I Want To Be This Guy When I Grow Up

I have never been much of a runner. In Middle School I remember running a 14 minute mile, walking half the time. I'm not sure why this is either. I can walk or hike all ALL DAY. I can even do sprint/walk intervals for 40 minutes straight, but ask me to run for more than 10 consecutive minutes (still not reaching a mile all these years later) and I'll be red-faced and huffing and puffing while coming up on that 9th minute, ready to start walking the rest of the way.

I've even set a goal to jog for 3 miles, and gradually tried work my way to it over a month's time. By the third week I realized that I jog too darn slowly to reach the 3 miles in a reasonable time, otherwise I would be jogging for an hour just to log in 3 miles. So then I said to myself, "Thats OK. This is a big goal for me. I will be proud to jog for 30 minutes straight and I don't care how far I go."

Almost three months later, on the stinking treadmill at least 4-5 days a week, 10 minutes is all I've got and I STILL can't run a mile in that 10 minutes. Hmmpf.

So you can imagine how I felt when I read this headline in the local paper a while back. But once I started reading past the photograph caption, I started feeling a little bit better.....I guess while 91 year old Mr. Lauderback was in highschool and then while attending the University of Oregon in the mid-1930's he tried out for track and awaited a varsity letter that never came. He ran too slow. Near the age of 43 he started running a mile every day for 20 years. At 65, he was running a 6 minute mile. Then at 91 he broke the world record for the 1 mile run in the 90-94 age group! He ran a mile in 10 minutes, 52 seconds! Better than I did when I was 12, better than I can do now at 30. And now here he is running up the 1 mile, 500 foot incline of Pilot Butte in the local Pilot Butte Challenge in under 19 minutes! I have yet to walk up that old volcano since we moved to town.....but now I have hope knowing that time is on my side, even if it takes me another 10 years to run a dang mile in 10 minutes or run for 30 minutes straight. So I decided that this is the guy I want to be when I grow up.

What Day Is It Again?

Its October 10th. OCTOBER. 10TH. And it started snowing last night........And you thought it was getting cold where you live....silly, silly, silly. Well, unless you're the one in Wyoming. Then you are most likely more chilly than me :)

Rise & Shine Boys! They lasted a whole 5 minutes out there this morning. Such Brave Little Toasters.

What's That on the Back of Your Head?

Carter's morning hair, before & after:

Who are you? Carter, or Brayden? Brayden, or Carter? Could have been twins I tell you.

A Few Random Shots

Jim recently drove to La Grande for work and along his 10 1/2 hour round trip commute these were my favorite pictures he took. I have never been on the route he took to La Grande, well, I've never actually been to La Grande and these pictures are a part of the Eastern Oregon Outback that I've never seen. Really, what a huge, diverse and beautiful state Oregon is.



Here are the boys having fun, Carter swings like a maniac and Brayden thinks he is doing life defying tricks on the bench swing.

Auntie Jessica (Jeahss-ja-ca as Brayden says) reading her favorite book to the boys, titled "I Am NOT Going To Get Up Today"

Uncle Brandon snuggling with the other boy. (i.e., leftovers)