Meeting Cousin Julia

Julia Jo Panka was born on 2 Oct.  Two months later, in Nov, Julia finally got to meet her cousins in person.  Magus and Maliah were very excited to 'have a baby.'

  


Magnus rocking the girls

The Girl Cousins

Toughest Mudder

World’s Toughest Mudder is the final event of the Tough Mudder series calendar year. Different from traditional Tough Mudder events, World's Toughest Mudder is a 24-hour race designed to find the toughest man, woman, and four-person team. Participants must qualify for the event by completing a regular Tough Mudder event during the year and submitting an application for entry. World's Toughest Mudder 2012 was held at Raceway Park in Englishtown, NJ on 17-18 Nov.

Last year Dylan did the Toughest Mudder.  He completed 77 miles of obstacles, and came in 2nd overall (out of a field of over 980 that started the race!).  This year he put together a 4-man team; Dylan Newman, Mike Harrison, Steve Goodman and Jason Self. This year 1300 people ran the race.  Just after midnight, on 18 Nov, after 4 laps, about 50 miles, the team had to quit due to injury.  They were the lead team until that time.  In the end they got 8th place, with the winning team completing 6 laps.  All in all it was a great experience... that is if you call staying up all night and freezing your butt off fun. : )

Team... ready to start

Setting up thier pit stop area

If you have to sign a release form...
it's probably worth doing!

 
 
 
 


 

Frozen shoelaces!

Halloween

 This year we all dressed up as Spider Family.  :) 

 



This SpiderMan needs a little help climbing

SpiderKids

Enought time had lapsed from last year that Magnus' fears of the scary house were gone, and he eagerly ran up to the 'scary house' to get his candy. But the next thing you know he was crying... ends up he twisted his ankle. Okay maybe next year Magnus will come away unscathed from the scary house!

This year Maliah was old enough to get the hang of Trick-or-Treating.  She was happy to get more stuff for her pumpkin pail, but I don't think she realized that all that stuff was yummy candy. 
                           
                                    

 

Fall Leaves

There's a leaf stuck to my tongue

While Mom and Dad were out running the Marine Corps Marathon, Uncle Grant and Aunt Sarah played with Magnus and Maliah in the backyard with all the fall leaves!  FUN!

Marathon

The Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) is held annually in Arlington, VA and DC.  Snce that is right where we live, this year we decided to run the 37th Marine Corps Marathon on October 28, 2012. 

The race typically occurs on the final Sunday in October, a few weeks before the United States Marine Corps birthday on November 10.  The MCM was established in 1976 and is currently the fifth largest marathon in the United States and the ninth largest in the world. The race field of 30,000 is composed of runners from all 50 states and the District of Columbia and more than 50 countries. The MCM is known as "The People's Marathon" because it is open to all runners ages 14 and above and is the largest marathon that does not offer prize money.

http://www.marinemarathon.com/

I had a goal of under 4 hrs, to beat her last marathon time of 4:08 (but that was part of an Ironman, so that marathon was preceded by 7 hrs for swimming and biking).  Due to an injury and another upcoming athletc event Dylan took the marathon easy and ran with me (ah.. sweet.. though we did not run with our hands held together like another couple that we passed that had "In Love" written on thier shirts).  I ended up with a time of 4:01.  WHAT!  Really... I couldn't find one minute over a 4 hr period to shave off a minute!  I had some health concerns that didn't allow me to start training until about 6 weeks prior to the race, but still... one minute!  So now  the goal of a sub 4:00 marathon is looming out there on my bucket list!

                                              
                                                    

Jack-O-Laterns

The weekend before Halloween Aunt Sarah and uncle Grant visited.  One of our activities for the weekend was making Jack-O-Lanterns. 
Aunt Sarah did not know of “Angry Birds’, nonetheless she made a really good angry bird Jack-O-Lantern.  The Yellow Bird, aka Chuck… Picks up speed and distance when tapped.

The Yellow Bird, aka Chuck
(Picks up speed and distance when tapped)

Happy Birthday

We put the kids to bed and had a friend come over to stand guard while we went out for a birthday dinner.  It was scrumptious!

Then the next day, my actually birthday, we celebrated with the kids.