Camping, Halloween and Life – October 2009 Edition

Hello again. Here’s the latest installment of our life.  About 1 month’s worth.  The highlights:  Camping, Charlie on the move, hanging out, dressing up for multiple Halloween events.  Last night we met the neighbors in the park across the street for about 15 pizzas worth of fun, beverages, kids running around and the like.  Fun times…maybe even a rival of Christmas in the eyes of some kids.  Namely Stewart – more on this later.  Fun was had by all, about 10 pizzas worth in less than 30 minutes, until mother nature said “be glad you have a tent” (actually she said, “thank your neighbor Jason for his genius move of setting up the tent”).  About 20 folks found themselves huddled under the tent trying to stay dry.  Kids were protecting their costumes.  Parents scurried to protect paper plates, napkins, their beverages, etc. Cindy and catch eyes with the non-verbal question of each other, “did our kids have enough sense to get in out of the rain because clearly neither one of us asked them to get in out of the rain.”  We find Will.  Then Stewart.  Yes!  both under the tent – good kids!  Except something’s wrong with Stewart.  She’s starting to cry.  She grabs her mom and says “Mom, does this mean Halloween is canceled?”  Letting her know that it wasn’t had the same relieving effect that you get when the kids find out Santa made it to our house.  Good stuff.  Enjoy the pictures – 2 sets:  camping and Halloween stuff.

Click here for the slideshow of our Halloween Pictures

Click here for the slideshow of the Cub Scout Camping Trip and General Life Pictures

Click here for Charlie’s Video Playlist

Click here to see all of our pictures a la flickr.

What Were You Thinking??

A slight twist on this common phrase.  Someone at our rainy pre-Halloween extravaganza with our neighbor friends in the park across the street asked me a question I haven’t spent a great deal of time thinking about.  They asked, “What do you think about when you go for these runs?”  I didn’t have a good answer so on my run today I thought about what I think about.  Truth be told, I am a pretty simple thinker.  Early in nearly every run I spend time thinking about how I feel and almost invariably remind myself to go out easy.  Today I wondered if really fast runners tell themselves to not go out too hard.  Probably not.

Next my mind wandered to the fun discussion we had yesterday in the rain at the pre-Halloween festivities:  The “Fan-brella”!  This idea has teeth.  It could be the next Slanket or Snuggie!  It is an umbrella that pumps up and down when open to help keep you cool when out in the rain.  Also different than the umbrella/fan that you can read about here as this one will go up and down not rotate, which for a personal umbrella would be quite dangerous.  We of course, would market it with NCAA, NFL, NBA, any any other worthy sporting team’s logo.  No action will be taken on my end here but if anyone does take this idea and subsequently makes millions off of the idea if you would kindly remember me.

Many of my runs about the more rural areas of Fort Mill and/or Charlotte remind me of my desire to own a good bit of tree-filled land.  Today’s run was no different until I got a small bit angry at the tracts of land that developers had mowed down and then seemingly took a side trip to bankruptcy court.  They should have to personally replant what they destroyed.  We would call them GDA or Greedy Developer Appleseed.

Last topic of my run had to do with my moodiness.  It might also be a mild form of Seasonal Affective Disorder that cropped up around the twice-yearly time change.  I think we are back to Eastern Standard Time from Daylight Savings Time (DST) but I might have this backwards (yep, just confirmed my prior statement via Wikipedia entry).  Tangent warning: check out the map on the countries that use, no longer use and never used Daylight Savings Time.  Interesting that most countries don’t practice it.  Even odder is that some countries (like the U.S., Australia, Canada) have certain portions that don’t practice with their country).  Allow me to get back on topic.  The change of the clock gets me grumpy.  Likely related to dark mornings, of which I am not particularly fond of, my ability to arise early takes a hit the further into DST we get.  This seemingly culminates with a period of high grumpiness on the day of the time change.  Cindy thinks it is the natural tendency of the males species to get grumpy every 16 days (“16-day cycle”).  I don’t have knowledge of such a cycle (although I might track it just to check) but I do know that typically mild grumpiness that sets into my day is easily removed with a run.  Today, the run provided a temporary boost but not the normal permanent fix.  The beauty is that the sun coming up early tomorrow will make it all right again.  Might even bring on some of those late fall coffee-as-the-sun-rises moments on my porch.  Ah, that thought is a good one.  I’ll end there.

I’m In. Again…Join me?

It’s a rainy Saturday morning, some stomach junk going through our home (Will’s the latest victim) and after about 30 minutes of the Little Einstein’s here I sit.  Surfing. As I surf I think I see a trend in running developing or maybe it is one that’s always been out there but I just missed it.  Race registrations require more forethought as more and more races are capping the entries and reaching those caps early.  A great problem for running to have, right?  This gets me thinking that I need a better way to pick from the possible running events that fit my “strike zone” of event criteria.  Criteria like date, distance from home, size of race, distance (marathon, half marathon, ultra, etc.).  Don’t get me wrong, I religiously use and think highly of MarathonGuide.com and when forced to out of desperation will use sites like Active.com (don’t get me started about their silly registration process, Ticketmaster-esque service fees and slimy cross-sell techniques) but they offer the super set of what best fits my criteria.  This in turn requires lots of sifting through data I don’t need to see.

So the problem is:  Proximity, size or possibly prior experience may render roughly 85-90% of all of the United States Marathon and Distance races uninteresting to me.  What tool exists that allows me to capture a list of races by date that I could review quarterly and focus on a race or two of interest?

My lo-fidelity solution:  Make a Google Running calendar (btw – Google Calendar is nothing short of amazing!  Makes Outlook Calendar look over-bloated and a bit ridiculous), manually load in the marathons that fit my criteria, share it with the world (primarily for my running buddies) and act like I couldn’t have used those two hours for other more important things like spending time with my kids or maybe even going on a training run…  Here’s the calendar I created if you are interested – it is set to default in agenda mode to list out the races but it also can be displayed in normal calendar mode (check out the cool weather feature those smart Google peeps built into the calendar – GENIUS!).

Other known and better solutions?  If so, please respond via comments and let me know.

Oh yeah, my original reason for the post…I signed up for Charlotte’s Thunder Road Marathon on December 12th.  Good race.  Well planned.  Join me for either the half or the full?

September 2009 – Birthday Parties and Such

Wow – been almost a month since an update on the family.  As usual much to keep up with here in the Casa de Suttons:  Birthdays (another 3-peat for Will’s 7th!), festivals, soccer, gymnastics (or “ginastics” as Stewart says), Cub Scouts (thanks for all of you who bought some hugely overpriced popcorn sundries!), Faith Formation, new role for Dad at work, Helping Hands for Cindy and regular life around all of that.  Wait, that is regular life, isn’t it?  I guess I’m not 27 anymore, eh (no comments necessary here)?  Within this post you will get to enjoy pictures from one of Will’s 3 birthday celebrations and some other activities in our day-to-day.  Enjoy (and oh yeah, a few more videos of our little man Charlie)!

Click here to see some random pictures from our last few weeks (Late September 2009)

Click here for Charlie’s Video Playlist

Click here to see all of our pictures a la flickr.

2009 Blue Ridge Relay – 6 Runners 211 Miles!!

211 Miles - done!

If you know me, you know what the Blue Ridge Relay means to me.  I find it hard to adequately articulate my thoughts about this race which is why 2 weeks have passed between finish and writing this.  You will also note that this is the 2nd of what will ideally be fairly frequent posts about running, random life, etc. on the SuttonScoop Blog.  Yes, this is a change, but not a departure from what most likely travel to this blog for:  Pictures of the family.  For years I have considered the consolidation of JasonScoop and SuttonScoop but frankly lacked the courage.  I could capture my thoughts in a journal-like format without ever sharing it with anyone.  But then what is the point of a blog if it is hidden away where few know about it.  So here it is.  Me.  Out there.  Blogging in the open.  For those that may be saying: “Dang, I really just want to see the family/kids” then you can select the category ‘Family Fun’ to weed out all of this narcissistic junk.  No feelings hurt here.  Ok…back to the race…

It is my 4th year running the Blue Ridge Relay Race.  In 2006 we ran a 6-person team (3 of which are back together again this year), in 2007 a 4-person team (afterwards we SWORE we would never be that dumb again), in 2008 the same 4-person team (we lied), and in 2009 back to the 6-person team which was frankly felt a bit like cheating.  Still hard but WOW what a difference 4+ hours between runs means when you are used to 2-3 hours between runs.  So, to put it lightly, I really enjoy running this event.  30+ hours of total running, nearly 40 straight hours in a van zig-zagging through the mountains north of Asheville.  2 states, a bunch of counties, many mountain passes about 200 vans and over 1000 runners this year.  Cool stuff.  Some of my geeky data:  378 minutes of total running for me (6.3 hours) at an 8:05 minute per mile pace over 47 total miles across 6 of the 36 total legs in the race.  I burned about 5700 calories just while running, had an average heart rate of 152 beats per minute while running, slept 3.5 hours (which is about 2 hours more than anyone else on my team – thank you ear plugs) and ran up about 8,000 feet during my 6 legs of the race.

For those not familiar with relay race running events this race is 211 miles in total distance.  It started for our team somewhere in Virginia at 7:20am ET on Friday, September 11 and finished around 3pm on Saturday, September 12 in downtown Asheville, NC.  We had 6 runners but teams compete with as few as 4 runners and up to 12 runners.  4 runners means each runner runs 9 legs of the 36 legs in the race.  6 runners equals 6 legs of the 36 leg race, etc.  Each leg varies in total distance with the shortest leg being just over 2 miles and the longest leg being 10 miles.  Most legs have a considerable uphill and/or downhill section (or multiple ones) making each leg quite different from the next in effort and difficulty.  Distances for our team:  Runner 1 (Jason M) – 34.6 miles, Runner 2 (me) – 47.2 miles, Runner 3 (Kevin) – 25.6 miles, Runner 4 (Alex) – 36.2 miles, Runner 5 (Whitney) – 33.3 miles and Runner 6 (Chris) – 34.6 miles.  We run in sequence order repeating the sequence 6 times – when you are not running you are likely driving, eating/drinking, sleeping or preparing to run.  Pretty simple existence.  Clicking here will get you the results of all 100+ teams (we are Team “4tunate (to have 2 more runners”) and clicking here gets you to the detailed breakdown of our team by runner.  Here’s what I can remember about each of my 6 legs:

Leg 2: Grayson Highlands State Park Entrance to Helton United Methodist Church – 7.5 miles

Start time: 7:46am ET;  Run Duration:  54 minutes 42 seconds;  Pace: 7:20 minutes per mile; 880 Calories; Avg HR: 159

One of my favorite legs of the entire race.  Most of it is spent on a windy dirt road through the hillside.  This leg loses a great deal of elevation with a monster climb about 2 miles into the leg.  The type of climb that you hope you don’t have to walk up in your first leg of the race.  I didn’t this year but can’t say the same for past years.  Teams are still decorating their vans and finding how the inside the van “nest” needs to be.  Lots of vans pulled over sorting it all out.  Every year there are a couple of random small dogs that bark and some even run around in their yard but none ever bother you.  This year the fog was lifting showing hillsides filled with Christmas trees, old barns and cabins.  Its always a welcome sight to see a damp dirt road or hear the water running in the roadside creeks – means the dust kicked up by passing team cars on the non-paved sections of the race will be greatly reduced.  One of the best pictures on the course is from the exchange zone at the end of this leg looking back up the winding country road.  The finishing approach is a good bit down hill allowing runners to show smooth, long strides and a quicker than the rest of the run finish.  The 7.5 miles of this leg always go by very fast.  This year the “Mayor of Ashe (pronounced “EH-sh) County” greeted the teams with a not-so-brief history of the area.  Cool stuff.  A quick hand-off of the flick bracelet to Kevin and my first of six legs was over.  Having only 5 more legs after this one sure beats having 8 legs left!

Leg 8: Zion Methodist Church Mill Creek to Cranberry Springs Road (Riverside General Store) – 5.9 miles

Start time: 12:41pm ET;  Run Duration:  45 minutes 17 seconds;  Pace: 7:38 minutes per mile; 812 Calories; Avg HR: 164

My shortest leg of the race but also my hottest.  Although hot around noon the temperatures were mild compared to last year or training run temperatures.  I was able to pass a few runners on this leg.  Because of bridge troubles this leg was re-routed from a very flat 4.4 miles to a mostly flat 5.9 miles.  A more scenic route following the New River for a while it did have a few unexpected dairy barns along the way.  While pretty to look at upon approach they weren’t all so pretty to smell.  If I were to do this leg again I would have held back less.  Last year after my 2nd run I was feeling seriously tired and starting to get sore.  The result of that experience was applying a more conservative pace to this run.  While it likely helped me in the long run there were minutes left out on the course here.  Knowing the elevation gain was milder than expected will allow me to approach this one more aggressively next year.  Alex filmed me coming into the exchange which I believe is one of the first times I have seen myself running on video.  13.4 miles down roughly 34 miles to go.

Leg 14: Grandfather Mountain Store to Grandfather Mountain Entrance – 10.0 miles

Start time: 7:09pm ET;  Run Duration:  1 hour 23 minutes 11 seconds;  Pace: 8:24 minutes per mile; 1143 Calories; Avg HR: 152

A great deal of time lapses between my last leg and this one due to the longer legs my teammates are running in between.  At this point in the race we have run a few legs on the actual Blue Ridge Parkway, stopped into the outlet mall parking lot in Boone and driven through the heart of Blowing Rock.  From this exchange point (and really from the outlet mall in Boone) it is all up until reaching the entrance of Grandfather Mountain.  Like most other years we reach this leg around dusk which is a great time to run up Grandfather.  The sun disappears over the mountain you are running up and while rounding the south-side corners of the ascent you get some great sunset hues to watch.  Red to orange to pink to purple and then black by the time you reach the end of the leg.  I was only passed by 2 teams on this leg and I have to remind myself that those runners are likely running their 2nd of 3 legs after 10 or more hours of rest since the last.  Still hurts to see them go by.  Each one that passed this year offered strong encouragement and gave me a target to keep close to as long as possible.  The cool part is I was able to pass a runner right before reaching the top and end of this leg.  I also passed some serious roadkill and a small snake too.  This year Grandfather Mountain was very wet as there were 5-6 really good waterfall views on the way up.  The course follows the last 9 miles of the Grandfather Mountain Marathon which is familiar territory for me and the mile markers from the marathon are easy ways for me to keep track of progress (no “runner math” issues here!).  At the top all of the teams are in full night gear with reflective vests, blinking red lights a headlamps.  The really cool part of this race has arrived!

Leg 20: Green Valley Fire Dept to Mount Carmel Baptist Church – 7.5 miles

Start time: 11:33pm ET;  Run Duration:  1 hour 08 minutes 27 seconds;  Pace: 9:04 minutes per mile; 903 Calories; Avg HR: 144

It’s almost midnight.  The van is starting to get quieter with each passing hour.  We are constantly having to look into the benches to make certain we aren’t leaving the exchange zone without someone. Maybe next year we need a flag or something to designate when a runner is in the van but sleeping.  The exchange zones are still pretty charged and active.  Teams are still pouring from vans at each exchange to send of their next runner.  Not quite the isolation of the wee hours that we will soon start to see.  This fire station exchange is a great one.  Super-clean bathrooms.  Cool local folks who spend lots of the normal life hanging around the fire station.  Granted most of them find this event ridiculous and lacking common sense.  They are still friendly and kind enough to keep that sentiment to themselves.  Jason Martin comes flying in after a quick leg.  This leg for me has always presented problems.  My morale is very low here due to a quick turnaround from my last leg.  I finished running Grandfather around 3 hours earlier and as usual, I had trouble convincing myself to eat and drink properly.  Add to this that our 3am wake-up call nearly 20 hours back is starting to make me feel sluggish.  I take the bracelet and run off down 19E into the darkness.  All would be well if we didn’t have to make a right in a little under a mile.  The right comes and it goes from dark to pitch black.  The bouncing white light from my headlamp creates a weird halo-effect that at times can make you dizzy.  And then it is up.  Crazy steep shots of up that come in quarter to half-mile intervals.  The walk-faster-than-you-can-run-up it kind of ascents.  I walk.  A lot. At one point I walk past an entire van full of people cheering me on.  They get it but it still hurts.  Walking my Heart Rate is above 160.  On this leg you hear dogs backing above and below you.  Vans pass and their taillights disappear into the winding hillside levels above you.  I start thinking about whether I can run with my eyes closed.  I try it.  Nope.  Can’t do that.  Dodging road kill, uneven pavement and running the outside of switchback corners (yes, the longer but less steep route) I eventually start a pretty decent decent.  Checking my laminated map I find that I am within a mile of the finish.  6+ miles down.  I run fast.  Sub-7 minute pace into the exchange zone.  I see the coveted two words on a race sign:  “Exchange Zone”.  Only a few more minutes until the van.  Dry clothes.  Food.  Sleep.  Bracelet to Kevin.  Kevin points me to the van on his way out.  Aaahhhh.  Only 2 legs left.  That one was rough.  A morale buster.  I feel like I let my team down a bit there.  That leg will spend a year in my head.

Leg 26: Pleasant Grove Baptist Church to Whitson’s General Store (Green Mountain) – 6.9 miles

Start time: 4:23am ET;  Run Duration:  53 minutes 45 seconds;  Pace: 7:47 minutes per mile; 882 Calories; Avg HR: 148

Rice pudding at 1am in the morning is the perfect food for a tired stomach.  Followed by Chef Boyardee’s Cheese Ravioli, a tomato and cheese sandwich from the Green Mountain fire fighters and some Gatorade-water mix.  My last Gatorade.  The metallic taste has set in.  What is it about Gatorade that causes that?  I eat better than I have since the 2nd leg.  I sleep for about an hour wake, do some light driving, cheer on some runners on a creepy windy section of the course.  I feel really good.  Better than I can remember before at this point of the race.  After changing into my damp and lightly smelly running clothes I hop from the van into the misty fog with a much smaller group of people awaiting their team.  The exchange zone has a muted-ness to it.  Tons of vans stacked up or looking for a parking spot but few with any lights on inside.  People mostly whisper then you hear some short outbursts of laughter.  My teeth chatter.  Anticipation even 25 legs into the race still sets in.  Jason comes up the last hill hollering my name.  I take the bracelet and head into the misty darkness with my haloed headlamp light and blinking red flashers.  The first mile of this leg is easily the toughest and then downhill/flat for the rest. I walk up a steep section then race on down to the river section.  The downhill is filled with the sounds of running water.  I maintain a decent pace to the flat section at the bottom where I see then hear a big train across the river.  Creepy train noises (squeaky wheels, diesel engine, engineers talking, etc.) keep me pre-occupied for several minutes and then I see the bouncing of a second light coming behind me.  Street signs light up before you see the light or hear the feet of runners coming by you.  Each of the 2 runners who pass me mention how excited they are about running their last leg of the race.  Ugh…not so much for me.  I feel good for having run 38 miles by the end of this leg.  Better than I have felt ever at this point.  Arriving into town at the checkpoint I enjoy the downtime before piling into the van and driving off to the next exchange.  Still mostly quiet although the sun will rise in about an hour…only 2 hours after the half moon rose on my leg.  Cool sight.

Leg 32: Hawksnest to Barnardsville Elementary School – 9.4 miles

Start time: 10:19am ET;  Run Duration:  1 hour 11 minutes 30 seconds;  Pace: 7:36 minutes per mile; 1143 Calories; Avg HR: 145

Last leg and after watching the Mountain Goat Hard climb Jason M. is suffering up I am thankful I get to go down it.  Oh yeah, did I mention I slept nearly 3 hours prior to his leg starting?  Woke up just in time for coffee at the pancake breakfast exchange.  Beautiful morning. The Mountain Goat leg is crazy-filled with switchbacks.  The ridiculous kind where you literally double back in the opposite direction.  Jason M ran strong up it.  At the top we parallel parked the dualie van on the edge of the dirt road going down the back side of Hawksnest and waited.  Port-o-John #5 awaited me and after my coffee-induced “quiet time” I awaited for Jason M. Once he handed off the bracelet he was done with his race.  Only 9.4 miles stood in front of me and my finish.  5 miles down, 4.4 miles flat.  The run down was quick.  Right on 7 minute pace.  Footing was my primary concern.  Cramping was secondary.  At the bottom of the dirt road/switchbacks I settled into a upper 7-minute pace and played tricks with myself to avoid walking.  Run to the sunny part of the road and by that point I wouldn’t want to prolong my time in the sun any further with walking so I kept running.  Count the telephone poles.  See how many steps in a row you could run on the white line. I pass a guy.  He’s suffering.  Walking has grabbed his mind and won’t let go.  He’s walking every shady spot.  There are many.  Then I get passed by a long-strider…looks like he’s doing half the work I am.  I keep up but eventually I think he gets annoyed at hearing me and speeds up (or at least I told myself he sped up).  I’m tired.  The defined line of cramps has been set – run any faster and my legs remind me not to with a sharp cramp.  I see the sign turning us left toward the school.  Less than a track lap to run for me in this race.  I want to speed up but I also want to finish with dignity.  They are mutually exclusive.  I hold steady and raise my hands after 47 miles over 27 hours.  Done.  Alex and Jason are soaking their feet in what looks like a drainage river.  I plop down shorts and all into it.  Aahhhhh!  Done.  Great race!  I already want to do it again next year.  Moreso I want Bojangles.  Beans.  Biscuit.  Hot Sauce.  Sweet Tea.  Bring it!

Before the end of the race we come across the solo runner.  211 miles on his own.  We got to see him finish.  57 hours of running.  When he wasn’t running he was walking sideways.  Somewhat amusing but not enough to distract me from how crazy I thought he must be to do it.  Strong but crazy.  And somewhat impressive.

Details of our pre-race prep and team can be found at http://brrscoop.wordpress.com. Check it out for more of the same.  It is one great event!

August 2009 – Jackson Hole, WY Trip and the Mesa Falls Marathon

Guys trip!  After 14 years of running together we moved past our 2 state running bubble radius and ventured out west as in the Wild West.  That’s right.  Wyoming. Idaho. Montana.  Bison.  Moose.  Elk.  Saloons.  Shootouts.  Stagecoaches.  West.  What did we do?  I am glad you asked!  It was a flurry of activity:

Thursday: Fly out. Receive the official guided tour of Dave and Diane’s spectacular new home.  Acclimate (with a brisk walk including 500 feet of elevation gain).  Lungs burned.  Heads ached.  Pre-race fears emerged.

Friday: Wake early (3:30 MT/5:30 ET).  Watch sunrise over Sleeping Indian Mountain.  Work a little.  Relax a little.  Bike 14 miles in Grand Teton National Park. Pre-race pasta-up.  Early to bed.

Saturday: Race day!  Wake even earlier (2:30 MT/4:30 ET).  Commute to race start in Ashton, ID.  Bus to race start line.  6:30 – race start.  10:01 – race end.  Noon – awards ceremony. 12:30 – Huckleberry Shake time!  3pm arrival in Yellowstone National Park.  4:30pm Cindy/Stewart see us on the Old Faithful Webcam.  5:16 – there she blows!  8pm return to Dave’s home.  8:30pm – hot tub.  Early to bed.  Click here for a full race re-cap.  Mesa Falls Marathon website can be found here.

Sunday: Normally a day like yesterday would warrant a late wake-up call.  Maybe coffee while catching up on life?  Nope.  6:30am departure for the infamous “8-mile hike” Dave mapped out for us.  Ok.  So it turned out to be 19.3 miles.  Merely a rounding error.  The view at Solitude Lake made up for the major food bonk we (me) experienced with the 1 bar each we brought with us.  Dave’s reputation for slight understatements and his ability to get people to follow his lead both remain firmly intact.  Seriously – a must-do hike for those in the Tetons.  Starts at Jenny Lake.  Climbs 3000 feet in 9 miles.  Repeat in reverse.  Major appetizers (fantastic nachos!) and desserts at the Wort Hotel Silver Dollar Bar as reward.  An excellent reward.  Cindy sees us waving at her on Jackson Hole Town Square Webcam.  Red Sox/Yankees on NESN followed by hot tub.  Early to bed.

Monday: Relaxing day.  Breakfast at The Bunnery in Jackson Hole, WY.  Light souvenir shopping for the kids followed by some sightseeing.  Back to Saddle Butte for the “Assault on Saddle Butte” timed run (2.6 miles and 1100+ feet of elevation gain).  Jason S:  25 minutes.  Jason M:  29 minutes. Dave 31 minutes.  John:  35 minutes (Dave, we expect to see sub-20 minutes between now and our next visit).  Pizza and beer to top off the day at South Side Pizza and Pub.  Lastly, you guessed it, Sox/Sox baseball game, hot tub, bed.

A fun trip with a great group of long-time running buddies.  A big thanks to Dave for his incredible hospitality and tour guide abilities! I look forward to “riding in this rodeo” again real soon.

Click here (or on the picture at the top) to see a slideshow of the Jackson Hole Trip.

Click here to see all of our pictures a la flickr.

August 2009 – Charlie’s 1/2 Year Birthday and Summer Fun

Several updates in one here:

• Charlie’s 1/2 Year Birthday
• Our “Summer of Fun” Continues
• Cindy’s Philanthropy
• 2009 Blue Ridge Relay Update

Charlie’s already 1/2 Years Old! Crazy.  Next thing I know he’s asking me for the keys and heading off to Prom.  Key milestones at 6 months:  a) eating solid foods (for a formula family this is like getting a raise!  How is it sweet potatoes costs 49 cents while 2 scoops of formula is like 4 bucks?!?), b) able to sit up if placed in the sitting up position (this does however result in a few head bumps a day as he topples over backwards at the exact moment parents turn away), c) crawling position (sans crawling – he wants to but alas moving those arms is harder than it looks.) and d) he’s out of the unbelievably heavy car carrier and into the full-size convertible car seat.  Good for parents arms, shoulders and backs but more work in restaurants and church.

Our Summer of Fun Continues to be just that:  Fun!  This past few weeks we have embraced Geocaching (these links will get you to the 1st and 2nd caches we found in Uptown Charlotte today – sadly there was a 3rd one we could not uncover – yet.), Cindy and the kids visited Carowinds (even the water park which gives me the heebies for some reason), and I was able to sneak out with the older kids and catch the annual Charlotte Criterium Bike Race Uptown.  Good fun albeit warm fun given our latest heat wave.

Baxter Helping Hands is an organization that Cindy is looking to breathe life back into after a few years of it being quite dormant.  She kicked off this venture with a “Back to School Supply Drive” that netted 214 pencils, 25 folders, 24 notebooks, 11 3-ring binders, 11 pencil boxes, 9 reams of notebook paper, 16 glue sticks and much, much more.  The neighborhood is really amazing about giving back and Cindy is looking to leverage the charitable nature of our neighbors to help a variety of great causes in need over the year.  Look for her updates on Twitter (@BaxterHelpHands)

Know what late summer means to me and running?  Blue Ridge Relay training. Rather than the training I have normally followed in the past 3 years running this event, I am hoping my upcoming race at Mesa Falls is enough to get me through.  “Normal Training” for the relay usually means 2-3 runs a day a few times a week to simulate the effort during the race.  Likely not a smart move as I peak my miles for the Mesa run in Idaho in mid-August so I will hope experience, distance and eventually rest will get me through.  We have added 2 runners to our team this year which also doesn’t hurt – running it with 4 runners the past 2 years certainly did hurt quite a bit.  Feel free to follow us as we prepare to run on September 11th and 12th at our BRR Blog:Team 4tunate (2 have 2 more runners).

Well – that’s enough for now – I have been a bit more active posting my mostly mundane and trivial thoughts on Twitter (@jasut) as of late so feel free to take a peek if interested.  Be warned – you will find limited meaning in these updates of 140 character or less.  You might however find a photo or two of us enjoying life that you won’t find here on our blog.

One last thing before the normal links to slideshows, etc.  This is a pretty funny video of Stewart helping with dinner tonight.

Click here to see the most recent shots of Charlie.

Click here to see some random pictures from our last few weeks (July/August 2009).

Click here for Charlie’s Video Playlist

Click here to see all of our pictures a la flickr.

July 2009 – Folly Beach Vacation

Wow – what a fun vacation and a good reminder of how great friends are.  Need to continue to invest time into the friendships like the ones we share with the Seibert Family.  We spent a week on Folly Beach in a beach house that was the best we have staying at in the 10 years we have been beach vacationing with the Seiberts.  Access to the beach was excellent and sitting in or on any of the porches behind the house provided excellent views of the beach and ocean.  Porpoises, seagulls, pelicans, beachgoers, sailboats, sunrises, storms out over the ocean, night-glo Bocci Ball all from our view.  Pretty cool.  We enjoyed great food (some homecooked, some out at restaurants like Taco Boy, Hank’s, The Lost Dog Cafe, and Pearlz), great conversation, activities (Geocaching with the kids, Putt-Putt, beach fun, Wii, iPhoning, etc.) and a little beverage as well.  Julie even surprised Cindy with her very own Snuggie (think blanket with sleeves)!  Anyways – enjoy the pictures.  No new videos but I left the link in case you want to see the old ones.

Click here to see a slideshow of our Folly Beach Vacation with the Seiberts.

Click here for Charlie’s Video Playlist

Click here to see all of our pictures a la flickr.

June/July 2009: Pop’s Day, USA Birthday and Christening Day!

Fun couple of weeks here in Sutton-ville.  Dad was treated like royalty for no other reason than being a Dad.  Homemade cake, fine chocolates, Mario Kart for the Wii (“I’ma Luigi…yahoo!”) and a book about Woodworking that I already had.  The best part was the time spent with the kids and the fact that it was my first Dad’s Day with Charlie.  Cool.  Not cool was the US Open dragging into Monday.  The 4th was just like every 4th in Baxter and frankly that kind of predictability is pretty neat.  Parade.  Check.  Candy all over the streets.  Check.  Decorated scooters.  Check. Water Balloon Toss.  Check.  Fireworks like only South Carolina can do.  Check.  Nice having an afternoon cookout with my parents, Emma and Tim as well.

After the 4th we celebrated Charlie’s Christening with our extended family.  Charlie has a great set of godparents in our friends the Van Sickles and a huge family to share in this special day.  Cindy put on a great post-church party complete with ELLA ART CAKE!!! Mmmm.

Side note for those that enjoy an occasional ‘tweet’:  follow all great and mundane things I care to share with the masses a la Twitter.  Jasut is my handle.  10-4, over and out.

Click here to see a slideshow of Pop’s Day and the 4th of July Baxter Festivities.

Click here to see a slideshow of Charlie’s Baptism.

Click here for Charlie’s Video Playlist

Click here to see all of our pictures a la flickr.

June 2009 – Kindergarten Graduation and HHI Vacation

June is flying by – must be all the fun!  Will graduated from Kindergarten which makes his 4th Graduation event in 6 years.  In contrast, I can remember 2 graduation events in my lifetime.  Beware:  parental bragging to follow.  He received the Kindergarten Media/Reading award – one of ten special awards given out across all 8 kindergarten classes!  It was so cool to see!  Ok, bragging ends here (for now).

A few days later we packed up the family vehicle and traveled down to Hilton Head Island where we met Mom (Grammy), Dad (Poppy) and Emma for time at the beach.  Hilton Head was a GREAT place for a beach vacation.  Tons of activities, a house with a pool in the backyard walking distance from the beach, running, biking, eating (seafood all but the last day of the trip), kayaking, playgrounding, etc.  It was a really special time with the extended family – Tim even made it down for a day or two.  Not to mention it was Charlie’s 1st vacation and he didn’t seem to mind sleeping in a pack-n-play in the walk-in closet, or at least he didn’t say he minded.  Enjoy the pictures and video below.

Click here to see a slideshow of the Kindergarten Graduation

Click here to see a slideshow of our trip to Hilton Head Island

Click here for Charlie’s Video Playlist

Click here to see all of our pictures a la flickr.