Tales From The Ocean

Jonny ran at the McGowan Invitational today held at Watkins High School in Pataskala. The weather today was partly cloudy with the temperature at 79 degrees and 82% humidity. They run all the boys together, both varsity and open, there are 291 kids running in one race.

Jonny got off to a good start and made sure he was in a good position before they entered the woods where the path narrows and there are limited places to pass if you are in a large group. He kept himself in a good position throughout the race and ended up 17th overall out of 291 racers. He finished 3rd for the team with a time 17:12, which helped his team take first place out of 24 total teams.

The official race results can be found on the Watkins Track Site or the Granville Aces Running Database.

I did take some video of Jonny running which can be seen below.

 
Jonny finished this race last year at 18:24, so he was able to improve his time by 1:12. He ran at the Licking County League Championship on this same course last year as well and finished in 18:00, so he also beat that time by 0:48.

Also, to give you a better idea on how well Jonny ran, there were several divisions that raced at Watkins today. There were 1,217 high school boys that raced. If they all would have raced together Jonny would have finished 57th out of 1,217 runners.

Nikki and Stephanie ordered 5 chicks in the mail early in the summer. They started off being raised in the house and moved to the garage after about 6 weeks. They spent the night in one of the dog crates and I built a little chicken tractor out of poultry netting and PVC pipe that was light enough for one person to move around to different spots in the yard, but sturdy enough to keep curious cats and dogs out.

Over the 4th of July we inherited 3 full grown hens from the Ward family. At that point I started digging out an area in our garden to build a semi permanent chicken coop and run. It took a week to get everything measured out and level. Nikki talked to friend that had just disassembled their kids swing set and we decided to recycle some of their 4×4 wooden frames. We painted the wood and pocked up some more lumber to start building our 6×12 chicken run with built in coop. The chicken run is still being worked on, but the entire run and roof has been framed in. The coop is completed to the point where the hens are now staying in it for the night and are starting to use the built in nest box.

The chicken coop includes a web cam with night vision infrared capabilities so we can keep an eye on them during the night when they are in the coop. Anyone can check in on them at http://chickens.ourhobby.com. The username and password is guest. If you are using Internet Explorer select Active X mode or Mobile Mode. Any other browser, select Server Push Mode or Mobile Mode.

Hammy, one of our male cats, was found this evening by one of our neighbors. He had passed away under their front porch. He had been missing for a week and we had an idea he has passed, as he was never gone that long before.

He was a real character who couldn’t just walk by our other cat, Joey, without slapping him on top of the head and just continue walking. He had the typical cat mentality that he was too cool for the rest of the world and we were here to entertain and serve him.

When we got him as a kitten he was very hyper and active and the movie, “Over the Hedge” was just out. He reminded the kids of the hyper active squirrel in the movie and was named after him.

Zoey makes Hammy upset

Stephanie graduated from Granville High School today.  We started the day with a nice breakfast at Nikki’s cousin’s house.  Nikki’s Aunt and Uncle were down as well and it was nice getting to visit with them for a couple of hours.

Not only were Nikki’s parents here to witness it, but my parents and my two sisters also came down from Michigan to help Stephanie celebrate.  After the graduation ceremonies, we picked up Chipotle and brought it back to our house.  Every ate and chatted and then Stephanie opened her cards and gifts from everyone.  Then my parents and sister’s made the trek back to Michigan, which had to be a very long for them.

We thank all our family members who traveled 300 miles each way to celebrate Stephanie’s big day, it meant a lot to her to share this exciting day with family.

Ashley turned 25 on May 30th.   Nikki’s parents came down on the 31st to celebrate Ashley’s birthday and Stephanie’s graduation.  We went into Columbus so they could meet Apollo and we had a very nice dinner at Marcella’s.  We then spent some time back at the kid’s apartment and had a nice time socializing.  It was a very nice day will the family.