Our Keys Christmas Holiday

It seems kind of crazy to take a Florida vacation when you already live here. It pretty much looks like a holiday everyday at home with palms and tropical plants everywhere. Regardless, we decided to take in a little R & R at the southern most spot in the US, Key West, Florida.
No tourist sights for us, unless you count gazing at the darling Conch House architecture and swerve from chickens running free through town. (We were told it is a $500 fine if you kill a chicken here!!) "A tropical San Francisco" was Ana's description. My friend Janean calls Key West the Wisconsin Dells of Florida! So true.

Games of the XXIX Olympiad

We spent a month again this summer in Beijing, China for the continued purpose of honing Ana and Sam's Chinese language skills. The kids and I attended a Mandarin language camp as we did in 2006 with an added bonus of seeing the Olympic games too.
Our gracious Olympic hosts had the city picture perfect with half the cars off the streets, which made commuting a breeze for busy tourists.
Ana and Sam were given the opportunity to do lots of English tutoring with both Chinese college students and Olympic volunteers . Take note of Sam teaching Physics concepts to a student familiar only with the Chinese terminology. It was also great fun hearing "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers" in a heavy Chinese accent! We were able to see good friends from both Maryland and Connecticut who made the trip as well. We all drank the milk, ate delicious and questionable food, but we'll leave the skewered scorpions for our next visit.

A Big First for Maria!!

With over 400 training miles completed since the first of the year, I ran the San Diego Rock N' Roll Marathon on June 1, 2008. I raced with Team In Training, the awesome endurance sport training arm of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Thank you to all our wonderful friends who made exceptional donations to help cure blood cancers. The society has collected $125M in donations so far this year!
I ran the 26.2 mile race in 5 hours 13 minutes which was in the 48th% for my age. I have a little work to do though, since the first place female finished in 2 hours 28 minutes! However, my training team mates Soledad and Pearl and I feel quite pleased with our times since we were able to run the marathon faster than Tom Cruise's wife Katie Holmes who ran the NY Marathon slower than us in 5:29 earlier this year!! (That is me in purple crossing the 21 mile mark.)
Although the race was difficult I seemed to recover pretty quickly walking a few more miles through downtown and even dancing at our victory dinner that evening. I am already back on the streets of Delray Beach running, hoping to complete another race later this year. If you have an interest in learning how to run a marathon, triathlon, or complete a century ride, Team In Training will help you reach your goal. www.teamintraining.org

Monkey Business

New Years 2008 commenced along the Oceano Pacifico in a Costa Rican village called Manuel Antonio. We joined our friends the Rankins who rented a spectacular Balinese style cliff house. Our activities included sport fishing, waterfall repelling and surfing. Scotter decided surfing was his New Years resolution since we now live so close to the sea. Ocean views in Manuel Antonio are some of the best in the Pacific. However we loved to watch the sweet little Capuchin and Squirrel monkeys who would sneak into the kitchen and steal any fruit...even out of your hands.