Ran my first 5k...6k rather.

Our good friends Juliana and Ammon invited us to their church's fundraiser 5k last month. Since we were secretly doing the couch to 5k, I figured that it was a good goal for beginner runners like myself.

We drove up to Bel Air, and found the beautiful park with a pond with very blue water (which had HUGE catfish) and a nice running trail. So off we went.

I wasn't running to win, but wanted to run the entire thing. My personal goal was to do the whole thing under 30 minutes.

I took care to not run too quickly at the beginning and went at an easy pace. This was a family friendly race, so there were lots of kids running too. Actually Juliana and Ammon were in a category called "men and women pushing strollers". Well, they are super athletic and tough, so after Juliana passed me I couldn't see her anymore.

So I ran and ran. Eventually I couldn't see anyone anymore ahead of me. I guess I look to my left when I'm not thinking (perhaps I'm right brained when not illustrating. I don't know. that's weird.), so I totally missed the right turn into the finish line. I ran about extra 500 meters until I realized that I must have missed something.

I made some sad gestures trying to get an attention of a cyclist coming my way, but he ignored me. All sad, I turned around and jogged back. Fortunately by that time, I saw another runner that was in the same race as me, so I followed her to the goal. Not climatic.

So both Juliana and Ammon won prizes for their fast running. Yay! I told them that if they had an age bracket that was specific to my birthday, I would've won. Or I could get the "special runner award" for running the extra kilometer. Not that I'm into winning or anything. :)

So I did my first 5k! I even photoshopped my T-shirt to reflect my achievements:

Oh, and my time running the 6k? 38:49. Not bad, but can do better.

...must...knit...myself

but first I have to dye yarn for my skin color. I'm definitely not sheep colored. ;)

Some of my dear friends have done it and I just love them. They are so cute! OK, so dye yarn, spin yarn for clothes...uuummmm get little me to London by June 25th. Right. Go soak yarn. Now.

mini-me instruction

Wollmeise is here!

Wollmeise is here! Yaaay! I had to go pick it up at the post office since the package required a signature receipt. Very carefully, I took my surgical scissors and cut open the bag. Well, I was too careful.

After I cut through the outer package, a very cute paper bag appeared. It has graphic representation of stockinette stitch, and on one side there is a list of knitting terms in German and English. I really like the titmouse's footprints.

Get ready...

...And here it is! So beautiful! I'm very impressed. The color is very beautiful and I'm happy with it even though I was not quite sure what I was getting. It's mostly warm red with very subtle purple and orange. The skein is put up so neatly.

What a gorgeous skein of yarn. Also it's very generous. The tag says 150g, but when I measured it it was actually ~165g. Asher asked me if the yarn was for his socks. I laughed. Well, if he wants a pair of wollmeise socks, he should stay up late on Friday and pick out his own! I'm not sure what it should be...knee high socks maybe? Or a scarf/shawl?

On the other hand, I wonder if Rohrspatz is an iron-working wonder as well? They must be superstars.

Brownie Beach Fossil Hunt!

Happy Memorial Day!

Today's adventure was to go look for shark teeth fossils in the Chesapeake Bay. We did some research and decided to visit Brownie Beach, which is just north of Chesapeake Beach. It was about an hour drive from our house.

今回はサメの歯の化石を集めるため、家から約一時間位で行くことのできる、ブラウニービーチに行ってきました．

It was a beautiful day, so naturally parking was tricky. We did succeed and walked through the woods to get to the beach.

お天気がよかったので駐車場を見つけるまで苦労しました。浜辺までには森林を抜けて行きます．

The exposed cliff you see is from middle Myocene period, which is about 22 to 8 million years old. That boggles one's mind.

メリーランド州のチェサピーク湾内の浜辺には約８千万年〜２億２千万年位前の地層が露出しており、化石等がアマチュアでも発見できる浜辺です．

We got to swim too! The ocean floor was bit silt like and felt like clay, but it was all right. I promptly found a crabby friend.

ブラウニービーチは公共の浜辺で、ほとんどの人はビーチを楽しんでいました．砂浜と言うより粘度状の海底でしたが、遠浅で波も少なく、泳ぐにはもってこいの場所です．早速かに（メス）を発見しました．両者ピースサインの記念写真です．

Blue crab female. I love the scientific name, Callinectes sapidus, which translates to "Beautiful swimmer who is tasty". mmm.

Then we dug. and swam a bit. Then dug again.

メリーランド州で有名なこのブルークラブの学名は”美しく、美味しい泳ぐ物”　と言う意味です．ふーん。

浜辺を一生懸命掘りました．

Intermission

And here are the find! 23 in total. Most of these are shark teeth, and the rectangular-ish ones are fragments of skate teeth.

一時間ほどで見つけたサメの歯の化石は合計２３個でした．ほとんどが１センチに満たない小さい物ですが、ちゃんと歯の形を残したまま化石化されています．

写真右下の四角形に近い化石はエイの歯の化石の破片です．

Fun day! Then we went into a restaurant in Bowie and had a pound of shrimp. mmm. shrimp.

ビーチと化石発見で充実した日を送りました．夕飯はエビをたらふく食べました．