Last weekend I drove to Montreal for a very special occassion, the baptism of the Chris, Justin and Andrew Gagnon. When I was young mens president of my congregation in Montreal (Jan 04-Dec-05) I became close to the best teenagers on earth, including Chris and eventually his brother Justin when he turned 12. They had been developing their own faith and testimony, and chose to be baptized this month. I felt so honored to have been asked to give a talk during the service, though was surprised that my small little talk was to be in front of 100 people! It was a bit intimidating, but went really well. I spoke about lessons I've learned while training for the half marathon that are analogous to trying to live a life as a follower of Christ. I talked about principles like committment, improvement, support from loved ones and integrity. It went over well, but of course the best prat was catching up with all my friends in Montreal, especially the young men. I drove back to Montreal later that night, after having dinner with my sister in law Rebecca and her family. Happy birthday Rebecca and Guillaume!
Sarah and I enjoyed our first valentine's day together in style. On the Saturday before we went to a church party/dance with a couple of friends of ours. We first met Georges and Fanny when we went to their house with the missionaries a couple months ago. Now we've become good friends and enjoyed this opportunity to have chocolate fondue with them. On the 14th, I presented Sarah with some flowers and we went to a fantastic eastern African restaurant. I love being able to eat both the plate and the food with my hands! Well, it wasn't really the plate, but it was the bread like thing the meat and veggies were served on. It was a great meal and I really loved the sweet card Sarah made for me. I married a girl with talent!
Sarah and I took advantage of the Ottawa area winter festival, enjoying skating 8km on the Rideau Canal and walking through the amazing ice sculptures. I've really enjoyed skating on the canal, but especially love the hot chocolate I treat myself to when I get home!
Have you heard that the comedian Al Franken just announced he's running for Norm Coleman's US Senate seat in Minnesota? I really like Al Franken and think he'll do a great job. He's intelligent, creative and yes, funny. When he lived in NYC he lived in my friend Paul's building on the upper west side. I saw him coming home late one night, clearly having just got off a plane from somewhere.
This is a great video about Terry Fox, a true Canadian hero. He set a goal to run accross Canada, despite having a prosthetic leg and cancer. His "marathon of hope" ended prematurely after 143 days as his cancer had spread to his lungs. Amazingly, he made it to Thunder Bay, Ontario, 3,339 miles from his starting point, averaging 23.3 miles per day. In other words, he essentially ran a marathon 143 days in a row on a prosthetic leg! Unbelievable.
Speaking of marathons, this morning I registered for the Ottawa Half Marathon on May 27th. I've never done anything like this before, and now that I have actually paid the registration fee it feels pretty crazy, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. It's a beautiful course which runs along the Ridau Canal, in front of Parliament, into Quebec by our apt and back to Ottawa's city hill, including running by the Terry Fox statue downtown. I've been inspired by my friend Amy who ran the half-marathon last year, and my step-father Kent who did the Los Angeles Marathon last weekend, his third (he's also done the Providence, Rhode Island and the Philadelphia, PA full marathons). I'm going to use a training schedule I found online, though slightly modified so I don't run on Sundays. The basic idea is that every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday I have a smaller run, only 3-4 km for the first month, and then Saturday is my big run for the week. It's when I push my threshold, usually 2km at a time. It's not too bad, I don't start running 10km until March 10th. After that, my saturday runs go from 10 to 12, 14, 16, back down to 12 for a rest, up to 18 for three weeks and peaking at 20, before running only 6km the week before the race. The first time I run the full 21.1 km (just over 13 miles) will be the day of the race. I am very excited and glad to start training. I ran 4km yesterday, though with a wind chill of -24celcius, I've decided to do my winter training on the University of Ottawa's treadmills. I'll keep you posted on my progress
Ottawa is one of my favorite places I've lived so far. It's a relatively small big city, but has tons going on. They really make the most of what they have too. For example, they freeze the main canal running through the city (The Rideau Canal) and open it to the public as a free skating rink, making it the longest skating rink in the world. Of course it's cold enough that all they have to do is wait for the canal to freeze, then pour some more water on top so that the ice is thicker. In fact, it's so cold that they just pour water on the grass at every local park, so they create hockey rinks in every neighborhood. On Monday, Sarah bought some ice skates and we skated down the canal. Despite being something like -21 celcius outside, it was a great time. Also, Sarah updated our joint blog with some great posts, so check them out!
Last weekend I drove to Montreal for a very special occassion, the baptism of the Chris, Justin and Andrew Gagnon. When I was young mens president of my congregation in Montreal (Jan 04-Dec-05) I became close to the best teenagers on earth, including Chris and eventually his brother Justin when he turned 12. They had been developing their own faith and testimony, and chose to be baptized this month. I felt so honored to have been asked to give a talk during the service, though was surprised that my small little talk was to be in front of 100 people! It was a bit intimidating, but went really well. I spoke about lessons I've learned while training for the half marathon that are analogous to trying to live a life as a follower of Christ. I talked about principles like committment, improvement, support from loved ones and integrity. It went over well, but of course the best prat was catching up with all my friends in Montreal, especially the young men. I drove back to Montreal later that night, after having dinner with my sister in law Rebecca and her family. Happy birthday Rebecca and Guillaume!
