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A couple of weeks ago I changed our blog so that if you wanted to leave a comment you had to sign in. I did this for a couple of reasons, but mostly because we were getting a lot of "anonymous" comments that were written as if we should automatically know who they were from, but more often than not we didn't. I had hoped my little tweak would solve the problem, but it created a new one—people stopped commenting all together. I did a little checking and I'm guessing the drop off was due to a lot of people not having Google accounts. So rather than asking everyone to do something they may not want to do, I'm switching it back so that you don't have to sign in. That said, please comment when you feel like it and if you can, sign your name. We love hearing from you, it helps us not feel like we're talking to ourselves (we do enough of that when we're not on the computer).

Thanks,

The management

Bragging rights

Since Craig is too modest to brag about his marathon of an achievement Sunday, I will.

The marathon scene is nothing new to Craig. And unfortunately, being injured during training and the actual race was nothing new either. But Sunday, his third marathon and his first attempt at the one in Wichita, was different.

Throughout the 18 weeks of training, Craig was plagued with one injury or another ... or a whole bunch at once. I'm pretty sure his IT band was causing him issues before he ever started. In fact, I think he waited to register up until the last minute to see if his IT band was up for the challenge. Then there was the calf ... make that two calves that tightened up several weeks ago. The achilles. The groin. And don't forget the shoulder (not actually caused by running, but it counts.). While all of this was bad enough, the poor guy caught Park's cold three days before the race. The guy had it bad. But he still ran.

So, with kinesio tape covering his outer and upper thigh, calves and ankles, and compression socks for extra support, Craig set out to conquer 26.2 miles on Sunday with two goals in mind (one he would talk about - 4 hours - and another he kept to himself).

At the starting line, with 4,600 other runners, Craig joined up with a pace group for the first time to see if he could achieve the "secret" goal of 3:45. Oh, the stories he had from that ... like one of the pacers dropping out of the group at mile 6. Thank goodness there was a back-up. But he stayed with the group, and Craig's fan club (Park, grandpa Sam, grandma Barbie and I) were thrilled to see him looking strong along the way.

While running a marathon is no easy feat, being a spectator has it's own challenges, too. There's the stress of making sure you get to the next viewing point before the runner, meandering around closed roads and holding up signs. We had lots of fun (and were as exhausted as Craig afterward)!

In the end, the pain and exhaustion was worth it. I couldn't have been more proud of the two guys in my life -- Craig for achieving a huge challenge with the odds stacked against him and Park for admiring his daddy so much that he told me he wanted to run a race, too.

For those of you keeping track, Craig finished just a few minutes later than his public goal at 4:07. Yes, he's disappointed. Really disappointed. But he has nothing to be down about. He had his personal best and beat the odds. And not only was he walking upright afterwards, he got a bitchin' blood blister to show off with his medal.

Congratulations, Craig! We couldn't be prouder of you.

Carrie

On the route? Give me a shout.

That is if I can make it three days without my cold progressing or getting hurt any more hurt.

Planes, trains and … well, I guess that was it.

Last weekend we took advantage of having Hagen and Cheryl in town (Curt had to stay behind and work) to celebrate my dad's birthday a few days early. We kicked things off with our weekly trip to the Benton Airport for lunch then headed back to the new house for some surprise festivities.

But before we could get started a little swinging was in order.

Then things kicked up a notch when we moved over to the tire swing.

At some point this seemed like a good idea.

Then the kids surprised Grandpa with his present—a trip next year to Colorado to ride a train through the Rockies (which means we have 12 months to listen to him talk about it).

After that, there was some singing.

And a birthday kiss (luckily that came before she got to the cake).