Happy Birthday Hayley

My weeks get so busy that I seem to be able to only make posts on the weekends. This has been a great week. I've made amazing progress on my project and our investors have been in town all week and they are quite happy to see the progress I've made. I made a presentation to them and I could tell they're getting quite excited.

Friday night we went to the high school football game. We sat by a guy we know and he leaned over and asked me, "so how many years have you guys been coming to these games?"

I had to think about it but the answer is, fourteen years. Basically since Kira was a freshman. She played in the band and so she had to be to every football game. Wow, we don't have anyone who needs to be at the football games now but we're so used to it we still plan on going to a few of them. I have to admit it was fun watching Sarah. She could care less about the game but she was flitting around the stadium going from friend to friend like a little butterfly going from flower to flower. She has a lot of friends and there always seemed to be a boy following her around.

Saturday morning Sarah had another meet. At least this one was not to early and not too far away. I still had to get up at 7:30 and that was a bit annoying but not too bad. She did well at her race. She started out a bit too fast and started falling back but did have a great finish. There was this girl right neck and neck with her so as they hit the finish line Sarah instinctively leaned forward to try and cross the line before the other girl. She leaned so far forward however that she was unable to recover her balance and fell flat on her belly and slid down the shut on the grass. The guy at the finish line helped pick her up and

made sure he placed her in the line ahead of the other girl. That made Sarah happy.

After the meet we quickly got cleaned up and headed to Malibu for Hayley's first birthday party. It was good to see Brandon again. We saw Serene and the girls for Sarah's birthday but we haven't seen Brandon since July. It was even better because Ben and Sharley came also. We all ate more junk food than I've eaten in the last three months. It was great. The little girls just love Uncle Ben. Serenes mother and sister also came by and we had a good visit. Eventually everyone left except for Mom, Sarah and I and Brandon decided he wanted Sarah to go for a run with him. Since I finished the book, "Born to Run", I've really wanted to get back into running. The book isn't exactly all about bare foot running but it is completely about running the way our bodies were designed to run. When you run barefoot you're forced to run properly but with shoes on it is easiest to run landing on your heals. When you land on your heals it puts major shock (and stress) on your knees and hip joints. If you land on the balls of your feet then your muscles take the shock and protects your joints. In addition if you have expensive fancy shoes they support your foot better and allow the muscles in your feet to get very weak and that makes your feet more susceptible to injury. Lately I've been running by landing on the balls of my feet. It sure is hard on the calves. There are a whole lot of muscles down there that I'm not used to using. I've only been able to go a couple of miles so far. Today when Brandon and Sarah went running I decided to go with them. I didn't take my running shoes but I figured this would be a good time to go barefoot. Really barefoot. They were running on the track so I figured it would be OK. They were nice and stayed with me but after running three miles barefoot I was hurting. When we were heading back to the house I thought I had a pebble stuck in the bottom of my foot but by the time I got home I was thinking that perhaps I'd cut my foot. I had Lisa take a look at my foot when I got home and apparently I have blisters on my feet. Now that I've had time to let my heart calm down my feet are really killing me. I can hardly walk. It does feel good though and the best part is that there is no pain in my knee at all. Not even the slightest bit. My back is also pain free. I love it. I think I'm going to keep this up.

Do you see the water shooting out of Bens mouth?

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In distance running (50 miles or more) with everything else being equal a 60 year old man can outrun a 19 year old man.

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Sydney thinks that all these clothes are for her. Every time Hayley would open a present Sydney would take the stuff away from her.

Serene made the cake look like a little farm yard with a barn and pond and all the animals.

Serene is really good about not feeding her kids junk food so when Hayley got to eat this little chick she got her first real taste of sugar. As you might expect, she loves it.