26.2

Running a marathon is something that I have wanted to do for a LONG time. The end of last summer my friend Lisa, who I've known since 8th grade, asked me if I would be up for the challenge with her. Freak yeah! So we started our official training in January and 16 weeks, and some ups and downs later was race day. We decided to run The Avenue of the Giants Marathon outside of Eureka, California. It was close enough to home to drive and small enough of a race to make it a great first experience. The race is along an old highway through the redwood forest. Beautiful! As far as the race itself went, I loved it. The first half I was running off adrenaline. I was having so much fun. It makes me think that I could really get into half marathons. The second half seemed a bit longer to me, but it was still so fun. I ended up finishing in a blistering 5 hours and 15 mins. Not really fast at all, but I did it. I was right about the middle of the pack when all was said and done which I felt good about for my first effort. All in all, I am so happy with the experience and I look forward to doing it all again some time. I'm not sure when that next one will be but I plan on running other smaller races like 10K's and half marathons as often as I can. I am so thankful to by good buddy Lisa for getting this whole thing started. Our chats during the Saturday morning long runs will be greatly missed!

Old School and New School

I, Bryan, have had some free time on my hands at work and when you couple that with an obsession of looking up things from my younger days, this is the kind of post you end up with. This post is a then and now post. In other words, here are some of my favorite characters from movies and cartoons back in the day and how they look these days.

First up is Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa in the classic underdog movie Rocky. Stallone initially produced five of these movies, the fifth one being a bit of a let down. Thank goodness he came out with the sixth, which he titled Rocky Balboa. Thanks to the help of some good human growth hormones, Stallone was able to look pretty dang good, especially for a 60-year-old man.

Here we have Ralph Macchio as the Karate Kid back in the day and now as a full-grown adult. Make no mistake, Ralph Macchio is not the proud owner of a lucrative chain of "Karate Kid Kar Wash" stores. There was a dirty rumor that was the case, but it is not.

This is the beloved Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. My brother, Mikel, and I still have all of our original Transformers and Optimus Prime is one of them. Sometimes I wish Optimus Prime was real. As you can see, he has become much more technologically advanced with the release of the most recent Transformers movie.

For all you Star Wars fans there is no need of an introduction for this individual. In the original trilogy Yoda was a pretty fragile little guy, but in the new trilogy we all found out that the little green guy can fight pretty good, although I was disappointed that he never actually won any of his fights. I feel like he was holding back.

He-Man was a normal guy by day, and super powerful muscle-man after a raise of his sword and the statement of a simple phrase, "By the power of Greyskull, I have the power!" Not only did he gain super strength and courage, but so did his tiger-like sidekick, Cringer the Battle Cat. Once Prince Adam turned himself into He-Man, he would point his sword at Cringer and shoot him with some sort of special strength and courage ray. Mikel and I have a ton of He-Man action figures too, which most definitely includes He-Man, Cringer, and Castle Greyskull to name a few.

Just another day at the beach

The weekend that I ran my marathon we were able to get to the beach with the kids. Jake had been waiting all day to make it there so he was very excited. We found out that Kate does not like the feel of the sand between her toes for now, but maybe later. Both of the kids were afraid of touching the water even when Bry was holding them. It was a bit chilly as usual at the coast, but it is always fun to go.

Single Image Stereograms

I, Bryan, have always been fascinated with single image stereograms. I think they came about in the early 90s and I just rediscovered a bunch of them on the Internet. Check this out if you want to see more. If anybody knows of any other good websites that have a bunch of single image stereograms let me know. For those of you who do not know what these are or how they work, let me try to explain. Single image stereograms create a three-dimensional illusion based on the human stereoscopic vision, or in other words the ability of the human eye to see depth, be it two or three-dimensional. From a seemingly random picture, you should expect to see a 3D image appear when correctly viewed. Good luck and enjoy!

This is in honor of Mother's Day and all the great mothers out there. Mothers are the best and as we all know, if it wasn't for our mothers none of us would be here. In this picture you should see a rose as if you were looking down on it from directly above.

In this image you should see the full body of a lion facing to the left.

Lakes are leaving and we're leaving the Lakes

These are our friends Matt Jessie and Molly(Lake is their last name by the way). During our time here in the Medford area we have spent A LOT of time with them. Doing everything from watching reality tv (mostly me and Jessie:), watching movies, lame attempts at game nights, and making dinner together a crazy amount of the time, we always enjoy these guys. They are now gone for the summer to Texas and by the time they get back we will be moved to Utah. So sad to say good bye but can't wait to be neighbors some day!

For some the farewell was emotional,

but mostly we just are so happy to have them as our friends. We will miss you guys and can't wait to see you soon!

I just thought this was cute of the three boys. Jake looks so tiny.

Jake is 4!!!!!!!!!

I can hardly believe that our Jake is 4. His birthday was on the 29th of April and we had his party a few days early on the 27th. He had been requesting for some time that he have a volcano birthday cake this year. We had no idea how to go about that so I called our good family friend and cake making extraordinaire Meta for advice. With the purchase of a few cake pans, food coloring, blood, sweat, and tears we finished around midnight the night before the party. We are not ready to go pro but the 4 year old that we were trying to impress was, so we felt good about our effort. We had his party at our "favorite" friends Matt and Jessie's house. Between family and friends we had a good group and Jake had plenty of kids to run around with. After presents and cake the kids headed out for pinata fun. Jake went home with fun presents, skinned elbows, a stomach full of sugar, and told me that it was the "best party ever!" I suppose we can chalk it up to a success. The actual night of his birthday we went to Applebees for dinner so we could have him sung to. He was a little surprised, excited and embarrassed but smiled for a while about it. To look back on how tiny he was when we met him and see the funny, sweet, emotional, happy, smart boy he has become has been the funnest time. Can't wait to see what else this guy has in store for us. We love this boy!

YouTube anyone?

This is a new favorite past time of the kids. To sit on their dad's lap and watch videos of whatever their request for the day is. Volcanoes erupting, spiders, animals you name it they will sit with Bryan until he cuts them off. It is crazy the things that my kids do now that were not even an option for me. How old do I sound?!

Let the child labor begin!

If we keep training them, by this time next year we may never have to get out of bed!

Pear blossom 2008

Several weekends back we went to the Pear Blossom parade in downtown Medford. The weather was beautiful and the kids were all excited to go. Jake remembered last year at the 4th of July parade that we went to how much candy he got so he even brought his bucket hat with him to hold all his candy in it. Once we got to the parade it became evident that they were not throwing candy this year. How sad is that! Even sadder is this picture of Jake standing with his hat ready to get candy that was never going to come.

We did not stay for the whole thing because it was getting hot and past nap time. We did stay long enough to see clowns, guys on big bikes, horses and other parade type things. It was fun to go but the part Jake liked best was when we stopped at 7-11 on the way home to get some candy that we did not get at the parade. Here are a few more pics from the day.

So serious.

Better view from Dad's shoulders.

Cute girl.

Watching from the curb.

Draw, Draw, Draw

Jake spends a lot of time drawing away on his "magnet doodle". He is actually starting to rub off on Kate too. Volcanoes, dinosaurs, and spiders are some of his favorites. These are two of his recent efforts that I could get a picture of before he erased them. The top is a duck and the bottom, of coarse, is me(his mom). I'm sure you could tell by the resemblance but I just thought I would make sure you knew.

Wide eyed superhero

If only my mom had cut the holes where my eyes go in this sleep mask I might actually be able to see out of this awesome new mask!

Say Cheese!!! No seriously she is cheesy

When you tell Kate to smile or say cheese this is the face you get. Isn't she lovely?

Pack your bags

When we were getting ready to go to Washington, we got the kids suitcases out. Jake went up in his room and then came downstairs to tell me that he had packed his own bag. I decided that I might want to check it out and this is what I found: his blanket, 2 pairs of underwear, 2 pairs of socks, 1 pair of shorts, 4 pairs of pants and 1 pair of p.j.'s. Apparently he was planning on spending the whole week topless. I'm sure he is now glad that I helped him finish packing because we got snow almost every day that we spent there and he would have been mighty cold with no shirts and shoes. I love how independent he thinks he is these days. Man I love him!

Washington Easter Trip

We were able to head up to Washington and spend Easter and the whole next week visiting family and friends. The kids were great seeing so many different people and soaked up all the attention. They really loved all the Easter candy and toys. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving. The candy finally got finished off this last weekend. Once again there were so many people that we did not get pictures of but we will remember them in our heads if not on film. We sure love you all and can't wait to visit again!

Pre-Easter Egg Hunt

The day before Easter we got to go to a egg hunt here in Medford. Jake was on the old end of his age group so he cleaned up and filled up his bucket. Kate got three eggs and could not have been happier. They both had fun and it was a good warm up because we left that afternoon for Washington where the kids got to hunt several more times.

This is as close as Jake would get to the Easter Bunny. No hugs yet. Maybe next year.

Jake with his loot.

Kate just happy to be there. If you click on the picture you can see the runny nose she had. Still cute though!

Oldie but goodie

This is from a while back but I'm catching up so it is just now making it to the blog. Bryan has been working with Jake on memorizing his Articles of Faith for primary. He has been working really hard and has gotten # 4 down since we recorded this. They sound so cute coming from his little voice.

Happy 30th birthday to... Jessica!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a quick shout-out to my (Bryan's) favorite girl, Jessica...and yes, there are 30 exclamation marks in the title. You are the best wife and mother in the world. For instance, much like John below, you too are trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Moreover, you always do your duty to God and your country and you obey the house rules; you help other people at all times, you keep yourself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. I hate to sound like a boy scout, but you even do a good turn daily. Lastly, and on a more serious note, thank you for everything you do and I LOVE YOU!

Look how far she has come!

Leno Trip

Here is a little look into the fun Bry and I had when we went to LA a couple weeks back. It all went pretty fast but was a ton of fun. It was the first time we have both been away from the kids at the same time over night and they did great. Even just looking at the pictures again makes me appreciate having a husband that is willing to try crazy stuff and the fun time we got to have as a result!

A tribute to John Beatty

John takes time out of his busy schedule every now and then to posts comments on our blog so we would like to take a moment and tell you about this fascinating individual. John married Jessica's sister, Rachel, many, many moons ago. Make no mistake about it, John is a fantastic individual. We appreciate his humor, his vast knowledge about pop culture, how much he cares for the environment, his wit, and his garage. He is a man of many hobbies and passions and he also has a soft place in his heart for small and large animals alike. John is one of a kind and ultimately there is not enough room on this blog to tell you all the great things about him. Suffice it to say, he possesses traits such as trustworthiness, loyalty, helpfulness, friendliness, courtesy, kindness, obedience, cheerfulness, thriftiness, bravery, cleanliness, and reverence and these are just a few of the reasons why we love and admire the man we call John.

Jay Leno does not drink alcohol

I was told that Jay never has had an alcoholic drink in his life. Whether that is true or not is the million dollar question. I actually never verified with Jay so I am taking the word of one of the producers of The Tonight Show. If this producer is not yanking my chain then Jay does not drink alcohol, which means that 10out of the 13 who guessed were right. I wish everyone well and hope your March Madness brackets are doing better than mine.