Nearly 3 months since our last post….whoa.
Unfortunately the sad reality is we just haven’t had the
time or energy to write up a blog in a while, but so much has happened that I
feel the need to get everyone caught up.
So where to begin? We are all still alive and kicking, with
no major injuries that I am aware of…ok, got that out of the way.
Before we play “catch up”, I would like to say that Michaela’s
grandmother (Nana) Alice passed away about a month ago. She had been battling illness
for a while and finally succumbed. She was a wonderful woman who lived a very
long, full life…fostering love for her ever-expanding family. While it was a
sad affair, we did manage to get back to Yuma for her services and I was
honored to be asked to be a pallbearer during the service. She was a sweet and
very funny lady, and I feel grateful for having the chance to know her…as well
as having Landon be old enough to remember “Little Nana” as he called her.
Also, I don’t have many pictures to show (I’ll need to get
some from my Mom), but we had a really fun Thanksgiving holiday at my Aunt Lisa’s
house. It was a much smaller affair than in years’ past, but it gave us the
opportunity to see my Mom’s family for a bit, and that was great.
As for us, it’s been a few months, but we are pretty settled
now in Cool. We absolutely love it and hope to continue the steady stream of
family and friends that come to visit us. It’s beautiful, quiet, peaceful, and
relaxing out here in the country. We see tons of deer every day, have a close
proximity to some of the best running trails in the world, and get to look out
a millions of stars every night. Who cares if we only have one restaurant and
one stop sign (no stop lights) in our town!
Landon has been rolling with all these changes like a
trooper. While he isn’t a huge fan of “the wind-y” or as he now calls it “the
canyon” (which is our very windy road that you have to take to get into our
little town), he doesn’t have to drive it very often and we haven’t had a car
sick incident in months. He has spent the past few months making friends at
Cool Care, a local pre-school that services a wide range of ages for the
community. After a few months of living in the house, we randomly found out one
day that one of Landon’s best buds from school, Sean, lives directly across the
street from us! That was a huge score for him and us, as they are constantly
getting together at each other’s houses for play dates on weekends.
Speaking of Landon’s school, while we have really enjoyed
having him at Cool Care, the local Elementary school offers a Pre-K option so
Landon will be starting that in January. That means that every morning he will
go to an extended stay program at the school for an hour, then he’ll be in the
Pre-K class for the next 5 hours, getting used to what Kindergarten is like,
with the structure, teachers, etc. After school he’ll go back to the extended
care program for a few hours until we can get off of work to pick him up. He is
pretty excited to go to “big boy school”, and we are a little freaked out by
the fact that our son is going to a real elementary school already! But he’s
more than ready to go, so I can’t wait to see how he develops in the coming
years.
Michaela is still loving her job at Fleet Feet. She just
finished an 18-week program of coaching a large group of runners that were
training for the California International Marathon. Considering the group
started a few weeks after her Western States run, she really hasn’t taken much
time off from running in 2012. Her group went really well and I think she is
excited to be able to get back out on the trails to train “for herself” for a
bit. She is also getting more comfortable with her commute and living up in the
country really suits her well.
Since we’re talking about running, we are currently figuring
out what we’ll be racing in 2013. The original plan was for me to run Western
States 100 like Michaela did last year, but unfortunately that was a lottery
selection where my odds were 7.9% chance of being selected (which I was not).
So I’m moving on to my plan B. Michaela and I will both be running Way Too Cool
50K (basically right across the street from our house) in March, then I’ll run
Lake Sonoma 50M in April. I may still try to run a 100M race in San Diego in
June, but the lottery for that race doesn’t open until February so I won’t know
for a while. Any way you cut it, it should make for some great times on the
trails in the coming months.
As for me, my job continues to challenge me in many ways.
Since taking over as the Director for my team, I have traveled way more than I
expected (I think I’ve traveled something like 7 of the 10 weeks I’ve been in
the role). This week I get to go to Indianapolis for a few days, come home for
a day or two, then travel to Tucson. This is one trip where you won’t find me
complaining though, as I get to meet up with my great friend Dave and he and I
are going to the Arizona vs. Florida basketball game (two top 10 teams should
be amazing)!
After that stretch, I think I get to hang up my wings for a
while and spend some quality time at home with the family for the holidays. I’m
looking forward to a nice long vacation, followed by some more work excitement
as my company is moving to Folsom, CA which should cut my commute time in half (and
provide me access to some nice running trails at lunch)!
Can you believe that it’s Christmas time already? Landon
helped me put up our lights right after Thanksgiving, and our fake tree went up
shortly thereafter. Here’s a fun fact, cats are not fun around Christmas
trees. So far that damn kitten has broken several ornaments, plus he likes to
climb up to the top of the tree and stare out of it, waiting to scare the piss
out of you when you walk by. Landon tried to get him out of said tree at one
point, and ended up pulling the whole freaking thing down (breaking even more
ornaments). So that’s been awesome.
This past weekend we had some more holiday fun. While
Michaela and Landon had a fun date (they went to go see the Nutcracker ballet
in Auburn, where apparently Landon loves the Rat King!), I braved the crowds at
the mall to do some Christmas shopping. Afterwards we went to a local (and VERY
country) Christmas tree farm where we proceeded to pick out Landon’s first real Christmas tree. We also cut it down by ourselves, which was a
first for Michaela and I as well. Santa and Mrs. Claus were there, and it was a
really fun experience that I’m already looking forward to repeating next year.
So now you’re nice and caught up with us. We hope you all
have a happy holidays and a fantastic new year! We’ll do our best to stay a tad
more current on this here blog…
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