The following event takes place from 10:00-10:10 am.

Hi! I'm Abigail Joy!

It's for me again? I guess I have time to take it!

Oh, yes! Hi Grandpa and Grandma!

Well, I have been very busy singing songs about fishies,

practicing my dance moves, and reading about brown bears.

Can you guys tell me what the snake says?
No, no! That's what the monkey says! You guys need more practice!
Ok. Here's a joke for you. What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft?

Ha! Ha! A Flat Minor!! Ha! Ha! I'm so funny!

Oh no! We lost our connection! This must not be Verizon!
I didn't get a chance to say good-bye!

Can we call them back? ...Please!

Ohh! That's a neat camera!

Ok. It's a good thing that I'm easily distracted!

1/2 Marathon in 2:01

I couldn't have been more proud of my wife today (this one's for you, babe!). She's been faithfully training with Traci & Jocelyn (& the kiddos!) for 3 months now to run these 13.1 miles. The total mileage for the last three months has been almost exactly 150 miles (and she's been keeping pretty good track!).
When we got to the race this morning, the temp was 32 degrees. Chilly. . .but not much risk of heat stroke ;-)

Melis might add more details about how the race went tomorrow. . .but I'll just give the Cliff Notes version: it went awesome. After running with Melis in training runs, I thought that a best-case scenario might put us at about 2:05. . .but that'd be pushing it. We got to the 1/2 way mark at exactly 59:57. . .and we finished in 2:01 exactly. A pretty amazing race for the three 'cheatah's' first 1/2.
The significance of that crazy yellow bandanna? That's a part of the shirt they cut off me that I was wearing during the last 1/2M that I ran and got heat stroke. One part spite, one part redemption, and one part thankfulness for another shot at it.

The official name of this was the Valentine Marathon & Half. Hence the cheesy shirt.

A big thanks goes out to the ladies for keeping me entertained the whole race. At different points we all told stories (the childbirth comparisons lasted a little long for my liking), but the ABC song game was a little more enjoyable. Melis gives a big shout out to Abigail Joy, who put her 'stroller face' on for roughly 80 miles (including one 9 mile run), helping the Mom train.

Not a bad 31st bday.

Fireproof & Kennedy Creek

Melis & I rented Fireproof from Redbox last night. Once you get past the slightly cheesy acting, we highly recommend it. Cleared out our lacrimal systems quite nicely. My favorite quote (roughly): 'Tomato juice!?!? Man, you gotta know there are some serious repercussions to that!'

After doing our taxes this morning (yeah for refunds!), to stretch our legs, we went to Kennedy Creek. A few months ago we went there to see all the salmon coming back upstream. We saw a few very decomposed carcasses today, but otherwise enjoyed the whole area to ourselves. Abee has been enjoying 'scaring us' by poking her head around a corner and saying 'BOO'.

Matty enjoyed the stream while Abee enjoyed trying to throw rocks. She still throws like a very little girl. . .but I'm working on that ;-)
Gotta love those shaggy trees.

We were woken up at exactly midnight last night to the noise of music. It took us a minute to figure out where it was coming from, but upon closer inspection, it ended up being from Abigail's room - she must have flipped a switch on her alarm clock/radio sometime yesterday. As I opened the door to her room, I realised the music was actually a lot louder than what it sounded like from our bedroom. I was prepared to find her crying and needing a big daddy-hug. Turning off the music, I found her very much awake, but with a grin on her face & clapping her hands to the rhythm! I re-wrapped her, and she fell right back asleep. That little girl does love her music.

Lookin' Back @ '08

Here are some of our favorite nature-only pics of '08.

Recognizing Brilliance

Today in church Pastor Mark shared a story that I thought was very telling of my life. Maybe you can relate. Here's how it goes (parts of this are me summarizing, and the parts in italics are unapologetically plagiarized from here:

Two years ago an experiment was conducted. Joshua Bell, one of the finest violin virtuosos that walks the planet, dressed in average street clothes, took a 1713 Stradivarius to the subway in Washington DC. He opened his case toward the crowd, and tossed some change in just to get things going. For 43 minutes he played some of the finest and complex music that has ever tickled the eardrums of man. The acoustics of the subway station turned out to be surprisingly good, according to the man who regularly fills the biggest & most famous concert halls of the world.

During that 43 minutes, exactly 1,097 people passed by. What was the reaction? In the words of Bell himself, "It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah . . ." The word doesn't come easily. ". . . ignoring me." Bell is laughing. It's at himself. "At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change." This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute. The final tally for the nickels & dimes tossed his was was $32.17. Some people rudely even flipped a few quarters at him (not at his case).

As it happens, exactly one person recognized Bell, and she didn't arrive until near the very end. For Stacy Furukawa, a demographer at the Commerce Department, there was no doubt. She doesn't know much about classical music, but she had been in the audience three weeks earlier, at Bell's free concert at the Library of Congress. And here he was, the international virtuoso, sawing away, begging for money. She had no idea what the heck was going on, but whatever it was, she wasn't about to miss it.

Furukawa positioned herself 10 feet away from Bell, front row, center. She had a huge grin on her face. The grin, and Furukawa, remained planted in that spot until the end.

The take home metaphor is simple. How often do we fail to recognize, appreciate, & marvel at the glory of the Creator of the universe, whose Symphony is constantly being played out amongst us? For myself, I should more often sit - front and center - with a huge grin on my face and in my heart, marveling at the glorious things God is doing right in front of me.

Spoilin' da sista's @ Alderbrook

Here's the photos of our weekend at Alderbrook on the Hood Canal, a long arm of the Puget Sound about 45 NW of us. It's late, & I've had a nice, long day (just got home from presenting to the Shelton Lions Club about the Community Vision Clinic), so I'm heading to bed soon. Melis will add some color commentary tomorrow if she gets a chance.

bk's favorite non-people pic of the weekend.

New Year's in SoCal

We'd be the first to admit it, but we're pretty blessed. After spending time in Utah for Christmas, we got the chance to celebrate the beginning of 2009 in Southern California. It sure beat hanging out here in Olympia where it snowed and snowed and snowed.

The first day we were there we got picked up from LAX, and were swept away to the Reagan Reagan Library, which is really a museum, and included the real life Air Force One that was in service for 28 years, beginning in 1973. But. . .we didn't get any pics of that.

The second day (or was it the third. . .I was on vacation and could have cared less about time) we went to The Living Desert & Botanical Park, which I'd highly recommend for anyone visiting Palm Desert.
The Butterfly House was cool, but it also had all kinds of wild plants & animals from anywhere in the world that has deserts.
Anyone recognize this guy? He's what gave this sleeping med its name.
They had a small petting zoo, which mostly consisted of goats. Abee was pretty hilarious in there. She was very happy being around the goats, and didn't mind sitting right next to them, but there was no way we were going to get her to touch one. She simply refused. We wonder if it could have had something to do with her experience outlined in the second paragraph of this.

You'd think we spent some time on the Serengeti. Nope. Just Palm Desert.

Abee was a trooper, and enjoyed picking at all the bushes along the way. She even added a few more animal noises to her repertoire.

Then after seeing Marley & Me, which is a fairly good flick (the book is way better), we ate at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Riverside. Love that pasta!

Livin' it up with Gramps.

Hangin' out around the Mission Inn.

Melanie worked for quite a while on a banner for their church. It turned out great, and Mel even got a few props from the pastor during the service.

Grams (or Grams Great, from Abee's perspective) treated us to a great Sunday dinner before heading off to the airport.

If you haven't caught the weather today, it's been raining cats & dogs here in western Washington. All the rivers within 100 miles of here are at flood stage, I-5 is closed just south of us, and I-90 is closed over the passes. Our rain gauge has collected over 6 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. Last year floods caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage around here, so pray that doesn't happen again. Thankfully, our house is halfway up Tumwater Hill, so we're fine. But a lot of our friends are a little more nervous. Right now our power is flickering, so I better be done with this post. . .