A Good Guess

The stupid time change is still messing with the kids' sleep, but it spurred a pretty good quote from Henry last night. He was totally exhausted as I (Dad) was reading him his bedtime stories. I saw him squinting and trying to keep his eyes open before he said:

"I have to close my eyes while you're reading. Do you know why?"

Me: "Is it because you're tired?"

Henry: "I don't know, but that's a good guess."

My First Half Marathon

Laura and I have both been running relatively short distances for several years now, and have done a handful of races between 2—4 miles. Laura has had a goal to do one marathon in her life for awhile, but I wasn't sure I'd ever increase my mileage much beyond 4-6. But this spring, I had the drive to run more often and for longer distances. I couldn't wait for the seemingly never-ending winter weather to go away so I could run outside comfortably. When spring finally arrived, I felt strong on my runs, and slowly started adding miles. On April 27, I went over 6 miles for the first time. A month later, I hit 7. Laura and I both started considering the Twin Cities 10 miler on October 5. We weren't ready to sign up for sure, but I formed a goal to get up to a 10 mile run in the fall whether it was at an official race or just on my own.

I got into a routine of roughly increasing a long weekend run by half a mile each week or two. Things went so well that I hit my 10 mile goal much earlier than I expected (August 10), and I started considering signing up for a half marathon. The Kansas City half on October 19 looked like a great excuse to make a trip home. I was on the fence about it for quite awhile, but finally pulled the trigger and signed up in mid September.

my weekend training
(and race-day) runs

And now the race is over, and I'm still glad I signed up for it! It went great. I very consciously started slow, not letting race day adrenaline or the natural tendency to stay with the pack speed me up. After a couple of miles, I tried to speed up to my goal pace of 10:00/mile. I thought I did, and settled into that pace for a long time. It turned out I was running a little slower than that, but I only checked my pace on my Nike+ running app a couple of times, and both times I checked it said I was actually going a little faster than that, so I thought I was good. I was unfortunately closer to 10:30 between mile 3 and 10.

I got a mid-race boost by stopping to hug and say hi to my cheering family around mile 7, and Laura and Frances also cheered me on at mile 10. I sped up for realsies at mile 10, and my last three miles went 9:26, 9:12, and 9:07. A strong finish, but my overall time was slower than I expected. My official time was 2:17:29, with a 10:30 pace. According to Nike+, I did 13.5 miles at a 10:14 pace. For a recreational runner like myself, the time shouldn't really matter that much, especially for my first one, but there is still a little nagging disappointment that I went a little slower than I know I could have. But just doing it is all that really matters, and I'm still a little surprised that I actually did. Even less than a year ago, a half didn't seem possible.

Laura and I are already scoping out races for spring and fall 2014, and I definitely want to choose another half to push myself harder in next year.

Just A Little Franny Boogie

First Day Of Kindergarten

Big day for Hanky. It went well from what we can tell, though he doesn't really want to talk about it in much detail. It started out a little frazzled for me because we ended up running a little late. I didn't allow enough time for Henry to brush his teeth, forgetting how much he can dilly dally in the bathroom. I still thought we were OK on time until we hit the traffic lineup to get into school. My car showing that it was completely out of gas did not help my state of mind. It took forever to get in, and we walked into his classroom a few minutes late, which was no big deal, but I felt stupid. All the frazzledness kind of prevented me from getting too emotional about it all. I was nervous about stupid little procedural things, like if I was supposed to walk him all the way to his room or not, and how picking him up would work exactly. I'd gotten a little wistful about it the night before, so maybe I got it out of my system. I was mostly just nervous for him, hoping it would go fine and that the Spanish immersion thing doesn't throw him for a loop too much at the beginning.

His school day is only 2.5 hours long, so after Franny and I went to Target and watched Sesame Street, it was pretty much already time to pick him up. He told me had a good day and that he didn't use any of his school supplies. Trying to piece together his day, I know that the first thing he did was color this:

Then his teacher, Senorita Morsch, did a lesson that involved a calendar (perhaps going through the names of the days of the week), and drew a one on the board and said, "uno." Then they lined up, washed their hands, and played on the playground. I think a playground assistant went through the rules with them, because he said there are a lot of rules on the playground. And he can't remember what he did between the playground and me coming to get him. I asked if he had fun, and he said, "I wouldn't exactly call it fun, but it was OK."

He had a bit of homework in which he had to reflect on his first day by filling in some blanks. Here are his answers, in bold:

Today was my first day of school. I felt great. I wore gray pants and a colorful, plaid button-up. My dad brought me to school. My teachers name is Srta Morsch. My friend _____ is in my class (he doesn't know anybody in his class yet). The first thing we did was color. Then we watched a screen. The part of the day I liked the best was when we played on the playground but I did not like standing up. Tomorrow I hope we will play on the playground again.

August Vacations

Sunday August 18: All four of us drove up to Big Sandy Lake to a townhouse Dean & Val rented for them, Renae's fam, Phil & Emily, and us. While Laura & Renae prepared dinner, the rest of us headed down to the beach for some swimming, wading, and fun in the sand.

After the kids were in bed, the adults played card games.

Monday, August 19: For Dean's birthday, Phil, Laura, and I took him golfing in the morning, where we had a great time. Laura even got her first birdie! Most of the adults then checked out a winery, then it was time for some fishing on the dock.

After dinner and bedtime for the kids, it was time for more games for the adults.

Tuesday, August 20: Laura, Dean, and Benjamin rented a boat and spent a long morning on the lake fishing. Renae, Malcolm, Ruby, Franny, Henry, and me headed to the beach for some more swimming. After the fishers got back, Dean took Benjamin, Malcolm, Henry, and me for a quick spin on the boat. After a lazy afternoon, we took a stroll around the Lodge, had some dinner, and played some more card games.

Wednesday, August 21: Our family had a 5:00 AM wake-up in order to hit the road and get Henry and me to the airport for our flight to Kansas City where for part two of our vacation. After saying goodbye to the ladies, we had an easy flight, and were greeted by Grammy and Great-Granddaddy at the airport. We went out to lunch in Liberty, then visited Uncle Tom at his house before heading to Grammy's house.

Thursday, August 22: This was our day to spend with Jenny and her girls before their family headed out of town on a vacation of their own. We played at the playground for a bit before going to the Lakewood beach, where the kids had a blast.

 We hung out at Grammy's during the afternoon before Poppy and Rob joined us for dinner.

Friday, August 23: We headed to our old KC house so I could mow the yard in the morning while H and Grammy played at Holmes Park. Then we headed to our favorite coffee shop in the world, The Roasterie, which I say has the best coffee in the world and H says has the best Italian sodas. Then we met Poppy for lunch. In the afternoon we tried and failed to find Henry some new rollerblades.

Saturday, August 24: Poppy and Henry had a fun morning at the Paradise Park arcade. I headed to Oklahoma Joe's to pick up a delicious lunch for us all. Grammy and Henry headed back to the beach for more swimming, then we all headed to Kauffman Stadium to watch the Royals lose. At least they looked good in their Monarchs throwback uniforms. Henry loved the outfield play area as usual, but was also happy to sit in his seat longer than he ever had been before.

Sunday, August 25: We checked out the new(ish) aquarium at Crown Center and took a stroll over to Union Station. That evening friends Dan and Flo Rosenfield came over for dinner and to deliver the DVD of my Jackie Robinson presentation that Dan had kindly prepared. 

Monday, August 26: We enjoyed a morning at Deanna Rose with John, Sarah, and kids before picking up a U-Haul and not enjoy loading up the remaining junk from our KC house in some wicked heat.

Tuesday, August 27: Hanky and I had an uneventful drive home, where we very happy to see Franny & Laura after a week apart. See how excited he was?

Hanky's Broken Arm

The extended Stilley clan gathered in Breckenridge, CO this June for a week together. Things got off on the wrong foot when baby Abby got altitude sickness and Rob's whole family had to turn right back around and head home. The rest of us managed to have some fun despite missing them, and on our last day in CO our family plus Grammy and Poppy decided to do a bike ride to Frisco. Hanky did great until the very end when the usually gentle trail suddenly got very steep and curvy. 

6/28/13

Laura had warned him to brake, but for some reason he took the turn at full speed. He wiped out bad, and was screaming, "My arm! My arm!" when we came to him. Laura got to him a little before I did, and immediately thought he had a fracture. I felt panicked, but thankfully Laura went into doctor mode. We took Franny out of her trailer, put Henry in, and Laura biked him to the ER that was luckily about 100 yards away. (The same ER Abby had visited earlier in the week.)

He was in a lot of pain until the x-ray tech moved his arm a certain way and he was suddenly much better. The doctors realized the pain was actually from "nurse-maid's elbow," which is a nice way of saying a dislocated elbow. It's painful until it's popped back in. So there was hope at this point that there wasn't actually a fracture, but the x-rays revealed there was a buckle fracture in his radius close to the wrist. Buckle means that it sort of collapsed on itself as opposed to pointing in different directions. As far as fractures go, it was a fairly minor one. They put a temporary splint on him and sent us home.

later that day at our Breckenridge rental

It was a very intense and unpleasant couple of hours, but his pain mercifully did not last long, thanks to his elbow being put back in place and getting some strong medicine in him. We had a two-hour drive to the Denver airport the next morning, and Henry had a little more fun with some car sickness. Those mountain roads can make anyone carsick, and we think his pain meds may have made it worse. He wanted to drink a lot of water, which he ended up puking in the rental car. Needless to say, we were relieved to finally make it to the airport, where he felt much better. After getting a special test on his splint courtesy of the TSA, we had an uneventful flight back home. We made an appointment to go see Laura's cousin Amanda at the orthopedist's office where she works, and she put on a fluorescent yellow cast of Henry's choosing. (He wanted it to glow in the dark, and was disappointed when it didn't.)

7/1/13

He didn't have any discomfort with the cast to speak of, which was a relief. He never even complained of itching. I was amazed how good natured he was about having it on. But it was still a bit of a tough month because he couldn't be active. We unfortunately missed t-ball for the year, which he and I had both been looking forward to since I was to be a coach. The kids and I all got a little stir-crazy at times, but overall the cast ended up being less of a hassle than I had feared. He had full use of his fingers which helped a lot.

We got the clear to get rid of the cast exactly one month after it was put on with the good news that his arm healed perfectly. It hurt him to move his wrist for the first few minutes after the cast was off, but he recovered quickly.

8/1/13

He wanted to get on his bike the very same day, which made me nervous, but not him! Despite my nerves, I was proud of him for wanting to hop right back on.

And that evening we had a celebratory picnic and swim at Bryant Lake Beach.

Franny's First Haircut

Franny's hair has been getting in her eyes for awhile, and she's not crazy about leaving in hair bands, so she went in for her first hair cut today. We went to a kids specialty place, which ended up being a good idea because she liked watching Rapunzel on TV and didn't fuss the slightest bit. A furrowed brow was the biggest reaction she had. Not too much came off--just some bangs and a little length in the back to give her an adorable bob.

before

before

after

after

Hanky Rides A Bike

Aaron here. Ever since the weather took a turn for the better a couple of weeks ago, Henry has begged to ride his bike at least once a day. Our new neighbor John, seen in the video, is super friendly, a bike enthusiast and expert, and has often helped when Henry has been practicing. As you can see, John was just as excited as we were!

Hank started the spring with training wheels on, but that's no way to learn how to balance, so we took those off pretty quick. After a couple days of Henry awkwardly trying to walk around on the bike, the peddles came off, and then he really started to learn. After a couple days of walking the bike with small steps, he started to glide for short distances, then medium distances, then to long stretches around 30 feet including balance corrections. So today the peddles went back on, and he took right off. Laura wasn't home from work quite yet for his first few laps around the cul-de-sac, but got to pull in to the sight of Henry zooming around on his own.

Henry, may you never lose your enthusiasm and desire to try and learn new things.

March 24, 2013

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Maple Syrup

A little while ago, even before we made it to Minnesota, Henry asked how maple syrup was made. It was a good question. At that point Aaron found a video on-line and Henry seemed satisfied. Now that we are up in the Northern Country, maple syrup seems to be all around us. Once, we Aaron drove me to work we noticed a tree looked like it was being tapped (it was). Then, when Henry and I went over to our neighbor's house to introduce ourselves, we found out that Jim, a retired teacher now make maple syrup for a hobby. Now, I read that the Arboretum not only makes maple syrup, but it offers tours AND it culminates with a pancake breakfast. Even though it is apparently still winter here, I could not pass this up. So, yesterday I bundled up the kids and we had fun.

Franny in the bobby all warm and snug

Henry looking Minnesotan next to a maple syrup oven

Riding the maple syrup truck

On the trail trying to find the tree tapping place. We only turned around when we saw snowshoers. Wrong turn= good exercise for us.

The reward!

We all loved it

"Mr Pancake" doing a little jig

Franny happy to be out of the Boba and to have a full belly.

It was great and we came home with our very own bottle of Arboretum maple syrup and a Minnesota bird book. Double score!