Joe and Brigitte

It’s been a while since we have updated on how things are going.  Emma is growing like a weed, last time I checked she weighed 12 pounds and was 22 inches long.  We will see how big she is once we go to her 2 month doctors appointment.

Some of her (our) favorite past times is playing Kitty Cowgirl and hanging out with the Fubuki.

Joe is once again in India, he just arrived home from India 9 days ago, but this time his trip is over his first Father’s Day ever, poor guy.  Emma (with my help) snuck a fathers day card into his luggage.  So hopefully that made his day a bit better.

Other than that not a whole lot going on in our household.  We hope that everyone has a Happy Fathers Day! 

Emma (Father's Day '09)

For Christmas Joe and I promised Jessica a day of horseback riding.  Since the weather was just about perfect yesterday, we picked her up and brought her to our friends Ron and Tracies house where she was able to spend the day playing on the ‘farm’.  Jessica rode a tractor, helped plant a garden and of course was able to go horse back riding. 

Jessica told us that morning that she had been on a horse only once before at camp, someone had lead the horse around with Jessica on top.  Well yesterday she went from someone leading her around, to her riding on her own and finally to her being comfortable enough to just mess around on top of the horse.  I believe she had a wonderful time and she seems like a natural.  Hopefully we will be able to have a day like that again.

Second time ever on a horse

Riding solo

Kisses from Fancy

Jessica getting comfortable on Fancy

I have been meaning to write a short race report for the Fargo Marathon for a few days, but haven’t quite gotten to it yet. So here goes.

I ran the half marathon again this year, and despite not getting in as much training as last year, my performance was much better. Unlike last year’s race that involved a lot of running and walking, I was able to run this year’s race without walking until I hit a wall at 11.8 miles. I tried to run the rest of the race as much as possible, but I walked about 50% of the rest of the race. Before that I was running a 9 minute/mile pace according to my GPS.

Even though I didn’t quite meet my goal of finishing in under 2 hours, I am still very happy with the results. I set a new personal record by over 15 minutes!

2008:    2:18:50 finish, 10:36 pace, lots of walking

2009:    2:02:35 finish, 9:22 pace, very little walking

If I am able to settle into a good training regimen, I intend to run a full marathon this fall, most likely in Bismarck. I also plan on running at least one more 1/2 marathon this year, and will hopefully shatter the 2 hour goal that has been eluding me.

Here’s a picture at around 6 miles in, still looking good. (I’m 11837, and my friend Dan is 13648)