Toward the end of January, we celebrated my dad’s 65th Birthday. As a tribute, I (with the help of my mom) put together a slideshow of his 65 years to run in the background at the party. Here is that slideshow.
Warning: It’s about a 20 minute slideshow, so grab a cup of coffee.
Happy birthday, Dad! I hope I look that good at 65! May this be your best year yet!
So I’ve been jogging lately. It’s a good form of exercise, a good way to relieve stress, and a good way to push myself into doing something I never thought I was capable of.
See, I’m not a runner. Actually, I think it’s safe to say that I’m not an ATHLETE. I can’t think of a single sport in high school P.E. that I remotely excelled in. Swimming, maybe, but that’s because most of the girls in my class were pretty bad swimmers.
But I’ve always hated running. In high school, we had to run a mile each week during P.E. It took everything I had to make it around that 1/4-mile track ONE time. I usually felt that my lungs were going to give out on me afterward, despite the fact that I had walked about 3/4 of the mile. My personal best time was 12+ minutes, and I remember being pretty near death after that one.
The other thing that has always prevented me from running is the fact that I have bunions, so I can’t use my big toes too much or else it’s hard to walk the next day.
Today, I ran a mile. An entire one. Without stopping, even once. My time was somewhere around 11 minutes, according to the clock on my iPhone.
And when I finished that mile, I continued to run 2 more miles, walking only about 15% of the time.
Now, I know an 11+ minute mile isn’t anything spectacular. This guy I know just ran a 5K in under half an hour, while pushing 2 kids in a stroller. But I couldn’t help thinking how at almost 30 years old, and 20 pounds heavier, I’m apparently in better shape (muscle-wise, anyway) than I was in high school.
And how even at this stage in life, I can push myself to accomplish something that I used to believe I would never be capable of.
As always, my moment of glory passed quickly. Shortly into mile #2, I tripped over a ridge in the sidewalk and totally ATE IT on the pavement. As in, belly flop onto the ground - my knees never got the chance to catch me. My hands, thigh and lifeline iPhone paid the price. As did my pride.
I never did that in high school either. I guess some things do get worse with age.
He came. He saw. He devoured.
Several people have reminded me that I’m a little behind on this site… so I’m trying to catch up. Things have been a little, um, crazy around here lately.
We had Kaelin’s birthday party at the Wiggly Play Center this year. It’s the first time I’ve ever outsourced a birthday party. For the most part I was pleased, though I will note that WPC’s idea of a “Party Host” is not the same as MY idea of a Party Host.
That said, it was great to be able to show up to the party without having to prepare anything ahead of time. And Kaelin had a great time playing around with her friends, eating cake, and totally ignoring her pizza.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t in the highest spirits because she started coming down with whatever illness Koren had brought home most recently and passed around the family. I was still recovering from it and had very little voice, so I kept having to use Jens as my loudspeaker. Kaelin’s voice started to fail her almost immediately and by later in the day she had a fever. Pretty crummy deal to get sick on your birthday. Still, she had as good a time as could be expected under the circumstances.
We had 12 kids in attendance, which was more than we were expecting, but the WPC only charged us for 10 kids, which was nice. Kaelin was thrilled to see all her good friends from school, church and the neighborhood. And Koren had the time of his life being the busiest little busy-pants in the world. He came home and slept for 3 hours, which - in his world - is virtually unheard of.
And now, for the pictures*, which you have to log in to see because of the whole “putting pictures of other people’s kids on the internet” thing:
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