Grace came to me with her "magic drawing tablet" and said, "Daddy, look look! I drew a heart because I love you!"

What could I say? It looks darn fine to me!

Busy summer!

Wow, I can't believe it is now mid-September, and I haven't posted anything new since May. We've had a great summer, highlighted by Luke's first birthday. He turned 1 on 8/8/08, the first day of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. In China, 8 is a very lucky number, so it was no accident that they kicked off the opening ceremonies at 8:08 pm that day. We used the Olympics as the theme for Luke's birthday party the next day. It was a real blast. We then spent the next two weeks watching Olympics on TiVo and being sleep-deprived.

More recently, Grace started preschool twice a week. So far she seems to like it. What a big girl!

At my recent birthday, I entered a new "age group" (which is one of the few good parts of getting older) in running, so now I'm one of the youngest guys in the group, instead of the oldest.

I've struggled with recurring injuries over the past few years, so I'm finally doing some cross-training. I've been meaning to do this for years, but now weight training and get this, yoga! really seem to be helping my overall strength and flexibility. It of course remains to be seen whether it will help my running, but I'm optimistic.

On my birthday, with very little training, I ran 1 mile in 5:28. Not bad, but it's a pace I used to be able to keep up for a 10k. Now that's all out. I plan to work on my overall speed this fall, and will be trying to bring that down. Stay tuned.

I'll try to post more regularly.

In the meantime, Luke recently joined me on a run. He seemed to be enjoying himself until he finally conked out. It is how our summer has been - rolling fast and occasionally exhausting.

Dis-a-nee-land

Grace made her first visit to Disneyland on Wednesday. She is free until she turns three, so our window is closing next week. We left Luke in the able hands of his grandma (thanks Omi!) and successfully gambled that a midweek crowd would be manageable.

What's more, the opressive heat from the previous weekend had passed and we were left with a beautiful day with just enough sunshine and just enough of a cool breeze.

Grace wasn't sure quite what to make of the experience at first, but she really was a great little trooper. We started with the carousel, and moved on to Dumbo and the little train and boat rides. She really liked all of them, but absolutely LOVED the teacups, particularly when we spun around really fast. We rode the orange one.

She didn't much care for Alice in Wonderland, or any such ride that went inside where they became dark and loud. There were thankfully no freak-outs or melt-downs, but we could tell she was apprehensive during those rides. Pirates & the Haunted Mansion will have to wait until she is a little older.

The one ride that topped the teacups was the roller coaster in Mickey's Toon Town. Turns out our little girl feels the need for speed. I held the camera just in front of us and let it record during the ride just to see if I could get anything usable, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

We powered straight through from 9:30 until just after 5:00. Going without a nap is unusual for Grace, and she was really, really tired when, with her ice cream cone melting down her hands, she looked up and sighed, "I love Dis-a-nee-land. I love my ice cream."

Well, I've always loved ice cream. And now I love Disneyland.

The Sweet Suite

Well, it's baseball season again, and it's time to head out to the ballpark to watch our local team, the Angels, dominate the AL West. I really like the Angels, except for when they play my beloved Indians.

For the past two seasons, my company has had the exclusive "dugout suite", or as my friends call it, the SWEET suite. It's as close to the action as you can get without a uniform and some pine tar. Sadly, this season we moved upstairs to a more "pedestrian" suite, which is still pretty darned great.

Over the past two years, I've taken a handful of video clips at the game with my old digital camera. Keep in mind that I couldn't zoom while filming, and the video quality is really low. I had hoped to shoot some better quality stuff this season with my new camera, but alas, we moved to the lower-rent district.

The Angels were really great to work with, and we have dibs on the dugout suite for next season. Let's hope my company hits a home run this year!

Laughing Kiddos

In addition to playing together, the three kids learned that they could make each other laugh. In these segments, first Josh and then Grace are showing off to make the others laugh. Some of the clips are very grainy, but the sound is what is what was so much fun.

Running Laps

Aunt Marci & Cousin Josh came to visit for a few days. Grace is ten months older than Josh, who just turned two. Just three months ago, these two didn't so much as play together as they played separately in the same place. Well, today they got along famously and had a great time together. We caught a little video of them playing what looked like "tag" around the dining room table.

I could listen to these happy squeals all day.

Congratulations, Aunt Marci!

My sister and her husband just announced that they were expecting their second child in September. We are overjoyed for them, and are happy to share Grace's words of congratulations.

Lukey says "Congratulations" too!