This morning's workout

We changed it up this morning during our workout. Instead of our normal cross-training stuff, we played lighting, with a twist. If you've never played lightning, it's a basketball game where everyone lines up behind the free-throw line and the first guy shoots. He needs to put the ball in the hoop before the guy behind him does or he's out. There' s a lot of running and sprinting in the game as move through the line. As a person got out, they would have to do whatever the chosen exercise was (50 push-ups, 50 mountain-climbers, bear crawls, etc) and then jump rope until the game was over. My lack of basketball skills meant that i got a great workout in this morning, except for the two rounds that I actually won. It was a fun change of pace.

My brother-in-law Kevin has got me thinking about running a half-marathon with him in August. Kevin turned me on to this 12 week training regiment to get ready, which doesn't seem too crazy. I'm going to start it next week and begin logging my distances and times and see where I get to. I really wanted to do a sprint triathlon this year and getting over the running part was a big hurdle. The distance swimming part is the part that I'm having a tough time overcoming. Maybe next year, or maybe this year if I can get myself to actually go to the pool and swim.

Best Time Yet

I ran my best time yet this afternoon. I ran 3.1 miles in 23 1/2 minutes for a pace of 7 1/2 minute mile.

Em's Pet Frogs

It's no secret that my daughter loves animals of all kind. Our hot-tub seems to attract tree-frogs and on a daily basis Em goes out to say hi to them. She was out visiting as one of them jumped on to her head. Most little girls would have been scared, but Emily was thrilled that the frog loved her enough to jump on her head. The frog then jumped on to her shoulder, which in her mind proved it's love for her even more.

Memorial Day Weekend

We began our memorial day weekend on Saturday with lots of hard work. I joined Michael, Kasey and Rodney in helping the Gilbert brothers (conveniently minus the brothers) Mom and step-Dad move. We then worked hard around the house. Cathie and Em cleaned out the flower beds (even though her doctor expressly forbid her for doing it until her back felt better), planted flowers and put mulch down while Nate mowed the lawn and I did a bunch of odd jobs, including cleaning up dog poop, trimming my shrubs (I find it makes the house look bigger) and a bunch of other things to get ready for our party on Sunday.

We had a boat load of people here. Every year we add a few more people until the circle grows to what you see above. I'm not sure what the theme was, but it included Corona, some salsa lots of wieners, which my brother Dan has always been great at handling, though these were much, much larger than what he was used to.

The weather was a perfect and the kids broke out the squirt guns and water balloons, including Bender, who never put the gun down. He ran around and squirted just about everyone. My niece Allie renounced Uncle Jon as her favorite Uncle and replaced me into that position, as you can see from the picture below. We've gone from having one kid (Lindsey Thompson) to having about 25 at the event. The kids all played great and tired themselves out between the tire swing, the neighbors trampoline and running around dodging the water attacks.

Monaca got fed up with the whole squirting thing at one point, filled the squirt gun with lemon juice and repeatedly tried to squirt Bender in the eyes. Not really.

It happened to be Justin's 40th birthday and he wore his new backpack chair the entire time to symbolize his oldness. We sang happy birthday at random times to Justin, who just smiled and revelled in the fact that he had a chair on his back.

The party started around 1 and kept going until 11pm as we hung out by the fire with the Schultz's and the Eaton-Browns.

We spent Monday doing a whole lot of nothing except recharging. Cathie and the girls chilled outside. Nate and I went for a ten mile bike ride and then I fell asleep in the sun and did the human lobster deal with my butt-white skin. Nate and I caught the movie Prince Caspian, which we both liked - just not as much as Iron Man.

You can see the rest of the pictures from the weekend here.

Old Man Wisdom

Eli, Brad, Jim and I watched the Wings and Pistons games last night at Brad's cottage. The highlight came when one of the Wing's Defensemen took the puck behind his own goal and waited for the play to take shape:

Jim: "I wonder if he could just stay there forever?"
Brad (after a moment of thought): "I suppose he'd get thirsty after a while."
Brad (after another moment of thought):"Never mind. He could drink from the goalie's water bottle on the net. I guess he could stay there forever."

It may be one of those things that was just amusing to me, or that I just have low standards for Brad's humor. Maybe both. I told Brad it was one of the funniest things he'd said in 18 months.

What Cathie secretly thinks about me

Going the Distancce

I'm still running. Today I ran the farthest yet, about 5 1/2 miles today in 48 minutes, about an 8 1/2 minute mile. In addition to going to Kirk's twice a week and the gym twice, I'm running about three times a week, changing it up pretty frequently. Some days I'll do a shorter distance with sprints in between jogs and other days I'll go for distance. I've dropped about 10 lbs, which I'd previously fooled myself into thinking was all muscle weight when I would step on the scale. Em went for a bike ride the other day and I ran with her, doing about four miles of starting and stopping. The fun part was the conversation along the way.

Grandma Names

We were talking on Saturday with my Dad and his fiancee Judy about names for Judy. Having the kids call her "Judy" seems odd, and the name "Grandma Kurt" is already taken. In the Kurt family, we happen to specialize in nicknames, so I ran a few obvious ones by Judy and my Dad: "Grandma + Judy" = "Grudy". I decided I needed to look at other countries and see what they call their grandmas.

Dutch - Oma
French - Mamy
Russian - Babushka
Swedish - Mormor
Norwegian -Bestemor
Hindi/Urdu - Naanaa
Thai - Ta Yay
Spanish - abuelita
English - Nana, Maw-Maw
Turkish - Annanne
Basque - Amoma
Palestinian Arabic - sitto
Greek - Yaya
Slovenian - Babica
Japanese - Obaasan
Hebrew - Savta

I think I prefer Babushka Judy so far... Any thoughts?

Junior High Chaos

I wrote the lesson for today's message last night during the Relay for Life and I was whooped. Ironically, the topic for tonight was prayer, and God answered mine. My mind was clear and I had all of the energy I needed. The meeting went great. We had a ton of kids, a bunch of leaders, and a bunch of great interaction and honesty about prayer.

Emily's Dance Recital

Yesterday was Emily's Spring dance recital. The recital was a three hour long ordeal that cost a small fortune for the lessons, costumes, tickets and time for Emily's three minute dance. Her smile and the joy she had while doing her dance was worth every penny of it. You can see the smile in these pictures and tell how much fun she was having. Check out the height she's getting in the third picture. I have no idea if that was part of the routine or not, but it was fun to watch.


My Dad, Judy and Cathie's parents came to see the show. Cathie's Dad and I were able to catch a bit of shut-eye during the show, but my Dad was too mesmerized by the show to get any quality sleep. It was cool to see how proud Maddie and Nate were of Em, and how much that meant to Emily.

Relay for Life Reflections

After Emily's dance recital, we headed over to the Relay for Life. This was our first Relay For Life. In the past, we had walked in the survivor lap with my Mom with a neighbor, but never participated in one at this level. Our church created a team and a bunch of families, all with young kids, decided to participate. The event itself has fund raising leading up to it, but also involves having events and fundraisers at the Relay itself to raise additional money.


At our tent (until the 60mph storm winds blew it down, followed by a beautiful rainbow) had a bunch of games that kids could play. the special part about this were the prizes. One of the girls from my youth group and church died of cancer about 7 years ago. Her name was Victoria and she loved beanie babies. She had a bazillion of them. Her parents donated these beanie babies to us as prizes for the games. We had a cool note with them that people could read the story of Victoria and the story of these beanie baby prizes.

The event basically consists of walking and talking. We walked around a 1/4 mile track a bunch of times, with one or more team members moving around all the time. They have special laps throughout the day and try and make it fun with a band, a DJ and music. We learned later (but not until about 4:30am) that many teams treat the whole "someone walking at all times" deal very loosely. As rookies, we didn't know this and had someone walking all the time, like suckers.

As I would walk and think, the thought crossed my mind as to "why". Why was I walking around a track to stop cancer? In the beginning, it just seemed like something I could do to honor hte memory of my Mom. Being there with her before she died and seeing her watch the survivor lap was a big deal and meant a lot to me, so I figured Relay for Life was a good place to start.

Come on: if you think about it for too long, walking in circles seems a bit silly. Hundreds of people were walking, hoping to do something about a disease with a ridiculous impact on people's lives. As Nate and I walked, we talked about what he and I could really do to cure cancer. We aren't researchers, we aren't doctors, so we figured that about all he and I could do would be to raise awareness, raise money and love people with the disease. My son is smart. (He gets it from Cathie). But still, walking seemed kind of insignificant for me against such a huge problem. Cancer is so big sometimes, it makes me feel small and helpless against it - just like poverty, famine and AIDS.


At about 9:30, they had the luminary lap. All around the 1/4 mile track were paper-bag luminaries, each dedicated to a cancer survivor or in memory of someone who lost the battle. They killed all the lights on the track as the candles glowed, gave some time for reflection. They ended the time with a lap of silence, led by a bagpiper playing Amazing Grace, the same song the bagpiper played at my Mom's funeral. As I walked around the track thinking of my Mom's battle with cancer, my Dad's battle with cancer, the hugeness of the impact of this disease, and my Mom's death, I lost it and started sobbing. It was in that moment I think I really got why I was walking around a track. In the bigness of cancer, I could either be powerless against it, or I could walk, doing something is better than nothing. In my walking, somehow I figured out what I was walking and why I would do it again.

Emily fell asleep while on my shoulders. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this as I tried to take her down and let her walk. Ooops. We hung out until about 11pm with the kids and then I headed home and put them to bed. Cathie and I swapped places at about 1:30am and I walked for another few hours until I was sore. During the walking, I talked to other people from my team. People I've known, but got to know a lot better through the special bond of walking around a track at 4 in the morning. We talked about anything and everything. We drank coffee, ate junk food and energy drinks and laughed a lot. We would periodically change directions, and try and convince the other walkers that our way was the best. (I was able to convince almost no one that walking clock-wise around the track was actually downhill all the way). We would periodically stop by people's camp fires and talk and share food and stories, but mostly we walked and talked and laughed. At one point, about 3 in the morning, one college kid was carrying another guy on his shoulders. I offered them $1 to do a complete 1/4 mile lap carrying him on his shoulders, which they did, twice. Better them, than me. In the wee hours we came up with a bunch of creative and amusing (at least to me) ideas for "themed" laps:

• The Taser Lap - where every team that does not have representation on track has to select one person to be zapped with a taser gun.
• The iPod Lap - Everyone wears an iPod and sings their song loudly as they walk around the track, oblivious to how bad they sound.
  

I'm whooped today. I slept about three hours and I've got a long day ahead of me, including a youth group meeting at 6. Over the course of my time there, I'm guessing I walked about 80 to 100 laps.

If you'd like to make a donation online, visit my Relay For Life Personal page.

Emily

Emily was taking a bath yesterday and out of nowhere, said this to Cathie:

Mom, I could really get rid of my left hand. I don't use it much.

Relay for Life Luminary in honor of my Mom

Only 12 hours to go...

Maddie is the Student of the Month!

Maddie was selected as the Student of the Month at Bartlett! She gets no significant cash award for this honor, but does get a certificate and bumper sticker, which I'm sure her Grandpa Kurt would love to put on his car. Maddie's a great student and holds herself to a very high standard. She is very self-motivated and self-critical. She's got Cathie's attention to detail and my mouth. She's also an amazing gymnast (she just got her double-round-off-into-a-back-handspring) who reads like a fiend.

Foo Fighters Concert Rider

Concert Riders are documents outlining what a band requires to have to perform. You've heard of Van Halen's request for all of the brown M&Ms to be removed from the candy. Smoking Gun has a huge collection of these riders. The Foo Fighters have the best by far. My favorite part:

Em and Em's

Emily's got her big dance recital on Saturday. They had their dress rehearsal tonight. This thing costs a fortune - between the costumes, the tickets, the pictures, the videos and the huge amount of time invested. At least her and her friend Emma look cute.

Outsmarted by a six year old

Last night as I was scratching Emily's back, I took the opportunity to see if I could draw a small smiley face on her back without her noticing. She didn't notice, until her big sister decided to point it out. Emily thought that some reciprocation was in order, so I let her draw a smiley face on my back. As I was going to bed, Cathie noticed that Emily hadn't quite drawn a face on my back. Instead, I had this:


I attribute the fact that she spelled dummy "Domee" to her first grade teacher Sherry.

I also had no idea that I had this many moles or pimples on my back. I'd say it was a positive experience for everyone involved.

D.A.R.E. Bowling

Cathie and I chaproned Nate's school's bowling trip for their drug resistance and education program called D.A.R.E. Cathie thought it was okay to smoke and have a beer during the event, but I helped her see the error of her ways.

Odd

About a year ago, I started having this pain in my upper back. Much to the chagrin of my family, I went to see a chiropractor to find out what's wrong. After the first appointment, he explained to me that it was caused by the fact that I sleep with my arms up over my head at night. He explained that there was nothing he could do and that I needed to try and figure out how NOT to sleep like that. Easier said than done. It seems like no matter how I fall asleep, I wake up with my hands behind my head.

Over the past year I've been trying all sorts of odd things to fix this. I've tried placing pillows next to me, interlocking my fingers across my chest before I fall asleep and a few other odd things. Last night I decided to try tying my hands together. Cathie thought this seemed like a bad idea at a lot of levels, describing scenarios that involved her being accidently strangled in the middle of the night or my hands being cut off (de-hand-itated?). I took one of the kids jump rope and made a couple of loops in it and slid my wrists through. It seemed to work for a while until it slid off. When I say work, maybe I'm being generous. The jump rope had wooden ends on it and when I went to scratch my face in the middle of the night I ended up nailing myself in the noggin wiht one of those ends.

I think the ideal solution is one of those chinese finger traps that you had as kids. The more you pull on it, the tighter it gets, but when you push your fingers together it actually loosens up. Then again, I'm the guy who considered the jump roap a good idea.

Pastor Joe's Redneck Move

I Shall Overcome

This morning Kirk took us through the most hated workout of all - the infamous bands. You take two 8 foot giant rubber bands and tie them together, looping them around your waist - and then one person springs while the other person acts as an anchor for them. We do 100 yard sprints, and then anchor for the next guy on the same 100 yard sprint. After doing five sets of these, you do the same thing backwards. This gives you a wicked cardio workout but a leg workout that rivals no other. There's a whole psychological aspect to this and how hard you push the other guy your anchoring for, who ends up anchoring for you at some point.

Anyways, this exercise has been my nemesis forever. Kirk has threatened me with it and snuck it in a number of times and almost killed me. For the longest time I was so out of shape from a cardio perspective that I would nearly pass out or throw up from the exercise. We did the excercise today and I pushed myself harder than before and came out ahead. I gave 100%+, right up to the edge of what I had, but having been running, I was able to recover and get ready for the next set. It felt great to be able to do it well, but also to be able to overcome one of my demons at the Triad.

Cathie's Mother's Day Present

I got Cathie a Momento Wireless picture frame for Mother's Day. I bought it three months ago (on Woot) and it took everything I could muster to not give it to her early. It pulls the pictures live via Windows Media Center and is awesome. You can also pull pictures from Flickr and Picasa Web Albums and other RSS feeds. It has one piece of functionality that seems a bit dangerous. People can e-mail pictures to davekurt@momentolive.com and the images will be displayed on the frame. With friends like mine, seems a bit dangerous.

Happy Mother's Day Cathie

We started celebrating Mother's day this morning with breakfast in bed for Cathie. All of the kids helped out getting breakfast ready. We've been doing this since Nate was born, and I'm not sure it's gotten any easier over the years as the kids have gotten older. The kids had two big goals today - no fighting and keep the house super clean. They did a great job on both.

After church, we spent the day hanging out. Cathie got the princess treatment from the girls, which include Emily doing Cathie's hair and Madeline giving Cathie a pedicure, which included some kind of very special (read odd) treatment with lotion and leaves all over Cathie's feet.

We had planned on grilling out and making Cathie one of her favorite meals, but the weather didn't quite cooperate. We ended up going out and getting Cathie Boston Market, complete with her favorite mashed potatoes. Maddie made a batch of great brownies for dessert. After dinner the kids gave their Mom their last gift, this video:

We ended the day by hanging out and watching a movie as a family.

Mother's Day Lament

Mother's Day has been kind of a bittersweet time the past couple of years. While I love celebrating what a great wife Cathie is, I really miss my Mom. This year wasn't as tough as last year, but I thought a lot about my Mom today and was a little sad. Today at Church there was a Mother's Day video that brought tears to my eyes. I miss my Mom, but I have a million great memories about her. Rarely does a day go by that we don't talk as a family about my Mom, what she liked, things she did or something she would think of a given situation.

Em and Rascal

Emily and Rascal have a love hate relationship. Em loves Rascal, he pretty much hates her. We were talking this morning about how they managed to convince us to have another cat and she shared this story:

Remember when Rascal tried to give me a high five but missed and clawed my face? Yeah, that was funny, except for the part that really hurt.

Brad is wearing Camo Capris

The shirt is funny, but you need to see the pants. They are cinched up around his calves. He tried to convince me that it's the latest fad d in europe, but I don't buy it.

Congratulations my Dad and Judy

Congratulations to my Dad and his wife-to-be Judy. My Dad called us today and announced his engagement. They've been dating since November. They have been spending most of their time together and seem very happy together. Judy helped my Dad when he watched our kids while we were in NYC. After spending time with Judy, Maddie gave her endorsement:

If Grandpa were to make Judy my new Grandma, I would be okay with that.

They haven't picked a date yet, but he's given her the ring. I've told my Dad that I'll have the big talk with him about his wedding night as it grows closer. My siblings and I have suggested a small, intimate gathering where he flies us all to the Bahamas for a beach wedding. We don't know if my Dad will follow Will's lead and take his wife's last name, or if he will hyphenate his own name.

In all seriousness, we're very happy for both of them. No one can ever replace my Mom and it's been a bit of an adjustment seeing my Dad with someone else after being married to my Mom for 40 years. My Dad and I have had some long talks as he's helped me understand where he's at in all of this and it's been really helpful for me. Ultimately, I want to see my Dad happy and he's very happy with Judy. Judy is a great lady and it's nice that she knew my Mom, because she can relate to the great memories we have of her. I think it's going to take Judy a bit of time to figure out the Kurt sense of humor. I'm not sure Cathie quite gets it after 15 years. For better or for worse, welcome to the family Judy!

Rough Morning

I left my hotel with plenty of time to drop my car off and catch my flight home, or so I thougt. Since the rental car place was off premise, I had marked it in my GPS so I could find it quickly on my way back. Last time I eas in Phili I had typed in the rental car return counter and it took me to their repair center. I clicked the waypoint I'd created and my GPS told me that there was no way to get there from here. Weird but no big deal. I typed in the airport, figuring i'd find it from there. My GPS led me to a street corner with no airport to be seen. I blazed through security and by the time I got to my flight, it had been delayed just enough that I was now on time. I'm blaming all of this on a combination of bad signs at Phili and bunk GPS locations. I'm pretty sure it's not my fault.

Jawsey

After my meetings today in downtown Phili i headed across the river to New Jersey to visit the Bucks (and Chris aka the Mighty Might Afro (now afro-free), the Buck's own personal troll (Jess part 2)). Miles, Ken and I walked up to Bobby Chez's Crab Cakes and got some phenomenal food (Lobster Mashed Potatos and Giant Crab Balls, creamed spinach and an Asian salad made with broccoli that apparently gives you wicked gas). You bring the food back and quickly heat it up and it's fantastic. Ken spent most of the time talking to me about his purpose driven live small group guide and how the whole Purpose Driven series counted as "Source Text".

Chris, Kathy, Ken, Miles and I walked up to turn me on to this amazing treat pronounced by those in Jersey as "Waterize" (sounds like Cauterize). i had no idea what we were getting until I saw the sign, after which I still didn't really know. It's basically a snow cone and is not bad. When you turn it into a Gellati it becomes a little taste of heaven. They mix the Water Ice in with the creamiest custard in the world and it rocks. We walked around the city some more and then went back and talked Obama with ken, kathy and Chris.

I had a great time hanging with the whole crew and seeing where the Bucks go Buck Wild. It's a cool little city, totally different from South Lyon. They're within walking distance of a very cool town and it is just radically different than the suburbia that I'm used to. Miles is getting huge and is at that fun age where he just laughs and laughs and has unlimited energy.