quick update

We haven't surfaced for awhile on here, so here's a quick update of our goings-on:

I'm extra busy at work these days, trying to impress the partners so that they'll vote me in as a shareholder next April. At our firm everyone is on a 5-year track out of law school; once you're 5 years out you are up for shareholder. Must work hard and do extra good work this next year. Kinda stressful, especially in "these troubled economic times" (spoken with the announcer's voice of doom), when work has dried up.

But I do have some fun things to look forward to. Robin and I are taking a scuba class so that we can scuba in September when we take the kids on a 5-day cruise down the Baja peninsula to Cabo San Lucas. Also, Robin and I have secured permits to go on a 2-day camping/hiking trip to Mount Whitney at the end of this month, going with a big group of family -- my Dad, my older brother, Michael, Robin's brother Wade and his wife, Sheri, and more extended family. Mt. Whitney is the tallest peak in the lower 48 states, so it will be quite the adventure.

Katie is in 3rd grade and loves to rock climb. We have her in a once-a-week class at a really great local rock climbing gym; she's a natural, and she participated in her first official climbing competition a couple of weekends ago. Will try to post pics later.

Rachel is in 1st grade and is quite the social butterfly. She is the unofficial cruise director of our kids. She is taking ballet and loves her little dog, Tuti, who she is attempting to re-name as "Oreo." We inherited the dog from the neighbors after their kid, a really good friend to our kids, developed an allergy to him.

Ethan and Parker (the twins) are in Kindergarten and have really taken to reading; their reading has just sky-rocketed this year; We read to them everynight, usually from one of my old Calvin and Hobbes books. They love it. Their favorite thing in the world is the Lego Star Wars game we got them for our Wii; they have completed every level of the game in just about 5 months.

Emily is 3 and is quite the little dictator. It's close competition, but she has beat out all of our other kids for the title of most stubborn at that age. She loves her older siblings and feels that she is quite capable of doing anything and everything they are doing; she loves to be with them and to be in the middle of things. She'll start pre-school this coming Fall.

So that's the current state of this Tenney family. Just a quick update.

Patron Saint of Slow Runners

I feel like the patron saint of slow runners.

I ran the St. George Half Marathon this morning. In previous races, I had always started way back in the pack; there's always a long wait to get to the starting line and then I spend the first 10 minutes dodging and weaving my way past clumps of walkers/slow runners before I settle into my pace. This time I decided to start nearer to the front of the pack, on the theory that I would not have the hassle of having to avoid all the slow runners. So I started about 20 feet from the leaders, you know - those guys that are super skinny and have bulging leg muscles and probably run 10 miles before breakfast everyday, including today. Yeah, that was as close as I got to them the whole day; oh, except for when they had completed the loop in the course and were on their last (12th) mile and passing me when I was only 7 miles into the run. So the good news is that I did not have to waste any time dodging and weaving slower runners. Turns out that everyone else had to go around me; I was the slower runner. The entire race. Ugh.

But that's okay. I found my nice slow pace and I stuck to it. Didn't walk once, even though I was sorely tempted over the last couple of miles. I felt like one of my main purposes in the race today was to make other people feel good. I could almost hear people thinking "Hey, as long as I passed that guy I must be doing okay; he looks like he's in shape; he's even wearing a St George Marathon shirt." Of course by the end of the race I heard on more than one occasion a pair or a group of runners carrying on a conversation as the passed me about going so slow. "I'm sorry" one woman would say to the other; "but I really haven't trained enough and you're so good to run slow with me."

That's okay. I'm the patron saint of slow runners.

But, I did slightly better than I was hoping for. I finished the course in about 2 hours 8 and 1/2 minutes. Just under a 10:00 minute per mile pace. Not bad.

And I made a whole lot of people feel pretty good about themselves.

Star Wars Family

Our kids have now officially seen Star Wars. We had a family movie night and we watched the original, episode IV, a New Hope.

It helped that our kids have recently discovered the Lego Star Wars game for the Wii that we got them for Christmas, so they were familiar with a couple of the scenes and some of the character names. At various points during the movie they would exclaim "I remember this part from the Wii!" It was kind of odd.

When Darth Vader first showed up in the movie, Katie exclaimed "it's Zurg! . . . oh wait, I mean Darth Vader."

Later in the movie, she asked when Luke was going to find out that Darth Vader is his father.

Just to show you how much these movies have pervaded our collective societal subconscious.

Still Crazy After All These Miles ...

I'm running again, trying to prepare for the Painters Half Marathon in St. George on January 17. Yes, I'm a little crazy. Especially when getting up at 5:00 to run in this cold. Ugh. More details of my exploits over at my running blog.

Overheard at the Breakfast Table:

After settling an argument between herself and Parker by appealing to Katie's judgment call, Rachel explained her reasoning by saying "Katie's in 3rd grade, she knows everything . . . well, not when the dinosaurs died."

Huh, good to know.

I Survived!

I'm still alive!

I finished the St. George marathon yesterday morning. It's taken me 9 long months of training to be able to say that. Now, I am in much pain, but have a tremendous sense of accomplishment. I was quite an experience to be running with 7,000 other crazy people at 7 in the morning amid a constant rain.

I have chronicled my experience on my marathon training blog. You can reach it by clicking HERE.

A Typical Drive

We drove home yesterday from southern Utah on our way back from the Beatty family reunion. The drive home was a little more crazy than normal, but still typical of most of our drives.

We stopped in Cedar City to gas up and get some lunch for the kids.

We then stopped at the first exit outside of Cedar City because Emily would not stay in her car seat buckled up.

We then stopped at the very next exit to put the crying Emily back into her car seat and buckle her up.

We made it all the way to Fillmore before we needed to stop for a potty break for all the kids.

Then we had to stop in Nephi because Rachel had tried one of Emily's sugar baby candies and decided she didn't like it, so she tried to regurgitate it back up her throat, but she inadvertently sent it back up and out the nasal cavity instead, where it lodged and was stuck about an inch from coming out. Much crying and bleeding of the nose. Thinking we'll just get home and take her to the hospital. Much drama from Rachel.

By the very next exit she had succeeded in blowing the sugar baby out her nose.

In between all these stops many melt downs from various kids for variousd reasons.

Nice to finally make it home and release the pent up children to the back yard to work off much excess energy on the trampoline.

Traveling is too much of an adventure at times.