So much to tell. So little time.

We are a little behind this week (and it's only the third week of school!!!) - the weekend was just chock full of fun, meaningful, joyful, tough, tiring, smiling activities. It was one of those weekends when you need a day off to recover.

Last week occasioned RIA's 5th anniversary. In addition to celebrating with a school party (wait till you see the cupcakes that our friend Kelly made...) we had a classroom theme day on Friday and a family fun celebration (and grill party) on Saturday. Each class came up with a theme that the students could use for a dress-up day. While you can probably guess what the 1st and 2nd grade class chose (9 girls, no boys), some of the other classes were pretty inventive.

Kelly put together each little lion (our mascot) cupcake by hand. I think the cornflake manes were the most clever.

So, did you guess that the girls would dress up as fairy princesses? These girls jump at any chance to wear pink! Oh yeah, I think we got a unicorn in there too!

The 3rd/4th grade class decided to go on Safari! Guess which one is playing the tourist? The students really loved the monkey puppet!

The 4th/5th grade class decided on a "wear your flag" theme. This special student and her full-time assistant are both proud to wear the stars and stripes.

I was forward thinking enough to bring my special apron that nephew Matt made for me way back in middle-school. It is a cow-print design - which by the way is very popular with our Swiss families. Since I had the apron, I had the joy of doing the grilling. Now, in Germany, we don't have bohemouth gas grills that pump out 40,000 BTUs. The school has a Weber knock-off with an 18-in diameter grill. Luckily, we had plenty of wood coal; Cam and I got it stoked and burning. We grilled ears of corn, three-dozen burgers and just as many wiener wuerstchen over the course of about an hour. We danced around the grill, moving the meats from hot spots, turning the dogs and avoiding the smoke as much as possible. I only had one burger too charred to eat. We had a great (but tiring) time.

Just as we finished cleaning up, I drove Delynn and two other staff to catch a train to Solothurn. They had made arrangements to overnight in the city before the big walking marathon which was held on Sunday. Delynn will share a bit of her experiences but let me just say how proud of her I am. (Is that correct English?) She trained, she sweat more than I have ever seen her sweat in 13 years of marriage. She suffered through blisters and bruised toes but she kept up the rigourous training schedule for the event.

I was scheduled to lead Music worship at ACB Sunday morning, so I stayed in Weil a. Rh. until after the morning service before I took to the road with my friend Cam (whose wife was also walking) to Solothurn. We arrived about 90 minutes before the race closed - interesting thing. The Swiss timed the race start times so that to complete the marathon, everyone had to keep a pace of at least 6 km/hr (which is almost 4 mi/hr) - a pretty blistering pace for 42.2 km. The marathon ended at 16.00 (4pm) sharp. In fact, they had the entire finish area pretty much torn down and stowed by 16.30 because it was right in the middle of the city's old town. We really enjoyed our brief look around the town, but the walkers weren't too interested in doing any sight seeing after the race, so we will have to make a return day-trip of it.

Here are Delynn and Jennifer soon after the close of the marathon. Frankly, I think the smiles are delirium. I took the picture below right after I asked these two parents "Are you ready to go again?" - I believe they thought I was off my rocker.

Here is what Delynn has to say about the whole marathoning experience:

I didn't feel like doing much last night when I got home, so sorry I didn't send out the results sooner. I walked (and walked and walked) yesterday, but I didn't quite make it to the end. I walked 35 of the 42 kilometer marathon, which is close to 22 miles. The course was designed so the 'challenging' part was at the end - this means there were 2 big hills in the last 12-14 kilometers. I made the first one OK, came down and was doing OK and made it to 35 before I just couldn't do anymore. The organizers called someone, who drove me back to the town. In the car, the man told me there was another big hill past where I stopped. So, I'm glad I stopped when I did - the second hill was very steep both going up and coming down. All in all, I am satisfied with my results. I wish I could have finished but there was no sense causing more bodily harm to myself.

I am pretty tired today but my feet are in pretty good shape - no blisters but a few bruised toenails. For the statistically inclined: A total of 5515 people completed the marathon with distances of 6 km, 10.5 km, 21.5 km and 42 km. In the 42 kilometers category, only 38 people signed up and 31 finished for walking. There is also a category for Nordic walking which had 179 people sign up and 161 finished. So I guess even to go 35 km was more than the vast majority of the people went.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers.