Myrtle Beach Half Marathon

In 3 weeks I'll be part of this mob of people starting the Myrtle Beach half marathon. I've been traning hard since the start of October and feel ready. The race starts early, which is tough for me since my favorite time to run is the afternoon. The best part, however, is that I should be making the turn on mile 4 just in time so that I'll be running along the ocean during sunrise for over four miles. I expect it to be an unbelievable experience.

President Hinckley 1910-2008

Perhaps you've heard the news that President Gordon B. Hinckley, the man that members of my church revered as the Prophet of God on the earth, passed away this evening. He died around 7pm at his home in Salt Lake City with members of his family present. I feel deep emotions of gratitude and appreciation for the life he lived and the influence he had on me. If I had to pick one defining moment in my life when things clicked into place and I caught a vision of my potential, and felt inspired to live the kind of life that would merit eventually meeting someone like Sarah Sacuto, it would be at the dedication of the Boston Temple in October 2000. I was just a few rows away from him, with my freshley shaved head and goatee, as he taught about my eternal potential. The feeling I had was unbelievable and undeniable. In a sense, every good thing that has happened in my life is a result of the feelings and resolutions I had that day.

That was not actually the first time I heard him in person. I saw him in St. Louis in 95 or 96, shortly after he became the prophet. I saw him in 1997 with 21,000 at Madison Square Garden. I actually saw a free Sonic Youth/Busta Ryhmes concert later that day on the main steps of Columbia University's campus. I was 16, so which event of the day do you think I enjoyed most? Even still, I was deeply touched by hearing the prophet.

The next time I saw him in person was the summer of 2004 when he was in NYC to dedicate the Manhattan Temple. He spoke at a fireside the night before at Radio City Music Hall, and then on Sunday morning I serendipitously was the at the "cornerstone" ceremony, and with a group of 40 or so people, got to be with him in that solemn experience. During the Saturday night fireside at Radio City, he challenged us to be better people, to resolve "to make a difference because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." He asked us to memorize this phrase and write it in our journals. I'm doing my best.

The final time I saw him was in March 2006. I was moving from Boise, Idaho (where I had worked in the legislature for 3 months), and was on my way home to NYC after having attended my Aunt Brenda's funeral. I happened to know where and when Pres. Hinckley's ward met, so my cousin Michelle and I showed up early and got a seat in the center of the third row. Sure enough, five minutes before the meeting started, he and Pres. Faust walked in and sat on the far right side of the front row, just a few feet from us. It was a beautiful experience to take the sacrament with these great men and consider the impressive lives they have lived. Now that they have both passed away, I hope to live up to their example so that my daughter(s and son(s)?) will someday consider me a similar example for them.

Green card!

We did it! Sarah is now a permanent resident of the United States! They don't call it a green card anymore, but she now has a resident alien #, and will soon have a social security number, meaning she can work, study, pay taxes and come and go as she pleases! This is an absolute miracle which I honestly sometimes wondered if I would ever see. I'll write more about it later because I have to get ready for class, but this is incredible news and we couldn't be more excited.

Mr. Sub Commercial

A good friend of mine sent me this commercial for Mr. Sub, a sandwich shop in Canada. He said it's a good reminder to feed our missionaries. Pretty amazing that our church and missionaries are so well entrenched in mainstream culture now that it's the commercial for a major food company! Hilarious.

La Marseillaise

To pass the time during our long drives in Utah/Idaho, I asked Sarah to teach me "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem. We sang it over and over in the car, getting animated and pumped up each time we got to the chorus, "Aux armes citoyens! Formez vos battaillons!" Enjoy the video clip of the french national team before one of the world cup games. Speaking of soccer, France was able to secure themselves a spot in the huge Euro 2008 tournment to be played this June in Austria and Switzerland though they'll have to make it out of the round robin phase from a group that includes Italy, the Netherlands and Romania (the top two teams advance to the 8 team knockout tourney). Can't wait!

Great UNC ending

It's 4:44am and I'm waiting for Sarah to be ready so I can take her to the airport to catch her flight to Montreal. In case you haven't heard, she has an interview for her permanent resident visa (greencard) on Friday, with a medical exam tomorrow up north. She'll be gone for about two weeks and everything is expected to go smoothly. While I wait, check out the highlight from this great win for UNC against Clemson last night! This was the first test of the season and they ended up surviving and staying at #1 in the country. Honestly, I hope they don't end up going undefeated into the tournment in March, that's too much pressure! At the same time, I can't think of which game I would want them to lose. Go tar heels!

Merry Christmas 2007

I've thought a lot about my faith in Jesus Christ during the last few months and feel so grateful for my belief in Him as a Savior. There's nothing this world needs more right now than peace and goodwill, which is what His message and sacrifice is all about. As this wonderful editorial in the Washington Post outlines, it's hard to imagine how this peace will be achieved amidst all these wars. Even still, I am full of optimism that great things can be accomplished out of small seeds. Nothing has rejuvinated this optimism more than the experience of becoming a father. This beautiful girl growing inside Sarah quite literally grew from our small seeds and will grow to become a beautiful woman. It's true I haven't seen her yet and don't know her personality, but if as her mother's daughter I'm confident she'll be my greatest contribution to the world so far. This is a picture of Sarah and I opening up her very first Christmas gift. For the record, it was a beautiful sweater and hat that my mom crocheted for her. In the background is my step-sister Tiffany and her fiance Fred who will be married in 3 weeks!

Christmas in Mesa

Didn't I marry the cutest girl? I took this picture of us in front of the Mesa, Arizona temple after attending a session with my Grandparents. This is one of the oldest LDS temples I've been to, and of the really old ones I've seen, this might be the best example of renovations improving the building and temple experience without losing its historic feel. Because I'm kind of a nerd about keeping spreadsheets to track things like running, I have a record of every time I've been to a temple. For example, I know the exact number of endowments I've done, or the number of temples I've attended, and the exact number of times I've been to each. In case you're wondering, I've been to 20 temples with Montreal the most frequented. The rest of the list is: Manhattan, Idaho Falls, Boise, Bolivia, Provo, Washington DC, Boston, Salt Lake, Logan, Bountiful, Mt Timpanagos (UT), Jordan River (UT), Ogden, St. George, Manti, Las Vegas, Raleigh and Edmonton.

Inside the temple visitors center was a beautiful display of nativity scenes created by artists all over the world, including a beautiful collection of french pieces. We loved our private time with Grandma and Grandpa before the rest of the crowd arrived.

Tales from the road

It's Sunday morning, December 23rd in Mesa, AZ; day 4 of our 17 day journey through Arizona, Utah and Idaho. After going to the UNC basketball game and staying up way too late on Wednesday night, we were up at 4:45am to get to the airport (thanks for the ride dad!). It's great to be with my Bingham grandparents and all the other family that's coming into town. I'm real dissapointed to be sick (I blame everyone in Chapel Hill who was sick last week), though I'm starting to feel better. I've been really looking forward to running in a place that's warm, flat and not humid, so I've decided that I'm going running on Monday regardless of what I feel like.

We really haven't done too much other than hang out with family and eat some wonderful meals, but we'll get some pictures uploaded soon.

HPAA Grad in Congress

Perhaps you heard about the special election yesterday in the Virginia 1st Congressional district to fill the seat of Rep. Joann Davis (R-VA) who died earlier this year. Robert Wittman (R), a 1 term member of the VA House of Delegates comfortably won with more than 61% of the vote which wasn't really a surprise to anyone. The interesting thing though, is that he has an MPH degree from my department at UNC, Health Policy and Administration (HPAA). He's the only HPAA grad in congress that I know of, and I feel a bit of pride for his accomplishment.

We're having a girl!!

As Sarah posted on our blog, we had our ultrasound on Thursday and are thrilled to announce we'll be having a baby girl. It was an unbelievable experience to watch my 8 inch daugther move around on the screen, showing us her toes, thumbs, arms and all the other appendages that she seems just as enthralled by. We would of course been just as excited to have a boy, but it's wonderful to finally be able to start referring to our baby as "her" instead of "it." My world feels like it's been completely changed and I didn't know I could be this happy. It's pretty wonderful. I hope you enjoy the following pics, though they are not nearly as great as watching her move in real time.

I love the shot of her little foot! As I look at the other two, I'm reminded of a scene from the West Wing I saw recently. Toby is looking at the ultrasound of his twins when the technician announces, "Mr. Ziegler, here are your babies' heads." To which he reacts with much more emotion than his character usually shows, "My babies have heads!" That's what I felt like saying each time we saw something new, like the four chambers of the heart, the spine, her thumbs, her nose, ears, toes, etc. I've always thought of the creation of life to be a miracle, but now that it's actually happening to me, it seems to be even more than a miracle, though I don't quite know what word to use.

These are some of the 4D pictures of my daughter. They didn't turn out amazingly well since she's still so young (18 weeks). The tech said that if she had been around 24 weeks, we would have been able to see her features really well, but at this point, they all just look like old men.