Birthday Party Video

Twenty three minutes of pure cuteness, courtesy of Grandma's Filming, Inc.

Jonathan's Birthday Party Video

Jonathan's Second Birthday Party

This afternoon both grandparents showed up to celebrate Jonathan's birthday. Technically speaking, we were celebrating both John's and Jonathan's birthday, but you can guess who received all of the gifts and attention.

Julia kept the party rolling, making sure we opened presents as soon as possible. Jonathan opened his play lawnmower first...after that, he wasn't interested in opening any of his other gifts. He played with it for awhile, pushing it back and forth around the basement. Stacey and Julia had to open the rest of his presents for him while he played with his new toy. When we brought down his Little Tikes Truck, he quickly shifted gears and played with that and his lawnmower the rest of the day.

Jonathan took a few bites of cupcake after figuring out how to pick it up without getting frosting on his hands. It was funny to watch him try to pick it up, get his hands dirty with frosting, then want the napkin. Once we cut it up for him so that he could eat the cake portion, he did pretty well.

You could tell that loved the attention, the party, and his new toys. We loved watching him having fun and being the center of attention. His sweet little personality and hilarious characteristics were on full display. 

Two Fingers

He won't for Mom, but he'll stick up two fingers for sister...

Happy 2nd Birthday Jonathan!

Party to follow this weekend...

I took the day off to be at home with the family on Jonathan's second birthday. We spent some time together, ran some errands, and enjoyed a two hour thunderstorm in the evening. I can't help but think how good looking the kids are. We are blessed that they are just as intelligent and good natured as well.

Here's to a great third year of life, wild man.

Scrapper

Jonathan is at such a fun, yet tough age. He's stubborn and strong-willed, yet that same passion means he gets excited about everything. Some of his favorite things to get excited about are big trucks and construction equipment. Nowadays, whenever we take him in the car, we can count on him pointing and yelling "Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad!" over and over again, until we can get his attention and acknowledge the big truck, moving van, or crane he saw. Since Powers boulevard is currently under construction, he gets to see everything that his little heart desires each trip out. At first it was cute, but after a few times of non-stop excitement and constantly hearing my name, I'm considering taking alternate routes to get to where we're going. It's hard to avoid the common pickup truck though. 

He is so different then Julia in so many ways. He really is a handful. He'll go right up to the line you've told him not to cross (for example, the street), and seemingly intentionally, just hang his toes over it. He never listens, although he knows what we're saying. Sometimes we have to tell him three times or physically pick him up if he's not ready to do something and we need to move on. On the flip side, he's all about anything that makes a loud noise, like a lawnmower, motorcycle, the vacuum, etc. Did I mention that he climbs INTO his cribs and UP the changing table. Anything that site higher then the floor is an excuse to catch some air. His little legs have the scrapes and scuffs to prove it. 

Even though his energy is sometimes exhausting, those days when you're ready to play he's been great to have around. He's only turning two this week, but for months he's always been up for a good wrestling match. He's small, but he's a scrapper. I guess his Dad and Mom are too...

Zoo Kayaking

Characters welcome...

Weight Watchers

Jonathan had a few checkups today. His height and weight, 80 centimeters and 10 kilos, are still following the third percentile on the growth curve for his age. What's interesting is that he's actually somewhere between the 25th and 50th percentile on the growth curve for height to weight. This means that although he's small for his age, he's perfectly proportional.  In other words, he's turning out to be a normal, just small, kid.

Bolder Boulder

This weekend we left the kids with my parents and headed up to my old stomping grounds for the 2012 Boulder Bolder 10K. A group of girls from our old Sunday School class decided to run it this year. For the past few months the girls had been running together on the weekends to get in shape for the race. All of the other guys, except for me, watched the kids while the girls ran.  I hadn't run a race in 10 years, nor do a I recall running this long, since the 2002 Bloomsday 12K in Spokane. Like Bloomsday, this year there were approximately 47,000 timed finishers that ran the Boulder Bolder.

On Saturday night the girls got together for some spaghetti and to make their matching tie dye shirts. I was feeling a bit under the weather so I stayed home with Jonathan. The next day we dropped off the kids and took the scenic route to Westminster, where we stayed the night. We all went out to dinner and it was nice to watch (and laugh) at all the other families trying to eat and wrangle their kids at the same time while we enjoyed a nice dinner. We tried not to laugh too hard, because although it was entertaining, we certainly felt their pain.

The runners all piled into a car this morning and were taken to the runner drop off by Dwight, Brittany's husband. We all were going to meet in section 115 in the stadium after the race. I was in an earlier wave then the girls and I wanted to give them their own time, so I left them and walked to the start by myself. I ended up getting to the start with the KBCO (local radio station) wave, and at 8:25 a.m. they fired the gun and we were off and running.

The course was pretty flat and at about 1,500 feet less then where we live, so that definitely helped. However, since we all hadn't run a race in quite some time we weren't able to qualify and spent the entire race looking for our next hole in the pack to get around the kids and joggers. There was great support along the way. People had made snacks and had sprinklers out and a few even had a slip and slide set up for those less then serious participants. I ran slightly faster then I had expected, considering I had only really been running half the distance once or twice during the week as part of my regular fitness routine (read: I didn't bother training). In the end I only finished two and a half minutes slower then when I ran the course 12 years ago in college and had been training for it. My pace today was faster then 10 years ago at Bloomsday. Stacey finished almost exactly where she thought she would.

Aaron

Ran the course in 53 minutes and some change. I averaged 7 miles per hour, or, in other words, ran about 8:39 pace per mile. I finished in the top 15% of all runners. More fun though, I finished seventh for 34 year old males from Colorado Springs.

Stacey

Ran the course in 61 minutes and some change.  She averaged slightly over 6 miles per hour, or, in other words, ran about a 9:51 pace per mile. She finished fifth for 35 year old females from Colorado Springs.

Considering we didn't really take this that seriously, we're pretty happy with our results. Neither of us really trained for it nor are we distance runners (yet). Seeing how well we did compared to others makes us want to take it a little more seriously next year. Running is one of those sports where it seems like you can get faster with age, up to a certain point.

After the race we got our goodie bags and free beer, and settled down in the stadium to watch the women's and men's elite race and Memorial Day tribute (including parachuters and a flyby from two F-18s). I went down to the field and got some good footage of Stacey finishing up the race (first video) and to get some footage of others (second video). Stacey's video is a great example how hard it was to dodge the people and kids that sometimes were a little unpredictable. We had a really good time and hope to do it again next year.

Squeezeworthy

Herbs And Buds