On October 3, 2009 Juliette ran and finished her first marathon! It was the culmination of 5 1/2 months of training and a lot of effort ... but she finished in 5 hours, 13 minutes. What an accomplishment!




Afterwards, Ben wanted to run his own marathon -- so he put on Juliette's race number and medal, ran around the park with Daddy, and came down over the finish line.

Trip to California

We had a wonderful trip to California in August -- we headed down the coast on Highway 101, stopping in Arcata (near Eureka), then Ft. Bragg, and then into the Bay Area. We spent four nights camping, and then also hung out in the Central Valley for about a week visiting lots of family and friends. Our final leg of the trip took us to Reno and then Elko, NV to see family and pick up Juliette's mom's things. Toby drove a U-Haul filled with her things all the way back to Portland. It was 2 1/2 weeks of fun but it was sure nice to come home and sleep in our own beds at the end!

Trip to the coast

We took a trip to the Oregon Coast this weekend and had a great time! We camped at Cannon Beach and enjoyed beautiful weather, gorgeous beaches, and fun sites to see. We toured the Tillamook Cheese Factory and also went to the Seaside Aquarium. The kids had a great time but we decided to come home a day early because everyone was tired from camping and missed home. We hope to make this an annual family vacation.

Spring 2009

We have kept busy this spring doing all sorts of fun outings. We took the kids to the Portland Children's Museum, the Oregon Zoo, to the beach, and to lots of parks. Baby Mary was blessed in early May and she is growing and changing so much. She loves to smile now and is starting to learn how her hands and legs work. We are looking forward to warm weather and lots of outdoor outings this summer. Below are a mix of pictures from this spring that we haven't gotten around to posting for a while.

Happy 3rd birthday Benjamin

Benjamin celebrated his third birthday this week. Since we were barely home from the hospital with baby Mary, we decided to just have a small family party this year. He still had a lot of fun decorating his own cake (he called it the "Buzz Lightyear lion dinosaur cake") and opening his gifts. (Batman and iron man action figures). Ben's birthday is one day apart from Akane, our foreign exchange student. So they had fun blowing out the candles together. Benjamin also received a new 1/16 size violin. Toby is starting to teach him violin, and we hope to enroll Ben in Suzuki lessons starting this summer. He loves his violin and tells us that he is now a teacher, just like daddy, because daddy plays the violin and teaches, too.