Of biking and corn mazes

One day when Bry came home from work, he fell into a trap that Pearl had rigged using the pack and play to make sure that he would never leave her again.

We took Pearl to a corn maze yesterday. Luckily she survived the ordeal because we ended up taking a lot of the cheater trails the people had blazed through the corn to make it through faster. She was constantly amazed at the sounds the corn would make when the wind blew.

She found a covered wagon near the maze and insisted on going inside, calling it a "bus."

Pearl is also recently very fascinated with her bike and helmet. She won't use the peddles, but instead scoots along with her feet up and down the sidewalks. When she wants to ride, she points to the door that goes to the garage and says, "I widy a bike?" and "hemet?"

-Nat

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