I'm One!

Baby Kate would like you to know that she's psyched to finally be one year old. Photos and info about the extravaganza are on the way.

Our Little Caterpillar

What fun we had catching this on video. We hope you enjoy it as much as we (obviously) do!

Way to go, Daddy!

Jon has recently decided to take up the running mantle again. He was inspired by his friend, Brad, who biked a portion of the Tour de France this past July. (Talk about inspiring!) So now that Jon's running regularly again, we got to celebrate this milestone by cheering him on in his first race. It was a 10k that was held last Sunday in Leesburg. The weather was perfect, the sun was shining, the humidity was low, the baby was well-behaved...what more could one ask for? Above is Jon heading toward the starting line. He did a fantastic job! Kate and I had fun sitting with other moms and babies waiting for the runners to appear. And no, I didn't feel at all ashamed that I was sitting on the sidelines, cheering, instead of running myself. After all, someone had to stay with Kate! So I proudly held that position.

Here's the crowd just after the start:

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, Jon included, and he was particularly happy about his time. He shaved almost four minutes off his practice run time! Now I know he's wishing he'd signed up for the Chicago Marathon with Dad Minnery and Beth.... Maybe next year! It was a great morning, time well spent, and we all headed home for a well deserved nap.

Here's the big finish. Jon is on the far right, in the blue shirt, in front of the couple in blue and pink shirts.

P.S. I had to take a few pictures of all the runners waiting for the bathrooms...well, actually, they were port-o-potties. I found it rather striking.

Summer Fun

This week, Kate had a fun adventure. We went with some friends to the water park in Manassas. The neat thing about this park is there is an entire (large) section for for toddlers where the water is no deeper than one foot. They have slides, large play animals that spout water, and little geysers near the zero depth entry point. There's also a large fort-like section for a little bit older kids. What a novel idea! It was the neatest pool for kids I'd been to since I visited the Boline's pool in MD.

Of course, as soon as we got there it started raining, but fortunately we got a spot under a big umbrella so we stayed mostly dry. The sun came out about 15 min later, and by the time we were ready to leave it was so humid that we were wishing for the rain again. Kate loved being in the water, and when I held her hands so she could walk in the pool, she kept churning her legs like she was riding a bike. So funny! At one point when we were playing in the zero depth entry point, I had the camera and was trying to take some pictures. She started crawing away toward the deeper water (as you saw in a previous post she crawls fast!) so I had to shove the camera back in the case and lunge after her. We also went down a slide together but she wasn't a big fan of that. All in all, it was a great day and we had good fun! Thanks to Wendy, Drew, Jennifer and Gavin for joining us.

Even though Gavin and Kate aren't looking at the camera, you can tell they're smiling!Wendy and her son, Drew.Jennifer and her son, Gavin.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Just as we decided we were ready to go, the lifeguards came around saying the pool was closed for an hour. Then, just as we finished packing up to go, they came around saying the pool was now closed for the rest of the day. I'm sure we didn't want to know WHY the pool was closing early...but the timing was perfect.

Finally!

After months of THINKING they were coming, one is actually here. Yes, Kate has her first tooth. Well, you can't actually see it yet, but you can certainly feel it on the bottom right. She doesn't like for anyone to check it out--I don't blame her. Who wants someone sticking random fingers in their mouth? But that makes it hard to determine if there's another one or if this pearly white will be solo for awhile yet. Anyway, as soon as it breaks through for all to see, I'm sure you'll see it on a post. For now, here are a few recent pictures.

She found the back door and got excited. "There are people out there!"

"Yummy...yogurt and fruit! Now please let me try to feed myself."