Happy Birthday, my Angel

Happy Birthday, Olivia. Words cannot express how much you mean to me. I'm glad that I was part of your birthday today and I am so grateful to be your father.

Olivia passed out yummy cupcakes to her classmates (don't worry, I did not eat one)


Olivia enjoyed spreading frosting all over her mug.


Olivia with her teacher, Miss Street and one of her classmates.


We went to lunch (just the two of us). Olivia picked Rumbi and it was tasty. Afterwords, I took her shopping. She and I had a blast. Of course the weather was beautiful today. The snow has finally melted and the sky was blue and Olivia had a big smile on her face.

Today, Olive turns 8 and do you know what that means? NO MORE BOOSTER SEAT! That was the FIRST thing on her agenda today. Sweetie, you are so grown up.


Maybe sometime later I'll put together a small slide show of some of my favorite pictures of Olivia. I guess that is the thing to do. At any rate, Happy Birthday, girl.

Will you be my Valentine

I almost let this slip by but I wanted to capture the moment. I could not be blessed with a better sweetheart. Last year it was Fluffy (a big white bear), this year it was a big pink puppy.

Facebook

I don't recall writing about FB thus far so I thought I'd take a few minutes to do so. I first learned about FB last summer when it started to become popular with my 2 teenage boys. Wanted to make sure I understood what they were getting into I signed up. My first impressions were pretty skeptical. Safer than places like MySpace and other social network sites, I really couldn't see much use for it. It was one more thing for teenagers to do to spend time online. But then my cousins, aunts, and uncles joined and I found it a convenient way to keep in touch with all of them. Then a few months ago, dozens and dozens of people I grew up with and people I went to junior high and high school joined. It was crazy. People that I hadn't seen for 20+ years. It was amazing. Was it taking my time. Oh yes. It certainly did.

So why am I writing this post? Well, I read a couple of interesting articles. The first one was a Time article that lists 10 reasons why FB is for me. The article is actually pretty funny. But the fascinating article is the CNN article that talks about how FB is taking over our lives. More that 15 million people update their daily status and 850 million pictures are uploaded each month. If FB were a country it would be as large as Brazil. It took 89 years for 150 million people had access to a telephone. It tool 14 years for the same number of people to have a cell phone. It took 7 years for 150 million iPods to be sold and a short 5 years for there to be 150 million FB users.

It certainly will be interesting to see where FB is next year, and maybe 5 or 10 years down the road. Well, those are my thoughts.

Everything is so amazing and nobody is happy

Suppliments and Nutrition

So last week when I was making my shoe purchase I decided to pick up some of the new GU gels. If you don't run like a madman or compete in crazy triathlons you may have no clue about GU (what a poet). There are a number of similar products out there and I've tried most of them. Hammer gels are pretty good and typically don't contain the caffeine. However, GU usually wins out as the choice of gooey liquid that I swallow trying to get calories, carbs, amino acids and a host of other things into my body. Here's a great comparison chart. I've never once had an issue with my stomach getting upset. So today, during our 4 hour workout I had the chance to try the new stuff. I tried the blueberry pomegranate. Not a bad taste at all. I finished my workout feeling good. Bike, run, bike, run, bike. It was a great fun. It's hard to tell if the GU was making a difference. However, having "bonked" a few times in the past, I wasn't going to let something like that happen. Keep up with the nutrition and listen to your body. That's the key. So for anything of any distance, GU will continue to be part of my life (and wallet).

Canyonlands HM - will it work for me?

I guess I just might have to add another race to my schedule. Is this too close to Oceanside? Can I afford to pass this one up? If what they say is true, I've got to be there. I've just got to be there.

And here is what I learned.

So yesterday I did learn something about lacing my new running shoes. I thought it was a great idea and of course, here's the video so you can do the same. Enjoy!

I had NO freakin' idea.

Lucky for me, I've been doing it right all these years. Have you?

So if you've mastered the Reef knot, then try this one (the Ian knot)

It's in the shoes, man!

I knew that I had WAY too many miles on my current running shoes. For 4 years now I had been wearing the Asics Kayanos. I like them. I REALLY like them. Although they aren't the lightest shoe out there. They ARE comfortable. For a few months now I had been eyeing the new running shoes from UA. If you know me, you know that I'm pretty much a walking, sweating billboard for UA. I love their apparel. I was really excited about their shoes. But.....
I had some free time this afternoon so I did what I could to help the local economy by visiting the nearby 26.2 Running store. They video taped and tested me to see where I was and what I should be looking at. That was cool. If you haven't done it before I suggest you make your way to a good running store and check it out. I tried on a number of shoes and ran on their treadmill. I had narrowed it down to the new Kayanos and a pair of Saucony shoes. In the end, I went with the Asics. How could I go wrong? They are comfortable and I like them. I got the white/brass/black ones even though I would have preferred white/onyx/flame color but like I said, I'm doing my part for local stimulus. The folks there were great. I love good customer service. So what about the UA shoes? Well, I'm going to let someone ELSE try them out. I don't have time. I can't afford that at this point in time. I have Oceanside in less than 7 weeks, followed by the Ogden Marathon in May, and the Ironman CdA in June. I'm happy. I like these shoes. On a side note, I also picked up a pair of these for actual race day. They are last year's model, red in color and best of all, on sale! I'll let you know how those work out.

Katelyn Cutie Brunner

Kath and Donovan brought home an adorable little girl from the hospital this afternoon. Born at 1:04 am on Friday February 13, 2009, Katelyn is here. She joins her two older brothers, JT and Nate in the Brunner home. She is a cutie for sure. Don't forget who your favorite uncle is!

Happy Birthday, Jessica 2009

So we started this tradition last year and we go out to dinner for Jessica's birthday (which is on Valentine's Day). Last year we met at Sizzler. This year it was Dead Lobster. Josh and Jess arrived a couple of hours early and got a table big enough for all of us. We had a great time. Happy Birthday, Jessica. I'm still bummed that Earl didn't join us.

He's on FIRE! El contentador!

Okay, a sports photographer I'm not but I enjoy snapping pictures of my kids. Jake has been playing indoor lacrosse this winter. For his age group he pretty much dominates. Really it isn't fair to the opposing teams. One game I lost track of how many goals and figured he had scored upwards of 30 goals. It is unusual for him to score less than 10 goals in any game. Again, it's a bit unfair because he's playing kids his own age whereas he usually plays with kids a couple of years older. This poor goalie got pounded by Jake last night. Oh well.

The Jocks of Wymount

So this week I had lunch with a few guys from the Wymount days of college. Wymount is sometimes endearingly called "the rabbit hutches". This is the on campus married student housing. What do you do here besides study for tests? Well, make babies of course. Looking back it all seemed so simple back then. Go to class, study, make babies, go to class again. Anyhow, I'm digressing. So Chris Rushing was in town to take his son to BYU. I cannot believe the cycle is beginning again. I haven't seen him since 93. Chris played volleyball for the Y and now coaches back east at Eastern Carolina University. He hasn't changed much. Next to him is Brian Simpson. He played baseball for the Y. Next to him is the guy that is getting WAY too skinny (that's why I'm eating some rice pudding as I compose this). Next to me is Eric "Money" Drage. Eric played football and was on the recieving end of most of Ty Detmer's passes. Eric held many BYU and NCAA records until this year when Austin Collie stole them from him. Next to Eric is MCB (Matthew Christian Bain). We had a great laugh and a great visit.

My super swimming sister

Okay, I have to admit that my Facebook attention has had a detrimental effect on when and what I blog. Bummer, but that is just reality. Last week my sister Lizzy was competing in the State swimming championships. Her school was coming off back to back state titles. Would a third title be in the works. You can check out my FB profile where I posted a number of pictures and videos of the events. Lizzy took 4th in state in the 50 free adn 2nd in state in the 100 fly. She swam on 2 relays one took 1st and the other 2nd. East ended up loosing to Timpview but Lizzy was awesome. I am completely amazed how fast these swimmers are. Even though my butt hurts from sitting on a wooden bench for a couple of days it is thoroughly enjoyable. I REALLY hope Lizzy comes back next year for her senior year. It's SO much work but I think she could be the top female swimmer next year if she comes back. Good job, Lizzy!

Moo Moo Moo Moo

A favorite place to visit for Olivia is Maggie Moo's. Even though she loves to sample just about EVERY flavor she ALWAYS gets the same thing, Cotton candy ice cream with gummy candy mixed in. How about a big KISS?

Draper Temple Open House

So right now the Draper Temple open house is going on. This is a great opportunity to visit the inside of an LDS temple and learn more about why temples are so important. A few days ago we took the opportunity to go. JJ and Jake got to go to the Timpanogos temple open house a few years ago but this was Olive's first time. The temple was beautiful (as always) and I was amazed at the amount of woodwork. The logistics of getting people in and out are pretty smooth and I would encourage everyone to take advantage of the opportunity. I beleive the open house goes for another month or so before it is dedicated. BTW, the stone on the outside is a white granite that came from China (thanks, JJ). Also notice that we had blue skies and the snow is starting to melt!

The Great Debater

Okay, Olive isn't a debater and the award wasn't even for debate (per say). In the last tournament JJ took first place in International Extemp competition. We all were very happy for him. Good job, JJ!

Let's bake, daddy!

So the Easy-Bake came out again recently, this time to make yummy sugar cookies. Olivia had all sorts of fun decorating the cookies for her brothers. She loves to bake. Not so much on the clean up part but we still have lots of fun.

Swimming in Heaven version 2.0

So last year I wrote about my first pair of H2O Audio headphones and case. Since then I have received so many comments and questions. I tell you, I should own stock in the company. So when the 2nd generation came out I had to try it out. Bottom line? As much as I enjoyed using my original setup, the headphones on the Interval are even better. Much more comfortable and better sound. I did have my ears fill up with water a couple of times so I'm going to try some of the other earplugs. So what was I listening to? Tonight it was We The Kings, Angels & Airwaves, with a little bit of old stuff (Thompson Twins, Erasure, Cars, and Information Society). I can't wait to get back in the water.

Stay-at-home dad workouts

Okay, this is HILARIOUS. Thanks to the "Daily Biff" for the head's up. I couldn't figure out how to embed the video here (okay, I really didn't try).