Micah's Big Day!

Yesterday, Saturday, was a big day for Micah. Since he got a road bike in Feb. he has really enjoyed going on rides and decided that he wanted to train and do a Century (a 100 mile bike ride). He signed up for the Glassner Autumn Challange which took place yesterday in a small town outside of Montgomery, AL. Here are some pictures with explanations about the day.

This event was a ride and not a race so there was no mass start or finishing place awards. But there was a good amount of people there. This group of cyclist you see is the group Micah took off with.
Esther and I waited around the church parking lot where the ride started and finished and then we took off, maybe an hour later. It was a little too late. We had planned to meet Micah at each of the 5 rest stops, which were about every 20 miles. However we did not even see him till mile 35. This picture below is at mile 35 when we saw him for the first time. He was going much faster than he had planned. I guess he was feeling great!

Each rest stop had a theme to it. This was the second rest stop which we came to not long after we had seen Micah for the first time. It was the Le Tour de Rest Stop! I thought it was so creative. They had water, gatorade, fruit, nutrition bars, other food, technical bike support, and bathrooms at every stop. The volunteers at each stop were very helpful and kind.

At the above rest stop Le Tour de Rest Stop Esther and I went inside to use the bathroom and I think while we were in there Micah came by, got some water, didn't see us, and then just kept going. We came out and waited for a little bit. After a while I decided we might have missed him so we headed on to the next rest stop which is pictured below.

At the rest stop pictured above I thought for sure we had gotten in front of him and that he would come by and we would see him. While waiting I asked some other riders how fast they were going. They said about 20 mph. I knew Micah said he wanted to go about 17 mph so I thought okay we should see him. We were there for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. At that point I was amazed and thought I guess he is in front of us. Or I was afraid he was having trouble and was way behind his schedule. So we took off anyway and headed for the next rest stop.

After driving 90 miles of the 100 mile course Esther and I finally caught up to Micah at the very last rest stop. We passed by and saw him laying on the grass. When we got to him he said he had just gotten there and that he was dead tired. He looked pretty tired too! The picture above is of Esther and Micah at the 90 mile rest stop. I was relieved to see him and that he was doing okay. After not seeing him for so long I was a little worried something might had happened to him. Well not long after he took off to finish the last 10 miles of his 100 mile ride. We passed him when he had about 4 miles left. He was tired!

Woohoo! He made it! This is Micah's victory photo after he made it back to the church. The overall time was 6 hours of riding including some stopping at the rest stops along the way. I'm really impressed with him. He did a great job. This picture below is when he turned into the parking lot and was DONE!

Here he is, off his bike, and leaning against the car for support. It's no joke. He really did need the support of the car!

This is a while after when we were just relaxing in the church. You can tell Micah is pretty beat. :)

Overall the day was really nice. The weather was wonderful, not hot, and the people were very kind and enthusiastic. That makes for a good experience. We enjoyed supporting Micah and doing this good wholesome recreational activity together. Although I have to point out that Micah was the one doing the recreation and Esther and I were just trying to keep up!

Esther

These first two pictures of Esther were taken back in Feb. right after Micah got his new road bike. This is how we found out that we had to put the bike away where Esther could not get to it at all! The dark stuff on her face is grease from Micah's bike. I came in to the living room after having left for a minute or two and found her as happy as can be, smiling, with grease all over her face and hands. :)

The next three pictures are of a fun little adventure we had when we found a little frog hanging out underneath our lazy boy chair in the living room. I think he came in from the balcony door and we didn't even see him jump in. Although it was a cute little frog I did not want to catch it with my hands so we got the frog to jump into this lunch pale and then we took him outside and set him free. Esther really had fun!

Here Micah and Esther are having some father daughter bonding time. I think Esther was teething in this picture because you can see she has a runny nose and drool coming out of her mouth! Hah!


Now you might think this picture is a little silly but I just love the scowling look on her face and if you look at the bottom of the picture you can see her big ol' budda belly. After she eats a meal it gets even bigger. I am sure she picked up this scowling look from me. Oops!


In this picture Esther is holding her beloved "baby beluga." We bought that stuffed animal for her when she was 6 months old at SeaWorld in Florida. We had no idea how lucky baby beluga would be. She loves him so much and sleeps with him at every nap time and all night long. Esther calls him affecionately "baba buga."

This picture was taken just a few days ago. On the 11 of September Esther will be 18 months old. We (as every parent does) love her soooo much! She delights us every day with her cute mannerisms and personality. She is a very sweet girl who often comes up behind us and gives us hugs from behind. It melts our hearts. :)

Snow in Alabama! A real miracle!

The reason snow in Southeast Alabama is a miracle is because it hasn't snowed like this since 1973! Yeah, that is almost 40 years ago. Basically, it never snows in Southeast Alabama. And certainly not this much for that matter!

Here are a few pictures of us at our families house in Ozark.

This picture below is of the parking lot where we live. We just had to take a picture of it!

Sweet, little Esther wasn't sure what to think about the cold, wet snow. She wouldn't sit down or crawl around either. However we got this picture next to a snowman that the family made. She looks a little cold and miserable, but cute. :)

All this snow in Alabama made me feel at home and miss Wa. a little. It made me want to go snowshoeing or some thing like that . We played in the snow for a little bit and also took turns riding behind a fourwheeler on a kneeboard. That was fun! Maybe we'll get snow again next year. But....I doubt it. :)

Some pictures to look at :)

Well I guess this is the price I pay for my love of running. I went running this past Saturday eagerly because I had not had a chance or the desire to exercise all week because Esther had been really sick. I don't need to say how difficult it can be with a sick baby. Most of you know. So while I was happily running along on a hard dirt trail at the college next door to our apartment I fell. I don't even really know how. All of the sudden I was lying on my knees wondering what happened. Anyway I told myself I was okay and kept running even though my legs hurt. I got done and came home and cleaned up and now today, a day later, here are the results of my fall. Painful but not too bad. :)

This is little Esther sleeping in her crib with her cute little church socks on. She has recently learned how to roll over from her back to her stomach, which is wonderful. Unfortunately she can not yet roll back over to her back. Since she has learned to roll onto her stomach she is preoccupied with it and does it all the time when she can and then of course she gets mad because she can't yet get back to her back. So at night she'll wake up winning wanting to roll back over. At first I would get up and go put her on her back only for her to roll onto her stomach a little while later waking herself and me up again. Finally I realized I needed to just let her sleep on her stomach in order to let her and myself get some sleep. So now thankfully she has settled with sleeping on her stomach. Phew!

These last 3 pictures are of a praying mantis Micah found on Saturday outside our apartment. He thinks that it looks really cool. It's kind of weird looking too.

Other things we've been up to.

Well it's kind of sad to say but I recently turned 27 years old. I guess I'm really growing up. This is the birthday cake that Micah made for me with a rainbow chip cake mix, rainbow chip frosting and lots of sprinkles on top. I love sprinkles! Here the cake is lit and Esther and I were posing for a moment before they sang to me...well just Micah sang. Esther just sat there and waived her arms and smiled. He He!

Last Saturday, the 27 of June, we took a trip to a private Zoo in a little town about 1 hour from where we live. It's just a man and his wife that own it and keep it up, and because of the cost of taking care of all the animals he has on 70 acres of land he decided to open it up to the public. This has helped him pay for all his costs. The zoo keeper's name is Mike and he has an Australian accent which made the zoo tour even more exciting!

This monkey likes to drink Coca Cola and eat Lay's Potato Chips. When Mike tried to take the chips from the monkey he slapped Mike's hand. This monkey was a hoot to watch. Sorry, but I don't remember what kind of monkey it was, just a cute feisty one!

These monkey's had some babies but their not in the picture. The are called ring tailed monkey's. They were cool to look at but not as entertaining as that first monkey.

He had a number of tigers and 3 lions. This was one of his Bengal tigers. They were really cool to see!

Here are two white Siberian tigers that are about 2 or so years old. A boy and a girl.

Yep! Those are snakes on my neck. It's my new necklace. Their corn snakes and are not poisonous. I don't really care for snakes so this took a little courage for me to put them around my neck.

Micah, however, is not afraid of snakes and big ones, really big ones. This is a 16 foot, 110 lb Burmese Python. Yikes!

Here is a cougar, which I think is quite pretty. Look at those teeth!

Bubba the black bear standing up for us. He's showing off for the audience. He is huge!

This is a two and a half year old grizzly bear who already weights 350 lbs and could rip a car door off if he wanted too. Mike, the zoo keeper, got this grizzly bear from Alaska when the bear was only 1 lb in weight. He's certainly gotten bigger since then.

But He's just a sissy grizzly bear who eats marshmallows out of his owners mouth! Yea, seriously! That's what the bear is doing in this picture. Eating a marshmallow out of Mikes mouth.

The zoo just had one lone camel whose really big. Look at that hump, it's got hair on it! I think camels look really cool.

Overall the Zoo was really good. They had other animals like ostriches, kangaroos, emus, buffaloes, two deer, some peacocks, and a bunch of bunnies. You know, I'm not sure if the bunnies were as pets or as food for the other animals. Ha!

We found this little animal at the Zoo and since we thought she was so cute we asked if we could have her. They said "Sure!" So we brought her home to stay. Look at her! Isn't she so cute trying to suck on mommy's water bottle. She's definitely a keeper! :)

Now that Micah is out of school for the summer.....

Here are some of the things Micah has been up to since he's been out of school and just working for the summer till he goes to Troy University in the Fall.

These two pictures show a chess set made by Micah, in May. Yep! He really made the whole thing, board and pieces and all! He made the chess pieces by designing them on paper first then using some of the machines at work he carved them out by hand. I was pretty impressed as well as others. It's great being married to a woodworker! :)

I've never really known how to play chess so now that we have this chess set we have been playing and I have been learning. I have yet to win a game. Micah beats me horribly every time!

A trip to the beach with his brother and cousins to go skim boarding is what gave us these next two pictures. Yikes! Micah did a great job of putting sunscreen that had an SPF of 50 on his shoulders and arms and such but he forgot about his feet! Yea, those are crispy, fried feet!

He's feet were so badly burned that his left foot swelled up a lot and he could not hardly walk on them. Church the next day was rough in church socks and church shoes. I told him he should just were sandals, but he didn't think it would go to well with his suit and tie. :)

He spent Sunday afternoon laid up on the couch with his feet elevated and an ice pack wrapped in a towel duct taped to his left foot, which seemed to have gotten the worst of the burning. There all better today, a month later, but are still peeling! So people, please if you go to the beach DO NOT forget to put sunscreen on your little piggies! :)

For a while now I have been trying to convince Micah to make us some night stands for our bed room because I have been using a big tube thing and he used a really old little night stand. I wanted some nice matching ones that we could use. So one day in the beginning of June he came home and said he had decided to make the night stands and asked if it could be my birthday present. Oh yes, is what I said! Woohoo! Here are the final results.

It's been so great having my own real night stand to put all my stuff on. The nice thing about having them made by Micah is we got to choose how high we wanted them and what color and how we wanted them to look. Once again it's great being married to a woodworking man! :)

Little Esther :)

Hello! My name is Esther and my mommy feeds me well! This picture was taken at 3 weeks. Look at that budda belly!

Also taken at 3 weeks. She's sticking her tounge out. I think she was hungry when we took this picture. :)

Here I put Esther on our lazy boy recliner than packed pillows around her so she could sit up. Then I took this picture. This was around 1 month or so when she just began to smile.

Esther is 2 months here and we just think she looks so cute standing up with her big eyes and cute little round belly. :)

Here we are just hanging out, mother and daughter. We took this right before Micah and I went out on a date for the first time since she was born. We went out for Mother's Day. That was what I wanted as my mother's day gift, a date with Micah!

I took this picture when I found Esther in the kitchen with the blanket wrapped around her head just perfect like a bonnet. I had left the kitchen for a moment and when I came back this is how I found her. I'm not sure how she did it but she's so cute and it really made me laugh!

Here is Esther, at 3 months, in a homemade sling that a friend of our's made for me. I recently purchased a different sling but this one worked fine while I had it.

Us again with Esther in the sling. :)

Esther just hanging out on the ground.
Look at those cute baby overalls!

This picture and the next are the most recent, taken about a week and a half ago. In 10 days Esther will be 4 months old. In the picture above we were eating dinner and Esther was holding Micah's finger(with that tight baby grasp) and I thought it looked real cute.

In this picture Esther is sitting on our kitchen table. We found that she would often fuss during dinner when she was sitting on the ground. So we put her on the table where she could be at our level and that did that trick. She's much happier being up at our level. :)