A Wedding Gift

For those of you who are married and my friend on Facebook, this is repeat information. But feel free to read on and comment anyway!

Basically, I'm putting together a gift for a friend of mine who is getting married. I'm making her an album, not of pictures, but of cards containing advice, wisdom, and quotable quotes about marriage, from married people, based on their own marriage experience.

And this is where I need YOU: if you were given the chance to tell a young bride all the things you wish people had told you (or some of the things people DID tell you), or all of the things you have learned about marriage so that she could have a great start to her marriage, what would you say?

Will you help me out by replying with your wisdom and advice in the comments section? I want lots and lots and lots of responses. Seriously. I dare you to try and overwhelm me.

Two things to note: 1) It must fit on a 4x6 card. In other words, don't write me a novel. :D And 2) on Facebook I got quite a few responses, and almost all of them fit into one of two categories: the "how to fight or not fight" subject, or the "make sure to spend time together" subject. Which is great advice. But I can't fill an entire an entire album with that. So, variety! Variety is the name of the game.

And get your spouses and parents and siblings and friends to contribute as well. I would appreciate that muchly. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, must be completed in one week.

Aaaaaaaaand GO!

2010 Northwest CrossFit Regionals

Here are some pictures of Art from the CrossFit competitions a few weeks ago. (Unfortunately, not from my camera.) I said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm proud of and love my husband and my gym.

Rowing.

Running.

Lifting.

Here is the one video I captured of Art and Jon doing one of the workouts. They had 90 seconds to get as many reps as possible. They are doing a lift called a clean and jerk, and the weight is 275 pounds. I'm sorry that the sound quality isn't so great. There was loud music, and even louder cheering. Yes, that sound you hear is me screaming my head off in the background.

Art Shows His Strength

Two weeks ago we had what's called a CrossFit Total. Basically, you choose a few different types of Olympic lifts, and you try to find your one rep max - how much weight you can lift at least one time, and no more than one time. You add up your one rep maxes from the different lifts, and that is your total - total number of pounds lifted that day.

I wasn't feeling very strong that day, so I didn't participate, which gave me the opportunity to record Art's lifts. These are his one rep maxes on the back squat and the deadlift. The back squat was 320 lbs. The deadlift was 425 lbs. Those are both personal records for him!

I hope this doesn't look painful to anyone. He kept his form and performed both of these safely. No injuries were incurred. In case you couldn't tell, I'm very proud of him. :)