Sit and Spell

Exciting times for the Laughlins! We have had a lot go down in the past couple weeks. Liam has been rolling over like a champ, but now he can hold himself up in a seated position too! Lucy and I are convinced it was our good example that he's following. He'll be crawling in no time (but no, he won't learn that by watching us). As you can see, he's quite a handsome young man. (o=

Danny has taken some time out from slap shooting wooden blocks at Teppo to learn some letters! He doesn't quite know the whole alphabet yet, but he recognizes more than half of them consistently. He's particularly emphatic about the letter 'R' for some reason. We're not sure yet, but he may grow up to be a pirate. Lucy and I switched his regimen from Cheerios to Alphabits, so hopefully that will help Danny learn the rest of the alphabet. With a little work, he could be reading before he turns 3. Last week Lucy cut Danny's hair, too. What do you think?

Lucy has been training to run her first 5K in several years, the Race for the Cure. She's having a hard time finding the time to run though, since she has picked up more hours at work, but I know she can do it. She hasn't taken any time away from her boys though and continues to be a wonderful wife and mother.

Thursday, Lucy and I went to a happy hour with a bunch of friends, family, and coworkers to celebrate my new job! Starting on May 3, I'll no longer be employed at LPS and will be working at The PCA Group. It was time for me to move on and in addition to several other benefits, The PCA Group has offered flexibility, with regards to scheduling around classes, that wasn't available at LPS. All in all, I'm excited about it and I know it was the right thing to do for the family and for me personally.

We may have more good news to share next week, but until then, let's hope the playoff beard keeps growing. Go Sabres! Go Blackhawks!

Sesame Street Presents :The Body / Easter Weekend

The Laughlins failed to post a blog last week, so this week you readers get a "twofer". (And I'm not really sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing because I either have a choice of condensing the information or making a really long blog entry.)

Last Sunday (March 28), the Laughlin Family made their way to the Buffalo Museum of Science for the current exhibit, Sesame Street Presents: The Body. Right up the aisle of a toddler. The boys had been there before so it was old hat for them, but for me, it was all new. (The boys went one afternoon when the Grandparents / Babysitters were vacationing in Florida and Dan took some time off so I could still work.) For those with children, it really is worth a look. Danny really enjoyed kicking the "gocker" (soccer) ball and playing in the mock Elmo's world. Other attractions were shopping in Hooper's store, sitting on the iconic front steps (see below), Dance Dance Revolution with Grover, learning the bones and muscles and some organs with a replica of the Count's Organ, a game show with Guy Smiley and how digestion, the heart and the nose work. And let me tell you, when the big fake giant nose sneezes, there really is a little bit of mist that comes of that nose. There was also a faux handwash / hygiene station. Danny was very distraught that there was not actually any water that came out of the faucet; he tried quite a few times! That kid loves to wash his hands!

We also made our way around the rest of the Museum since I had not been around it in quite a few years. (At least over 10 if you don't count Body Worlds since we only saw that exhibit.) Boy has it changed! We spent quite a lot of time in the Toddler Play Area; Danny quite enjoyed the tree slide. And the 4th Floor was not as cool as I remember. All I could talk about was how much I loved Stars and Planets and whatnot, and I was not impressed. I think I told Dan 12 times in the span of an hour I had once aspired to be an astronomer when I was younger. (However, after taking Astronomy in high school, I realized it was an unattainable goal since math is not my strong point. At all.

Flash forward a week, it's Holy Saturday and as any normal Saturday, we spent our evening with my parents, after a busy day at home / arpund town. Dan did some much needed yardwork, we purchased sneakers for Dan and myself. Dan's knee hurts from all the marathon training and as wells as resting it, our friend who is a physical therapist, suggested Dan needed new sneakers. And I needed sneakers since I am getting back into shape (other than round) and I am doing that by training for and running in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure (Breast Cancer) run, in WNY, on June 12. And of course since we purchased sneakers, we had to break them in so we headed to Delaware Park for a run / walk. Dan ran 3 1/2 miles. While I pushed the boys in my double stroller for 1.77 miles. Without a running stroller, I could not run, but I at least got my heart pumping, and boy was I sweating after the first 5 minutes! As beautiful as it was, it was difficult excercing. The heat kicked my butt.
Speaking of, April in Buffalo is not normally a warm weather time, however we had a tropical heat wave that was much enjoyed. Thursday tied the current record (not sure what it was), Friday broke the record of 72 by a few degrees and Saturday broke a record of 8 degrees at 84!
Before watching an extremely disappointing 4-0 Buffalo Sabres loss to the Montreal Canadiens, Danny and his "Mammer" spent some time dyeing Easter Eggs. (At least the loss to Montreal did not affect getting into the playoffs; the shut out would have been even more devastating.) Danny got very, very messy, as any 2 year old would.

Easter Sunday, we again made our way to my parents house after a breakfast of home-made chocolate chip waffles, the best tasting coffee I've ever had (can you tell I gave up coffee for Lent) and 10:30 Mass at Holy Angels. We stayed there for a few hours, long enough to see Great Grandma, but we missed my brothers. After my parents, we made our way to my in-laws house for dinner, also known as our regularly scheduled program. Dinner was fantastic as it always is. We had Manacotti, salad, asparagus, carrots, ham and lamb, with cannolis for dessert.And no holiday would be complete without some form of sport played, and of course, it ended up being street hockey. Can't expect anything different from a Laughlin?

Until next time...

Warming the Bench

I'm sitting home on Saturday afternoon instead of running because I hurt my knee. My medical professional said it was due to overuse, so training is on hold for a while. It's kinda depressing; I'm used to running and biking and playing hockey every chance I get, so this is throwing me for a loop. I'm trying to stay positive about the whole situation, and that's really easy when I spend the extra time with my family.

I haven't been able to get much use out of my shoes lately, but someone else is getting lots of use out of his. Danny got new shoes last week! He's now sporting a pair of black Converse One Stars, the first pair of shoes he's walked in with a hard sole (aside from my shoes). The hard sole took a little getting used to, and they're a bit big on him which doesn't make it any easier, but he loves them and asks for them all the time. He is sure to have Mommy or Daddy tie them on before going outside to play soccer. And he LOVES playing soccer. On Thursday, he pointed outside and said "car" all day, until Lucy figured out that he just wanted to get the soccer ball out of the car. It was raining that day, so soccer had to wait.

Liam has been kicking like a champ too. He'll be crawling all over the place soon, but for now we're happy that he just sits around looking cute. Liam has started eating some solid food, but it's a battle. So far, Lucy has been the brave soldier.

Lucy has started a new job - she's a Sterile Processing Technician at a local hospital. While she has assured me that she hasn't had to clean any brain fragments off of anything, she says she still enjoys the job. AT only 24 hours a week, it's enough for her to spend some time with adults, but not so much that she feels l like she's missing out on her kids.

I flipped my wig watching RIT advance in the Frozen Four tournament yesterday and the Sabres are probably going to win the Northeast Division, so I have some good hockey to watch while I'm sitting out. I don't know how soon I'll be able to run or what the next week or month or year holds for any of us, but I wouldn't be the least bit disappointed if it weren't any different from what it is now.

Week 6 Training Update

Welcome to the new site! Well, the site has actually been around for a while, but we stuck with ThoseDarnLaughlins.com until we (Dan) realized that we don't have the free time to spend developing and maintaining all the features of the website that we wanted. So we finally admitted our lack of effort. Wondering where all that free time went? Here's some of it:

Monday, March 1
Rest day. Lucy works on Mondays, so my routine has become feeding and bathing the boys and then, once they fall asleep, I do a core workout. I've read that strengthening one's abs and back helps over a long run like the marathon by helping to maintain form and whatnot. I can't say whether it really does or not, but it definitely makes my pants a little looser.

Tuesday, March 2
Ran my 3.5 mile lunch route. I like these runs because they're short and because they don't interrupt any other daily activities. Today I ran at a 7:26 pace.
3.5 miles

Wednesday, March 3
I hate that it happens every week, but as per the norm lately the six miles scheduled for today got bumped. Lucy was home this week because her work schedule got rearranged, but instead of freeing up some time for me to run, it just made time for us to spend together - watching the Sabres game together.

Thursday, March 4
I rocked this run today! Snow is starting to melt here in Buffalo, so instead of heading to the park where I know the road will be plowed, I ran in the streets around our house. It was a rough start, but I felt like I got stronger as the run went on. I finished at an 8:07 pace, which I'm very happy with when the route is 5 miles or more.
6.7 miles

Friday, March 5
Happy birthday to me! I ran my 3.5 mile lunchtime route and ran home as quick as possible because I was meeting some friends out for dinner, all of us with birthdays within 2 days. I didn't have time to shower though because I had to run home to pick up and drop off Danny and Liam and in between I had to stop to buy formula because we were almost out of it. I made it to our reservation at Kyoto on time, and had a great night with Matt, Josh, Rachel, Albi, and Jocelyn, but great nights are not conducive to running the following day.
3.5 miles

Saturday, March 6
Hung over. I just don't have any tolerance anymore.

Sunday, March 7
Felt much better today. Lucy and I went to a wedding shower and then headed to my mom's house for dinner and family time. Before dinner though, I hit Delaware Park for a few laps with my brother, Joe. He's working on his own fitness for a race or two this summer. We ran out of daylight, but being the only ones in the park allows you to just shut off your brain and just kick one foot in front of the other.
9.17 miles

This was a "step down" week so I was only scheduled to run 21 miles this week and I finished with 22.83 miles. It has been an ordeal, but I feel good about mt progress so far. I'm already looking forward to my next challenge after the marathon. Hopefully, it will be a masters' program in the Fall. I've applied, and been accepted, into the MS, Computing Security and Information Assurance program at RIT. There are still some hurdles, not least of which is trying to balance family time with study time. I love spending time with Lucy and the boys and classes would definitely eat away at that time, probably more than marathon training. We're also having a difficult time trying to figure out how to finance this latest educational endeavor. I was awarded a 20% scholarship that could get pushed to 30% based on my grades from the first 12 credit hours of the program, but that still leaves a hefty sum. More details as they become available.