What We've Been Up To Lately, Part 1

My brother ran a marathon the weekend after the Italian Festival Parade. My mom spent the night so we could get up early the day of the race and go watch him. Despite training for months, things didn't go quite as well as he had planned. He pressed on, though, and finished all 26.2 miles. His time wasn't nearly what he had hoped it would be, but sometimes the victory just has to be in the finishing. Or, as one of his runner friends said when they were exiting the course, "Sometimes you just need to cross the line and get your f@#%ing banana." It probably summed this marathon experience up nicely for him. As for me, I enjoyed hanging out with my mom, cheering my brother on, and having lunch out together afterward.


Still feeling good.

Thinking about dying.

Not an ideal time but still faster than those ladies in pink who only went half as far (although they do look like they are enjoying it more than he is). ;)

Almost done

I know Ron. He didn't hit his goal this time, but he will keep training and racing until he does. And we will be in the stands cheering him on.

That same weekend the metroparks displayed the photos entered in their contest. Danielle was too old to enter anything in the children's category, so she didn't submit anything this year. I submitted 4. 2 of them I picked because I liked them and wanted to share them even if they didn't win. 1 was the kids' choice for me to submit, and 1 was because I thought it would win. And it did. It came in 2nd place. They hung the picture the wrong direction, which I found frustrating. (Look at the raindrops! There's no way the drops would look like that if the petals were vertical rather than horizontal.) Danielle and I joke that they always pick a black & white picture as a winner in the flower category, so we thought it was amusing that it won just like we thought it would. Since this is the 3rd time I've won, I have to enter the advanced photography category from now on. Time to up my game. ;)