The Murphy Boys

Originally posted on Running for Ayrie During my second year of grad school, Nora left Perspectives where she was my boss. This was an ENORMOUS risk, but proved to me that Nora would do anything to ensure the health of her family. Anyway, once she left, I feel like our friendship developed more. Christa and I would babysit more often and we’d meet up with Nora, the boys, and Ian and Emily on a pretty regular basis. (Thanks again for hosting those great parties for the debates from the 2008…read more

Also posted on: The Children’s Rare Disease Network To know Nora, Ayrie and Shiya is to absolutely love them.  Spend an hour with Nora and you’ll see how much she cares for her boys, spend a day with her and you’ll see how strong she fights, spend a couple more years with her and realize what perseverance really means. Our relationship with Nora started quite simply, “hey, we’re going to go baby-sit for my boss. She has a little boy who has some sort of disease in his throat, so he may…read more

(Also posted at Running for Ayrie) Life changes quickly, doesn’t it?  I think it’s a given.  Just when you think you have a small respite and time to catch your breath, everything changes! We are enjoying our first summer in Minneapolis and hope to hit all twelve of the public beaches this summer!  (Did you know there are six amazing lakes within this city limits?  I think this is why people endure the winters here.  Summer us amazing!) Ayrie is thriving at school and the teachers glowed about him at…read more

We recently visited the Como Zoo in St. Paul. The kids have been there before but I hadn’t. We went with our friends Sophia and Romare. Romare is in Shiya’s class at the childcare center and the three of them have a lot of fun together. The cages are small… I had been told it’s called ‘The Depressing Zoo’ and I could see why! The Zebras, for example, share a tiny cage with nothing in it to play with.  But we had a great day in the 70 degree sunshine!

Shiya and Ayrie have t-ball at their pre-school that they like to play so I bought one for home.  Ian and I walked down to the park with the boys to have our first t-ball session!  For some reason the boys thought this even deserved costumes!

this photos says ‘childhood’ to me!

Richard recently wrote this post about us on the Running For Ayrie website: How it all started… Richard here. My career in education has taken me from mid-Missouri to the nation’s capital, with a number of stops in between. Much as I’ve enjoyed the work, I’ve really enjoyed the people I’ve met along the way, from my students in Philadelphia to the folks at the U.S. Department of Education. My first education job in Chicago was great, but I’m much more grateful that I met Nora through our work with…read more