The Paparazzi Are Just Relentless

~sigh~ it's such a burden.

HTD and I are famous.

:)

(in the actual printed paper version, that picture took up half of the front page of the Living section... yikes.)

Warning:

I cried for pretty much the entire four minutes.

(But it is an amazing video, so you should watch it.)

Backstory:
A son asked his father, 'Dad, will you take part in a marathon with me?'

The father who, despite having a heart condition, said 'Yes'. They went on to complete the marathon together.

Father and son went on to join other marathons, the father always saying 'Yes' to his son's request to race together.

One day, the son asked his father, 'Dad, let's join the Ironman together.' To which, his father said 'Yes'.

For those who don't know, Ironman is the toughest triathlon ever. The race encompasses three endurance events of a 2.4 mile ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, and ending with a 26.2 mile marathon along the coast of the Big Island in Hawaii.

Father and son went on to complete the race together. View this.



I have read about these guys before, but had never seen any video footage. Go here for a great Runner's World article about Team Hoyt.

Amazing.

Terrible Haute:

The Disgusta of the North.

I spent the week before last in Indiana visiting some dear friends and attending the annual med. illustrator's conference. I flew out on Saturday afternoon (the 12th) after a quick 12 mile run that morning (fun times). My friends Aunnee and Heath picked me up at the airport in Indy and drove me an hour back to their little parsonage in Terre Haute. Heath is a vicar (not the "Joey decked out in hockey gear" kind - the "going to be a pastor" kind) at a church there and Aunnee does substitute teaching for the school district. It was so good to see them! They're getting ready to move to Latvia for a year to do mission work - exciting!

It was kind of weirding me out, though - Terre Haute reminds me SO much of Augusta. Everywhere we went things just kept jumping out and saying "hey, remember Augusta?" (not literally. that would be weird. and creepy.) The city has lots of trees and vines and things. It's a little ghetto-y. They have a paper factory that smells like death. The buildings look similar. There are many mulleted people there. The list goes on...

I spent the rest of the week and weekend in Indianapolis for the conference. I saw lots of old friends and met lots of new people, which was fun. I won another award this year, and I was not in the bathroom this time (yay!). I ran 15 miles with the Indianapolis Team in Training group (ohhhh the humidity. blech.). And I went to lots of really interesting lectures and presentations. All in all it was a pretty great week in the great state of Indiana.

And Emma is still adorable. I'm going to meet her over Labor Day weekend. :)

I Would Like To Introduce You To My Niece,

Emmalyn Louise!

We call her Emma.

She's such a wee little thing. SO cute! (She sure is a sleepy little bugger, though. It must be hard work being born - I have yet to see a picture of her with her eyes open.)

As you Friends fans out there might imagine, we are thoroughly enjoying having an Emma in the family. I know just what kind of cake I'm going to get her for her first birthday. :)

(more on my week in Indiana soon)

She's Here!!!

For my very first niece (and Goddaughter), I will break my "only one exclamation point per sentence" rule.

The Stats
Time: 7:55pm
Weight: 7 lbs. even
Length: 20 3/4 in.

She doesn't have a name yet, so until tomorrow she's Baby Girl. (Which I think they should just go with - it's so creative.)

I am one very happy auntie.

:)

This Entry Brought To You By The Letter "F"

as in, "Freakin' long week."

Why, what did you think it was for?

Top 5 reasons this has been the longest week in the history of ever.
1. Having a hypothetical To Do list that could have covered 18 pages. FRONT AND BACK.
2. Putting in somewhere around 65-70 hours at work this week. What am I, a lawyer? (Sorry, Bree...)
3. Preparing two entries for the juried salon in Indy next week - printing, matting, prepping supporting materials, packaging, shipping.
4. Finding out that Keffy had to back out of going to the meeting next week. Who wants to come keep me company in Indy?
5. Having to get up at 4:00am, run 12 miles, go to a Team in Training nutrition seminar, shower, do two loads of laundry, pack for a week-long conference and three out-of-town marathon training runs, eat and get to the airport by 1:00. Oh, no wait - that's what I have to do tomorrow. Sigh.

Speaking of which...I'm off to bed.

Dang.

Blogging has just fallen by the wayside, hasn't it?

Things are busy busy busy (yes, that's three times the busy-ness) here this week. I'm heading to Indiana for 9 days starting Saturday and apparently I need to get projects finished up before I leave. Go figure. Thus, the looong work days (today was only 11 1/2 hours).

4th of July weekend was great! Well, starting at about noon on Friday, it was great. Prior to that it was just painful. HTD and I did our 10-mile long run on our own on Friday rather than practicing with the Team on Saturday so we could leave early Saturday morning to go to Flagstaff. We started running at about 5:20am, and by about 5:40 we were thinking "Holy CRAP it's hot today!" Yikes. It was a really hilly course (gotta get in that hill training for the marathon in San Fran) and it was just hotter than heck with no shade and the sun beating down relentlessly. By the time we finished (around 7:00 or 7:15 - it's blurry) it was already 95 degrees. Ugh. We were mostly recovered (albeit sore) by noonish.

That night we went to my boss' place for the annual fireworks spectacular (a la my first Independence Day in Phoenix). There was lots of good food and nice people and everyone had a merry old time commenting on how much htd and I look alike. If you say so, people. (And they do. Oh how they do.)

Saturday we went to Flagstaff and stayed with my cousin for a couple days. Oh, sweet, sweet Flagstaff. The weather was COOL - I was possibly even a little chilled a time or two. A little slice of heaven for this desert dweller. We wandered through the Art in the Park festival, spent some money in the Basement Marketplace (quite possibly one of the coolest clothing stores not located in Europe), ate quite a bit of good food, and watched some TV. Now THAT is what I call a relaxing weekend.