Are you being nice?

Maddie Sue

Maddie Sue had her 18 month check-up today. She weighed 22 lbs (was in the 12th percentile) and was 29 1/2" tall (3rd percentile). What a shrimp!

She's uses a few new words now, climbs anything & everything she can prop your little body onto, and even slides the kitchen chairs to her desired destination to help her reach new heigths. She always keeping us hopping.

Our little Dare Devil

First taste of cotton candy...

National Guard Marathon

I was fortunate enough to have the National Guard fund a trip to the Lincoln Marathon earlier this month. The National Guard uses this marathon as a recruiting tool and teams from all 50 states took turns manning the recruiting booth at the marathon expo.

This was my second marathon and I was expecting to get around the same time since I did not train as much and missed a full week of training due to strep throat a few weeks before. However, I learned a lot from my previous marathon, which helped me tremendously. First, I ate a lot more for breakfast to provide me more energy. Second, I started nice and slow with my first four miles averaging 8 minutes a mile. My first marathon, I started out too fast and was constantly being passed on the last half of the marathon. This time I followed what my body was telling me and instead of being passed in the last half, I was doing the passing. My last 10K ended up being faster than my first 10K. I was surprised at how good I felt. I did not start hurting until the last couple of miles. I finished with a time of 3:18:21, which was 23 minutes faster than my first marathon. It was an average pace of 7:35 a mile.

Thank you Lona for the support and for being without her husband for the weekend. I know it wasn't easy.

Finishing at the 50 yard line of the Nebraska Cornhusker stadium was a real treat. They had our finish up on the jumbotron so you could watch yourself as you were finishing.