ahhhh, fall...

I do believe that fall is my favorite of the seasons...fall and spring are my top 2 with fall just winning out. It's so nice that it's not hot anymore, but it's not super crazy cold yet (well, we did have those few days of pretty cold the other day)...the leaves changing colors...it's so nice to see the changing of the seasons and see God's hand at work in nature.

I got started putting the Christmas lights on the house yesterday...I need to finish up today. It makes me sound super motivated, but it's supposed to get to 70 again, and who knows how much longer the nice weather will hold out. It's not like I want to be walking around the roof when it's freezing outside. All I have left to do is 2 more strands of lights and run the extension cords so I'm done on the roof...We're really looking forward to decorating for Christmas this year...we look forward to it every year, but this year we're hosting my family's Christmas. We went a little nuts last year with the post-Christmas clearances and it's going to look like Christmas exploded in our house...should be fun.

The Marathon Wobbles

So we just got back from Kansas City where I did the KC Marathon yesterday. It was a nice trip. For those who care, my time was 4 hours 40 minutes and 17 seconds, which makes it a 10 min. 46 sec. mile pace. I'm pretty happy with that. I had to do more walking than I would've liked for the last 5 or 6 miles, but all in all, I thought it was good. I wished I had my music with me...but I thought I'd be a good boy and not bring it since technically speaking mp3 players and the like aren't allowed on the race course (safety reasons). Last night, if I sat down for too long, I could barely walk...it was pretty amusing. My left knee started to hurt at about mile 21 of the run, and it got real stiff that evening...we went to dinner and when I got out of the car I was practically dragging my leg behind me. Mercifully, I'm feeling pretty good today...my knee works right and my only problem is my legs are real tired, which is to be expected...I thought I'd have problems when we got out of the car when we got home just now, but other than being a little stiff, it's not too bad at all...stairs suck, though. Here's a couple pictures for your entertainment:


Me just before the race started...



Me finishing 4 hours and 40 minutes later!!


Other than the run, we wandered around The Plaza a little bit, roamed the Crown Center mall, ate way too much yummy food (had a great lunch at Gates before we headed back today...mmmmm, bbq...)This morning we went and worshipped at the Overland Park church of Christ, which was lovely. Got to see Allen French, who I hadn't seen in years, so that was nice...Jim, since you read this from time to time...Curt Sparks told me to kick you in the shins...

I'll post some more pictures once they're available online from ASI (took all the official pictures).

ps...thanks so much to the Moores for watching the house and pets for us while we were gone!

Live From New York!

Don't know if any of you fine people are Saturday Night Live watchers, or if that's past your bed time...really, we don't watch it very often because it's definately past our bedtime usually. However, the Tina Fay doing Sarah Palin stuff has been really amusing the last couple weeks. I don't know if you watched the Vice Presidential Debate last week or not...Joyful and I have made a point of watching all the debates together (next one is Tuesday night) so that we can be informed voters. I was really interested to see the VP debate mostly to see how Palin did since she hadn't done too many interviews, it seemed like she was mostly working off a script. She really didn't do too bad...though it was funny how if she didn't want to answer the question, she would very obviously change the subject...anyhow, here's the video of the SNL parody of the VP Debate...Queen Latifah did the moderator...not sure who the guy is that did Joe Biden, but he was pretty much right on, too...