Home and Adventures

This is Noel again. I know that I said I wouldn't post on this blog anymore, but Amber has trouble navigating through my picture archives in order to post pictures. As such, I thought I would post some pictures of Greg for the grandparents and tell a little bit about school, life, and adventures.

The following pictures are from this morning and demonstrate Greg's most recent developments. First off, Greg has turned into a climbing maniac. For his birthday Grandma and Grandpa Dickens gave him a little jungle set with a slide and platform. Since conquering climbing onto the platform he has decided that he can climb onto anything. In particular he likes to climb up onto any seat (especially the piano bench and the computer chair). Amber and I gave up on trying to keep off things. In the meantime we are working on the concept of "down." That is...don't stand up! Greg is also quite mobile and loves to run around the backyard with his basketball and soccer ball. Great Grandpa Dickens would be quite proud of his great grandson as Greg also loves to make motor noises while he drives his car. Fortunately he hasn't learned how to use the horn, but he does love to shout, "GO!!!!" and point in any direction. We are doomed :(

School has kept me quite busy, but I have been fortunate to balance my studies with exercise, fun, and extracurricular activities. This fall I have been training for the Iron Man - Louisville. My goal before Christmas is to swim a mile in under 40 minutes. In the spring I will work on my running as I need to drop my half marathon time to under 2 hours. So far so good and I have been injury free, although I recently came down with the swine flu...YUCK!

This past weekend was the Race for the Fig Adventure Race. The race consists of running, biking, rappelling, and kayaking/canoeing for 60 miles combined in Red River Gorge. Our team name was the "Occlusal Crushers" as we consisted of myself and 3 second year dental students. It was a great experience. Our team did very well despite two of us recently recuperating from the flu. On Sunday all of us were quite sore. But despite Bryce Jones saying, "Hell is defined as fire and brimstone. Better put, it is the adventure race." we are already planning on doing it next year.

 My family has a rich tradition of military service and I would like to take the time to thank them for their service and example. Thank you for sacrificing your time and efforts to guarantee a better tomorrow. Happy Veteran's Day and may your lives be blessed.