HUGE NEWS!

Hey there!

Nathan and I have HUGE news to tell you all! Yay for huge news :-)

Some of you know an announcement is coming b/c we teased you about having a secret but didn’t tell you what it was. Some of you know this is coming b/c you’ve been expecting us to do something crazy for a while now. And some of you have no idea what I’m talking about…. Whatever group you’re in, you can finally stop holding your breath for us to tell you – here’s the news(!!!):

Nathan and I have decided to do what some would call “jumping off the deep end” and others would call “the adventure of a lifetime”. In short, we’re resigning from our jobs, riding our bikes across the USA, and starting a business! (yes, all at the same time)

Our last day at work will be August 6th. Then we'll go see Nathan’s sister, Carleen, marry Zach, the love of her life, in Indiana the next week. Then, the very next day after the wedding (August 15), we’ll board a plane and head for the start of our bike trip, Oregon’s Pacific coast!

We’ve talked about biking across the United States since we got married (4yrs ago), so for those of you who think something like this sounds torturous…don’t worry…we WANT to do it. :-) Here is a picture of us on a previous, overnight bike trip in Iowa. We rode to the Mississippi river.

So, starting at the west coast of Oregon, we’re going to ride 5,000 miles across the good, ole US of A, camping, cooking our own food, and meeting lots of new people along the way. We’re planning to make stops to visit my (April’s) grandparents in Glacier National Park in Montana, Nathan’s parents at Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and we might also see my brother Evan who’s in Afghanistan right now with the Army but might be getting a temporary leave in October(!).

Then, as a grand finale, we have some great friends who live in Raleigh, NC – Eric and Jamie – who are going to bike the last few days with us in the Outer Banks of North Carolina! When we’re all done, Eric, Jamie, Nathan, and I are going to head back to Raleigh for a celebration and a shared Thanksgiving together. (and Nathan and I will probably eat a whole turkey…each!)

Our route will be on our trip-blog soon (details below). You should check it out, and let us know if you want to visit us or ride w/ us while we’re on the trip!

One of the main purposes of this trip is to really explore what’s next in our lives and what kind of business we’d like to start. We have a bunch of business ideas floating around, and we hope the trip will help us flesh them out and find one that’s a good match for us.

Nathan’s always wanted to be in business for himself, and I think it sounds exciting, too! We figure the time is right (no house, no kids, no debt), so we're putting our plans in motion….2-wheeled motion.

“Wait a minute…you mean you don’t really know what you kind of business you want to start when you get back from your bike trip?”, you ask. Well, we're not sure at the moment. “But, isn’t that important to know??!”, you ask in shock. …we don’t think so. :-) We feel content to enjoy our trip one day at a time and let our future plans reveal themselves as they will.

All in all, we have a couple of good mentor-types, we’re not [too] afraid of failure, and we’re excited about the possibility of success, so we figure we’ll give our plans a go! O, AANNDD, this is important to mention too: this trip…this “venture away from normalcy” if you will…is possible b/c we’re now debt-free (woo-hoo)!

Nathan and I have worked hard to get, and stay, debt-free. Because we’re debt-free, we’ve been able to build up our savings. Because we have savings, we have options. And what’s the best thing to do when you have options….USE THEM! Duh!

So, this trip is a celebration of our hard work and the start of a new era in our lives! As such, we’ve dubbed it: The Wild Blue Yonder Tour :-)

On the trip, we’ll have limited connectivity (by today's standards anyway) - our (non-smart) cell phones and a laptop, but we’re still planning to regularly update our friends, family, and the world at large about all of our latest bear sightings, amazing apple-pie tastings, near-dehydration stories, etc..

Here’s the ways we’ll be keeping in touch:

· TheRoadTo.org – a totally cool website Nathan is making! It’ll have:

o A map of the USA that shows our route and where we are!

o Written trip blog!

o Video trip blog!

o Trip Pictures!

o Twitter feed!

o (FYI: It's still largely under construction, so peek if you want, but don't be surprised if you feel like you've landed on the wrong site).

· Natril – our Twitter ID

· TheNathanAndAprilAdventure – our Facebook page

· And, of course, email (TheReinhards@NathanAndApril.com)

So, for the next two weeks until we leave, we’ll be working hard to wrap up our jobs, gather the remaining trip gear we need, sew our panniers (aka: saddle bags…it’ll save us literally hundreds of dollars – yay!), finish upgrading our bikes, and then practice riding our beefed-up and trip-ready steeds! O, and we’ll try and remember to sleep somewhere in there too.

Until next time, as the more seasoned, long-distance bikers say, “happy tail winds” everyone!

A Bit of Catch-up (warning: wall-o-text)

Well, as usual, it would seem I'm a bit behind in my updates. But, as usual, we've been busy and I haven't really made time to sit down and write. Be forewarned that we're in the process of moving out of our apartment, and the computer with all the pictures is all packed up, so it's just words today...

So...way back to around Memorial Day weekend: My sister, Carleen, and her fiance, Zach, came down for a visit. We had a fabulous time, even though our one-bedroom apartment was a bit crowded for the week. At the start of their visit, the swimming pool was a little on the cold side. By the end of their visit (less than a week) the water was getting to the warm side (Texas is hot...who knew?!).

We celebrated their engagement and Carleen's 21st birthday with a delicious meal the Melting Pot. Our waiter was slightly disgruntled, and while he was pretty good, he kept telling us we "didn't really want that" when we tried to order things. He also told us he was planning to leave his job soon and that the management was changing and so a lot of the wait staff was planning to leave. Interesting experience to say the least.

Now fast-forward to the last week of June: April and I went on vacation with my family to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. To get there, we left Texas Thursday afternoon and drove all night for Indiana. The plan was to arrive at around 9 am at my parent's house (it's a 16 hour drive without any stops), load into the van with my mom and dad, and drive to the east side of PA, where we were staying...with a stop in Ohio to eat lunch with April's parents.

While the trip was fairly uneventful (though 30 hours on the road is a bit long), April and I had terrible luck with our stops for fuel and food. Jett, our car, is a "clean" diesel, meaning it can only take ultra-low sulfur diesel. It can be a little hard to find fuel sometimes since many truck stops still only have the regular, low sulfur diesel. We would often get off at an exit advertising diesel, only to get back on a few minutes later without being able to fuel up.

Then there was our trouble with McDonald's. They have a fabulous new drink for traveling in the summer called a "frappe". It's kind of like a coffee slushie, only it tastes way better than a coffee slushie sounds. Anyway, about 1 am we started looking for a McDonald's to refill our travel mugs with this sugary goodness. The convenient thing about most McDonald's located near major roads is that they are open 24 hours.

We found an amazingly convenient McDonald's attached to a gas station with ultra-low sulfur diesel (yes!). So while I fueled up, April went to buy the drinks...except they were closed for "special cleaning". Whatever that means. But, we were told there was another McD's just up the road. So we continued on...

A little up the road was indeed another McD's. We waited in line at the drive through, were greeted by the speaker and placed our order...then silence. After a bit of a pause, a new voice came on and asked for our order. So we ordered again. After we were done and had confirmed the order was correct, the voice said "Thanks, oh, and we only take cash."

Now normally this wouldn't be a problem. April and I are on a cash budget (the envelope system). We never use our debit cards except for fuel. Well, fuel and vacation. So once again we left with sad, empty mugs. We finally got our frappes at our third stop, and eventually made it to Indiana and then all the way to the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border. And my parent's van only lost one piece on the trip (and it wasn't important)!

Vacation was good. We enjoyed hiking part of the Appalachian Trail (I got stung by a bee pretty far from the trail head...but didn't have to use my Epi-pen. Yay immunotherapy!), spent a day in NYC (April and I think we walked 14 miles around the city), dominated a four-square tournament (the organizer didn't know what hit her), and discovered professional shuffleboard is probably not in my future (eh, no big loss there).

Our drive back was split over three days: back to Hamilton, Indiana, then to St. Louis, then home. While in St. Louis, we thought we'd go see the Arch because April has never been there. Unfortunately, it didn't really register that it was the 4th of July. The place was packed. There was a line just to get into the base. So, in favor of getting home before midnight, we opted not to go up to the top, but just looked around the museum, took some pictures, and left. It was still cool :)

We took a new route home through the Ozarks. It was beautiful, but diesel was even more scarce as we drove for hours without coming to a large city or truck stop. After dark, since it was the 4th of July, we were treated to about 60 miles of fireworks. Somehow, we managed to not see one single finale though :-(

And finally, we (mostly) moved out of our apartment yesterday. We lived on the third floor, with the halls and stairwells open to the outdoors and no elevators. And it was 105. Bad time to move. I think our friend Greg and I probably walked up and down enough stairs (while carrying boxes and furniture) to have walked to the top of the St. Louis Arch and back.

We're going to be staying with some good friends, the Amidons, while we prepare to move into our next exciting (and crazy?) phase of life. But this post is already long enough...more on that later :-)

Peace.

P.S. We are now on Twitter, user name: natril

Evan Has Deployed

As many of you know, April's brother, Evan, is a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. For those who didn't know, here's a bit of history to get you caught up...

Evan got his start in the ROTC program at The Ohio State University. He did well in ROTC where he completed some advanced training, including Airborne School. He graduated from OSU in 2008 with a double degree in math and sociology, where he gave dual meaning to the "mortar board" (yes, that is a G.I. Joe battle scene hot-glued to the top of his graduation cap).  He was also in the 20% of all ROTC cadets in the nation who graduated that year.

After graduation, Evan became a member of the 502d Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division,  where he completed many more months of training including one of the Army's most advanced training programs, Ranger School. There, Evan was among the elite few who successfully pass on there first try (~30%).

Evan was promoted from 2nd Lieutenant to 1st Lieutenant in December, and he was given charge of a heavy-weapons platoon of about 17 men. 

We have know for a while that it was only a matter of time before he and his platoon would deploy to Afghanistan, and the call finally came in mid-May. Evan has been in Afghanistan (near Kandahar) for almost a month now, and is finally able to receive mail and packages. In his words:

As you probably could have guessed, I am in a hole and it is hard for me to get communication. I love my Platoon and they keep me busy, but I have very little time to get to the computer. There are only 8 computers for everyone here so it is hard. Enough of that. My first day one of my trucks got hit by a semi on highway 1. And some other goofy crap happened too, but I don't have a lot of time to get into it yet...My new address is:

1LT Evan Peck
TF D-Co 1-502D INF
FOB Wilson
APO AE 09355

[T]he guys have been asking for some cookies. It is around 105 is during the day and in the next few months it will get up to 130. Chocolate chip is great but they will likely melt. I can put them in my hut in the AC and then bring them back out though.
send some love... oh and socks

Apparently Army guys and girls go through LOTS of socks, so if/when you send anything, always tuck in some socks too.

We are so proud of him!  Evan is a fantastic soldier, and he has always wanted to be in the Army to support and defend the USA.  April's dad was a big part of Evan's inspiration to go into the Army, since he had been in the Army, too.  At the time he separated from the Army, he had attained the rank of Captain, and his last duty assignment was Company Commander of the 170th Light Equipment Maintenance Company.  He likes to say that Evan is 4th generation Army, 2nd generation Army Officer, and 1st Generation Army Airborne Ranger.

Evan will be gone for 1 year.  We miss him, but have a lot of confidence in his training, his courageous heart and mind, and his leadership skills.  Please keep him, his platoon, and all the men and women overseas in your prayers that God would use their lives and talents mightily for His glory!

1400 Miles To The General's Challenge And A Quilting Machine

A couple of Fridays ago (April 23 to be exact), we got up at the usual time (about 6:00am), ate breakfast at the usual place (our kitchen counter), and headed out the door...like usual. But instead of heading to our usual jobs, we packed up Jett and hit the road for Clarksville, TN!

Ok, so backing up a bit...on the prior Wednesday, April was talking to her Dad on the phone and he happened to mention that he and Mom Peck were heading to Tennessee that weekend to visit Evan (April's brother) one last time before he deployed to Afghanistan in May. Oh and by the way, it would be great if we could come to. We talked it over and decided it would be great to go and have a family get together of sorts. So we requested Friday off from work and packed our bags.

As drove off, Jeeves (our GPS) informed us that while he wasn't quite sure exactly where we were going, he thought he could get us close and it would be a little over 700 miles and take about 11.5 hours. Even though it rained most of the way there, Jett really showed off it's diesel efficiency, averaging between 45 and 50 mpg the whole way!

We arrived near our destination a little over 13 hours later, after calling to get the final directions in. Of course, being a Peck family event, the first thing we did once we were all together was go out for a late dinner at Shoney's!

The plan for Saturday was to get up and load a used quilting machine that Mom Peck had bought from a lady on a previous visit to Evan, into a trailer. Of course things are never quite that easy. We learned that to get it into the sewing room of this lady's house, the delivery people had brought it in through the second story window. As we disassembled the machine and decided the best way to lower parts through the window, it started to rain...not exactly the best time to load a trailer or have windows out. So we left the van, the trailer, and the disassembled quilting machine and decided we'd come back later that afternoon. Of course that meant all five of us had to cram into Jett for the trip back to Evan's place (a tight fit for a small car and five tall people).

Eventually the rain stopped and we went back and loaded the trailer. I don't think I can say it any better than these pictures...

As we finished loading (and reloading) the trailer to Dad Peck's specifications, the skies began to look pretty threatening again and the tornado sirens started going off. As we closed the trailer door, it started to rain. Hard. Mom Peck and the homeowners had just stepped inside, April ran for the car, and Dad Peck, Evan, and I flattened ourselves against the garage door. The rain stopped falling and instead more or less just traveled horizontally (thankfully we were on the "right" side of the house). Then it started to hail. Also sideways.

About this time I'm pretty sure April is freaking out in the car by herself, but with the hail, we couldn't even look around the corner, much less get to the car. The homeowner started to open the garage door to let us in. It opened about six inches and then the power went off. And then everything was calm again. The rain, while still heavy, fell vertically. We made a dash for the door and though we were a little soggy (and April was a little shaken up) everyone was ok.

After the storm lessened a bit, we decided to head for Evan's place. This time we had three vehicles because we picked Evan's truck up from the shop on the way there. As our little caravan headed off in the driving rain, we had to avoid downed limbs and giant puddles that covered the road. But we all made it safe and sound. And by the time we got back, the sun had come out and we were ready for the next adventure: Cheeseburger Charley's and the General's Challenge.

Of course, by we, I mean Evan...the rest of us just had normal burgers and fries. The General's Challenge is to eat 5 half-pound patties, cheese, an additional topping, the bun, and a basket of fries in 30 minutes or less. The record is 8 minutes. They are even kind enough to set a little bin on the floor beside you in case you throw up.

Evan put forth a valiant effort, but soon decided bacon was probably not the best choice of additional topping. We think he probably had an additional half-pound or so of bacon. He decided he would rather be able to function for the rest of the evening than to try to push through to victory.

The next morning, we once again packed up Jett, and headed off. This time back home to Dallas. Even though it was a short visit, we a had a good time and we're glad we made the drive.

Until next time..

Hero Tales

The past month has pretty well been consumed with preparing for, entering, and helping friends with "The Ultimate Job In Ireland (and Maybe the World)." This was a chance to spend six months testing luxury honeymoon destinations, all expenses paid (plus make a little spending cash). We decided that even though we are both employed, we would enter just to be able to say we had tried...and if we should somehow win, well, we'd cross that bridge if we came to it.

We opted to go with a fairytale theme and decided the best setting would be a local park. After the wind finally (mostly) died down, we spent a few hours shooting our different scenes and headed back to the car. On the way back we saw a little girl riding a bike down a grassy hill. She wobbled a bit and then suddenly lost control and face-planted in the grass.

No one seemed to be rushing to see if she was ok, so we headed over to check up on her. She seemed a little dazed, so April (still in her wedding dress from the video shoot), offered to help her back to her family. A little ways down the path we ran into her aunt, and while we explaining what had happened, the little girl suddenly started walking away and didn't respond to anyone. April put her hand on the girl's shoulder just as the girl went rigid and started to fall over!

The aunt went into a bit of a panic at this point, and had April call 911 while she called her husband over. The little girl revived and seemed to be doing ok. As the ambulance pulled up we all started to moved toward the parking lot and she collapsed again! As the paramedics questioned her, she answered some questions well (one particularly cute exchange - q: How did you get so pretty? a: My mom) and missed others. The family decided to go to the hospital in the ambulance (hope they had insurance!!), and we didn't get their contact info, so we don't know how things are going.

It looks like God had us in the right place at the right time for this one, since none of the family was close by and no one else seemed to respond!

On a much lighter note, after getting home from the park, I went out to garage to get something, and there was a tiny Shih-Tzu puppy sitting by the top of the stairs to our apartment (we're on the third floor!). He was very excited to see me, but he didn't have any tags. Since April knows most of the dogs in our complex, I took it back to our apartment to see if she knew whose it was. She did not, but decided to find out! So dog under arm, she began going door to door asking if this was their dog or if they knew whose it was.

As I finished getting what I needed from the garage, I joined her for the last door. The girl who answered seemed to have just gotten up (perhaps we awakened her?), and was totally shocked her dog had gotten out. She had no idea how it could have happened! And we're not sure how the dog ended up on the third floor, since she lives on the second and the steps are bigger than the dog was! Needless to say, she was very grateful to get her dog back.

And finally, a couple of weeks ago, April was on her way home from work and called to say the car was making a funny noise...and it was getting worse. As you may know, we have driven our share of clunkers, so driving with a funny noise is not all that uncommon. I suggest she pull into a parking lot to see if anything was visibly wrong. Short story: there was.

The rear passenger tire was totally flat!  She had been driving on it while it was flat for so long, it was even smoking and had holes in the sidewall! So I got to go rescue my fairytale bride and save her from the evil flat tire! ;-)

Oh, and if you somehow missed it, here is our Ultimate Job entry and plus the outtakes! Could you ask for more?

Hope you all are having memorable adventures of your own!
Nathan

P.S. What do "The General's Challenge," a quilting machine, and 1400 miles in one weekend have in common? Stay tuned... :-)

P.P.S. This is our first time experimenting with embedded video, so we'll see how the feed/email handles this!

Snowy Biker VitaMix Burgers

Last Saturday was officially the first day of Spring! Woo-hoo! April and I celebrated the arrival of Spring by building a snowman on our porch Sunday :-)

Apparently Someone didn't get the memo, and the northeast Dallas area got a nice and fresh but not-so-Springy 4" of snow in addition to a 30 degree cold snap over the weekend.

In other news, I have started riding my bike (that would be bicycle...we sold our motorcycles when we moved and haven't replaced them yet) to work a few days a week. It's just under a four mile ride and I'm pretty sure the low point in elevation almost right in the middle (at a stoplight that is nearly always red, so I always get to start the uphill from a stop). Someday I'll be able to tell my kids I had to ride my bike to work uphill both ways, though I avoided the snow and got to wear shoes. Progress is a great thing, no?

April, for those of you who somehow don't know, loves her VitaMix blender....a LOT. She talks about it with anyone who will listen, telling them of it's greatness and how it can make everything ice cream, to hot soup (the blades spin so fast it heats the ingredients up), to scrambled eggs (those speedy blades beat AND cook), to peanut butter (from peanuts), and even facial masks. Recently, she agreed to put on a VitaMix luncheon at work where everything would be made in the wonder blender.

So, after eight hours of frenzied (and loud) blender activity the prior evening, she finished making all  5 soups, 3 pasta sauces, 4 breads, 2 butters, 2 dips, 2 desserts, and facial masks.  The next morning, she loaded up Jett with all of her creations and headed off to work.  She was super excited about the opportunity to show everyone all the awesome things she made in a blender. Plus, she would get to talk about her blender a lot!

There was only one small problem...she left all the noodles at home (in the freezer, where they had been cooling)! She couldn't leave to get them, because she had to set up the VitaMix buffet. So, I got to put on my shiny knight armor, ride my bike home (or course it happened on a day I rode my bike), drive to a meeting place near downtown, and give the now frozen noodles to my damsel in distress.

With the noodles delivered, the rest of the event went off without a hitch. The VitaMix lunch was a huge success! April received lots of compliments on her masterful cooking, talked to her hearts content about her blender, and I got delicious leftovers! That's a win!-win!-win!! in my book :-)   (She says there are even a few people at work now who want to save up to buy a VitaMix of their own!)

Now, on to the "Burgers" (see the title does make sense). April and I, inspired by some friends, my parents, and our curiosity, have decided to be more intentional about trying new restaurants when we eat out. After we eat at a place, we each rate it 1 to 5 (1 - terrible, 5 - gotta take our friends). Our latest greatest find, The Grape, earned the double fiver...for an item that's not even on the menu!

It turns out that on Sunday and Monday only, The Grape serves absolutely amazing burgers (apologies to my vegan and vegetarian friends...you can probably save a couple seconds and skip this part). But they aren't on the menu, even on Sunday and Monday. You have to ask for them. For your troubles, you get this:

Ten ounces of cook-to-perfection beef, cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickle, and onion on a lightly toasted bun. When properly stacked, it's as tall as your head. And it is delicious! :-D

And finally, a bonus feature not mentioned in the title. We went with some friends to the arts district. Given that it is art, pictures probably speak louder than words, so I'll leave it to them...

Until next time...

The Random Happenings of The Last Couple Months

Time sure flies when you're...well, it seems to fly no matter what! In the interest of not making you read a small novel, I'm going to give you the abridged version in bullet form with the occasional picture. Pictures are worth 1000 words anyways. (ok, ok, really I just don't want to write a small novel...I'm sure if I wrote it you would all read it though ;-)).

Starting back in January...

"Congratulations, you've won a FREE* cruise!" *Of course to get your free cruise, you'll have to drive about two hours one way, listen to four or five people give a high pressure sales pitch, and then we'll tell you that the cruise will still really cost about $1000.*

And yep, we went for it. Unfortunately, they don't give you the asterisk bit until after you've been through their ridiculous sales pitch. ;-) The engineer in me really wants to take you through the finer points of how bad the math in the pitch was (I even actually wrote it out!), but I decided to spare you and just give you the cliffs notes version: it was bad.

And, after wasting most of a Sunday, we decided not to take the cruise because including port fees, taxes, and tips the whole thing would have cost about as much as if we had just outright paid for an equivelant cruise. They wouldn't even give us the itineraries to look over unless we gave them $100 deposit! Ummmm...no thanks.

Of course, being the slow learners that we are, the next Tuesday we were on our way to Ft. Worth (only about 45 minutes away) for another pitch to get a free vacation. When we arrived, we were asked if we had a major credit card. We don't have a credit card (Dave Ramsey's fault), but we showed them our debit card. No numbers were taken, they just claimed it was "identification".  Like our driver's license isn't good enough to get a vacation pitch, but it will get us through security at the DFW airport. Riiiiiiight.

Anyway, they told us to go have a seat in the waiting room. About 15 minutes later, we were given a "consolation prize" of two free nights in an area hotel and told that if we didn't have a credit card, we couldn't continue. We said "Thanks, goodbye!" and decided that we actually came out ahead on that one.  So, if anyone wants to visit, we have some free hotel time for you :-)

Enter February...

February 11th and 12th it snowed. A lot. So much that we didn't go to work on the 12th. So much that April got stuck. Sort of.

It really did snow a lot. A record setting snow of over a foot. That's a ton for a city that doesn't know what a snow shovel is, let alone a snow plow. We decided that due to the road conditions it was best if we stayed home.

I had some work to do wrapping up Reinhard Photo stuff, so I decided to dedicate my day to that. April was getting antsy and decided to go exploring. She put on some rubber rain boots, the kind that comes up to a few inches below the knee, some gloves, grabbed the camera, and headed for the forest preserve behind our apartment.

Twenty minutes later, there is a knock at the door. April is standing there sans gloves with mud up to her knees. After her fingers thawed she told me that while she was exploring she thought she would find a way across a construction zone in the preserve and onto some trails...except it was muddy. And she started sinking. She was getting slightly worried that she was really stuck when the mud went over the top of both of her boots. But thankfully she escaped. Unfortunately she didn't think to take a picture of herself in her stuck state...

For Valentine's Day weekend, we had some awesome friends invite us to join them (and their gift card and coupons) at a restaurant called "The Melting Pot." The Melting Pot is a fondu place where they give you all kinds of options and they are all dipped and/or cooked by you at your table in your own little pots of fondu, cooking oils, or chocolates. It was fabulous! Even with coupons, it's definitely still in the no-more-than-once-a-year-on-very-special-occasions category. Still, it was well worth the experience and we had a great time!

Shortly after Valentine's Day, I discovered barefoot running. If done right, there are a lot of benefits to running barefoot. One of the keys is to take it slow and let your body adjust. I decided to run indoors on a treadmill. I started off well, only doing 0.25 miles and increasing 0.1 miles each day.  I was really enjoying it. Unfortunately, I decided to push it when I got to 0.7 miles. The next day I jumped to 1 mile, and the day after that to 1.3...and I decided to go faster too....aaaannndd I decided to ignore the dull pain in my foot....

Bad plan. I limped around for three weeks and actually finally just started running again...all the way back down to 0.1 miles and about half my previous final speed. Fortunately there was never any swelling or bruising. Lesson learned :-)
 
About a week after I initially hurt my foot, we went to the Dallas World Aquarium (with the same cool people that we ate with at the Melting Pot). It was amazing to see the number of displays they managed to pack into a relatively small space. It was really more of a small zoo than an aquarium. They had monkeys, otters, crocodiles, manatees, a jaguar, and a shark tunnel to name a few of the bigger attractions. We also got to see them feed the sharks, crocodiles, and otters. They had one really fat croc, who, we discovered during the feeding, was also incredibly lazy. If the food didn't land in his mouth, it was too much effort to get it...he just waited for a new piece of food to be thrown at him. haha

And last weekend, we volunteered to work at the Holt International table at a concert, Winter Jam, in the American Airlines center. The artists on the list for the night were Fireflight, Newsong, Sidewalk Prophets, 10th Avenue North, the Newsboys, and Third Day. We fully expected to be posted at a table in the hall and miss most, if not all, of the concert. We didn't even bother to take a camera!

We had to get there 1.5 hours early for training. When we showed up, they hadn't even opened the doors yet to the general public. That's when we learned the Holt table we would be working at was right in the middle on the floor! The guy in charge told us to go get some seats anywhere we wanted and then come back and he would tell us what we needed to do. Since the doors hadn't officially opened yet and there wasn't reserved seating, we pretty much got our pick of seats - sweeeeeeet! When we came back for the training, we were told "Oh, by the way, you only have to be here for intermission and possibly a little bit after the concert is over. Enjoy the concert, I'll give you a signal when it's time to report to the table."  Rock on!

And now you have been officially caught up on our lives :-)

God Bless