Orchid

It arrived yesterday in the mail! The box contained an orchid carefully packaged in synthetic filler, propped up by a bamboo pole, and covered by a protective paper sleeve. The orchid was a Christmas gift from Mitch's uncle and aunt who sell orchids online. The orchid's tag says it is a Lc. Breen's Jenny Ann. We are not quite sure what that means, but it has a wonderful fragrance. We now have 6 plants in our 400 sq ft apartment: a calathea, Christmas cactus, cycad, pine tree, amaryllis, and orchid. Its a big responsibility to be entrusted with so many delicate lives, but we are enjoying our little jungle.

Go David Go

Congratulations David! David just completed running the 2010 P.F. Chang's Rock 'n Roll Marathon with a time of 2:51:56. He finished 72nd out of 5,711 finishers. Not only does his time qualify for the Boston Marathon, but it beats his age group qualifying pace by nearly a minute every mile! Great job, David. See you in Boston next year!

Trainer

After weeks of Mitch drooling over bike trainers online, Bekah finally granted her blessing for him to purchase one. It is a beautiful blue and silver trainer from 1up USA. For those of you who care, it is made of solid anodized aluminum, machined with less than 0.001 of an inch of run out, and has a 7.5 lb flywheel capable of producing up to 3,000 watts of resistance. Pretty hot! The trainer is made entirely in the US and backed by a lifetime guarantee. Mitch even convinced Todd to get one too. So, while Bekah is running dozens of miles outside in the freezing cold, Mitch is happily riding his bike trainer in the comfort of the apartment. He has even arranged things so he can surf the internet for entertainment, and at the same time be cooled off by the gentle breeze of his trusty desk fan. Can it get much better than this? Bekah has also been using the bike trainer for some cross-training, although she admits her leg muscles are sore for days afterwards. Can biking be better exercise than running?

Training

Its official: Bekah has an official marathon training picture. Looks pretty professional, huh? Well, with our fancy DSLR camera, Mitch's action photography skills, and a little help from Photoshop, this is the end product. Note that this picture was taken after Bekah had already completed running 14 miles! She is still going strong. It has been a long, hard training process to prepare for the Boston Marathon, but at least now she has a picture to show for it. If you would like to support her as she raises funds for Team Brigham, click here. If you do not see the official marathon training picture on the linked page, you are in the wrong place.

Counter

Ahhh! Apparently the New Year brings about a new counter. Sadly, our page counter has been reset! We are now left to checking last years statistics for our page on Google Analytics, which uses an entirely different method of counting page hits. Last year, we made it over the 1,000 mark for page visits. Shall we resolve 2,000 this year? With your help, we can.

New Year

Happy New Year! This year was a snowy New Year's Eve. It was a good thing Mitch flew in the day before, or he might have been delayed by snow again. We spent a portion of New Year's Eve braving the temperatures at Boston's First Night, Boston's way of bringing in the new year. It is a city-wide festivity including live entertainment, food, and ice sculptures. We spent some time checking out the ice sculptures downtown before heading over to Dan and Laura's for the final countdown. We wish you all a Happy New Year and hope its a year filled with many memorable moments and exciting challenges.