Cheryl and Robyn

This will be an extremely short post since I am exploring a new (to me) program to help me with posting. The name of the program is Windows Live Writer. I've had a few issues with it but hopefully I have worked them all out. The last post Tulips Everywhere!!! was my first try with this program and it really made things go a lot faster. So if posting is easier, than you will probably see a lot more of these short quick ones.
I thought this was a great picture of Cheryl and Robyn (taken by Robyn's Grandmother Jean).

Late Breaking News

Unofficially Cheryl Braunstein placed second among US women at the Rotterdam Marathon on 13 April 2008. Cheryl, her time just slightly short of her personal best, was overjoyed at such a high placement. "Luckily the rain held off and the course was flat and that helped my time" said Cheryl in the after race interview. Unfortunately Cheryl had suffered stomach problems at the beginning of the race which slowed her quite a bit. Muscle cramps near the end of the race also slowed her down but overall she was glad she raced. When asked about plans for the future marathons she said this was her last one (until the next one) and planned to only run shorter distances in the near future. Stay tuned for Cheryl's future race schedule.

See videos of her performance below.

Bib F1093

Name			Cheryl Braunstein
City			Washington, DC
Distance			Fortis Marathon Rotterdam
Category			V35
Overall place			5578 / 6903
Category place			117
Speed			9,331 Km/Hour
Gross time			4:32:22
Net time			4:31:20
		Net split times (difference)
	5 Kilometer	28:44 (28:44)
	10 Kilometer	56:52 (28:08)
	15 Kilometer	1:25:36 (28:44)
	20 Kilometer	1:57:24 (31:48)
	Half marathon	2:05:04
	25 Kilometer	2:30:33 (33:09)
	30 Kilometer	3:03:07 (32:34)
	35 Kilometer	3:39:59 (36:52)
	40 Kilometer	4:16:33 (36:34)

This just in: Cheryl Braunstein's pre race diet might have led to the stomach problems that slowed her pace during the first half of the marathon. This photo suggests some strange eating habits, but Miss Braunstein was unavailable for comment.

More on Cheryl's April visit later.
Congratulations Cheryl!!!!!!

Go Cheryl!!!!!!!

Hi All,

Cheryl is almost in London. Okay, she will be here tomorrow. We actually have a lot planned while she is here, no need for details other than flying off to Rotterdam so she can run another marathon. Ok I did say marathon and am amazed she found time to train for this one. We were talking the other day and figured out this one was going to be really tough compared to the last one. Heck, she has already done two and one of those just last October, so we all know she can do it. So everything about this one is tougher, finding the motivation to train through the winter in DC just had to be really hard if not impossible, but she did it and is as ready as she can be to run 26.2 miles in the rain on Sunday.

So this is the post that will push her on to the finish line on Sunday. Either that or just a bunch of pictures I took over the weekend.

To start things off, London is being invaded yet again, this time by mysterious snow people. Make sure you click on the pictures to get the larger version. Notice the distinct lack of snow anywhere else in the picture. Makes you wonder how they got there. I think the one on the right saw me so I made a quick exit. The motivational theme behind this picture is: Run, Run away, Your being chased by snow people with......no legs. Ok you will probably be safe if you just walk away at a slow meandering pace, probably even stop for coffee.

As I was running away, I happened upon this lot. What could this guy have done to be forced to dress like that and run through central London on the coldest day in April. All he has to keep himself warm is that little torch thingy. Anyway, he certainly had quite the following, I decided not to join his little group as they didn't seem to care for others joining in.

There did seem to be large crowds of people all around, and a whole lot of yelling going on but I figured they were probably just excited about this guy and his torch and what it represented. Anyway, back to the motivational theme: Run and there will always be people to cheer you on, wow that one was kind of nice.

After the run is over you might as well just head for home. Some people have larger homes than others and they like to show them off...for a fee. One such home is Windsor Castle. This is where the current Queen resides. As far as castles go, this one is pretty nice. The flag on top lets you know if the queen is in residence or not.

For anyone interested here is just a small bit of History borrowed from this website.

Windsor Castle is an official residence of The Queen and the largest occupied castle in the world. A Royal home and fortress for over 900 years, the Castle remains a working palace today. Visitors can walk around the State Apartments, extensive suites of rooms at the heart of the working palace. For part of the year visitors can also see the Semi State rooms, which are some of the most splendid interiors in the castle. They are furnished with treasures from the Royal Collection including paintings by Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck and Lawrence, fine tapestries and porcelain, sculpture and armour.
Within the Castle complex there are many additional attractions, including the Drawings Gallery, Queen Mary's dolls' house, and the fourteenth-century St. George's Chapel, the burial place of ten sovereigns and setting for many Royal weddings.

Below is St. George's Chapel where King Henry VIII is buried. He died in 1547 and is buried next to his 3rd wife Jane Seymour who died 10 years earlier. This was a trivia question on a quiz show I saw last night, I got one right.

All in all, it's a very cool castle, not quite as cool as this one that Cheryl and I saw while we were in Germany in November, but still very cool. More about the German castle in a later post as I try to catch you up on our European vacation.

Anyway back to the theme of this post. Cheryl, again I would like to let you know how amazed I am that you are attempting this, and how proud I am that you have found the will and desire to go through with all the training and hard work required to prepare for another marathon. We all wish you good luck on the run on Sunday. I can't wait to see you tomorrow.

I'll try to post pictures of Cheryl's visit sometime next week.

Charli

I just got these pictures from my sister and I just had to post them. This is my niece Charli, I call her Chuck. She is one of five nieces, all the others seem to have normal feet. Just look at the size of those feet!! I figure once the growth spurt catches up with her feet, she could be well over 7 feet tall. I'm sure she would be a "shoe" in for the NBA. Karen get her a basketball as soon as you can!!!!

Oh, wait a minute, I just saw the ears. Well she can probably get those fixed, it shouldn't affect her career too much as long as they get it done soon.

Utrecht, Netherlands

Hi Everybody,
It’s been a really long time since I’ve blogged. For some reason I couldn't get inspired to write. Maybe it was that good old winter blues syndrome. I guess that can’t be the excuse since winter in London is an awful lot like summer in London. Rainy and just cold enough to make you wish it was warmer. Anyway, I've decided to change things a little so that I'll blog more often. No more thinking, oops I mean no more huge, long, information filled blogs. Hopefully, I can show a few pictures, tell you what I think is probably happening in them and then move on. Each will have a theme (possibly maybe sometimes, but probably not really) and hopefully all entries will be short.
To start things rolling, Cheryl and I visited our friends Candice and Dirk in Utrecht, Netherlands last November. We had a great time even though I managed to get food poisoning in Amsterdam and Cheryl managed to break her thumb while riding home on a borrowed bicycle. (Cheryl, I told you it was broken;).

Almost everybody rides a bike here. I never thought I would see so many bikes in one place. My question is how would you ever find your bike, especially if you were the first in that day. If this was in the states, you might think that only the bikes on the outside were ever ridden, the ones on the inside were long forgotten about and were left to rust in this bicycle graveyard.

I'm pretty sure that almost all of these are used on a daily basis. It was actually difficult getting into the bicycle lane during rush hour just because of all the bicycle traffic. Still it was a great way to get around.

I tried to take a few pictures of the people we saw on bicycles while we were in Amsterdam one night. My camera really doesn't like to take pictures at night, either that or I was starting to feel the effects of the food poisoning. Never, ever eat hamburgers in Amsterdam, ever.

This is a typical family bicycle that you see around Amsterdam. I saw a woman riding one of these with 3 kids and a small dog in the basket, while she was talking on her cell phone. Now that would have been a great picture.

Cheryl and I will be in the Netherlands again in a couple of weeks. She will be participating in the Rotterdam Marathon on the 13th of April. More about that in the near future.

Ok that's all for now. Check back soon as I intend to update a lot more often.

Cheryl in London

Hi All,

Cheryl has made it to London for the start of our European Holiday. Well it took some doing, had to pay a few bribes, but I was able to really do it up for Cheryl's arrival. I had these guys escort Cheryl and I from the airport to the small cottage that we are staying in this week. Somehow our photographer left us out of the pictures, go figure.

Of course that was just the beginning. Next came the fireworks over the River Thames.

So all in all it was quite a nice start to Cheryl's visit. Sunday we went for a drive in Surrey and Sussex, that's where the castle pictured above (Arundel Castle, home of the Duke of Norfolk) is (it was sure nice of him to let us stay there for the week).

On Monday I got the city to stop time for a bit so that we could explore London a little more leisurely than most tourists.

Tower Bridge

London City Hall

The Swiss Re Tower (also known as the Gherkin, really I didn't make that up) and the Tower of London.

White pelicans in London.

Cheryl and I took the tour at the Tower of London. This is Yeoman Warder Mitch giving the tour. If you come to London, take this tour. He somehow made all the executions and imprisonment sound entertaining while giving a lot of information about the prisoners, murders, and the torture that took place. Check out the links above to get more history.

After the tower Cheryl and I decided to head for the Savage Gardens. Enough said!

Not the savage gardens but close. This is the back of St. Paul's Cathedral.
We had dinner at a Gorden Ramsey's pub called The Narrow. Very good food, I had the Hereford Beef in Beer Pie and Mash. That and a beer or two and you can't go wrong.

Tuesday I went back to work while Cheryl explored the Tate Modern. We met up for dinner at the Rock and Sole Plaice. If you ever want fish and chips in London, this is the place. I have had a lot of fish and chips while I've been here, nothing else even compares.

After dinner we went to see Avenue Q at the Noel Coward Theatre in the West End. It was a fantastic show and another don't miss whether you are in New York or London. Oh yeah, Thanks Mel for recommending this so long ago on our last visit to New York. Don't let the muppets fool you, this is not a show for the kids.

Anyway, that's all for now. Cheryl and I are off to Paris on Friday, Amsterdam on the next Thursday, and then Munich the Thursday after that. Should be fun.

(There really were fireworks that first night but they were for the Lord Mayor's celebration, Cheryl's arrival might have been a coincidence. The fireworks pictures from above were actually taken the week before at one of the many Guy Fawkes celebrations that took place all over the city. Guy Fawkes day is a little like Independence Day in the US just without the Independence bit getting in the way. Great fireworks all over London all weekend.)