13.1 with only 4 extra minutes!

Howdy all,

The first item for Triumphant Tuesday is that I am back on to the family website after a several month hiatus. The second item is that I survived the half marathon on Sat., Feb. 28th up in Fort Worth. My running friend and I usually do about 10 minute miles, so we were expecting the race to take us 2 hours and 11 minutes if we were consistant (doubtless this is a granny's pace compared to all the other runners in the family, but hey--slow and steady for this gal). Our first hurdle was the temperature: 37 degrees when we parked the car before the race started! The whole week had been in the 70s and then the night before the race this crazy cold front blew in. The second challenge was the hills in the course. We'd only trained here in our subdivision in flat Cedar Park, and the course description said there was ONE stretch uphill that was about 3/4 of a mile. ONE?! The entire 13 miles was uphill and down. Needless to say, I was sore for a few days in places I hadn't been sore during all our months of training. But, we did it in 2 hours 15 minutes--only 4 minutes off our goal. I got a good laugh when Darrell's sister asked him what place I came in . . .

Rising Star of Settlers

Awesome news people: i beat mom and dad at the christmas Settlers of Catan Tournament!!! WOOHOOO!! the first game i ever won and it was worth something!!
its actually the second tournament that i've won, NERTS, of course, being the first and im looking forward to many more wins as we continue the game fun!

Emily Ready for Broadway

Emily did such a fantastic job as Hodel in the Graded production of "Fiddler on the Roof." They had four performances: one on Thursday, December 4, two on Friday, December 5, and one on Saturday, December 6. Thursday she became quite nervous. But I told her that this chance to sing and act on stage was what she wanted, and that she couldn't waste a bit of any performance feeling nervous and scared. She knew what she wanted to do on stage, and now was her chance to shine. And shine she did! It was wonderful. She sang "Matchmaker" (a family favorite...Joy, remember you san it to try out for Encore!) beautifully. And her acting was great, too. William Richardson played Perchik (the teacher Hodel falls in love with), David Kern played Tevye, and Cassia di Roberto played Golde. Stephanie Feder played Tzeitel and Binca Ioshp played Chava. Hunter Wilson played the tailor, Motel Kamzoil.

Heart Murmurs Exam

We had an exam on our ability to audibly recognize heart murmurs, and I aced it.
I could have been a primo cardiologist!

4-1 is on its way

Aupreille and I are ecstatic to announce that Aupreille is 7 weeks pregnant with our first child!!!
We just had our first ultrasound picture of him/her (which I'll post soon) and we saw the heart beating! It was amazing to me, and I felt a tsunami of gratitude. Aupreille deserves a gold star for hiking the entire way into and all around the Havasupai Indian reservation, carrying our own packs, and all this and being pregnant too!

Jared, king of the 21 club

I'm 2 weeks late posting this, but Jared had a great piano recital this month. He performed his 2 pieces without incident (thank heaven!), and then came the award ceremony. He received his gold medal for getting a perfect score on the state music theory test (he knew that was coming). Then he was given the 1st place trophy for most measures memorized during the 2007-2008 school year, out of all of the 50+ students that take from Ms. Ana. 1241 measures, to be exact--printed right there on the trophy. (This was a surprise to all of us). Jared had been first to enter Ms. Ana's 21 club this spring (the group of kids who memorize at least 21 pieces), but I assumed some of the older kids would have a greater total number of measures memorized. His "Mr. lemon-head" grin was going from ear to ear.

1st Year Finished!

Today I donned my Hawaiian shirt and made the trek to campus in the wee hours one last time for my last final exam in physiology, completing my first year. What a year it has been!
As I look at the pile of notebooks on my desk and the gigabites of powerpoint and mp3 lectures on my computer, I am amazed.