These are a few of our Favorite Things

Scott had the last exam of his graduate school career this week. It was in his pharmacology class, so when I helped him study I could hardly pronounce all the drugs. Scott's final class will be in the hospital this summer: it will be very time consuming but it won't have a final. Hooray!

This was my last week of intense training. I ran 90 miles and ended the week with a win at the Upton 15k on Saturday. While I ran the race, Scott and Bruce played in a grassy field with a hill. Lately, Bruce has been really playing with gravity. When we go to the park or the duck pond, he finds even the smallest hill and runs up and down it dozens of times. The picture is of him running downhill, which he enjoys immensely.

On Friday, Bruce and I had quite a day. We did all of Bruce's favorite things. We went to the library and got books and videos. We went to the park by the train tracks and met up with a few friends from church - and saw two trains go by. We went to playgroup, where we got some free toys - they have a free pile of toys from other moms and employees of EI. There was a plastic track for cars with a big ramp on it: Bruce is now splitting his time between the train set and the ramp with Matchbox cars. Anyway, after playgroup we went downtown to the Public Garden and fed the geese, ran hills, and watched the zillions of dogs there. We walked down Newbury Street and bought Bruce a book and then met some friends at Niketown and bought some fancy running gear. Bruce stayed in his stroller at Niketown, but enjoyed the loud techno music. We picked up Scott on our way home. What a great day!

84, 84, 84, 84, 84, 84, 84...

I ran a 10k yesterday at Northeastern University's Spring Open track meet. I hadn't run a 10k on the track since college: yikes! In past years, the 10k at this meet has been co-ed, so I thought it'd be fun to run with the guys. About 15 minutes before the start of the race, however, the officials decided there were too many people entered so they'd have to split it into separate guys and gals races. I was a little peaved because I'd already warmed up and was ready to go. So I sat around, watched the guys start, and warmed up again.

In the meantime, Scott and Bruce wandered around the track. Bruce learned to say "race," pronounced more like "wace," and repeated that over and over again. He also chimed in with his regular chant of "go go go go mommy" during my race.

My race began and I took the lead from the start. I don't normally like doing that, but I wanted to race to break 35 minutes so I knew I had to stay right on pace. So I did. 84 seconds per lap. For 25 laps. It was a long race, but I really really wanted a personal record (my previous best was 35:01, which is forever slower than 34:59 to me). And I got it - barely. On the last lap, I knew it was close and I had to throw in a 77-second lap for an official time of 34:58.20.

Scott, Bruce and I celebrated by going out for Indian food. Bruce loves naan and has even learned the word.

March Madness

At the end of my Vegas trip, a few coworkers and I went to Red Rock Canyon for a few hours and snapped some pictures. Since we work for a camera review site, we all have pretty nice cameras and looked very touristy. We went for a hike and saw a bunch of rock climbers and even a guy that was oiling himself and doing bicep curls with rocks. My picture of him isn't very good, but I didn't want to get in his face and snap a shot and make his already enlarged ego any bigger.

Here are some highlights from the week since I've been back.

* Running 10 x 1000-meters in 3:26-30 Tuesday night after the previous night's red-eye. I'm shooting for a sub-35-minute 10k next weekend, and this workout makes me think I can actually do it.

* Celebrating National Pi Appreciation Day on Wednesday (3/14, get it?). I made Scott a chicken pot pie with the symbol for pi on top. I didn't get a picture of it because it wasn't very pretty and Scott said we have pictures from last year's "pi pie."

* Going to Activity Days on Thursday. My co-leader planned a scripture scavenger hunt (eg. a scripture about the windows of heaven would lead to a clue stuck on a window) with popcorn at the end. Best part? I didn't have to plan any of it. She's great.

* Bruce had playgroup on Friday. And while he did body-tracing, singing, and drumming, I had a productive two hours and finished up some work.

* Watching March Madness this weekend. Scott and I both filled out brackets and even though we chose different teams, I think we're doing equally bad. At least Ohio State is still in...

* We had a family date Saturday night. Scott and I went to the temple while Bruce played in the nursery, then we went to the Oasis afterwards. The Oasis is a Brazilian restaurant that has pretty amazing rice and beans. Scott got a few hunks of meat, Bruce ate rice, and I got just what I wanted: rice, beans, and plantains.

* Scott and I had three sets of missionaries over for Sunday brunch. Scott is the mission leader in our congregation, so we see a lot of the missionaries. We made zillions of waffles, vats of syrup, loads of eggs and bacon, and even some fruit. Mid-brunch, Bruce blew out his diaper and had poo running out the leg of his pants. We took a quick bath and got back in time for a dessert of pineapple-angel food cake. Yum.

PMA 2007

I was in Vegas this past week for the Photo Marketing Association trade show. Every day was pretty much the same: look at a camera, spend a few hours writing about it, look at a camera, spend a few hours writing about it, etc. I'm ready to chuck my own camera out the window and get out of this crazy town!

While I was gone, mom came and took care of my boys. Scott ate some amazing meals and Bruce got a lot of attention. He was very good for grandma, who said she's never watched a kid who you can put in a crib and tell him to close his eyes and take a nap without a problem. I've got him trained well; my camera time is when he sleeps!

Running in Vegas has been interesting. I've been getting up early and running all over despite all the creepy massage parlors and such. I'm paranoid about everything at that time of morning, so any noise really shocks me. Cat calls and car horns were not welcome. I can't wait to go back and run early mornings in Boston when people are actually asleep and not on the roads (yes, it's weird; there's a ton of traffic in Vegas at 5:30 a.m.).

The Snow is Melting

The weather here has been great the past few days. It snowed earlier this week - enough to even make a snowman. But it's been melting since, which is fine with me.

It's been a fairly low-key week for us. Relatively speaking, I suppose. Bruce has been to the duck pond twice and has been to the library too. We usually go to the library once a week; this is the first time he's been interested in the books though. He usually just plays with the toys in the kids' section, but this time he actually pulled out a few books to read. We even checked out a book about trucks and we've been reading it about four times a day.