Moose Miles 5K

We continued our annual tradition of running the Ottawa Moose Miles 5K Saturday. The past couple years, it has been a family affair, with Justin's immediate family members also participating but this year only Justin's dad, Jack, joined in on the fun.

The two of us were quite victorious, snagging first place medals for our respective age groups.

This was the fifth annual event and we have ran this race since its inauguration so it holds a special place in our hearts. In fact, it was the first 5K we ran. Call me obsessive or crazy, but I've been tracking our race times since the beginning and it's interesting to see how we have progressed. Hopefully we stay on this track!


2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Justin 0:24:03 0:24:08 0:24:03 0:22:29 0:21:46
Jessi 0:27:22 0:26:30 0:25:58 0:24:30 0:23:43

China 2012 Photobook

I received our photobook of our China trip in the mail this week and love looking through it, remembering all the wonderful experiences we had.

Click here to view this photo book larger

New Wheels

Daisy, our 2002 VW Jetta, bit the dust Friday, March 29. This photo was taken just a few minutes before I sold her to the highest bidder, who wanted her even though she needed a new engine.

Fortunately, we were already scouting for a new car, but this really truncated our car-buying schedule. For the week it took to sort out the details with selling Daisy, we borrowed Debbie's old Ford Windstar van which I'm guessing is a '98. It served us well for the week, but I was antsy to get our own vehicle that had power windows and locks.

As soon as our calendar freed up a bit, we went to the Mazda dealer and took our prospect, the CX-5, out for an extended test drive Saturday morning. In actuality, we drove it to our meeting with our financial planner and stopped for lunch, before heading back to do the deal. After a couple hours at the dealership — why on this green earth does it take several hours to buy a car?!? — we were zoom-zooming out of the parking lot in our brand new 2014 black on black Mazda CX-5.

So far, my favorite feature is the keyless entry, and I'm not talking about a remote clicker that you accidentally hit the panic/alarm button all the time. It's like this, when I have the sensor on my person, I can push this small button on the door handle to unlock and lock it. One of the best things ever! Some other things I really like are the miles per gallon, bluetooth streaming music and calls from my phone, Bose speakers, and the seat heaters (a necessity for for leather!).