Grand Rapids Marathon 2009

Cheri & I after the race

The morning of the marathon, I woke early.  I drank some coffee and continued deliberating in my mind what pace team I was going to try to stick with.  The pace teams are separated by celebrities marathon race times.  If you’re only doing the half marathon, you can divide it in half to see your ending time.  I was stuck between Will Ferrel’s time and P. Diddy. 

Precocious

Apparently, the housing market is so good that even Emma is looking for her first home. 

It started about 2 wks ago.  The house across

My granola don’t crunch

I might be on the verge of becoming a tree hugger.  While the likelihood seems impossible, I feel the stirrings of it beginning.  In my constant quest of becoming and evolving into the better me, I feel myself dipping into the stereotype.  It just might be an inevitable turn of events.

It started with an intriguing book

Refinement

For a short time, approximately 3yrs ago, we owned the house next door.  We already had a rental on the north end of town, but this house would be to ‘flip’.  Buy it cheap, fix it fast and sell it quicker.  We had a solid game plan when we purchased it but without a psychic friend Cabrina, we had no way of knowing

In pursuit of a family picture

We decided to take advantage of Holland’s 4th of July celebration yesterday since we are going to a friend’s party today.  I really didn’t want the kids to miss out on the big fireworks and the family time spent alone together. 

While there, we tried to take a family picture with the aid of the self timer in the camera.  We set the timer for 10 seconds & didn’t realize that it took 3 rapid shots in a row.  Now, any family picture normally takes a few tries but here is our progression.

Attempt #1

The painted turtle experience

One night in Ludington, we decided to take the kids down and build a campfire for s’mores after dinner.  Dan was reluctant to go fishing and leave me to this task alone. I think he was having flashbacks to my previous ‘camping’ failure.  After much reassurance that I could handle it, he left to go find some fish.

Now, I can do a lot of things and if need be, I’m sure I could have figured out how to make s’mores happen but

Edumacated

 

Dan, Emma, Gerrit & I are sitting in a Burger King after Emma’s state competition this past Saturday.  As we ‘encourage’ them to eat faster so we can make the hour long trek back home… this conversation unfolds:

Emma looking next to her at the window: “Ew… a bug!”

Me: “Emma, don’t be such a baby.  It’s just a bug”

Emma realizing that it’s not on the inside: “Oh, it’s outside the window“

Me: “Great… then eat“

We continue with our lunch but Dan & I stop dead in our tracks when

And you still want to marry each other?

Last Wednesday was Dan’s & my anniversary.  9 years officially married but 14years together.  It seems like a lot until I look at his parents… married 41 years.  What a tremendous accomplishment!

While driving up to Ludington, we talked about our journey.  How far we’ve grown and recognizing all the evolutions we’ve had along the way.  We’ve changed a lot in the last 14 years but we’ve managed to change together.  That’s important to us. 

Since we were in Ludington, Dan had asked his mom if we could leave the kids that night to have dinner together.  I requested that we go to the beach to watch the sunset and