April 5, 2014 - Walks and Waits

After a long period of intense stress with work, the pressure is starting to ease a little.  This weekend is also General Conference for church, which means that it's a full 2-day weekend for our family.  No church meetings in our building means I don't need to prepare a lesson for Sunday School, or direct the choir, and I can sleep past 6am.  Frankly, it gives me back about 6 hours of constant action, and it's nice to get the break every once in a while.

So today I got up early and went on a trail run, covering nearly 7 miles of the AT between Hosner Mt Rd and Miller Hill Rd.  It's a very hilly section - the first section on either end is a serious climb, and then it's about 2 miles of small up and down.  It was a good run - got some nice pictures of the sun coming up over the hill and the fog-covered valley below.  The main thing about this morning's run, though, was the wildlife.  I stopped to take some audio of the birds, saw robins and pheasants.  I also heard a very deep click click click that certainly came from an animal, but I have no idea what it was.  And once, ahead of me, I heard something crashing through the brush.  A white tail flashed across the trail.  And then it went back.  I don't know if it was predator or prey.  The trail was also littered with deer dung on the way back.  It hadn't been there on the way in.

It was a nice morning for a run - 40 degrees, no wind.  Had to keep moving to stay warm, and it worked out pretty well.  I've been doing a Tough Mudder-style run once a week for the past month, and this was this week's run.  It ended up being too short, so I did a 5K on the treadmill later in the day.

When I got back home, it was just before 9, so I hopped in the shower, and took the 3 younger kids to Danbury.  This weekend is the grand opening for the Lego Store in the Danbury Mall.  There was a master builder there, building an 8' tall model of the Incredible Hulk.  The kids were also able to contribute to the build by building subassemblies.  We got to the mall 15 minutes after it opened, and there was a serious line.  It took us a full hour to get into the store, 30 minutes to get our stuff, and 30 more minutes to get to the cash register and pay.  Christian and Jacob both chose to get cash instead of a birthday party, so they spent their birthday money.  Christian made the excellent choice of getting a remote control Lego Technic car.  It's got independent suspension, is 4 wheel drive and 4 wheel turn.  Perfectly driveable, but built more like a rock crawler and goes pretty slowly.

The kids spent the afternoon building their sets, and in the evening we watched The Incredibles.  A good day.  I'm completely exhausted, ready to sleep.  Tomorrow holds a bunch more things to do.  Carpe noctem!