Belated Birthday

Failed to post any pics that had to do with Pearl's 2nd birthday party and such. The same weekend as our marathon, we stayed in a cabin near Colorado Springs as a family and had Pearls party since both grandparent sets were there. My mom and dad kindly perservered the extra trouble and wind resistance to bring Bryan's long lost canoe to Colorado so we could use it and then keep it here.
We tried out the canoe in the local pond called, "Manitou Lake." Pearl was a little scared, but made it through the ride with only a few quiet wimpers and heart palpitations. Bry and I took it out on our own after that and got so bored of rowing the length of the pond that we resulted to ramming the cattails for fun.
We were relieved that Pearl agreed to help the boys carry the canoe, seeing as it's so heavy for them and all.

Here is our classic birthday girl pic. She is wearing her first ever backpack and is obviously loving the feel of it. She also had to be pushing her new doll stroller because that is how she spends about half her time anyway.

She got a new baby doll and studiously tried to feed it with the pretend bottle.

She was amazed at the colorful wrapping paper. Who cares what's inside!

That day, grandma and grandpa took her to the penny arcade and she was able to experience the wonder of 2 minute airplane, train, firetruck, and dumptruck rides. All her favorite vehicles.

-Nat

"Nose Off!"

This morning Pearl found Bryan's nose sitting on the night stand. She pointed to it and said, "Dad, off nose." I said, "Yes, dad's nose is off." Then she proceeded to try to pull her own nose off saying, "Nose off." I helped her try to pull her nose off and then told her it was stuck and we couldn't pull it off. I then tried to pull my nose off, and then said it was stuck too. She seemed pretty disappointed.

-Nat

Sexy Kilt Wearer

Call me bias, but I think my husband is the sexiest kilt wearer I've ever seen. He's got great legs for it. He wore a kilt for our wedding and I loved it. Anyway, we were kilt wearing at the Estes Park Scottish/Irish Festival last week and thought I'd share some pics.

We climbed up the fence and were able to get a great view of the jousting activities. Apparently jousting was founded in Scotland and the clan heads participated in it to show honor to their clans. I guess jousting today is a real sport and people get really serious about it. Their armor looked really heavy. One guy fell off his horse and had to have help to be able to move and get up again.

I made a sign for Pearl's stroller saying, "It's my birthday" because it was indeed her birthday that day. She got a few people trying to tell her happy birthday, but she basically tried to ignore them. I also got her a helium balloon which you can see her clutching in this picture. She didn't like it to float around, even if she was still holding the string. She had to have the actual balloon itself and she freaked out if she lost her grip on it. Later, the balloon -somehow- floated away while her back was turned.

We all had our own kilts. I just got mine from a friend, but Bry and Pearl's were authentic "McDonald" clan kilts from Bry's ancestry. We felt pretty cool.

Here is a video of Pearl running around barefoot in the grass. We thought she was pretty cute.

-Nat

Marathon

Anyone who thinks running a marathon is fun has lost their marbles. I have the right to say that since I just ran one on Labor Day. My first marathon was 10 years ago and I had forgotten how I had sworn never to do it again after I ran it. Kind of like child birth. This time my motivation was actually so I could have some kind of sick family bonding experience with my brother and dad. It was my crazy idea.

I half heartedly trained for it since I sort of still believed that I am invincible and didn't need much preparation. This was probably my downfall. The first 20 miles were pretty dang tough, but the last 6.2 were nearly unbearable. I wanted to amputate my legs. Seriously. Fortunately, I was able to make it within my goal time at 4 hours 40 minutes though. Yea! Dad beat me even with serious shin spint problems. Michael my brother, came from San Francisco the day before, so he had some serious altitude sickness problems during the race that involved blacking out and throwing up. He still finished though. He's so tough! The medics gave him some nice oxygen after the run, thus the nose tubes in the picture.

We had a faithful cheer squad working the route at every point they could infiltrate by car. Bryan was the head and Lee was the second in command. The squad even made a sign for us to flash as we shuffled by. Zan was the papparazzi and documented our grimaces of pain and forced smiles as we ran by. I would have gotten a worse time without the cheer squad, that's for sure.

As for future plans, I think I'm going to stick to half marathons. Not as harmful to your health, but still nice and challenging.

-Nat

Finished!

Yes, the bathroom is finally finished. Finished. That's music to my ears. Firstly, I got a new step stool for Pearl that fits nicely under the sink as well as a toilet paper holder that resides on the toilet tank.

Secondly, I used modge podge on some prints I bought and stuck them to some blocks of wood like so:
Thirdly and most proudly, I drew some designs on contact paper, cut them out and stuck them on the wall. I'm really liking the vinyl wall decal thing. I think I'm going to do this in some other rooms as well. Or even use it for Christmas presents!

Thank you for your patience in waiting for this project's completion. Yes Bryan, that's mostly to you. You are "off the hook" for now and are most likely not going to get "in trouble" for a while.

-Nat