FIVE!

It's happened. I am the mother of a five year old.

It's crazy that Charlie is now five years old. I'm pretty sure that he was just 5.5 pounds a year or so ago.

This morning to celebrate we attempted a photo shoot. As you can see from the photo below, Charlie was not very on board with that and opted to start shredding the newspaper instead.

We attempted again during my lunch break after a long birthday walk.

Things went much better.

Until Charlie discovered that my "5" was made up of chewable cardboard.

The shoot quickly derailed.

 

 

Happy 5th Birthday Charlie! We are the luckiest people in the world to have such a wonderful pup.

Twinsies

Christmas Eve 2011 brought us twins in the form of my dad and Eric. Playful posing quickly went from this:

to this: 

I still am unsure about what happened here, but it gives me a good laugh.
Dan also joined the white T trend on his own terms

Obviously it's been a very good year. Happy New Year to all! Hopefully regular posting will begin again soon :)

Sitges

On one of the days before our cruise, Dan and I took a day trip from Barcelona to Sitges. We had a slight incident at the start when we randomly took a train that we thought was heading to Sitges, but actually flew right past it. It wasn't our finest moment of the trip, but we figured it out fairly easily and it was the only time that we got lost for the remainder of our time there.

One of a million window shots I took along the way.

Sitges was awesome.

They have over a dozen public beaches to choose from.

They all run into each other and there is a really great overall atmosphere to the place.

Plus the beach pretty much had the softest sand of any place I have ever been. Seriously, I still think about that sand months later. Is that weird?

Since it was the first of many beaches we would go to on our vacation, I didn't really appreciate it as much as I should have. Who knew almost every other stop would have rocky "sand".

After beaching it we went up to the old church that overlooks the water.

And no, we didn't go in. Dan's motto for the trip... once you've seen one church you've seen them all.

I feel pretty certain that even though we went to Spain, Italy, Greece and Croatia which are pretty much church meccas we only went into one the entire trip.

We did catch the end of a wedding though.

We only spent half a day there, but would definitely go back and are so happy that we ventured outside of Barcelona when we had the chance.

Remember

When Melissa's eye got all red

and she walked around in sunglasses for the entire day?

 but then accidentally took them off in the subway?

yeah... me too.

I laughed so hard I cried

Did anyone end up buying this photo?

It makes me laugh.

Miss your face

 

I've edited about .05% of my photos from our trip. I plan to continually post randoms until I'm done.

I think these two might be related...

Tigers in Denver

Dan and I spent the weekend in Denver a few weeks ago, so that we could fully enjoy the Tigers series. It's the first time that they've played here since we moved 6 years ago so we were really excited.

See... Dan gives Tigers weekend two thumbs up.

We bought tickets to the Friday night game and I was able  to get free tickets to Saturday's game through work.

Dan thought the guy in red behind us in that photo looked exactly like Lou Holtz.

We got to see the Tigers up close and had a ton of fun even thought they lost both games that we attended. I blame the altitude adjustment. Hopefully they will come back again soon. :)

Summer Cleaning

In preparation for our European vacation, Dan and I went through his clothes this past weekend to determine what he had that still fit and looked good, what needed to go to the tailor, what could be donated and what could just be retired to the trash.

Somehow the stars aligned and we were both fully gung-ho about going through his entire wardrobe! It's a good thing too, since I don't think we've done a major clean out in the entire 7+ years we've been together.

We took some breaks to really admire some treasures from Dan's college days:

But overall we stayed on course and ended up with a huge donation to the local Goodwill :)

Now we know exactly what he's got, and where we need to focus our efforts on the shopping front :)

Even the Mailman loves Charlie

Did you know that our mailbox is a basket?

I love it. But mostly, I love when I get fun things like notes, cards and invites in it. While the Red Plum circular that we got the other day didn't make me very happy, the treat that came with it certainly made Charlie smile :)

He makes friends everywhere he goes!

Getting excited!

So many good things are coming up including 3 glorious days off of work!!! I heart government holidays. Especially this one, because it's the official kickoff to Summer!

Besides that, Dan and I have plans to catch the Hangover 2 in the next day or so. We're also going to head up to Boulder on Sunday so that bright and early Monday morning we can run the Bolder Boulder!

It's pretty munch the biggest race that I've ever participated in and I've wanted to run it for the past 2 years. It's a 10K and over 50,000 people are signed up to run it this year! It's the biggest 10K in the US.

Besides being in one of our favorite Colorado towns, we'll know a bunch of people running it this year, so it should be a great time!

Even though my training since the Colfax half has gone a bit down hill over the past few weeks, I am still hoping that I can PR in this race. I never was able to write a post on my first 10K back in April, but I'll try to get to that before this race happens. I also have a 5K to write about, so I'm a bit behind.

Basically though, in order to PR I have to run this puppy in less than 57:46 (a 9:19 pace). Dan is also going to run it, so I'll keep you posted on how he does :) I'm sure well, because his training has pretty much consisted of yoga classes, swimming and an occasional light quarter mile jog with the dog!

On the agenda today: Work, 5K treadmill run, BodyPUMP, then perhaps a movie date!

Also: Happy Last Day of School Dan!! (I'm just slightly jealous, but when you're on your 8th summer of this, it gets a bit easier) :)

Do you have any plans for the upcoming holiday weekend?

Currently Loving...

the Mirra wedge from Banana Republic.

It looks like a perfect shoe to bring to Europe, but it's still full price right now, so I am trying to hold out until sale time. And if there is one thing I know about Banana, there's always an upcoming sale time! Now I just need to stay strong and be patient until it happens. Easier said than done :)

It Tastes Like Summer!

At the grocery store on monday I saw two things that mean summer to me and had to pick them up for that nights dinner.

Cherries and Corn on the Cob!!

Dan and I have found a new recipe for Buffalo Chicken Wing Sandwiches that we've pretty much had once a week for the past month so I thought I would share. It takes about 10 minutes to put the whole thing together and it's really yummy, so that makes it a winner in my book.

I found the recipe in one of the past few month's Real Simple magazines and have modified it slightly so that it's a little less caloric.

Here's what you'll need:

• 1 Rotisserie Chicken, shredded (if you can get one from Costco, then you'll probably have enough for leftovers)
• 1/2 Cup of Hot Sauce (we use Wingman's Buffalo Style Medium Sauce)
• 1-2 tablespoons butter (I tend to use less butter)
• 1/4 Cup Blue Cheese Crumbles
• Bread/Bun of your choice

And here's how to make it:

First heat the butter in a skillet and then add the chicken and mix it up. Then drop in the hot sauce and mix it again. Once the chicken is warmed through you're done! Just place it on your bread, which tastes even better toasted and add blue cheese.

This dish is normally awesome, but with cherries and corn on the cob off to the side, it was a perfect start to summer meal!

A Giant Ship with Fighter Planes aka... A Boy's Playground

So with all of the running talk and training that has been happening, I have neglected to post about some of the other stuff that I have been up to over the past few months.

While last year's Spring Break trip to Cabo will be a hard one to beat, we still managed to have an awesome vacation on a much more limited budget. This year, we spent part of the week in beautiful San Diego. What a great city! Neither of us had ever been before and we loved it! We pretty much ate and drank our way through it and had the best time. Our friend's Mike and Anne were out there with us and we had so much fun. One day, while Anne was at law school, the boys and I went on a tour of the USS Midway. It was a H-U-G-E ship (a crotchety old man got upset with us when Mike called it a boat), and it was interesting to see how people lived aboard it as it floated around from war to war.

Just to warn you, Dan and Mike had a lot of fun with make believe during this tour.

These are the bunks that crew had to sleep in. I felt really bad for anyone with even the slightest bit of claustrophobia, because there was not much room at all.

Of course, Dan got locked up in the ship's Brig

and had fun taking the wheel where ever possible.

we thought this slogan was funny.

Look at how pretty San Diego is!

don't I look good in a captain's chair?

I think Mike is telling Dan to watch out for a giant iceberg in this one ;)

who knows ;)

If you ever are out in San Diego, I would totally recommend going to see this cool piece of US history. Just be sure to bring a bunch of guys. They make it much more entertaining.