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Rali created a Facebook photo album with photos in and around Washington DC in May 2009. Here’s one photo from the set:

On June 13, 2009, Kristof did his very first century ride: exactly 100 miles together with Rali. Rali posted a Facebook album here, which you can access without signing up for Facebook. Here’s one action photo from the album:

These are real tropical birds. They were a little heavy, and the boys say their “claws” were sharp, but the family loved it. This was in Old Town Alexandria, VA, on May 31, 2009. Carmen’s holding a “baby.”

Rali and the kids, with Carmen on her very own trail-a-bike, rode to Old Town Alexandria today, May 31, 2009, a round trip of some 26 miles. Here’s the whole gang leaving our apartment in Falls Church.

On Tuesday, May 19, 2009, Kristof had a field trip with his third grade class to the White House. The students had all been told to dress properly: shirts with collars, and no shorts. Kristof chose all of his own clothes, and here’s how he dressed. BTW, he said the White House trip was “just okay…we didn’t even see the dog”!

Today, March 21, 2009, Rali ran the Suntrust National Marathon in Washington DC. Her goal was a qualifying time for the 2010 Boston Marathon. For her age group, she’d have to run the marathon in 3 hours, 45 minutes…and she did it! Here are the results. Rali’s #523 overall out of 2041 finishers, and she’s #11 out of 105 finishers in her age group. Her final time: a blazing 3 hours, 42 minutes, 10 seconds. Congratulations to Rali!

Members of Kristof’s third-grade class were assigned to do a presentation on the natural disaster of their choice. Kristof selected not just one, but four disasters in one. He did a large display board on different kinds of slides: avalanches, mudslides, rockslides, and landslides. He did research on the Internet and in the Falls Church public library (note his bibliography at bottom center!).

Here’s the result. Great work, Kristof!

On Sunday, February 1, 2009, Rali and the boys entered the Capital Hospice 12K and 3K race in Arlington, VA. Rali ran the 12K, the boys the 3K. Rich and Carmen waited near the finish line to cheer them on. Full race results are here (page all the way down to see the 3K results). Kristof was the first 3K finisher under age 11:

Then Kelvin was the first 3K finisher under age 8:

Rali managed to hit her target of finishing the 12K race in under an hour, finishing in 59:59. The real fun came later, when Rali searched for results online and found this blog post, from another runner at the same race. The other runner wrote that he remembered a runner who sounded unusual on the course…well, better if you go and read his blog post yourself. Don’t forget to read the comments at the bottom as well, where Rali (”anonymous”) wanted to figure out whether she was the unusual runner!

Anyway, here’s Rali, charging hard (and noisily) at the finish to get there in under an hour.

The kids were very happy to have their cousin Zack come and visit for a week in January 2009. Rich’s sister Meredith lives and works in Europe, so the kids rarely see their cousins. Luckily, Meredith was able to bring Zack along when she came to the Washington area on a business trip, and Zack stayed with us while Meredith was at work. Here are a few photos of Zack and the Roesing kids.

From left to right, here are Kristof (age 8), Kelvin (6), Carmen (3), and Zack (5).

And here’s the whole gang at the Washington Monument on January 30, 2009.

One of Aunt Meredith’s last requests before going home was to go out for a Vietnamese meal. Luckily, we live next to a Vietnamese mall in Falls Church, VA, so we all walked over for a tasty dinner.

On the morning of January 19, 2009, the family enjoyed a 4.7-mile trail walk around Burke Lake in Fairfax, VA. It was pretty chilly, so the trail wasn’t crowded, but we did find another hiker to take a photo of the whole family.