Our New House

I have been talking a lot about our new house in class. We just got it in April, but we are not moving in until the summer, after we have fixed it all up. Laura and I have a new blog that shows all of our home improvement efforts. You can visit it at sweethomeonalabama.blogspot.com . We are having so much fun making this little pink box into something special that is just right for us (and any future little ones). We hope you enjoy watching us make a mess and demonstrating our home fixing up skills.

Just click here to visit our site: Sweet Home on Alabama

My Third LA MArathon

On Sunday, March 21st, I ran my third consecutive LA marathon. This was also the third route that I have run because they have changed it every year that I have run it. This year's route was very interesting. We ran from Dodger Stadium to Santa Monica. This route took us through Downtown LA, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and many other great cities. It was a fun run but again, one of the hardest things I have ever done. Even training for 16 weeks does not full prepare your body to run 26.2 miles. My goal was to finish and I did in 5 hours and 42 minutes.

Here is Laura and I at Dodger Stadium before the Marathon started. It was cold but the view of Downtown was amazing.


Look at all of these people that I am in front of...I think most of them passed me.


Here we are running up the hill toward the Disney Concert Hall.


Lovely Echo Park


Still smiling...


Here is the best thing I saw all day. Only 0.2 miles to go.



Here is a video of what it was like to cross the finish line.


Here I am with Laura after finishing. No, the medal does not say that I came in 25th place. It was the 25th anniversary of the LA Marathon. I was more like 13,000th place.
(Yes that is a bagel in my right hand...yummy)

Monkeys in the Snow, Oh No!

What is wrong with these monkeys? Don't they realize that there are piles of snow sitting below them? Why don't they care? I guess they don't like snow...

Last week on Valentine's Day, Laura and I went on a romantic date to the LA Zoo. We have passes so we were able to go on nice date for practically no money (which is good when you are trying to buy a house). They had put snow in four of the animal's cages. This was the chimpanzee's, but they also put snow in the cages of the black bear, tiger, and snow leopards. None of the animals seemed to care about the white fluffy stuff. Most were passed out asleep on the ground. I thought at least the snow leopards would be having a good time. Nope, they were also fast asleep.

We had a fun Valentine's Day. We also went to dinner and saw a movie. We paid for both of these with the gift cards that you (my students) gave us for Christmas. So I thank all of you for helping us to have a great time.

Oh...guess where we went for dinner?

Here I am at Outback Steakhouse enjoying a delicious ribeye steak. It was so juicy and delicious! I love that place.