The Suitcase of Courage

They came, they saw, the completed the Chicago marathon!!! Congratulations Stewart, Jamie and Brian!!!  The title of this post is a quote from Phil Liggett, an announcer for the Tour de France. Invariably, he will report on an exhausted rider dragging himself up an incredibly steep 30 km climb in the pouring rain who "digs deep into his suitcase of courage" and finds the energy to make it up the hill or keep up with main group.   Stew, Jamie and Brian had to show similar levels of commitment throughout their training and on the race day when the weather became unseasonably warm. Stewart ran in his 5 fingers with no ill effects. He and Brian ran and finished together. Jamie, who started in a later group, endured the worst of the heat and still managed to get the job done. Your faithful correspondent was unfortunately taken out by a baby borne flu and spent the weekend convalescing in California with said baby. Stewart managed to avoid the germ by hiding out in the cottage for most of the week prior to the race. Matthew caught a milder version but in his usual fashion didn't slow down long enough to notice that he was sick.  Lucky for all of us, David stepped up to provide an excellent record of the event, complete with the three finishers post race. They look pretty good don't they?

In addition to the marathon, the weekend provided an opportunity to celebrate important family milestones including Stewart's 35th birthday and his parent's 40th wedding anniversary. Stewart and Brian are holding up a collage photograph based their parents' wedding photograph. The picture is made of thousands of smaller photographs from the last 40 yrs of family life. The poster is quite large so that if you stand close to it you can clearly make out the smaller photos. Making it was quite an undertaking that involved finding and scanning albums worth of family photos. The result is really neat.
Everyone had a great time. Matthew continues to get on well with his cousins and all enjoyed outings to the aquarium and a ferry ride.