Are we coming or going?

It's been quite a while since I posted anything on our blog. I know it's a lame excuse, but we are meeting ourselves coming and going because we are so busy. A quick recap of our activities lately....

-The 2007 Legislature is still in session and we have both been busy with our work duties related to that. My agency had one rather large issue that languished in conference committee for about two weeks. After many negotiations, the legislation passed, the Governor signed it and we are now implementing new law at work. Stephen is working on legislation related to expanded gaming in Kansas. As executive director of the Racing and Gaming Commission, he supplies a lot of information to legislators and others on this issue. In case you haven't caught any Kansas news lately, expanding gaming is a big issue this year. Last week, the House passed a bill to add destination casinos and slot machines at three dog racing tracks. Even as a write this, the bill is in the Kansas Senate and the Democrats are filibustering on a motion to concur with the bill passed by the House. It's interesting to me, but it's also wearing us both out. Last Friday evening, Stephen was at the Capitol until about 3am. Tonight, I'm sure he will be very late as well.

-Cate is growing and changing each day. We are trying to spend as much time as we can with her. She's so much fun! I've added a couple of pictures here with this post. Her latest interest is ponytails. Several girls at her day care have ponytails and she asked for one too. One of the teachers at day care put her hair in a ponytail one day and now she asks for one just about every day. She doesn't have a lot of hair, so it can be a little tricky to get it to stay in. She's also shown some interest in potty training. We bought a potty chair for her and put it in her bathroom a few weeks back. We don't push it, but we let her sit on it whenever she feels like it. She likes to read books (as you can see from the photo) and sit on the potty chair.

-We are making good progress on our marathon training and fund-raising. We've run 10 miles a few times and we each had a long run of 12 miles. We are running a couple of days during the week -- as much as we can work it in. We have been very lucky to find a class at Washburn that is training for a marathon. They are generous to let us run with the when we can make it. It's nice to have that group available and the instructor has given me some very helpful training tips too. Our fund-raising is going well. We've received many generous donations. We feel so good about every dollar we raise because we know it goes to a great cause. We are working together with other Team in Training participants on a BBQ tomorrow night. We've got a whole bunch of neat things donated for a silent auction. Some local companies donated turkey and pork for the BBQ -- some competition bbq guys locally smoked it for us. There's going to be a band as well. I think it will be a nice event and I hope we can raise a lot of money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

I think that covers the high points for us lately. Stephen and I will have our fifth wedding anniversary next Friday. We've been together for more than seven years. It's hard to believe.