Shenanigans in the past week

Wow it's been a crazy 7 days.
Last Sunday my Uncle Tod made it to Denver for the 1st time in forever. He was always the favorite uncle growing up, so we were all looking forward to his visit. He brought my cousin who is a year older than Mr. K. They got along great and it was good to see them...except that Tod picked up Influenza A on the way down and ended up being a bit too miserable to enjoy himself. By Tuesday my cousin had been stricken as well so we had to stay away after that. Luckily Mr. K and the Bean didn't catch it somehow. Whew. They'd hung out with my cousin Sunday evening, all day Monday, and again Tuesday night and didn't get the bug. Kind of amazing, but we're happy for the small favor. Mostly I was bummed we didn't get to hang out more.

Wednesday was the final prep evening for the MyLifeLine event last night. We headed to Marcia's house and stuffed the gift bags w/ the rest of the crowd. We met Marcia's parents too; good folks. Thursday was the usual gymnastics, but it was bring-a-friend night and since my cousin had left town we did a last-minute invite and had to do a last-minute friend-invite and pickup. Friday we hung out w/ the Myers clan (Steph had drinks w/ Taryn, Jarrod and I hung out w/ the kids and the Wii), and then it was time for Saturday.

We knew yesterday was going to be a bit stressful. We had been helping a bit w/ planning the fundraiser for MyLifeLine when they asked us to share our story as the "featured speakers" for the evening. We agreed, but only because we believe so strongly in the organization. Public speaking is something I haven't done in years, and Steph was a tad apprehensive. We ended up spending almost all day yesterday tweaking the speech to get it just right and finalizing the powerpoint we were going to be using to show off the features of the site. We practiced as many times as we could manage and did a pretty damn good job of it at the actual event. (Video is forthcoming...right now it's trapped on Jarrod's video camera and we need to get cables to get it digitally shareable...) We got nothing but positive feedback (but then I guess people wouldn't say it to our faces if we sucked :-/ )

The event itself was quite nice. Both of our sets of parents went, along w/ Tim & Erin. They'd reserved a table for us right up front, which was nice. We got a couple things in the live auction too. Yay for carefully-directed tax deductions!

Today was regular weekend catchup stuff, and Steph and I both got runs in. I'm up to 1.5 miles or so without slowing to a walk. (At the local dog park that's the distance from the bridge to the pond off over a few hills.) It's not at all a level course, and it's good for me. Steph says I run well, so maybe I'll stick with it awhile and see how it goes. I don't know that I'll get up to her half-marathons, but maybe a 5-k? We'll see.

Bed now. Work 9 hours tomorrow, then immediately hop on a plane to Atlanta, where I stay until Wednesday. Oy.