Christmas Prep

With Christmas just ahead I figured I would share a few photos, as usual, of Dem prepping for Christmas...the difference is now we are decorating OUR apartment. There are several key items that must be pointed out to illustrate why this is a great picture: (1) my beautiful wife, (2) our awesome green couch, (3) our Christmas tree up and ready to be decorated, and (4) the Red Wings young, good goaltender Jimmy Howard giving an interview after the game.

Me looking good in my Simpsons pants decorating the tree.

Our first Christmas as a married couple.

2009 APS Meeting - Minneapolis

My yearly tradition of missing out on Turkey Lurkey with my friends and attending the APS-DFD meeting continues. This year I got to visit Minneapolis, which is a very nice city. Unfortunately since my schedule was pretty full I did not get to see much of the time. Basically I saw the Hilton hotel I stayed at, the Convention Center, a few bars/restaurants near the convention center, and any site that could be viewed from the Skyway that connected my hotel and the convention center. As a result I don't have much to share, but I did take a few pictures...unless anyone would like a recap of the talks I went to.

The Hilton hotel where I stayed...my room is the 5th floor corner room, which is the first visible floor in the picture.

Half of my room with the window facing where the picture above was taken from.

The other half of my room.

The Convention Center.

A Lutheran Church that I could view from the Skyway.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, as usual, was great. Dem and I went to my parents house for Thanksgiving Day and then the following day went up to her parent's house. It was great spending time with both families. Unfortunately I only have pictures from my family, which I got from my mom and sister.

Wife, parents, sisters, grandpa, and chad.

See caption above, replace Chad with Tom.

Rey and Tom brought the dogs...only have a picture of Rhino.

Tom got a couple deer over the break.

My grandpa did not...but he was able to get spent some time in the woods with Tom.

Still Got It

For those of you, like myself, that have been wondering if I can still dunk, the answer is yes I can. I was starting to think that it might not be in me anymore, but tonight in spite of doing almost zero activity for the past few weeks I gave it a try. To my own surprise I actually managed to do it on the first try...there was no additional attempts.

FYI: My dunk tonight was not as good as this one.

Detroit Marathon

I am so behind on my blogging that I am only now finding time to write about the Detroit Marathon, which took place a month ago. I went to my first marathon because Dem ran in it as part of a fiver person relay team. She ran her leg at a great pace that she would have been very happy with last year when she was running more frequently (good job dear). Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera with me, so I'm forced to steal pictures from our friends that we went with (thanks Betsy, Ali, and the Swishers).

It started the night before when a bunch of us crammed into a car and drove to Detroit to register for the race. We also went out to eat together, which was nice since these friends are ones that we don't get to see much.

Dem and Betsy in the back-back seat.

The next morning we all drove together in the same car early in the morning. The picture below is hard to make out but I'm glad we have it. After waiting in traffic for quite awhile my friend Colleen and I let the runners start running from the highway to their start point while we drove off looking for a place we could park. Dem and Dan (Colleen's husband) had to sprint from the car to a bus that would take them to their start locations...they made it with minutes to spare.

Dropping off the runners on the highway since the traffic was backup for miles.

Colleen and I found a parking spot close to the starting line (next to Comerica Park) and then realized we had many hours ahead of us with nothing to do. After wandering around in the dark for awhile we finally decided we would try and walk to where our spouse's starting positions were...4+ miles one way.

Picture of Detroit skyline in the early morning.

We made it Dem's starting position and said hi before she started, but then we decided not to go to Dan's spot since the extra two miles seemed a bit much for us. It was actually really fun walking around with Colleen since she really loves running. Spending time with anyone that really loves something always makes you appreciate it a little more. It was so great seeing people cheer on those struggling, kids joining their parents to finish the last mile, and the joy in the faces of those having a good run.

The lead group including the winner, Nicholas Stanko, whom Colleen knows.

Sadly after we walked ~11 miles we actually screwed up the timing and ended up missing Dan finish (as well as all our friends). After some confusion we finally found everyone and pictures were taken of the runners. Then it was time to head home.

Dem, part of her team, and part of a second girls team...good job ladies.

Interestingly on our walk back to the car we spotted these tanks...apparently they are shooting some kind of military movie in Detroit.