Summer Pastimes

Hello hello! So sorry about the long absence in blog updates. We have been busy folks since the last posting. But here a couple new videos so you can see Ginny at her best. The first is with her uncle Nonny (John), who can somehow make a very simple action into something absolutely hilarious. The second was taken this morning, and even though Ginny is sick with a cold and wheezy, shows her very much enjoying the heretofore off-limits marbles.
Besides having a cold the last couple days, Ginny is doing wonderfully. Her language skills are improving exponentially. It is so fun to be able to talk to her about all sorts of things. She even speaks in sentences quite often, usually to say something like "I want one", "I want to go see it", "Mama sit by me", or "There's pizza down there" (the last is a quote from yesterday at a pizza parlor, when she was peeking down a crack between the booths -- I didn't see the pizza she was talking about, but who knows..." ) Ginny also still covets her top loves: balls, water and something to fill and dump, anything ride-able, and anything organized that can be taken apart and rearranged (e.g. a pile of folded laundry, cards in my wallet, nesting measuring cups, coins in a jar, etc)
She also got another haircut yesterday, which you'll see in the second video. She did amazingly well, sitting almost perfectly still on my lap. She liked the smock so much she wanted to keep it on and take it home (all of which she told me in her own words).
Our busy-ness of the past few months has been a good busy-ness. We traveled to Texas over Memorial Day weekend, where Tim and I competed in the CapTexTri, an olympic distance triathlon, and my first triathlon. We had a great time touring Austin, New Braunfels area, and Houston, and spending a lot of good time with family and friends. In June my family ,came up here to Madison and we all drove together on Duluth, MN, where I ran in my first marathon, Grandma's Marathon. It was a wonderful race, a beautiful course with interesting entertainment at almost every turn (bagpipes, cheerleaders, hoses tied to ladders to spray the runners..) My running partner, Amy, and I both finished (!!!!) and only one of us (me) had to spend an hour in the medical tent afterwards!
Since recovering from the marathon, we have been working (Tim as an all-star ICU nurse, and me as a farmie), playing frisbee with the high-spirited Crayola Revolution gang, watching fireworks (the best show we've ever seen, seriously), going camping, swimming, bike riding, and enjoying the news of new marriages and new babies among many of our friends and family.
It has already been a wonderful summer. Please stay in touch!