What a beautiful Christmas 07 was. Not too cold and beautiful white blankets of snow. I remember when Adam and I were young, it would have been non stop madness in the snow. Sledding, snowmobiling, forts, jumping off the roof or just laying there in the snow and catching snowflakes on your tong. A winter with snow brings back wonderful memories of non stop action.
This year brought the same non stop action, just a different variety. Daily work for Janet and I, then it was run training for me. Janet shopping every chance she could get. At night, relaxing and playing with the babe. Both of us helping mom and dad at the store as much as we could. The year at the store was a good one. Snow is not a good recipe for great sales, but they had a good season non the less.
Christmas Eve was celebrated back at Mary and Bills this year. It was a fantastic relaxing night, with great food, fun conversation and 0f course the presents. Over the past year Bill (artist bill) worked on a drawing of Adam and I as cowboys. It is the most touching, amaizing characture drawing I have ever seen. The flood of emotion was so amaizing I could barely even cry, it is so full of what we were. Thank you uncle Bill for your talents, you nailed it, what an amaizing gift. I can't wait for others to see your amaizing talent.
Christmas Day was a bit busy with the babe. It is our tradition to go to mom and dad's to do our family gifts in the morning. Eat mom's always delicious christmas brunch, then the boys head to the store for a few hours to get ready for the big 50% off sale. I know working on Christmas sounds bad, but it is our tradition, and there is literally no other time to do it. We had lots of extra helpers this year so we got much accomplished. Then back to mom and dad's for the mom's side of the family. My cousin Christopher (navy seal) and his wife Natalie were able to join us this year. It had been a long time. It was great conversation of course, we really enjoyed seeing them again. Food, conversation, christmas carols, and gift exchange. It was a great family christmas!
This year we had "good tiding of great joy" to announce. Our family will grow buy one! come the end of June. Janet is carrying another bundle of joy! It was epically fun to be able to share our news at Christmas with family and friends. We are so excited to be blessed with another little one. I am excited that Bijou's sister or brother will be close in age. So far Janet has been great. May be a little rougher than the first one but I think it helps to have all ready been through it.
My training is winding down. All my big runs are done. I am really getting excited to bring all my training to Phoenix and see how I do. I know my legs are ready for it. I have learned much through this training season. Run training is a much longer process. It really takes a lot of miles to get you legs in shape. I have been following a intermediate training schedule and am excited to see if I can keep a high tempo through the race.
Last Fri the 28, my buddy Sean Pease joined me for the Winter Waddle. It's a small 5k run around lake Calhoun. About 410 people raced this year and it was a blast. It was Sean's first 5k and he finished like a rock star. 37th overall. Finish time of 23:18 race pace of 7:30. I look forward to training and racing with Sean this summer. We have been competitive brothers since high school, and I can't wait to hit the "tri circuit" with him.
I myself had a good race. I was able to put together all the things I have learned over the past year from my TNT coaches and have had extensive training around Calhoun. I had fun and raced the best race I could have that night. I came in 9th overall, 3rd in my age class (30's) a finish time of 19:15, at a 6:12 mile pace. I though I would be a long shot to have a 6:30 pace, but I think everything came together and I was lucky to post a surprising time.
Just two more weeks of training for the big run!
If you wanted to have a big day of gaming, come to our house next weekend for the "Triathlon of Games." I need to raise another $500 to get to my fund raising goal for the marathon. So if you can make it, e-mail me back (drewprest@gmail.com) or just show up. It starts at noon, Sat the 5th. The entry fee for all day fun is $50. We will have a tournament in ping-pong, fooseball, and darts. To end the day it will be Texas hold-em. Cash prises will be awarded to the top finishers in each sport. The final hold-em pot will be big for 1st - 2nd and 3rd. I will have snacks and food, beer and pop. Bring something if you wish. If you can't make it and want to contribute to cancer research and family support go to
http://www.active.com/donate/tntmn/andrewrun
Thank you and God Bless.
Have a safe and happy New Year!
3 comments:
Oh my GOSH!!! Congratulations, you guys! Ooooh... my guess is a boy if it's a rougher pregnancy. : ) Hmmmm.... let the guessing games begin! So exciting to hear your news. BTW... could you take a photograph of Bill's drawing and post it? I'd love to see it. I enjoy seeing others' artwork - and just would love to see it of you and Adam. Glad you all had a wonderful Chrismtas together. Hug Janet for me!
Hey Guys :)
That IS great news, a little brother/sister for Bijou :) Congratulations from Dublin, IE! Also, of course, a Happy New Year to all of you! Sorry that I'm a bit late, but it's been quite a hectic time for me past six months - loads and loads of work, female trouble (ahem) and some losses, one amongst my friends and one in the family (I'm sure Dennis told you all about that), so I hardly get the time to write a little comment now and then. But unfortunately I'm down with the flu right now for the first time in 10 years or so and work is off limits for the next few days, I have some time to write down some words to you...I have regularily been reading your blogs and they give me strength as I realise my strength is only tiny compared to yours. Your postings also give me hope and show me that one can transform feelings of grieve into something constructive like you did and I have great respect for the things you're doing; I'm sure one day a huge group of ppl will benefit from your efforts and they will take example from your great deeds. Of course, I've been kept informed about the going ons in that part of Dayton MN which I've become to know and appreciate so dearly, so I hope everything is allright with the rest of your family and especially your dad; give him my regards, I always enjoyed the conversations I had with him during the brief times I was over and enjoyed your hospitality. And come to speak of it, I kinda miss all you guys. That brings me to the next, somewhat good, news: I informed with the company I work for (you know which one, it's only that I'm not allowed to name it on public boards like this, only in discussions related to the technical part of my work I'm allowed to mention it) and they basically told me that they were happy to have me over in Fargo or even in Mpls! There's only one catch and you probably guessed it: the Visa. Although I am hired by them and get payed by them, they outsourced me to lead the three teams they have elsewhere in Dublin, which is on site with another company. Due to the ridiculously tight Visa-rules the US-Government applies, I therefore technically am not entitled to an L1 Visa, which allows workers to transfer within the same company from abroad to the US, only to an H1B Visa, which is a much more lengthier and uncertain process. To circumvent this, I will have two options: go to their own site here in Dublin or elsewhere in IE, but they basically refuse that for the simple reason they have to send somebody else in my place over which needs training and blah blah blah, which costs money, you know the score. The second option is the one I'm currently thinking about and this is also the one the ppl in Fargo handed me themselves: move to Copenhagen in Denmark to the site they have there and work there for a year, so I automatically will be entitled for an L1 Visa, which takes normally only a few days to process. This option came up only last Friday and I'm still thinking about it, but alas, the flu got in the way. I will let you know what I'll do. That's it for now (long story, I know :) ), I will be dropping by every now and then to read about your ongoings and of course there is always my mom to keep me updated :). In the meantime, have a look at my MySpace Page, I have some new tunes up on there and I'm nearly finished with my second CD: http://www.myspace.com/douaumont
Cheers from Dublin!
John Verhoef
Congrats to the 3 of you..is Bijou ready to share mom and dad? Good thing she has 5 months to get ready! Awesome. Glad your Christmas was wonderful, I'm sure all are excited!
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