Zoo Excitement

As one of our parting gifts, a wonderful friend and colleague surprised us with tickets to the Denver zoo. Today, three weeks into our adventure, we took full advantage of them. 

The kiddos were wildly excited. I'm confident their expectations were more than met! 

Some of the animals were so close. For example, this pretty intense bird at ground level. 

And this bear that was playing a game of unwanted tag with her male pen-mate (if you know what I mean...)

At some point PJ nominated himself the King of the Map. He took his responsibilty very seriously. Very. 

Don't worry, we stayed silly. 

Meanwhile, Bean owned it. Sometimes I feel like she is my spirit animal. 

Especially since we sleep everywhere. 

To wrap up a great day, PJ put on a one-man wilderness show with heavy engagement from his audience. 

What a wonderful day. Thank you friend! 

Xo

Last Spargellauf 2016

This year, my last Spargellauf, I graduated to the 10km road race. It was my second 10km and this time I got to share it with a slice of my Eritrean friends. This was also the first time both PJ & Bean got to run the kids' run.

Bean finished strong with a wonderful steed.

Sadly, PJ didn't get to finish. The adults were too busy taking videos with their phones & blocking the race path. It got tight & two older boys purposefully pushed little (and fast as hell) PJ over. It was ugly and I wasn't too nice about it.

Then the 10km started. Here I am at the beginning. So hopeful and proud, especially since I wasn't too enthusiastic about the race in the morning. For some hilarious running motivation from my gorgeous sister, check below. 

The first one from our team in was Tesfit. He smashed it. I was just reaching the 5km mark when this picture was taken.

Then came Sami and Yibrah. Running together.

We missed Monoko's run by. Then, Letay, my dear friend, was the fourth in.

And then came me. My moto through this race was "I can do hard things. This is a hard thing. I am doing this hard thing."

And we all did it.

I was proud. I was sore. I was sad. It was a great race.


xo

running motivation from my sister:

Patrick's Day

We celebrated our last Patrick's Day in German by visiting the same place we've visited since PJ was born. This time we had two dancers. 

While we were there, I reflected how the Irish pub had changed since I arrived in Germany in 2003. Then, the place was full of mostly American soldiers with trim bodies and short hair. Groups mixed frequently because they knew each other. Now, with the exit of the vast majority of American soldiers, the place was full of semester abroad students (who seemed impossibly young) with a wide variety of accents and long hairs and full beards hair. 

We ate fish and chips; drank Guinness; and had a few moments of bitter-sweet. Not bad for the Steinbach clan. 

XO