Thursday, October 28, 2010

More Cody


All worthy of the double click:





Aimee-kins Does CNN

Aimee was interviewed on Spanish CNN about her project on early childhood development indicators in Latin America. Not that I'm proud of her or anything like that . . .




Major Pumpkin Surgery












Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Some Climbing

A good view of the south side of Nelson Rocks. Not part of the Nelson Rocks Preserve. Clicky photos for more detail . . .

There must be a route here somewhere . . .
Still looking . . .
Yes, I think it will go . . .
Another day, another arete . . .

This one has some good rock . . .
Clean . . .
Focus . . .
Nice moves . . .
Thanks for the belay Sandy!
All photos by Simon Carr.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Planting Time

10/17/10

Fall is a good time to plant fruit trees. AnnaMaria and I planted some and also some mums at the cabin.


AnnaMaria is helping me water our new Canadian Harmony Peach.


She's proud of her work.

Another Canadian Harmony Peach. Hope they take to West Virginia.

Maybe she'll be a plumber.

Such a big help.
She's good with a shovel.

A natural gardener.


Aimee keeps an eye on the fencer. 7,000 volts should keep the bears away.

The future site of our garden.

A Grimes Golden (one of the two main agricultural contributions of West Virginia, along with the Golden Delicious, the world's most popular apple), a Granny Smith, and a Montmorency Cherry fill out our mini-orchard.

AnnaMaria recently turned four. I am the princess on the right. You can tell by the eyebrows.

She enjoys her new easel from Mimi and Papa.

There was a celebration at daycare too.
Princess Flash!
An old shot from within the Dora tent.

An even older shot of Aimee and our love child.


Thursday, October 14, 2010

10/10/10

Run for the Hills Half Marathon on Spruce Knob

Langston and I ran the Run for the Hills Half Marathon on Spruce Knob last weekend. It was very hilly and almost entirely on trails. I had a little problem with some bad gel that I took right before the race but, other than constant nausea and two pauses to empty my stomach at mile one and mile seven, the race went ok.

It was held at the Mountain Institute's Spruce Knob Mountain Center:


It's a pretty place:

The Mountain Institute does good work and the proceeds of this race were donated to it. You should check them out.

The Run for the Hills Half Marathon was the third and final leg of the WV Trilogy which involved runs of 50 km, 50 miles and the half marathon on consecutive days. It was put on by the WV Mountain Trail Runners Club. They put on a great race.

Here is the start of the half marathon:

Here is an example of the local trails. Nice for biking too.
Great day for a running race:
Langston and I lounging after the race. I'm sitting on the rock and he is laying in the grass.
Here I am finishing. I am almost entirely hidden behind the 3rd place woman. I was 4th in my age group (40-49) out of 12 and 21st overall out of 60. Not bad for my first running race considering I was laid up with a bad back at the beginning of August after only four weeks of training and couldn't run at all for three weeks and then had to start over with a one mile run. Langston was the youngest finisher and 11th overall.
We got much better weather than earlier in the week. Looks like the first snow of the year fell on Tuesday.
Hope we get as much snow as we had last year.