks recently. He's a famous neurologist who writes books about some of the more interesting cases he's run into it (One of his books is called The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. You get the idea.). This book was about the complicated relationship between music and the brain. The first case he recounts is about an ordinary guy who gets struck by lightning (seriously) and becomes suddenly obsessed with music. It completely changes his life: he hears it all the time, becomes obsessed with certain composers, starts taking piano lessons. His wife actually ends up divorcing him because she can't understand what's going on with him, and he ends up becoming a composer. Really pretty interesting.

Anyway, this post isn't a book review. A section of the book talks about what he calls "earworms," those songs that you just cannot get out of your head. I hate his choice of word for this phenomena, (It reminds me of those centipede-like aliens from Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, you know the ones that crawl in the crew's ears and take over their brains. At least that's what I think they do. My mind is kinda fuzzy on the plot, but those things I remember.) but I knew exactly what he was talking about. I think anyone with children has been stuck with various children's songs in their head, some worst than others, "John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith" anybody?

Elise absolutely loves listening to songs and this is her new favorite and it's my current earworm. I actually really like it too. It's a singer named Feist and she adapted one of her songs for Sesame Street and I've heard this version so much now I think I like it better than the original. Elise acts out the entire music video. I made her her own number 4 to carry around too.

So if you need a good song to have in your head all day, push play and enjoy!

My hero

2008-09-08T16:16:00.004-04:00

Well, we've been home from Ironman Louisville for a week now and a little bit of the excitement has worn off, but I want everyone to know how proud of Ben I am for reaching his goal. I think of myself as pretty tough, but I can't even fathom all that he did to get through that day, not to mention all the hours of training that go into that. I know that everytime I'm struggling through a hard workout or find myself dying at the end of a race, I'll think of Ben struggling through those last miles and find the strength to push through it like he did.

The girls and I had a great time running around Louisville. We didn't get to see Ben as much as I wanted to, but it was a thrill to see all the other dedicated athletes and help cheer them on. Everyone we met was so nice to me dragging the double stroller around with both girls. We all definitely survived and will live to race again!

"Only those who will risk going too far . . ."

2008-09-03T20:39:00.004-04:00

This has been a life-long dream for me, and I would like to thank the following people without whom it wouldn't have been possible:

Juli for being my inspiration.
Elise and Chloe for being my motivation.
John and Michelle and Mom for motivation again.
Coach. Seriously. Who knows how much time and energy he devoted to preparing me.
Dan who got me into cycling finally.
Team Pink who started it all.

Pre-Race:
Breakfast of ~1200 calories at 4:30 (2 ensures, 2 chocolates milks, a waffle, some eggs, and some Gatorade). I got to the great lawn at check in time at 5. Dropped my transition bags, lubed my bike, and was off to the swim start. It was a 15 minute walk, and when we got to the dock there were already hundreds of people in line. Got to rest and visualize for 90 minutes.

Swim 2.4 miles:
The swim start was a time trial, and not a traditional mass start. My plan was to get in early, find someone swimming faster than me, and draft off them for as long as I could, then repeat. Unfortunately, no one passed me during the entire swim--my speed is a curse. The channel was pretty packed (i.e. swimming over some people) until the turn around, then we were in the body of the Ohio river and there was lots of room. I added some time to my swim due to my inability to swim straight, but that is normal for open water swimming. The river was fine to swim in--not dirtier than some lakes I've raced in. And the current wasn't strong at all. I settled into a nice comfortable pace early on and kept telling myself not to go too fast. Coach's last words of advice were to not push it on the swim.
Swim time: 1:03:18

T1:
Coming out of the river was great. The crowd was enormous and noisy. It was a lot of fun. The great lawn was amazing. Right on the bank of the river, ironman flags and tents and inflatable arches everywhere. I got my bike, saw my girls cheering, and was off.
T1 time 3:31

Bike 112 miles:
My plan was to go 27 miles easy, 27 miles moderate, push miles 54-84, and hold the pace for the downhill 28 miles. I went easy for the first 25 miles or so, and found myself riding with some strong cyclists--I wanted to stay with them and kicked my pace up to a strong steady effort (sub lactate threshold, but harder than moderate). I basically held on to this pace for the rest of the ride. The ride was nonstop rolling hills, some of which were very large. They were relentless. But the hardest part of the ride was the wind--very strong gusts. Again, relentless. I saw the girls at mile 38 and 64 which was awesome. At mile 80 my quads were screaming--I had overexerted myself. Mile 80-90 was a grindfest. I told myself to ease up, hit the nutrition, and save whatever I had for the run. That helped as miles 90 to the finish were actually pretty good (the downhill grade helped as well).
Bike time 5:29:26 (20.40 mi/hr ave)

T2:
It felt pretty awesome to be off the bike. The crowd was amazing again. And I'm off. T2 time 5:25

Run 26.2 miles:
It was 92 degrees and humid. Heat index of 98 degrees.
I wanted to hold 8:30 min/miles for the first half then pick it up at mile 13 if I were feeling good (oh man, that makes me laugh in retrospect). That plan quickly degenerated to trying to complete four 6 mile runs at 8:30 pace with absolutely no thought whatsoever of going faster. The first 12 miles actually went really well. I was feeling good and keeping a good pace. The pain started at mile 17 which is when I crossed the line (that is ironman talk for hitting the wall). This was a pretty dark time of the run. It took all my will to continue to run through the pain (and I actually had to stop and walk a couple of times between miles 17-18, which infuriated me). At mile 18, I drank 8 oz of chicken broth to get some sodium and by mile 20 I was actually feeling really good. Mile 20 is also the last turn around, and all I had to do was run back into town. From 20-21 I picked up the pace and probably ran ~8:45 mile or so, thinking all the while of my awesome time. Then at mile 21 it happened: my diaphragm cramped up severely. Apparently my body was done. My diaphragm hurt so exquisitely that I could not breathe and I quickly slowed to a walk. Even walking did not alleviate the pain to any degree. I was also tingling in my lips and fingertips, and a couple of times started to get dizzy, but kept on walking. I tried to start running again every few minutes to no avail. Eventually I sat down hoping to get rid of the cramp with a few minutes rest (since even walking was aggravating it), but that didn't work either. I eventually just resigned myself to walking in. I tried to start running again at each mile marker, but by mile 23 my legs had entirely cramped up making running impossible. Anyway, I walked to the finish frustratedly watching my sub 11 hour performance tick away. One can view my run splits degenerate from 8:20 miles to 9, then 10, then 15! I started running (it was actually kind of a death-shuffle) at mile 26 and forgot about the 0.2 remaining miles, but oxygen or no oxygen I had to finish it running. Running down the finishing chute was one of the more amazing experiences of my life--completely indescribable.
Run time 4:35:25

Total Time: 11:17:03

Overall place 170
Age division 19/166

Impression: I was very pleased with my performance. I had some nutritional issues, without which I might have finished about 30 minutes faster. But Ironman is a cruel mistress, and given my first-time status, and the conditions of the race, I definitely did the best I could. I consider it a special experience to have pushed myself far beyond my physical limit (next time I just need to increase that limit). As Hemingway would say, the Ironman broke me, but did not defeat me.

It was awesome.

That's Dr. Ironman

2008-09-02T16:54:00.004-04:00

Only pictures for now. I'll do an official post later.

Finish line video

A semi-unhealthy obession

2008-08-19T16:16:00.005-04:00

Ben has an obsession not many people know about: he likes root beer, not like normal root beer, but fancy glass bottle root beer. It's not as into it as this guy, but let's just say that one Christmas at my parents' house in Washington my brother introduced Ben to a brand called Henry Weinhard's, made in Portland. Ben was hooked. 18 bottles of Henry Weinhard's finest accompanied us home that year. Ben was travelling by himself because I was staying longer and brought them all on as his carryon in a grocery bag (obviously before the liquid taboo). He had a layover in LA and the bag he was using fell apart and he had to carry them, hugging them to his chest, as he raced to his gate. Those 18 bottles of root beer, and cream soda, lasted all year. He horded them and brought them out on select occasions. The next year we were in Washington, we weren't allowed to bring liquids as carryons and I thought that would be the end of that. But no. Ben had planned all along to carefully wrap several bottles and stick them in the middle of our checked bags, with all our clothes (granted most of them were dirty) and our presents. I was not pleased.

But for all Ben's careful planning, eventually the supply of Henry's ran dry and Ben was left without his favorite cold drink. He tried others but they all fell short. My family came to visit at the beginning of August. There was much tasting of different root beers, much discussion of flavors and tastes. There was even a visit to Dr. Root Beer's Hall of Foam (a little overrated). No clear root beer "winner" emerged from all this, but a seed was planted. When they got home my sister sent around this guy's review of a ton of root beers. One in particular got high honors and is available at World Market, a store we actually knew.

I am happy to announce that Ben has found a successor to Henry Weinhard's. I give you "Bulldog." And it's even on sale this week! Go buy some if you have a World Market near you. If you don't like root beer yourself but have to go there to get more root beer for your husband, check out the nice selection of Haribo gummies for yourself. I recommend the "Twin Cherries." But don't tell your running coach about it. :)

Triumphant Ben

You look just like...

2008-08-18T11:22:00.004-04:00

Ok, ever since I cut Elise's hair I can't get it out of my mind how much she looks like Suri Cruise now. I even spent a while the other night looking up pictures of her online (kind of sick right?) because I told Ben that and he was like, "who?" I'll let you guys be the judge. And no, I did not do it on purpose.

Here is Elise doing her best movie star impressions:

And now, the offspring of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise:

Am I above putting in a not-so-flattering picture of someone else's child to make mine look better? Probably not.

Elise gets a bob

2008-08-16T23:22:00.006-04:00

I cut Elise's hair this morning. It's never been cut before and I've been thinking about doing it for a while because it's always all over her face and she always gets something sticky in it because she is a seriously messy eater. This morning I made waffles and the syrup in last night's freshly washed hair was the last straw. I sat her in front of the TV and told her I was going to cut her hair. She didn't say anything since she was already mesmerized by Elmo so I got right down to it. It was surprisingly easy. First of all, she doesn't have a ton of hair and then it's slightly curly so all unevenness is nicely hidden. A special thanks to Ben for providing the curly hair gene.

BEFORE

The bangs were the first thing I cut. Still watching Elmo.

The resulting carnage

Emd result!

I didn't tell Ben I was going to do it because he was in the middle of a fantasy football draft and I knew he wouldn't have heard me. I sent her in there after it was all done and told her to tell daddy to look at her new haircut. It took him a while to notice, he ignores everyone not just me during drafts, but he was definitely surprised. He says she looks like a different person and I've found myself staring at her all day still trying to adjust to it too. Now if only Chloe had enough hair to warrant a haircut...

Beach trip

2008-08-12T21:57:00.003-04:00

My whole family came out to visit us last week, my mom and dad, my sister and her family, and my brother. We had lots of fun and it was nice to have everyone come to us instead of making the trek ourselves. We packed up and went to the beach for a few days because Durham, although nice, is not the most exciting vacation spot. The North Carolina coast is beautiful, though unfortunately we went in the middle of a heat wave and Ben and I both about died during one of our runs. Luckily we battled the heat with popsicles and ice cream, and a trip to Dr. Root Beer's Hall of Foam (not as exciting as it should have been). And of course going in the ocean.
Elise didn't love being at the beach as much as we thought she would. I think she was afraid of the waves. We had to leave early the first day because she flipped out once we got to the beach and kept saying, "I need to go home. I need to go home." But Chloe loved it and 1 out of 2 isn't bad these days.
Pics of course, mostly by Uncle Josh because he's the one with the fancy camera.

Yesterday

2008-07-31T12:35:00.007-04:00

I had this bright idea yesterday to do a post on all the things we did that day. A sort of this is what I do on an average day post, a glimpse into our little life. I even uploaded all the pictures and videos. And then reality set in and I was up until midnight cleaning the house before my whole family comes into town. But I thought to myself this morning, why waste a good blog idea? So, here is what our day was like yesterday.

We baked banana bread in the morning. Elise loves to help cook and make big messes. I told her it was banana cake and she got really into it. We put it in these fun shaped pans my mom gave us for Christmas. This is Elise wolfing down the teddy bear. What can I say? My kids are good eaters. Elise ate the whole teddy bear, minus the legs. I gave those to Chloe. I ate the whole flower.

Then Chloe learned how to play the recorder all by herself. It got a little annoying after a while but she was pretty pleased with herself. I can see many a future battle over this purple plastic instrument brewing.

And then, Chloe and I had a little tickle party. She's my little giggler.

Not pictured: my 6am run (and that is sleeping in), me on the phone frantically trying to get our refrigerator fixed before my whole family comes into town, Ben's sweaty bike ride, me frantically trying to figure out what I can make with the contents of my rapidly thawing freezer (the answer: Slow cooker Thai pork, Moroccan apricot stew, and a berry cobbler.), Ben finally putting a light up over our kitchen table so there is well, light, over the kitchen table, the cleaning, oh the cleaning.

The Reveal

2008-07-30T10:04:00.004-04:00

Our house was built in 1968 so we bought it knowing we'd have to do a little work on it. Easier said than done though, right? Ben and I worked really hard and did as much as we could by ourselves ("No, Ben, I don't trust you to tile the whole kitchen by yourself."). We need to hang up some pictures and get a little more furniture (hopefully the craigslist gods will be kind to us) but other than that we're pretty much done. With the inside at least. The yard is a wreck. That's the next project.

I also got some sand for the sandbox finally. Crayola makes this fun colored sand. Ben hates it because he thinks it makes a big mess, but hey, sand is going to make a big mess anyway, so why not make it a pretty color so it doesn't look as dirty? Plus, now the sand is easy to identify and the threat can be removed before going inside. My favorite part? The blue is exactly the same blueberry color that Veruca Salt turns in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the old school one). I love my blue girls!

Attack of the Praying Mantis

2008-07-29T10:35:00.002-04:00

I know. Enough about the praying mantis. I've written more about this still-unnamed insect than my own kids lately. But there have been some interesting developments to the story. Just as we were about to let the thing go for fear PETA would knock down our door and demand we stop the cruelty, Ben found a cricket outside, something we have on good authority that praying mantises like to eat. He thought it was at least worth a shot and luckily for us he chose to document it. Like in Cloverfield, it's kind of hard to make out what's happening at first, and then, oh yeah, that's the monster and he is totally going to eat you.

Warning: the following pictures contain graphic insect violence

I told you that thing was a killer.

Praying Mantis Update

2008-07-21T15:21:00.004-04:00

I think the praying mantis is protesting its captivity with a hunger strike. I started to feel bad for the little guy because he had no food and was stuck in a little plastic container (reverse Stockholm syndrome?) so I had Ben stick some of the large ants that have invaded our house into the container with him. Now, just so you know that my previously expressed fears weren't completely baseless, it did get out when we opened the lid. Luckily, praying mantises are bright green and not really fast moving so it was pretty easy to put back in its cage. But it still didn't seem to like the ants crawling around in there with him so Ben took out the ants, killed one of them, and put it back in the container. And there the dead ant has sat for 2 days. The praying mantis is either as picky as my 1 year old about what's for dinner or else it's decided to make a statement. I think we're going to have to give in to its demands and let it go soon. I don't think I'd make a very good president. Or superhero. I cave in to killer bugs/terrorists way too easily.

We're alive, and sometimes even well

2008-07-16T22:00:00.000-04:00

We've had a busy past few months and when I'm busy, blogging is the first thing to go, followed closely by dusting and cleaning the shower. We've ventured a little further south and are living it up in Durham, North Carolina now. It's nice to have a fresh start amidst people who have no idea that I've neglected my blog for months at a time. But I'm not even afraid of people finding that out here since everyone is so extra nice. They take longer to do everything, but they're super nice about it.

The girls have made lots of new friends, including some from the animal kingdom.
Ben found this turtle about a mile away from our house on one of his runs and ran home with it. I don't even like to run holding a water bottle. I can't imagine running with a turtle for a mile (the thing was heavy). Way to go Ben! He had grand visions of the turtle living in our backyard, but it took off for greener pastures shortly after its arrival, a decision perhaps spurred on by Elise trying repeatedly to feed it sticks and leaves. Here's Elise bidding it farewell, "bye bye sea turtle." No matter how many times I correct her, she insists on calling all turtles "sea turtles." This is how the conversation always goes: I'll say, "it's not a sea turtle, it's just a regular turtle. Sea turtles live in the ocean." Elise, "Ok, bye bye sea turtle."

A frog/toad (I didn't get close enough to verify) appeared in our sandbox with no sand turned swimming pool a few days ago. Elise offered it some of her lollipop but it declined.

Finally, the latest addition. Our 12 year old neighbor loves playing with Elise and she showed up yesterday with a little container for her. She found a baby praying mantis at the store and brought it home to give to Elise. She even made it a little container to live in. Elise loves it. I don't know how long it will last. I'm too scared to feed it for fear it that when I open the lid it will attack my face and get loose in the house. It is kind of cute, in a killer insect kind of way.

Playing catch up- Chloe turns one!

2008-07-16T21:15:00.008-04:00

My little Chloe bug turned 1 in June. It's hard to believe that a little over a year ago Ben left for a 5 hour bike ride and I went into labor shortly afterwards, a month early. This year we had a quiet birthday here in Durham surrounded by boxes and messes. Our neighbor brought over some balloons and presents and I took a break from painting to bake her a cake, which she refused to eat.

Stuffing her face with some birthday pizza Opening some presents

I just looked at some baby pictures of her and got a very very small twinge of "baby fever" as Ben calls it. Look at that face though! So precious.

And look how little she was.

I think I need to stop looking at pictures now. We love you Chloe!

The blogging marathon continues...

2008-05-15T20:53:00.006-04:00

Three posts in the same week? That is some serious blogging for me. I forgot I had all sorts of video from Costa Rica. Here are some highlights.

I don't think Ben has ever been prouder of Elise than when she set foot on that surfboard.

This video is pretty self-explanatory. "I kiss the lizard."

Chloe doing her thing at the beach.

I don't know where all this love for reptiles is coming from. I blame Jeremy.

Costa Rica '08

2008-05-14T22:38:00.002-04:00

We were lucky enough to spend another week in Costa Rica with our friends, the Preeces, and their friends, the Gardners. Jenny's grandpa owns a house there and we were honored to be invited back again this year to enjoy the sun and surfing! We all have little girls the same age and it was fun to see them running around together and getting along together, for the most part!

I think Elise's favorite part was probably seeing the Barbie: Island Princess movie for the first time, and several other times during the course of the trip. She still asks to see it all the time, well more like demands it, "I want to watch Barbie," or alternately, "I want Barbie songs." But she still had fun seeing all the different animals and making sand castles. On a perhaps unrelated note, I caught her counting to 6 in Spanish today. Neither Ben or I taught it to her, so either she soaked up some Spanish in Costa Rica, or she's been watching too much Dora.

Ben just wanted to surf the whole time. I had fun not being pregnant this year and getting to go on the canopy tour! In fact, just not being pregnant pretty much made the vacation. And little Chloe was a trooper and loved playing in the sand and shoving big handfuls of it in her mouth. A big thank you to the Preeces for putting up with us for so long!

We've got a busy few weeks ahead of us. We close on our house in less than 2 weeks so we've been busy packing up. I'm excited to be in a house of our own again and have some more space for the kids to run around in. Durham here we come!

Boston 26.2

2008-05-09T22:03:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago I found myself running the Boston Marathon. Not that this was a last minute decision to run a marathon. I've been training and training for this really ever since I had Chloe last year. But I had some injuries late in the game. All in all, I count myself lucky that I made it to the start line, not in an ideal condition, but in a "Well, my calf still hurts, but I think it'll last 26 miles" condition.
It was a surreal experience to find myself running an event that is so big and such an aspiration for so many people. I've never seen that many people in short shorts and spandex in my life. I just remember when I finally reached the start line (it took about 8 minutes to get there!) and everyone started running at once, all I could hear was the sound of shoes hitting pavement. A lot of shoes hitting the pavement. Quite a difference from all my solitary long runs. In the beginning, I was just surrounded by people and when you went up or down a hill you could really see the crowd of runners snaking ahead of you on the road.
The three hours honestly just flew by. I had a great marathon. I doubted that I would ever say that running a marathon is fun. The Baltimore marathon from mile 16 on was just terrible. I vowed never to run another marathon again. But I feel like I ran a smart race this time, thanks solely to the counsel of my coach. He made me promise to take it easy the first half, and if I felt good still, to go crazy on the second half. It was painful to watch people pass me those first 13 miles. But it was really fun to pass people on the second half, especially up the hilly parts. I felt really strong at the end and was glad I eventually gave in to coach.
One of the best parts was having my old team all come out to support me! We're all scattered right now with residencies but everyone converged on Boston for a reunion. I couldn't ask for better friends or teammates! I owe so much to my coach, Brigham. I don't even want to know how many hours he spends writing schedules and workouts, and even though he enjoys every minute of it, I know he doesn't have a lot of those minutes to spare right now. A big thanks to assistant to the Coach, Ben, for watching our girls while I was out running and supporting me in so many ways. Though he and Brigham clash sometimes, I know they both want what's best for me.

Here are my stats for any other running geeks out there.
Official Time: 3:22:58
Pace: 7:45/mile
Overall Place: 4882/21963
Gender Place: 592/8935
Division Place: 482/4908

And pictures too of course.

Next post: Costa Rica pics I promise!

Easter pictures of the girls! What more could you ask for?

2008-03-27T21:23:00.002-04:00

Picture of the week

2008-03-20T22:14:00.006-04:00

I can be majestic too, Daddy.
(See Fig. 3 from Feb. 9thpost)

But I'd rather just be a silly, giggly girl.

February Antics

2008-03-01T16:20:00.011-05:00

February seriously just flew by. Even with that extra day. Those of you who remained loyal and still checked the blog religiously only to find no new entry will now be rewarded with one big fat ginormous entry. And those of you who stopped reading because of 3 weeks inactivity, I see how it is! :) Some friends you are.

Things that happened to us in February

Ben grew a beard. A really crazy beard.

Chloe started crawling and pulling herself up to stand. It's not very pretty, but it gets her around town.

Chloe developed an addiction to teddy grahams. But honestly, can anyone really blame her? Those things are fantastic!

We made the mistake of taking Elise to her first carnival. She loved her first ride so much she had to be forcibly removed from it, wailing the whole time. The crying stopped when we offered more tickets for rides. But was even worse once that one stopped.

A picture of both girls smiling! But not looking at the camera.

A visit from Uncle Josh! With requisite awesome picture taking.

Elise learned to use a computer all by herself. She’s also in negotiation to start her own job next week. She’s always loved the computer and she learned to move the mouse around a while ago. But she didn’t understand how you got the mouse to do something until she discovered the buttons. And the scroll wheel. Now she’s a pro and can play games all by herself, which is kind of nice.

I had a crazy running month. Last week I ran 60 miles over 5 days. It was great fun but I ended up with some sort of leg injury which I am just praying is not a stress fracture. If it is, no Boston for me this year, so keep your fingers crossed!

A post not by Ben

2008-02-11T23:06:00.000-05:00

I don't know how I'm supposed to follow up a post by Ben. He's just too funny, or at least he thinks he is. And his beard is getting a little too long now, though this article in Time has only served to encourage him. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1711112,00.html

Luckily for me though, he's just started a busy call month so he won't have nearly as much time to compose blog entries or to brag about his facial hair. The downside is not as much help at home with the girls, especially when I need to go out for my run. I think I can live with that...

Our blog has been very wordy lately and pictures have been scarce so I thought I'd liven things up a little bit with some cute pictures. We went up to DC/Baltimore last weekend to see my brother Josh and visit our friends the Preeces. Josh just got a new camera and wanted to take some pictures and get more used to it. There is no greater test of cameras or photographers than Elise, but I think he got some pretty good ones. Of course, she's not looking at the camera in any of them. They're what we call, "action" shots.

Oh wait. She's looking at the camera in this one. Elise thought her Uncle Josh's snowshoes were a sled.

In Baltimore, Elise and her friend Ashley are only 6 weeks apart and they were so excited to see each other again! Activities included going to the science center.
Lots of jumping on the bed.Playing at the playground.

And having to pose for lots of pictures.

We had a fun little trip, but it is always nice to be home!

Random Facts. By Ben.

2008-02-09T22:46:00.000-05:00

How Chloe looks when she sees her daddy, confused but scared

1. I have two beautiful daughters. Unfortunately, they don't really like me. Elise does this thing where if she's reading a book on the bed with her mom all cuddly and cute, and I come over and try and participate, she throws a fit. She will physically roll/push me off the side of the bed. (Sometimes she'll let me lie there inert if I don't touch her, the book, or try and read).

I take it in stride. Besides, unbeknownst to Elise, I have another daughter in my back pocket! An ace up my sleeve, if you will (and you will). I dumped all my daddy-daughter dreams onto little Chloe (Juli, please insert cute Chloe picture).

Fig. 1 Cute Chloe pic

So, in order to realize these dreams I've been spending a lot of time with Chloe. Unfortunately, time with Daddy has a remarkably swift rate of diminishing returns--probably minutes and quite possibly seconds (Note to self: insert graph here). Chloe now has stranger anxiety to her dad (How did that happen? I'm literally home almost all the time.) She will really cry if not being held by her mom, or at least if her mom isn't within eyesight (like if she leaves the room and Daddy plays with Chloe for just a couple of seconds).

I've decided to just buy their love when they are older, it will be easier.

2. I am growing a beard (Juli, please insert picture here).

Figure 3. It is majestic!

There is one good thing and one bad thing about my beard. Good: I have a remarkable clearance from the top of my chest hair to the bottom of my beard line. There's about 3-4 inches of pure smooth neck. And, my beard line is very straight. It looks like it's trimmed, and it just grows that way. Even Juli said it looks good. I figure I have a few "golden years" of full, lush, beard coverage without the appearance of gray hairs that I should take advantage of (and boy am I!).

Bad: I can't grow a handlebar mustache, which would be pretty cool. I have this hairless part between the right side of my mustache-end and the rest of the beard (insert close up).

Some sympathy please

2008-01-25T20:36:00.000-05:00

I've been pretty busy this week trying to keep track of everything I eat. I look up calorie counts on everything I eat and and then enter it all into a log. It actually gets pretty complicated and time consuming, especially when I cook something myself and have to enter in all the different components. And why am I going to all this trouble? Am I trying to lose weight? Is this a new year's resolution gone wild? Actually, no. I am trying to do the exact opposite. I am on an un-diet. I'm trying to make sure I'm not losing weight.

Now before everyone gets all mad at me, it's not actually as cool as it sounds. Evidently, all my running has a big payoff: it burns lots of calories! But apparently my body needs those calories back for energy or something lame. And not only do I have to make sure I'm getting enough calories, I have to make sure it's healthy calories! No fun at all.

So as you sit there reading this, living your non-Nutritional-Facts-reading-calorie-logging-lives, think of me munching on my apple (1 small, raw, unpeeled = 55 calories) and feel sorry for me. Even just a little bit.

Tagged

2008-01-25T08:34:00.000-05:00

I was tagged a few weeks ago by Camilla while we were on vacation to tell 5 things about myself. I put it aside for a while because, hey, I was on vacation, but we have been back for a while and now it's just getting embarrassing that I haven't responded yet. So here goes.

Admission #1: I am a procrastinator. (see example above) I've always put things off a little bit, but it only gets worse when you have kids because you always have a built-in excuse, or at least I like to think I do anyway. And even though I'm not in school or working anymore, I find there are still lots of things I can put off: laundry, emails, any sort of cleaning, cooking dinner, blogging....

#2: I can be a little stubborn. I get it from both my mom and dad so you know it's pretty bad. But I like to think it's that stubbornness that gets me through some of my long runs. And I go on some long runs.

#3: I like to be organized though I have resigned myself to the fact that with 2 kids, this will never truly happen. My one consolation is that after the girls both go to bed I can pick up everything and have a clean house for a few hours until the craziness starts all over again.

#4: For some reason, I remember lots of random facts, causing me to say seriously at various times, "You've never heard of the great vowel shift??", "I wouldn't necessarily call Charles Mingus obscure," or "I can't believe you don't know the name of Lance Armstrong's trainer." Since Ben is usually the recipient of these remarks and he looks at me like I'm crazy when I say them, we have to call in a referee (our friend Brigham) to gauge the obscurity level of what I've said. I usually lose.

#5: I secretly envy all of you out there with minivans, and you know who you are! I know it's not the most fuel efficient or cool thing out there to drive, but have you seen those automatic door openers? Wow. It sure beats throwing both girls into the back of our Mazda Protege any day.

Ok, that's it for me. I am going to tag Dinah, Jenny, Courtney, Christa, and lastly my brother Josh because I'm interested to see where he'll take this.

New Year's Day Upset

2008-01-17T19:48:00.000-05:00

Ben and I have been married 6 1/2 years. There's not much I don't know about him. I know his favorite pizza (thin crust with onions). I know which websites he checks obsessively during the day (Drudge Report, CNN, Woot, and Rotoworld). I know that he secretly watches Ultimate Fighting (Ben says, "mixed martial arts") when I'm not home. Still, it's good to be reminded that you can never truly know everything about another person. I guess it helps keep things more interesting.
The whole thing was my idea. I thought it would be fun to run a race together with my brother, sister, and Ben when we were in Dallas together after Christmas and I found a 5 mile race to do on New Year's day, not too short, not too long. Ben has come a long way with his running. He could barely run a mile a year ago because of some knee issues and now he runs regularly and is training for an Ironman, which involves running a marathon after all the swimming and the biking. We don't get to run a lot together. One of us has to be here to watch the girls so we usually take turns. Still, the times we have run together, I'm usually the stronger runner. I don't know what it is.
So, I was feeling pretty confident about the race. My brother refused to train so I knew he was no threat. (For his amusing take on the race see http://byudalton.blogspot.com/) My sister runs and is in good shape, but wasn't really in training. And there was Ben. Ben was the known factor. There was no way he was going to take me on. So at this point I might have indulged in a little trash talk. Not a lot, but what's the use of training hard if you can't have a little fun at the expense of others?
I knew Ben was a little worried. I could see it in his eyes. The race started out great. We lined up near the front and got a good start. I lost Ben for a little bit, but he caught right up to me. Here's where I should have realized something was going down. I tried to talk to him. Just to see how he thought our pace was, how he was feeling etc. I got a small grunt in response. 1 mile went by. We were going way too fast so we slowed down a little. Then a few people passed us and that wasn't cool so we sped up a little bit. The second mile went by, Ben was still with me. And we are running pretty fast and I was already thinking, "how much longer is it already?" We hit mile 3, Ben was still there, and I thought for the first time, "I wonder if he DOES have it in him to beat me."
Around mile 3.5 Ben dropped me. Not by a lot and I let it go for a little bit since there's still a lot of race left and I was pretty tired. When we hit the 4 mile mark I gathered up some strength and came up behind him. He says he heard me coming and was tired himself, but also heard that I was breathing pretty heavily and decided to demoralize me. Just as I caught up to him, he put in a burst of speed and left me behind again. And that was that. I couldn't recover from it. Final times, Ben 33:08, Juli 33:15. It doesn't sound like a lot of time but that 7 seconds represents the whole of Ben's masculinity.
So on the first day of this new year, I learned that Ben has a lot more game than I do. In the end, I think it's great we are able to race together and push each other to be better athletes. I'm hoping for a better outcome next race though. After all, Ben has lost his element of surprise. And so, until we meet again...

BEN'S SIDE OF THE STORY

Juli is a better runner than me by far (even when not accounting for the gender differences). My plan was to stick with her and try and win it somehow at the end. I beat her with simple mind games--years of competitive swimming may have given me a competitive edge here at the expense of my stunted height.

Mile 1: Juli was running way too fast. I was a little behind her, but I gutted it out to stay close. I was worried.
Mile 2: Juli slowed down, and I was barely hanging on. I thought I was slowing her down, and I did not think I could hold the pace very much longer. I told her twice to go on and have a good race (I had rehearsed how I was going to send her off in my mind for many weeks before the race when the inevitable time came for her to drop me. I thought this was very magnanimous of me.).
Mile 3: Hey, I was still running with Juli. Weird. This is where Juli starting making mistakes. We were looping back and people were starting to tell us "Good job" as we passed them going the other way. Juli would invariably respond "thanks." I huffed to her not to say anything. She responded that that was rude.
At about 3.6 miles Juli made her big mistake. She told me that maybe I had it in me to beat her. I sensed a moment of weakness and started my kick. Now, I wanted to start my kick at 4 miles, but I started it early due to a miscalculation. (I thought the 5K marker was 3.6 miles, and thus was thinking that I was starting my kick at 4 miles. But I wasn't).
Mile 4: I was beating Juli. Sweet. I was really tired. At about 4.25 miles I heard Juli coming up behind me. I didn't get very far ahead of her with my premature "kick." All my visions of glory were slipping away. I fully expected her to blow by me. I heard her coming . . . inevitable . . . inexorable. She was right behind me when I heard her breathing really hard. Had she pulled even with me, I would have given up and walked the last 0.5 miles. I was tired, hurting, and done. My premature kick hurt me. But instead I turned it on and ran like a man possessed for only about 10 seconds, but it was enough. I couldn't let Juli pull even with me. And it worked.
Mile 5: I won by a few seconds. It was a miracle. I finally earned some respect in this household. It was my one moment in time. Oh, and Juli did much more than "a little trash talk." Juli just told me that no one cares about our stupid race. But that is only because I won. And mixed martial arts is less violent than boxing.

Post Christmas Daze

2008-01-11T20:42:00.000-05:00

Well, we are finally getting around to posting our Christmas pictures. We were here in Roanoke for Christmas and then left a few days later to rendezvous with the rest of my family at my sister's house in Dallas and were there for a little over a week. Christmas was really fun this year. There is no better feeling in the world than making your kids happy and though Chloe was pretty oblivious to everything, Elise had a great time.I told Ben to put captions on the pictures, but he only did a few of them and got bored so I had to finish them. I think you can tell where he left off. There were lots of fun things to do in Dallas and we had fun exploring a new city. We hope all of you had a wonderful holiday too!

Elise to English Translation - by Ben

2007-12-15T22:18:00.000-05:00

So, you may find yourself lost and alone with Elise one of these days, and if you use this handy translation guide you should be able to find your way back to civilization. I have no doubt that Elise has as extensive a vocabulary as her friend Addie (http://www.theaddieupdate.blogspot.com/), it's just that this translation guide is incomplete. I will continue to update until I know how Elise is saying "Daddy, I'm fourteen," and "it needs new batteries." Elise is much too smart to simply learn English. Instead, she has invented her own language. And we are so proud.

Now, before anyone goes judging, please note that Elise is meeting all of her developmental milestones--she's not showing off, and not falling behind. She's right in the meaty part of the curve (credit: Seinfeld). Besides, she can identify and say her entire alphabet excepting a few letters (see number 12 above). So, take that Addie!!!!

Wiggles

2007-12-15T09:13:00.000-05:00

It's a sad day here in the Paxton house. Elise has discovered The Wiggles. I saw her rocking out to them one day at the daycare at the gym so we decided to get one of their cds for her. Elise has always loved music and dancing around to songs so The Wiggles are great for her. It's her poor parents who are stuck with the songs in their head all day long. Even Ben, Mr. Smashing Pumpkins, can't get these out of his head. If you don't believe how catchy these songs are, watch this video, at your own risk. And if you don't have kids, just don't go there. You wouldn't understand.

This one is her favorite song though the video is nonexistent.

Picture perfect

2007-12-04T21:40:00.000-05:00

Ben wanted me to put some of these pictures in an actual post because the expressions on our faces are pretty funny. We went up in the mountains a few weeks ago to take some pictures with our friends the McBrides. We watched as their girls sat quietly and smiled at the camera, and then it was our turn.

We have hardly any pictures of us all together as a family and this is why: Elise does not respond well to direction and dislikes sitting still, especially if her friends are off running around without her. She really has a mind of her own. It is also physically impossible to get a baby to look up a camera too. Oh well, at least we tried. It was a miserable failure, but it was our failure.

5 things I don't like about running

2007-11-30T13:30:00.000-05:00

I've gotten back into running and I love it. There's just something so simple about being outside and running. But I have to admit, there are things I don't like about it. I guess it's not the actual running itself, but certain parts of the running experience. I thought these up on one of my runs the other day.

Dead animals: If you think it's bad looking at it from a window going 50 mph from a car, imagine having to run right next to it, and in some cases, leap over a carcass if there's oncoming traffic. And maybe it's just me, but it seems to be worst now that we're living in Virginia. I definitely see much more of a variety than I used to in Baltimore.
Roads with no shoulder: Seriously, why would they make a hilly, windy road with no shoulder? All I'm asking for is a couple of inches. There are some parts on certain roads that I am always nervous to run on.
Daylight savings: Why is it suddenly dark at 4:00 pm? And it's not even that much lighter in the morning. I can't win.
Cars that honk: I don't know why you do it, but please please don't honk at me. It is wrong on so many levels. Ben says cars honk at him too. It's not the good kind of honking either.
Keeping my heartrate below 150 (just kidding Coach.)

Then there are the things I'm still on the fence about:

Live animals: Birds and squirrels are fine. But then there are deer (huge potential to end up as roadkill), barking dogs (especially scary in the dark), and then the small unidentifiable animals that rustle around in the leaves and trees (also scary for some reason).
Hills: I like running up hills, but they have a tendency to kick my heartrate up and exponentially increase the risk of receiving a nasty email from coach. Plus there are some mean mean hills here.
Country roads: I like running with as few as cars around as possible, but I also don't want to be a lone female running alone in the dark on some back road in Virginia. I guess it's time to break out the pepper spray.

Well, none of these reasons are enough to make me stop running but they do make for some interesting stories when I come home. So long for now!

Our Year in Review

2007-11-18T00:54:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone, welcome to our blog! I know it's not the end of the year yet. But I'm a mother of 2 small children now and it takes me forever to finish something once I start it. So, my reasoning is if I at least start this now there is a slight chance it will be done in time for an end of the year retrospective. And if it's done early, I look even better! It's a win win win situation.

So, what have we been up to this year? We've had a lot of change this year: Ben graduating and starting his residency, a change in location, a change in family size! But things are still pretty much the same. Ben still checks his fantasy sports teams constantly and tries to get away with as much as he can at work and I'm still running around after Elise since luckily Chloe is still pretty immobile. I'm training for the Boston marathon in April; Ben's training for the Louisville Ironman in August. Elise just turned 2 and loves books and puzzles and swings more than anything else in the world. Sharing her toys, not so much. Chloe is sleeping through the night so life is wonderful.

Why am I doing a blog finally? It's not because Ben has been pestering me for forever to do it. I think it's a good way to stay in touch with everyone, especially with all our moves and friends scattered everywhere. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about. Probably the kiddies, maybe some running stuff. Tune in to find out.

Here is what our year looked like.

Love,

Ben, Juli, Elise & Chloe