Friday-5

Happy Friday! YAHOO!!! I'm in the mood for a great weekend! No plans other than the normal soccer stuff. We are in home improvement mode! We spent most of last weekend cleaning up Chris's room. We rearranged the furniture and cleaned out all the "kid stuff." {sniff} My little guy is getting so BIG!

Our other project this week is that we are finally having the house PAINTED! Here is the before photo.
And here is the after... we went from one shade of gray to three colors: white, sandstone, and baked potato. I like it. A couple ladies on the street emailed me while I was at work to tell me how the painting was progressing. They like it too!

Here's Kayle... you can see how she was helping the painters. She's still wearing her streak of sandstone. LOL!


Twenty six miles across the sea...
Santa Catalina is a-waiting for me...

We are going to do it! The Catalina Island Buffalo Run! I put our reservations in this week. Chris is running the half-marathon, and Cheryl and I are running the 5K.
Why do they call it the Buffalo Run? Because there are bison on Catalina. In 1924, 14 buffalo were turned loose on Catalina island for use in filming the motion picture, "The Vanishing American." The herd is still there. I've seen them in person when we sailed to Two Harbors (years ago). The bison came right into town!

That's it for this week... I hope you all have a great weekend!

Weekly Sports Report

I know... I'm bad... The sports report is really late this week. Chris's team ran at the Dana Hills Invitational last weekend. The Varsity boys+2 were gone at the Stanford Invitational. That left Chris and Ricky competing for the top Junior spot. They both started in front, side by side. It was a race to the finish! Chris finishing only one second ahead of Ricky. Chris was the #1 Capo Junior runner, finishing in 17:54 (one second over his PR).

Cheryl's college team chalked up two more losses last week. Those poor Gauchos... Cheryl said that they play well, but they don't have a striker with a drive for the goal.

The Quakes are having a GREAT season... two more wins last weekend! They are in second place in the league. The first place team has played one more game than they have. They are looking good for moving up to Silver next year! Congrats to the Quakes and Coach Cheryl!

Happy Card Making Day!

I was just browsing my friend Beth's blog and was reminded that earlier this month was World Card Making Day. Better late than never... here's my card!

The roller skating dog is from Maui Cow. The rest of the stamps are from my currently FAVORITE stamp company, PTI!

Weekly Sports Report

It's a sports report with NO PHOTOS! I was at work while Cheryl played her two college games this week. The first game was against 1st place Santiago Canyon... Saddleback lost 0-5. The second game was against 2nd place Cerritos... Saddleback lost 0-3. Not off to a great start. There were lots of injuries this week, two concussions, sprained wrist, torn MCL, pulled hamstring, strained hipflexor, hurt backs/knees/ankles; and it's only one week into the season! Thank goodness Cheryl is still healthy, but the hard teams are over and done with. Hopefully, they will have a better week next week.


Chris had another cross country meet this weekend, but he didn't race. He was messing around with his friends and didn't get from the field to the coach's classroom in a reasonable amount of time. Around 1/4 of the boys team didn't get to run at this meet.

The Quakes had another great game this weekend. They played the Blues' team and WON! There are two Blues teams in their bracket, and the team they beat isn't the "good" team. But, still, GREAT JOB QUAKES and COACH CHERYL!

Galaxy WON! YAHOO! Poor Chris... he didn't get to go to the Galaxy game because he had a meet, and he couldn't race at the meet because he got in trouble. He was still expected to go to the meet and cheer the team on. So, Papa came with us to watch Galaxy defeat Toronto. Galaxy remains in second place in MLS West.

I MADE IT!

I'm in Woodsfield, Ohio! It has taken me 21 months to run from Mission Viejo to Woodsfield... 2028.5 miles!

Here is a satellite view of the little town of Woodsfield. My best friend whom I never met, Mary, lives here. HI MARY!!!

My next stop in my around the world tour is going to be an even smaller town, Potters Hill, North Carolina. This is where Jim's brother and his family live. The town spans one crossroad on the highway. If you blink as you are going by, you could miss it, LOL!

Hi Don and Carol! I'm on my way!

Happy National Run at Work Day - Friday 5

Today I'm going to share my celebration of National Run at Work Day. So, what did I do? I ran at work! Here are some photos of my lunch time run. I'm so fortunate to have a nice offroad trail behind my building... plus locker rooms with showers!

I start by running behind the building and down the stairs to the park.

There is another flight of stairs at the far end of the park that goes under the street.

From there I hook up with the trail to Whiting Ranch. It's a pretty off-road trail.

Here is the killer hill that I have to run up on my way back... FULL SUN, LONG, STEEP... KILLER!

Unfortunately, it has to end back at work.

That was my National Run at Work Day. Thanks for coming with me!

Weekly Sports Report

Hey, look at the ticker!!! Mary, I'll be there in time for dinner on Tuesday, hehehe!

Cheryl's college team won 1-0 in their first season game. This week they are playing their rival, Santiago. Santiago came in first place last season; Saddleback came in 6th. It's going to be a tough game... Oh, the player bios are up on the Saddleback site. Checkout Cheryl, HERE.

Saturday was a busy sports day. Chris did okay at his first meet of the cross country season. Capistrano Valley has the #1 Junior team in Orange County. Five of the Junior runners at his school are fast enough to run Varisity. He came in 8th with a decent time (it was around 18.50), but he was bummed at his posting. He went running with me on Sunday because he wants to impove... his goal is to be 6th (that will make him the top junior runner behind the varsity).

The Quakes played at UCI in their first season game and won 10-0!!! Cheryl said the little girls played GREAT! She was so proud of them!

Saturday night was Galaxy against (last place) Dallas. If Galaxy won that game they would be in first place in the league! They lost 6-3! Galaxy played terrible! Cheryl said that it's been a long time since she's seen 19 goals in a single day, LOL!

TGI Friday-5

Labor day weekend... the last weekend of summer! Where are we going to spend it? AT THE BEACH! We went jet-skiing for an hour. Everyone drove but me. I HATE those things! When I turn I want it to TURN... not think about it, maybe it'll turn... soon I hope... it'll get around to it... maybe now, hmmm... maybe not...


Chris and I had a nice run down at the beach. Look at my little guy... not so little anymore. When did that happen?!!!


Nothing like doing nothing... Here's Jim and the kids playing video games and unwinding from a busy busy day.

I wanted to get a back to school picture of Chris, but I was told, "no way!" He starts school at 6:45am. I'm so glad he's a morning person, or we'd have some nasty morning battles.

I hope everyone had a great week back at school!

Friday-5

Welcome September! Wow, this year is flying by! Checkout the ticker at the top of the screen. I've almost made it all the way to Woodsfield, Ohio!... and it's only taken me 9 months longer than I thought it would. Slow and steady wins the race... not that I've ever won a race... Mary, watch for me! I'll be there in only a couple more weeks, hehehe...

This week I started a new digital class called "Me: The Abridged Version." As part of the class I took the VIA Survey of Character Strengths from University of Pennsylvania's, Authentic Happiness website. Here are my top-5 character strengths:

Industry, diligence, and perseverance
You work hard to finish what you start. No matter the project, you "get it out the door" in timely fashion.

Judgment, critical thinking, and open-mindedness
Thinking things through and examining them from all sides are important aspects of who you are.

Curiosity and interest in the world
You are curious about everything. You like exploration and discovery.

Self-control and self-regulation
You self-consciously regulate what you feel and what you do. You are a disciplined person.

Honesty, authenticity, and genuineness
You are an honest person, not only by speaking the truth but by living your life in a genuine and authentic way.

Cheryl said that if she saw these character traits on a bio at eHarmony, she'd give that person a pass. Well... even to me I sound boring. Maybe I am boring?! I think I'll have to work on that!

Weekly Sports Report

A sports report with no photos? Yep! It's a bummer being stuck at work while everyone else is playing.

Jim had almost every Monday and Friday off during the entire summer. He's been surfing, A LOT! Sometimes Chris goes with him, sometimes he's running with his cross country friends. Oh wait! I do have a photo! Here's Chris running through the forest at XC camp in Big Bear.

Poor Cheryl... she is on soccer overload. She had college soccer training M-F, she had two college scrimmages last week (they lost both), the Quakes had practice two evenings, and she had four games this weekend with the Quakes(they lost 2, won 2). She said that she needs a day off. Cheryl has another busy soccer week... practice with the Quakes, training at college, and a BIG college tournament in Santa Clarita next weekend.

On another soccer note: GALAXY WON on an amazing shot from this guy! Galaxy is in 2nd place in the western conference. It looks like they will finally make it to the play-offs!

The new blog look

They say white is the new black... what to you think?

I like the clean look. I still have a few more tweaks to make before I'm totally happy, but I really like it so far.