We stopped just short of hiring a clown

In honor of her ninth birthday, Zoe enjoyed a full day today of belly rubs, booty scratches, birthday cake, presents, a ride in the car and—of course—plenty of play time. Here are some of the party pics.

The cake—baked fresh by Carrie with a recipe from "Cooking the Three Dog Bakery Way"


Presents.


More presents. (Special "Happy Birthday" tennis balls)


A happy girl.

Lookin' Fine on Number Nine

Happy ninth birthday Zoe, AKA:

Zoe Lou

Zo

Zo-Zo

Zo Boogie

Boogie

Boog

Boogie Momma

Big Momma

We love you.

Party pics to come.

What goes up must come down

Last weekend we were supposed to have house guests, but when plans fell through we found ourselves with time on our hands and no real excuse not to get something done around the house. There were a ton of things we'd been putting off for a while, but at the top of the list was a thorough cleaning of the garage (taking everything out, washing down the floors and reorganizing) and the much-needed task of putting a floor down in our attic to increase our storage space. After debating as to which job we wanted to do least, the weekend's forecast of rain decided things for us—and since the attic is really a one-man job, that meant I drew the short straw.

So after a quick morning workout (why would you want to be fresh and rested for a day of wrestling with plywood?) Carrie and I had to remove everything we had piled onto our 16 square-feet of attic floor space over the past eight years. From there, the rest of my day was spent playing John Cusack's role in Being John Malkovich while imbedding splitters in every piece of exposed skin on my body and inhaling large chunks of 60 year-old insulation.

All of that a aside, things went really smoothly and I was pretty happy with how things turned out.

So with two extra boards left over, I decided to lay a quick and dirty floor down in the attic above our garage (the other part is just off our bedroom).

Big mistake.

I should have known to call it quits when it took nearly every ounce of energy I had left just to get the boards through the opening in the garage's ceiling, but I carried on. Once I got up there, the space was a lot tighter than I thought and probably wasn't worth the effort, but I got everything in place and was ready to finish up when I needed to move a large box containing every book report Carrie wrote in the second grade along with the telephone bills from her first apartment.

That's when this happened.

To give you perspective, it's just over two feet in diameter—large enough for an adult male to fit his entire body through—although luckily I caught myself before finding out for sure.

Face plant

Park suffered his first big hazard of running yesterday. We were out playing in the front yard with the dogs and the little guy was thoroughly enjoying pushing this ride-on firetruck around and around and around in the driveway -- only stopping to get Zoe's attention (because right now, she is way cooler than any toy). All of a sudden, Park let go of the firetruck, turned to me, yelled "mommy!" and came running towards me with open arms and a huge smile on his face. Five seconds later, he hit a crack in the driveway and landed face first.

Here's Park sporting his bummed-up face and "calling" his family/friends to tell them about it.

Shelved

We've been in search of the perfect bookcase to adorn our living room for seemingly decades. During that time, everything we found was either 1) not our style—we're pretty picky or 2) not the right dimensions for the allotted space. Luckily we have some really talented friends who had a little time on their hands. We've written before about the Dennelers (Sandra's the one who can turn virtually anything into edible art and her husband Eric is an incredible woodworker/furniture maker/builder of anything Sandra can dream up). So, to make a long story short, a couple of weeks after we sent Eric a few pictures of some stuff we liked, this was anchoring some prime real estate in our home and we couldn't be happier.



To see more of the Dennelers' incredible work, please visit their blog Project Denneler.

Music to yur ears

I admit it. I'm a headphones snob. I've tried three new pairs in three months and returned all of them. When I find a pair I love, I wear them until they fall apart (kind of like the poor set Craig is still wearing that are only held together with a piece of tape -- thank God he didn't get electrocuted wearing them in the rain last Sunday!).

As a runner, there is nothing more irritating than having to adjust headphones during a run ... well, maybe getting honked at. And I'm not one of those runners that can just go out and be inspired by the sounds of nature. I'm much more inspired to run my heart out to the sounds of the Black Eyed Peas, The Kills, The Ting Tings (what is her name, anyway?) and just about anything of U2's live.

So there we were last weekend at the Houston Marathon Expo (aka, the place to pick up your race packet and lots of great freebies). I brought a new pair of headphones to wear the next day but I had only worn them once and really wasn't happy with how big the ear piece was ... yes, they were guaranteed to stay in my ears, but they were huge and didn't fit under a hat. With that in the back of my mind, I could not have been more excited to see the booth for Yurbuds -- the "official earbuds of Ironman," these little silicon miracles come in various sizes and simply fit over regular old ear buds (aka, the white headphones that come with practically every Apple product and don't stay in during workouts). These suckers lock into your ear and are sweat (and rain) proof. I was sold.

There's a rule that you don't do anything new on race day -- stick to the same pre-run food, don't wear anything new that might chafe, etc., but this was one rule I was willing to break. Craig and I both got our ears sized (oddly, we're both size 6 -- and Craig has tiny ears!) and snagged a pair. So far, it was the best purchase of the year. I didn't miss a beat of my 13.1 mile playlist and was inspired to run my best half-marathon ever. Yea for Yurbuds!

Rain, Pain and Personal Gain

We did it.

Carrie finished the Houston Half Marathon in 2:10:24 establishing a new PR (personal record) and exorcising the demons of her first Houston Half Marathon in 2005. When our paths crossed around mile five, I was ecstatic to see her with a smile on her face and running effortlessly—a testament to all of the hard work she has put in over the past 12 months.

As for me, I finished the whole marathon in 4:11:39—also establishing a new PR. And although it was still several minutes slower than what I was hoping for, I was just really happy that despite all of the pain in my knee I was able to finish.

The race itself was not without its own drama. In fact, there was some doubt as to whether or not it would it actually happen. Severe storms were in the forecast all week and as late as eight o'clock on the night before the race we were getting text messages from race officials warning about the possibility of lightning—and even hail—which would require everyone to be pulled off the course and placed in shelter. While luckily neither happened, we did run virtually the entire race in the rain with temperatures topping out in the low 70s, a stark contrast to the mid 20s we'd been training in.

This is the fourth year we've participated in the event, however it was the first time all members of CL4 (me, Carrie, Curt and Cheryl) participated together with Cheryl joining Carrie in the half and Curt setting the pace in the full. It's an incredible event, the best I've ever been a part of. It's extremely well run, fan support is great (despite the weather) and you get great swag. For running,and completing the full marathon, I got a T-shirt, a running shirt, a beer mug, a hot meal and numerous other freebies. Enough to make me want to endure training through the winter to do it again. If you're a runner looking for a future event, I highly recommend it.

Now I'm in the process of looking for my next challenge. The emotions and sense of accomplishment associated with running a marathon make it strangely addictive.

P.S., like all runs like this there were lots of funny homemade signs, my personal favorites were: "Worst Parade Ever" and "Just Don't Poop Yourself."