Update: recital photos added to the “Christmas 2011” set and the photostream.

New images in the “Christmas 2011” set and the photostream.

Its Dec 21 and that means….. its the shortest day of the year! Up here in the north country that means that we have 9 hours, 2 minutes and 8 seconds of sunlight! Its the same for tomorrow too, but then we are on the upswing. Come January 1 we will have gained over 4 minutes with 9 hours, 6 minutes and 10 seconds! I won’t mention that our sun is not rising until 8:10am now. That is quite a few runs in the dark under the stars. Also, it is our lowest solar noon, with sun only at 23.9 degrees above the horizon. We turn the corner Dec 26 when we hit 24.0 once again. Woot! Ah, the days of summer when we are at 70+ degrees above the horizon! But today its getting up to 40F. I know that January is looking to start off very cold (according to the extended forecast) so i will take these mild winter days with a smile.

• Jingle Bells (Frankie)
• Happy Song (Frankie and Kawai Chan)
• Waltz (Barbara)
• Good King Wenceslas (Barbara)
• Duet (Barbara and Frankie)

We made it to Spokane!! 2011 miles for the year 2011!!!!!! I hope you have enjoyed running across the country with us! We need to think up another fun running route for next year!

We hit spokane in the middle of the month and kept on running! We’re thinking that Seattle might be possible (2285 miles) but the coast is probably just a bit out of reach (Ocean Shores, what looks to be the closest coastal town is 2387 miles). We’ve actually gone 2134 miles since January 1, which puts us in Quincy, Washington! This is super exciting because believe it or not, Quincy Washington was name after…. Quincy Illinois (where my sister lives)!!!! Why? I do not know. I cannot seem to figure that one out!

We ran another 132 miles in October, which in real life included a lil’ 26.2 jaunt around Chicago on a warm sunny day… But the more important news is that we are 5 miles past the Montana – Idaho border! Woot! We have been running in Montana since JULY! Running 6 miles on October 31 did the trick though. Nothing against Montana, but we needed to get out!

We’ve made it nearly to Wallace, Idaho. We were hoping to find some of those Idaho potatoes on time for Thanksgiving. Instead what we found is the “Silver capital of the world!” And, would you believe it, according to the city’s web page the entire town is on the national historic register!

Ok, so we have 1923 miles down and only 88 miles to go!!! I’m thinking we could conceivably be in Spokane by Thanksgiving! We are sure that Cho Cho has already made it to the west coast, as some days she runs with both of us.

Angie & Chocho ran the Canine Cruise 5kyesterday on campus, and while it was a little chilly, the girls and I cheered them on.  It was a fun event because the people and dogs dressed in their holloween costumes.  Here’s Angie as the Wicked Witch of the West and Chocho as her Winged Monkey.

Posing just before the start of the race. Note Chocho’s black monkey tail!

You have to use your imagination for the wings, but Choch’s costume comes complete with black monkey tail, and though you can’t see it in the photo, angie has green face makeup on.  They not only came in second place overall for person+dog, They also won the award for best costume. Yay!

On the trail at Woldumar.

Later in the day, we went for a walk at Woldumar Nature Center.  The photo above was just too cute not to share.

Update: Angie and Choch made the State News!  See the video here, or click on the image below.

We had sideways rain all day. So I guess I shouldnt have been surprised when got home and saw this. Poor lil tree. Cho had some fun sniffing all around it, but lost a good squirrel viewing spot from the sideroom. Accuweather was calling the storm “Freshwater Fury”. Almost as good as a birthday blizzard I guess!

Good thing it was a cool michigan morning… the Bee was moving pretty slow!

The girls walk or ride their bikes to school just about everyday. But, last week was a special “walk to school” day where the students and teachers congregated at the Hannah community center and walked the mile or so to school together. Sparty was hanging out with Bee’s class during the warm up exercises!

Montana is a loooooooooong state! We’ve been here since sometime in July! And given that we have about 120 more miles of MT we probably will still be here come Nov 1!

September was a fun running month! We kicked it off running 26.2 in Marquette! We logged 191.5 miles for the month putting us at 1791 for the year. Only 220 miles to go to Spokane! Seems within each, but after the Chicago marathon next weekend we both plan a week off of running, then easing back in an easy routine to round out of the year. So, its going to be close! But it actually seems do-able now.

I think the exciting part of this stretch is that we passed over the continental divide! We are in Lolo National Forest, where the bears are plentiful. Maybe that will help us to run faster in Chicago!