The Knights Learn a New Trade (Part 1)

-- or, why I've only lost five pounds in spite of taking three months off from blogging to train intensely for a half marathon :)


        So, to try and update you on three months of life in three sentences:  1)  I trained feverishly for a half-marathon and got within seven seconds of my goal at 1:45:07, which was 11 minutes faster than I had ever ran one before, but simultaneously got hooked on Glee, because apparently you run faster listening to pop music; 2) Elijah and Judah grew up (a lot! especially Judah, who is well on his way to being a young sportsman-- ball is one of two words he says really well... the other! "COOKIEEEE!");  and 3)  Rachel started watching a little boy who lives down the street here and there and picked up a third night at the office.

         The third is actually the most significant, at least to our way of life.  At first I blamed Rachel for taking it until she gently reminded me that I had encouraged her to do it (true) and that it might be that I just don't handle change very well (TRUE), so I dropped that argument.  But while two hours on a solitary night really isn't bad at all, for some reason it sparked a mentality change in me.  No longer were these three knights biding time on Monday and Wednesday evenings waiting for our Queen to come back and dazzle us with her presence; no, now we were on our own.  We ARE the night crew.  And with that mentality, we became scary-- or scary good.  I can't tell.

         At first, we started jousting training.  It didn't really work; I was always the dragon, and I ALWAYS ended up dead with two boys jumping on my (ahem) lower abdomen, giggling their heads off.  As I wouldn't mind the possibility of having more children in the future, we decided to try something else.      


      We tried running, which led to Elijah competing in his first real race (and some of the cutest pictures of him ever)...

   



 This was right near the finish of his little 1k -- he got up the big hill, looked down at the finish line and saw the people, and, in what is so typically LJ, got a huge grin and started sprinting...
               

                                 

....  but the crummy thing is that (at least here in New England) you can't really run in the dark with two cranky young knights/ ninjas in the winter.  Little dogs everywhere would have to flee in terror with these two   around.

     So, we were down to our last resort: something that could be done inside, with no real time commitments,  and something to show for our efforts at the end.  Baking!  (We decided against lobsters because these two were far too enthusiastic about playing with 'Larry the Lobster' before his demise, and there was some speculation that Elijah might try and hide him somewhere...)

       In our next installment (within a couple days), you'll get to see why (in our house, at least) baking is still a full-contact sport...