Gobbler Grind Marathon Race Report (from Niki)

Since posting has been a bit slow, I’m going to make up for it with a giant post about my marathon yesterday. Overall, it went wonderful! Thanks to everyone for their encouragement and kind words. Let’s start from the top:

How it all started
After the Omaha half marathon in September, I was pretty excited to see if I could lower my time any further. I spent the next day googling other races in the Midwest hoping to squeeze in one more before winter. As I clicked around Kansas, I got to thinking, “I’m running more than I ever have… hopefully we’ll do the family thing some day… a full marathon will never make more sense than it does right now!” A couple clicks later and I was signed up for the Gobbler Grind Marathon less than 8 weeks away in Overland Park, Kansas.

Training
I probably knew the least about how to do this effectively, safely, and most of all, quickly. I got my hands on a few training plans, but I mostly did my own thing. The serious runners do speed work and interval and other fancy stuff. I mostly stuck to small, medium, large, and extra-large runs. The first month I was running about 30-40 miles a week and the last month was about 40-50. Sunday would be my XL runs with distances of 12-14-16-18-20 miles around northwest Omaha. Daylight savings killed me with the time change though. I hate getting up early and 10 degrees at 6AM is worse than it sounds. I also found that I ate and slept a lot more. I was like a newborn toward the end of it.

Pre-race day
Cassi was kind enough to let me stay at her house which was thankfully less than 15 minutes from the race. Here are some pictures of how I packed.

Yes, I brought my own blender. I need my smoothies! The turkey sandwich, apple, and grapes were for lunch/snacks on the drive Saturday. I carbed up for dinner on noodle soup and a ton of rolls with Cassi and one of her roommates.

The juice bottle was a mixture of pomegranate, oj, and protein powder to be combined with the banana for Sunday breakfast. The 3 stacked sandwiches were pb&j, two for before the race and one after, water throughout the weekend and Gatorade for after the race.

Here’s what I took to wear.

• Shirt options depending on the weather. (I opted for the warmer white top)
• Pants and shorts. (I went with the shorts)
• Socks/shoes (The shoes were a birthday gift from my mom)
• Lucky race sportsbras
• Headband/gloves
• Heart monitor and watch
• Energy gels and "bloks" for consumption during the race

The weather was predicted to be low 30's in the morning but warming up to mid 50's later. I did some serious obsessing over the weather and I thankfully wasn’t ever cold during the race. (Before and after was another story though.)

I arrive safely in Kansas City after lunch Saturday and spent most of the day loading songs onto my iPod, checking out the race start line and relaxing on their couch.

Race morning
I woke up at 5 and proceeded to spend the morning nervously wondering around their house eating, stretching, and generally freaking out. Cassi soon came rolling out of bed and sleepily drove me to the start line. I was trying to stay warm in the car and who should arrive with smiles abound?Team Bright! They said they’d try to stop by, but with a new baby I would have understood if they didn’t make it. Taylor was positively adorable, and I was so appreciative to Matt and Elissa for making the trip. It really meant a lot. Hugs and encouragement all around as I headed to the start line. Here’s what freezing and nervous looks like:

Race start
This was a pretty small race with about 1200 people total running the full marathon, half marathon and 5K. (Compared to 6000 in Lincoln.) The 5K people peeled off at mile 3, and we split with the half marathon racers at the 10 mile mark. It was there that I checked my watch for the first time. I had a vague idea how long the whole thing would take, but I was totally running on feel. Much to my surprise I was 12 minutes faster than what I thought I’d be at the 10 mile point. I checked again at the half way point and was shocked to see I was two minutes faster than my finishing time at the half marathon in Omaha.

I tried to keep a comfortable pace and not worry too much about time. The course wound through a great wooded bike trail so it was nice to be hidden from the wind and enjoy nature a little bit. The miles blended together with breakups from water stations, passing people and the occasional small hill.

About mile 20 is where the mental part becomes tougher than the physical part. My legs ached, my feet hurt, but most of all, I was fairly bored. I tried to map out the last 6 miles to a route I’d run at home but even that didn’t help. Apparently running beside an imaginary golf course on Maple street isn’t any more exciting than a bike trail in Kansas City.

I checked my watch one last time and discovered that I had a very good chance of finishing around 4 hours—a full 30 minutes faster than what I thought I’d do. I tried to pick up the pace as best I could. I passed a couple people and begged the finish line to be behind every curve. Finally, the sight of orange cones and waving flags peaked over a hill and I could hear, “Now finishing, Niki Strotman!” People kindly cheered as I “sprinted” across the finish mat. Getting my timer chip removed and being escorted over to the food and water table is a little fuzzy, but I do remember Cassi bouncing up with a big hug and my precious bag of food in hand.
The following hours were filled with a long shower, Panera lunch, and a nap on the couch. I eventually made it back to Omaha in the evening and fell asleep completely exhausted but quite satisfied.

Final stats
4:04:25
14th place female finisher
3rd place finishers in my age group

I even won a prize for my age group! (But like a mentioned, it was a pretty small race.)

The day after
I’d like to say I woke up this morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but that would be a total lie. The first step out of bed nearly dropped me. It’s comical, really. My muscles aren’t terrible sore, but my knees, hips, and arches make me walk like I’m 100. I’ve been taking ibuprofen, plan to get a message on Wednesday so I’ll be good as new for Thanksgiving.

Overall, I’m so happy I decided to do this. Everyone has been incredibly encouraging and supportive throughout the whole thing with e-mails, phone calls (thank you, Aunt Gigi), and hugs really had me believing it would go well. I think I can make it in less than 4 hours some day, but I’m fairly content for now. We’ll see what next year brings.
Happy thanksgiving and safe travels to everyone this week! Niki

Kelly and Paul's wedding pictures

We so enjoyed the wedding day and seeing you all again! We are still in 'wedding afterglow'. If you would like to relive the day, you can view the professional pictures online. http://www.seemyprints.com/ Just type in Kelly Wiles and you are set!

Kelly and Paul are still honeymooning in Mexico. Hope she's wearing that hat and sunscreen!

Ed spent this week working in Kearney and Hays, KS. He drove most of last night to get home to his own bed. I understand that western Nebraska had a winter storm. Ugh! I'm not ready for that!

Love,
Janice

Geneva Greetings

The Nebraska/Texas Tech game is just over. Drat!!! At least they played well enough to give us hope for the future.
Mom and Dad celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with a family meal at Lazlos in Lincoln in September. Not everybody was able to come, but those who were there had a great time.









































Before we ate, we got to meet Tucker. Dad, mom and Great Grandma are all justifiably proud.










While Ike was pounding the Texas coast, Allison and I headed to Kansas City with my secretary with plans to see Les Miserables at an outdoor theatre. We drove through blinding rain all the way, but arrived safely to the assurance that the play would go on "rain or shine". We ate a great buffet supper and since the rain had stopped by then, we bought our $1 ponchos which were akin to colored Saran Wrap, wiped off our seats and settled in to watch the show. Unfortunately, the downpour had wiped out the sound system, so no play. It's a great place, so I hope Stan and I can go back next summer and try again. The next day we went to Maryville to see Beth and watch her Bearcats win their football game. The Northwest campus is lovely; this is the walkway lined with flags of the countries where foreign students are from.


This is my walking partner, Lisa, who survived breast cancer this year. We were at a wedding in this picture; we certainly don't look like this at 5 in morning! She still has surgery to face in November, but is doing great; we'll make it to our 10 year anniversary in January.














We have a two time All American in our family; Zac is on the wall at the Coliseum for being an intramural sports official. Good for you, Zac!!



















Two years ago, Erma gave me a piece of a Boston fern that her landlord had split. I nursed it for a year, then split it again this spring into three parts and was astounded at how they thrive on
our deck. The geraniums seem to like it there, too. Erma had a bit of a setback recently when she fell and broke her lower arm. She had surgery to put a plate on the bone, spent some time in the nursing home and is now back at her apartment in assisted living. She and Mark can clink arms and see whose plate makes the loudest noise!















The annual Meyer Ladies Day Out was in Lincoln this year. Debbie joined us for a tour of the International Quilt Study Center where we saw some very intricate quilts from Korea. It was interesting, but I would have preferred seeing those made by pioneer women. Afterwards, we had ice cream at the dairy store on East Campus; it was another lovely outing.

Thanks to Sue for posting family picnic pictures! If I can figure out how to post a link, I'll add mine.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the gala event in Lincoln Friday and can't wait to see what a lovely bride Kelly will be! Love, Nancy

She's Off and Running...Again (hi from suki)

Hi to all,
Well, Fall is officially here and with it brings the cool breezes and changing of the trees I love so much. I have halfway accepted the cooler temps by wearing sweaters to work, but can't bring myself to change out of my sandals quite yet.

Just a few quick notes to highlight the summer of the Stamp family. Last Sunday I picked up Niki from the Omaha Marathon held at the riverfront. She completed her second half marathon in 1:58 which was 12 minutes better than her first run in Lincoln. The day was beautiful, the route was scenic and the finish line was right on Lewis and Clark Landing by Rick's Boatyard. I told her I'd plan on doing this next year but she advised I do the Lincoln run first as it is flatter than the hillier Omaha run. So, Bull cousins, I hear that one is in May (gasp!) so count me in if you're planning on making this an annual event.


Also last weekend, Steve, John and a friend went fishing in South Dakota for a few days. But, due to torrential rainstorms one of those days, the fish were not biting too much and alas, there will not be a fish fry for friends this time. Guess they'll have to take Sue and I out to Charlie's on the Lake now.

Cassidy continues her student teaching in the Olathe schools. Her 150 ninth graders provide some challenges for this rookie. She finds every evening is spent making out lesson plans and grading tons of papers. That part of the job is the least glamorous for her (and probably most teachers). But she does have a brand new Mazda 3 to replace the car she's had since she was 15. And here's how she got that. When she was home a few weeks ago, Steve was taking the car to get appraised when he backed out and the tie rod broke down right in the middle of the driveway! (I don't know what exactly that is except I see the front wheel off the rest of the car). Cassi had just driven in from KC some 200 miles flying down the interstate and the front end snaps off in the next 4 feet. Needlesstosay, that shook us up pretty bad. So she got a new car.

I have also been enjoying going to the Millard West football games. They are still undefeated but mostly I go to watch Erika perform at halftime as a color guard with the band (she dances, too!) She is, of course, the cutest and the best one, and if you saw her you'd see that it isn't just her proud aunt saying that. She's 16 now so we have a new driver on the road, folks!


I'm excited for the upcoming wedding in Lincoln and hope to see everyone there. Maybe then I'll accept the fact that our little Kelly is really grown up now and not the smiley teenager that she so still resembles.
Love to all,
Suki

Beautiful September in Illinois

I have been enjoying the paradise-like weather since Hurricane Ike roared through, dumping many inches of rain and flooding our rivers. Except for a few closed roads, we weren't inconvenienced at all, and have been soaking up the sun ever since.

Congrats to the Talbott clan. Can't wait to see pictures.

I thought perhaps I could persuade Professor of Economics, Jim, to give us a little economy lecture on the blog. Don't use any difficult terms, as I have never had an econ class in my life! Just curious what he thinks about the recent economic action in our country.

See you soon at the wedding.

Love,

Janice

Tucker Wallace Talbott

Hello everyone!
Our newest family member arrived Thursday at 2:34 p.m. He weighed 6# 3oz and was born via C-section. Sarah has been battling high blood pressure the past few weeks. She spent last Sat. night in the hospital and was released when medication helped that issue. During her regular apppointment Wednesday the doctor decided that it was time to bring this boy into the world, though it was 3 weeks before his due date. On Thursday the decision to do a C-section was made. Tucker is just beautiful, with long fingers that look just like Tom's. While Sarah's mom and I took turns holding him he was making the sweetest little sounds. He may be a talker like his dad!
His name comes from Sarah's grandmother (maiden name Tucker) and Tim's mother (maiden name Wallace). He was born on Ervin & Marianne's 60th wedding anniversary. It's hard to think of a better gift!
Joan returned from South America on Monday. There was only one glitch in her travel from SA. One bag did not arrive in KC with Joan and Sarah. However, it came on the next flight from Atlanta. Joan was given a restaurant voucher so we ate breakfast while waiting for the bag. It is so good to have her back home.
That's all for now----
Connie

Family Picnic Pictures.... see Link.... Sue

One night in grad school and I dropped out...

The title says it all. Yuppers, that's what happened. Let me explain to you why that is. You see, we had to do a 15 page journal of personal reflections every week (not bad, not bad) but here was the sucky part. I had to find 15 people to interview for class and we could not do our classmates. Grrr...I was NOT comfortable with going to a senior citizen's retirement center to interview them. So I dropped out.

Actually, my heart wasn't in it fully. I just wasn't sure if grad school was the right thing for me at this time. Thank goodness for my adviser. She told me to take some time off from school. I might go back to grad school in the Winter II term, or in other words the spring semester. Right now I"m back at CCC and taking Juvenile Justice. I want to learn about the system and besides that, I'm trying to get into working with high-risk juveniles. Yeppers.

So, I've applied for jobs all over. I first applied for the parole officer position in western Nebraska. However, the state said that I did not qualify and that they don't count HRC as experience for corrections. Grr...so I got screwed there. Mom didn't want me to get that job anyway because I would be supervising life time sex offenders. Hahaha, I probably would only have 1 or 2 of them to worry about and the rest adult male and female felons. Oh well.

I also applied for 2 probation officer jobs. One is working with juveniles in Lincoln and the other one is working with adults in Lincoln. I hope that the RISE job doens't prevent me from being a probation officer. LONG story behind the RISE job and why I quit that in the same month. The jist of the story is that my supervisor had a heart attack and therefore no one had a clue what was going on in the office. So yeah...but I hope to get an interview with both probation jobs and we'll see.

I finally applied for a Protection and Safety Worker position in Grand Island. I would like to be able to be a CPS worker, but I really don't have any case experience. Everytime I apply for one, I don't get an interview. And the only experience I've had is the Visinet job and case work. But I'm not getting any calls on interviews there, so perhaps I should just give up for awhile. Oh and I applied to be a Vocational Rehabilitation Specialist. We'll see, I still need to get my transcripts in order and send them to the DAS. But that is the other thing that I need to do. Yuppers.

So I'm on the hunt for full time jobs and I REALLY don't want to move out of the Hastings/GI area, but so far, most of the jobs are in Lincoln or in Omaha. Ugh, I hate big cities. But I guess I'll get used to the big cities if I get jobs there. Well, other than that, there is not much else for me to put. I'm just sitting here trying to catch up and tell you what happened.

OH YEAH!!! One more thing and then I'll shut up. Our cat Ike disappeared the day of the family reunion. We had no clue on where he went. All hope was given up by moi that he would ever return. Well, we put up lost ads on the local station's website (KHAS) and also in the newspaper. We went searching through the trees at HRC and couldn't find him. We were slowly losing hope. Now remember I've given up all hope. But last night around 9:30 mom called for Ike one more time and she thought that she was hallucinating when she heard him meow! He RETURNED HOME!!!! Not one single scratch or wound on him. I have no clue to this day where he was hiding, but I'm just glad that he's home.

Yup, now I'll shut up. Talk to you all later. Enjoy your Labor Day and see you next year if I'm not working!

Suz

Hello from South America!

August 27, 2008

Hello!!

I am finally writing as I am on the last leg of a long journey this summer. My classmate, Sara McReynolds, and I have been traveling throughout South America since June 1. Both of us are finishing up our Field Experience for our Master of Public Health degree. Our field experience was meant to introduce us to the international aspects of public health and to learn about disease eradication in developing countries.
We flew into Buenos Aires, Argentina and spent a week there taking intensive Spanish lessons. We explored the city and saw quite a bit of it! It is a beautiful city with a very European type atmosphere.


Left - One of the many beautiful buildings in Buenos Aires

Right - Plaza de Mayo and Presidential Palace

Our next stop was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There we attended the RIMSA Conference. RIMSA is an annual meeting where the ministers of both health and agriculture from all of the Americas meet. We met several veterinarians involved in international public health and made good contacts with them. We also were able to see the sights of Rio including Sugar Loaf Mountain, Christ the Redeemer, and Ipanema and Copa Cabana beaches.


Left - Sara and I at the trolley on our way to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain
Right - We met a famous soccer player (even though we really have no idea who he is!)


Left - Sara and I in front of the Christ the Redeemer Statue

We had the opportunity to visit PANAFTOSA, the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) center for the eradication of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in South America, located just outside of Rio. We met several important people there, including the Jorgen Schlundt, the Director of Food Safety, Zoonoses, and Foodborne Illnesses for the World Health Organization (WHO.)

The majority of our time was spent in Paraguay. Through the Partners of America Program, Kansas and Paraguay are paired up. Many Paraguayans study at Kansas universities. We stayed with Marcos Medina and his family. He is a veterinarian who studied at Kansas State for a Master’s Degree. Marcos, his wife Delia, and his sons Juan Marcos and Jose, were wonderful hosts. We always felt at home with them!


Left - Marcos, Jose and Juan Marcos with one of their Grandpa’s Santa Gertrudis bulls

Below - Sara and I posing with the guards in front of the Presidential Palace in Asuncion, Paraguay



Below - Sara, our tour guide (who coincidentally looks exactly like a former president of Paraguay) and I in the old congressional house in Asuncion


While in Paraguay we worked with SENACSA, the Paraguayan equivalent of the USDA. We learned all about their vaccination program to eliminate Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD). Paraguay right now is considered free of FMD with vaccination. This is very important because the European Union has just opened up their market to Paraguayan beef. It was interesting to see just how much international trade pushed the Paraguayan government towards elimination of FMD.

We also spent a month in the "wild" Chaco of western Paraguay. This are was settled by Mennonites from Canada and Russia in the 1930’s. Originally all of the Mennonites spoke only Low German but now most are bilingual speaking both Spanish and Low German. Luckily, most of them also know High German, which is what I learned in high school, so I was able to practice some German with them. Many people also come from Mennonite colonies in the US and Canada so there was a lot of English spoken.
Left - Necessary for vaccinating in the Chaco…a syringe gun and a real gun!!

The Mennonites are very organized and have made the uninviting Chaco one of the most productive parts of Paraguay. They have dairies, farms with cotton, soybeans, safflower, sesame and peanuts, and they raise a lot of beef cattle! Most of the cattle are Brahman or Brahman crosses. They also formed cooperatives early on and that has been a big reason for their success. The cooperative we worked with had a lot of Brahman - Santa Gertrudis crosses. We were both able to go on many calls with the veterinarians of the coop. We also did a study to determine the prevalence of antibodies against anaplasmosis, a disease spread by ticks that causes anemia. We drew blood from almost 500 cows and we became experts at drawing blood from the caudal tail vein!!



Drawing blood for our study

We are now traveling in Argentina, we’ll head to Mendoza tonight on a bus. On Sunday we visited Iguazu Falls which is just amazing! We’ll fly home on Sunday night. I will be in Nebraska for about a week and then Mom and I will drive to my new place of residence, Las Vegas! I plan to start working before the end of September. I will be renting a house and will have plenty of room for visitors!!
Joan

Steve and Winfred Crash the East Coast!

Greetings one and all!
Quite a summer! Kids graduating, wedding planning, babies arriving, storms blowing, lots of travel adventures, and much more. Suki says it’s time to join in the posting flurry.

First let’s go back a couple of months. Thanks to all who came to Marian’s 80th birthday. It was a beautiful day and she and the rest of us enjoyed very much seeing everyone. Extra thanks to all of you who participated in the reminiscences book. Mom says she reads it often and it is now among her most valued possessions.

Seems New York City is the place to be! Last month Grandpa & I stopped there as well on our Saunders County Livestock Assoc. tour. Here we are at Yankee stadium.We traveled to the stadium by subway. Getting 44 wandering characters from the country down the crowded sidewalks, down the crowded escalator, which was broken of course, and through the turnstiles to the train platform was a challenge. So was shouting instructions to the group over the din. You can imagine most not hearing too well, and the rest not listening too well. We were told to “spread out and get on the 4-train when it arrives and the doors open!!! Well we did, barely. Our guide did get left behind as he pushed the last ones on. As we stood up against the characters on the subway there were two 20ish black guys, from Jamaica I’d guess, talking loud & gesturing wildly. I could hear over the noise one of our wide-eyed guys (who was pressed up against the Jamaicans) shout “Jim, do you have your billfold in your front pocket like Keith told us to???” Guess he figured since he couldn’t understand them, they wouldn’t understand him. It was great entertainment being among the red-capped characters on the trip. (We all wore matching red caps making it easier to find each other & be found in the crowds of the East coast). I thought this was interesting. On our Circle Tour around Manhattan, we saw a barge carrying old subway cars to be dumped in the ocean for a marine habitat.

Besides New York, we toured the Amish area of Pennsylvania. We even had the good fortune of visiting an Amish family on their farm.This is a rare privilege according to the locals. Very interesting & pretty unbelievable how these people live and farm & make a living with horses, hard work, lots of kids & no electricity. The teenage boys (not the girls) get their own horse & buggy when they get around 16. These buggies are a prized personal possession. The boys fix them up and some even get a radio! Wish I had a more descriptive picture, but we were asked to be respectful of the Amish family wishes that we not to take their picture or climb around on their stuff.

This is a funny picture of Delbert Otte & one of the draft mules. You might remember Delbert… he & his family of 7 or 8 lived near Yutan for a while around 1960. As for the mules, they are bigger & stronger looking than any I’ve seen.

We also spent some time in Delaware and went to their State Fair, which was very nice. Also stopped at a giant mushroom farm. Of course I saw many of the fellows sampling the produce, oblivious to the fact they had just explained how they are growing them in chicken manure compost. The boys knocked off the big chunks, for the most part. One of the great parts of a trip like this is you get to go to places most visitors would not. Keith Glewen, the County Extension Agent does a terrific job getting everything planned. So my adventures did not include the satisfaction of finding my own way around the big city like Nancy & Stan & John & Sue. But a good time was had by all.

As you may have read in Janice's blog (in clear violate of HIPAA law, I might add):o) I did have a short visit to the hospital. I'd like to report there is nothing particularly seriously wrong with me and my stay was short. I'm fine. Let it be known I'd rather watch men's synchronized diving than discuss the condition of my innards. (However I thank you for any concern you may have had).

Looking forward to seeing you all the 23rd.
Steve

Aunt Marian's birthday party

We want to thank all of you who were able to attend Mom's birthday open house and also those who took the time to jot down a Marian memory for her scrapbook. All contributions were very thoughtful and are treasured by Mom, who LOVES her memory book. It was a day filled with laughter, tears, and love. We are all so blessed.

I am including this final picture, not because it is so good, just so funny! How could 4 of the 5 people have their eyes closed, and why does Mom looked so pained?!

Love you all,

Janice

Thanks, Elissa, for the pictures

Yes, Grandma Janice (can you BELIEVE that's our little cousin?) is right! Taylor is very cute, indeed. Never having actually given birth myself, I was extremely impressed by your account of labor and delivery (and leg shaving, no less)! It sounds to me like you must be very well-suited for the whole process. We do hope you will make it to the picnic. It would be so much fun to meet the first little ladies of Generation 5! From G3#1 (Mary Jo)

p.s. Thanks to Sue, too, for the pictures from NYC. I'm glad John (and all of you) made it to see the old Yankee Stadium. I don't know where John's allegiance lies now, but as a kid, he was a total Yankees Fan (learned from our Dad).

Taylor Elizabeth Bright

Well, we made it through the first week! Matt's having daddy time with Taylor, so I thought I'd take the chance to finally post...

So you may have remembered that little miss Taylor wasn't expected until August 26th, but I kept telling Matt that she was coming early or she truly was going to kick a hole in the side of my stomach and escape! In fact, I told my doctor just that week that she was coming early (I don't think she believed me). I actually went into the hospital to be monitored on Thursday because I was having consistent contractions in an hour span. But they were only Braxton-hicks contractions and they sent me home in under an hour.

I went to bed thinking I'd probably go into labor that night, but tried to psych myself out by listing off all the things I needed to do that weekend (didn't work). Around 2:15am I woke up when my water broke. I woke Matt up who jumped out of bed and threw some shorts on. We finished putting our things in our hospital bags and I took my time getting ready - I wasn't going to go through labor without shaving my legs first! *This made Matt just a little anxious :)

We got to the hospital just before 4am and when they checked me I was already dilated to a 4 - almost 5. Just before 6am I was fully dilated but I didn't start pushing until 7am because I was feeling good and they just let the contractions and Taylor do most of the work. Then 3 pushes and Taylor Elizabeth (Elizabeth being the family name from Grandma's mother) was born at 7:21am on August 1st! I had such a lucky and smooth labor and delivery and although Taylor was 3 1/2 weeks early, the doctor said the only sign that she was a premie is her feet don't have wrinkles all the way down. She weighed in at 6lbs 13oz, 18 1/2 in.

Taylor accommodated everyone by showing up for her own shower that Sunday, much to all the out-of-towner's pleasure. We ended up having the shower at our house and had a great turn out to meet Taylor. My parents stayed a couple extra days to help with baby projects and run errands because we had planned to do a few more things that weekend before the shower. But lucky for us I just knew she was coming early so I had quite a bit set up already. Kelly was also great help and finished cleaning up our house for our guests (and taking care of our dog :).

Matt and I have been settling in and loving our new baby girl! She's been great this first week and we've already been out and about a lot with her (walks, shopping, out to eat) and she couldn't be better. Taylor's already learned 2 tricks...kicking to roll to her side and mountain climbing up my chest! Unless something comes up, we do plan on making the Bull Family Picnic/Kelly & Paul shower event with little Taylor in tow! Here's the link if you want to see more pics of Taylor http://picasaweb.google.com/elissawiles.

Love,
Elissa, Matt & Taylor

New travel bag, $50; baseball tickets, $120, John at Yankee Stadium..Priceless!!

Well, Theresa....when you decided to get on this Blog, you did it in a big way! Good job! Joe was greatly impressed with Jacob's waterboarding skills and claims to know how hard that is to do..

We had decided that for John’s 60th birthday (last November) and our 35th wedding anniversary, we’d take a trip to see Yankee Stadium before it’s torn down at the end of this season.
We spent last weekend in NYC… it was great… Our really only anxious moment was when the shuttle bus driver from the airport let us off at our hotel stop…we stepped off the bus and had absolutely no idea where we were and where the hotel was…. Turns out the stop was one block south of the hotel and all we had to do was walk around the corner to find our hotel.. but I imagine we looked pretty pathetic dragging our luggage around til we figured out where we were!

Our impressions are much the same as Nancy and Stan’s. Way too many people and way too much traffic. I asked a taxi driver if it got less crowded once the summer tourists went home, and he said, "oh no…then the holiday shoppers come to town and it’s even busier." I can’t even imagine!!
We were proud we figured out how to buy a Metro Card, today’s version of subway tokens, and we hopped on for the 15-minute ride to Yankee Stadium. Our seats were five rows from the top, literally with the pigeons,
but it was still a great experience. We were there early enough to get the give-away koozie and to take the tour of Monument Park… pretty much overrated. The next day was Old Timers Day and John and Joe went back for that, but I chose to stay behind. I found Madison & Fifth Avenues, went into SAKS, just so I could say I had been there, and thoroughly enjoyed walking around and just looking. On Sunday, we took a cruise around Manhattan, saw Ellis Island and The Statue of Liberty, got off that, then took a bus tour around lower Manhattan. We hopped off near Ground Zero and walked to the site, and saw the church and fire stations that were both in the news.
We walked the streets, saw Times Square, Rockefeller Center, St. Patrick's Cathedral. Ate at a great deli, found a pizza place and enjoyed NY style pizza… ate our final lunch at Mickey Mantle’s restaurant near Central Park, after we walked around there for a couple hours.
We all agreed it was a great place to visit but we’re all happy we live where there is a little more room to roam!
Progress on the condo renovation continues, slowly… Last week they hung drywall. Hopefully they can get it taped and mudded this week, so painting can begin soon. All six units have to be completely done before anyone can move back in, so we all hope no one unit holds up the others being able to move back in. All the common areas are also being redone… stairs, hallways… so there is still plenty of work to be done.
See you all at the picnic!
Sue