People ask me all the time why do I run. My simple response is to get into better shape. My other response is because of my black belt test for karate. It’s actually a lot more than that. The full reason is I have a heart murmur and had high blood pressure. While I wasn’t exactly severely overweight, I had weight to lose for sure. I was at my peak of...

I have started to train for the Via 1/2 marathon that is on September 13, 2009. Considering I have just started running in April of this year this is a pretty big effort. I have run a 5K in May and that took me about 30 minutes. Not a great time but at least I finished. That was the longest I have ever run in my life. Today I ran 4 miles at a 10 minute pace. So...

I was finally able to cut the grass after 3 weeks of growing. It has rained a whole late as of late. Everytime I could cut the grass, its raining outside. Even today it wasn’t a great time to cut the grass but I had to do it anyway. The grass was wet from being rained on for days and the soil underneath was muddy. I let the boys cut the grass with me. Both of...

On, Saturday, May 23, 2009, Johnathan had a loose tooth for a month. He was eagerly waiting for the tooth to come out so he could have his first visit from the tooth fairy. He wanted the tooth to come out but was scared for the blood. Not as much for pain, just blood. Each day when I’d brush his teeth, that tooth would be woobly but still wasn’t 100%...

Johnathan brought home a baby Douglasfir tree from first grade.  He wanted to plant it so that is what we had to do.  Mark Jr. also has been learning iMovie so I decided to make a family education project out of it.  Johnathan would help me plant the tree and Mark Jr. would document the event and add all the photos to a montage with captions.  He spent a fair...

We went out for Valentine’s Day to the movies then dinner.  While at dinner, my older son Mark Jr. said he needed to play his DS (I had him leave it in the car).  Johnathan said, “Mark you don’t need to play DS.  The only thing you need is a heart, love and your family.”  Sometimes as a parent you question if you are doing the right...

This will help answer the question I always get asked, “is it easy to break a board?”  This is my 2nd attempt at breaking the board with my chin.  I tried a total of 3 times and never broke it.  I decided to quit before my chin broke before the board.  The last one I hit it as hard as I could and all I did was BOUNCE!  OUCH!!! Share and Enjoy: