Saturday's Run and Reno

So much to blog about! I'm so behind!! The good news for my little blog here is that I'm probably getting a vacation!! An UNPAID vacation because the government men and women are fighting. But a vacation none the less. I guess I'll know when I wake up in the morning if I'm going to work or not. So far all signs are pointing towards taking the kids to the bus stop in my night gown with bed head.

So quick recap.

Scott was sicker than a dog all weekend. Friday night I went and ran some errands with Melissa, which included picking up a new to me JUICER. Yes, I'm going over to the green side. I just need to figure out what I'm going to juice so I can buy the stuff when I go to the store. Excited to try some things.

Saturday morning I got up and ran my 9 mile long run by my lonesome since he was still sick. I ran a bit in the "compound" and then down the road a bit, which was scary by myself and then back to the compound to finish it up.

A little funny, saw one of my book club ladies that walks and she asks "how far have you gone so far?" I said ONE! EIGHT TO GO!! and she laughed and I cried. Just kidding about the crying but that sure sounds like a lot when you shout it out to someone.

After my run I got all ready for my trip to Reno. I was going to my friend's bachelorette party! Everyone else in the party went up Friday but for a few reasons I decided to wait until Saturday to go. (Partly to get that run in, yes, I'm crazy.)

Melissa got invited to go to an amphibian festival or something like that with my sister in law and to spend the night and my mom said Trevor could spend the night with her. So I loaded up the kids and we were off!

I dropped the kids off and then made my way to Reno which is like a 3 1/2 hour drive. When I got there I sent Scott a text and this is how it went.

At which point I called him to make sure he didn't fall on his head or something. He sounded ok but said you know, he's been sick for 4 days. I told him maybe he should eat something..

I'll post more about the bachelorette party later.  Since this is getting long. BUT yeah it's confirmed. Vacation! With no pay boooo.

A Day At The Ball Park

I feel like I'm so far behind! I haven't blogged in DAYS haha.

Poor Scott is sicker than a dog right now. He's got the feel like shit flu. He thinks it's freezing and I'm like eh maybe we should turn on the air? Poor guy. I'm just praying PRAYING that the kids and I don't get it. I'm downing the Emergen-C like no one's business. (Actually I've had one two but in my mind I'm drinking it every 3 seconds)

So on Sunday, before the death flu hit, we went to the A's game! Scott has been watching all the games and really wanted to go see them play at least once before the regular season was over.

The cool thing about going to the A's games (and Raiders) is that we can take BART. We do have to drive over to Pleasanton and take it from there but that's way closer than Oakland.

When we got there we found our seats and I immediately knew I was going to get sunburnt. TOTAL full face sun. When we left our house it was cloudy and almost cold. I had even said that it almost felt like rain. So we came armed with our sweatshirts and sweaters. It's a good thing because we needed them to shield our skin from the scorching sun!

Look there's guys on the field!

It was so hot when we got up to get a snack the whole back of Scott was covered in sweat. I was all sweaty too but not quite that bad!

These guys were funny, they had 2 kids dressed up too!

Yep, playing baseball.

They won the Western division (or something like that, haha) the game was over (and the cops came out on the field)

They were all partying it up out there

So after the game, waiting for BART. Just a little burnt. 

The train was PACKED. We got lucky and the people that were in the seat we were standing by got off on the first stop. SCORE.

But there was no air on on the train. WTH? It was pretty hot in there. 

I snapped this picture for Chris, The American Cup was going on in the bay and these people had Kiwi stuff on. 

I saw this trick before, take a picture of your parking spot number so you can remember where you parked. We didn't need it but if we couldn't find the car I would have been able to haha. 

After we got back to town we went to the Mongolian BBQ for dinner. They had just cleaned the grill and I think that took away some of the flavor the food usually gets, but it was still good.

Amazingly that sunburn didn't hurt too bad. I just scratch it and then be like DOH that hurt stupid!! Now I've got some awesome tan lines on my neck of all places. 

Cancer Awareness Run & Ride

So the last time I posted I thought my brain was going to explode! Come to find out there was a full moon that night. I'm totally blaming that for feeling like a crazy person.

Saturday morning was the big day I'd been stressing about all week. 20% chance of rain (or 40% depending on what weather app I was looking at)., that had me totally freaked out. Who wants to ride their bike 62 miles in the rain? Not me that's for sure.

Friday night I made us a carbalicious meal and then I went to a birthday party and ate cake and ice cream yum yum. We got up early Saturday morning (apparently I don't really want to sleep in?) and I had my usual pre-activity meal of English muffin, peanut butter and a banana. Slurped down some coffee, filled up my water bottles and we were off!

I had picked up our packets ahead of time so all we had to do was ride up to the start line. Scott found some of his buddies from the train so we lined up with them but right after we got going we had already lost them.  The ride took us around the college a bit and then out towards a road I actually drive on to go to work.

There was a rest stop there but we skipped it. We kept going and I noticed that the vandals did another number on that lovely green park field again. Assholes!! That stretch on that road was the scariest part of the whole ride. The traffic moves really fast through there. I was glad when we finally turned off.

At this point we were riding along where there were harvesting the tomato fields. Our area is a huge tomato producing area (mostly for sauces and such) and the smell of the harvesting tomatoes is just divine for me. The smell of the earth mixed in with the tomatoes. Ahhh  loved it!

We made it to the next rest stop which was the "far" point (about 26 miles in!) of the ride where we would then go back the other direction. We stopped to use the bathroom and I ate half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and half a banana.

We got back on our bikes and I was kind of happy to see that we were passing people still riding the other direction. We weren't last!  Scott was a ways ahead of me and there was a big hot shop group of people that had passed us. Those big groups are really intimidating. They usually all have the same jerseys on, some kind of club or group I guess and they ride all clumped together and just whizz past you. Usually they scare the crap out of me because I don't hear them coming and they would pass so close to me. Scott got in behind this group and was going along behind them for awhile. I was a bit behind and so he decided to pull off and wait for me to catch up. He did and we rode along together for a bit.

Then we were back onto that busy road and we went around a turn and there was that big group of riders all wiped out on the side of the road. I saw a girl sitting up holding her arm and there was bikes everywhere along the side of the road. A car was pulled over so I didn't really know what was going on. There was that rest stop (the one we skipped in the beginning) and we stopped there. Scott said he thought there was at least five people hurt. Scary stuff! Makes me even more timid to ride that close to other people too. One person f's up and you all go down! At this stop I had some trail mix and an orange quarter. I knew that I needed to keep eating so that I wouldn't get too tired. This is something I have learned from doing all our practice rides.

After that we rode back towards the college but instead of taking the road that would take us right back we went out farther and ended up mixing up with people that were doing the shorter distance rides of 12 and 25 miles. I felt like a rock star just whizzing past all those people. It was kind of a surreal moment. We stopped at another rest stop and the tops of my legs were starting to get a bit tired. We only had about 12 miles or so to go. Scott told me to eat a banana for the leg pain I was having so I had that and a little cup of gummy bears. GUMMY BEARS omg they were so good. Oh and a smore! They had some smores made up. That thing was the bomb. At this point we had to figure out what direction we were supposed to be going. There were people leaving in both directions and we didn't see any of the arrows we were following pointing us in the direction we were supposed to go. Finally I pulled out my phone and found the email Scott had sent me with the map. We figured it out and went on our way.

We rode and rode and then there was another rest stop but we only had about 7 miles to go and I was feeling ok so I told Scott to just skip it. He went ahead and eventually I couldn't see where he was anymore. With about five miles to go the tops of my legs were really starting to hurt and I was just starting to feel really tired. I kept trying to figure out what street I was on and how close I was to the finish. I was so glad when I could finally see the last stretch!

I came in at just under 4 hours. I had my runkeeper set to auto pause so that is 4 hours of moving time. Not too bad!

When I rode in Scott was waiting for me at the finish. This was my "I'm tired face" haha

We rode our bikes over to the car and changed shoes and then walked back over to the food line. While we were waiting there we realized that the ticket we had taken off our numbers was for the meal. DOH. Just like before Scott ran back to get them. I thought they were for some kind of drawing or something. I swear I'm leaving all the shit together for whatever we do from now on. He got back from his run to the parking lot right before I got to the front of the line. We got our plates and our 3 slices of food (I know it was free food but man I was starving and they were skimpy!)  and ate it while walking to somewhere to sit. Never needed to sit since I ate it all standing up!

They had a board with some numbers of people that had won prizes and I WON something!! Another jersey top. Cool beans! I kind of wish Scott had won it since he rides more though.  They had free massages so I got one of those and thank God this guy made my kinked up neck feel better. It's still not 100% but I can turn it so much better now.Scott got a massage too. When we got in the car and started driving home it started raining! I'm so glad the rain held off until after we were done! We went home and laid on the couch and slept on and off for the rest of the day. I was so tired! And hungry! I just kept sleeping and then waking up, trying to read my book and eating haha.

I'm glad that ride is over now and I can go back to focusing on my running. Scott is signed up for a big scary ride next month but I totally opted out on that one. I'll stick to running for bit!

This is how my brain feels right now

Excitement!!

First order of business today is someone in my family is having TWINS!!

My sister in law found out she has 2 little beans in there today. How exciting!!

They will be here in April most likely (due May 1st). Bring on 2 more April birthday parties haha.

In other news, I'm getting excited about my ride on Saturday. And nervous!! 62 miles!! Cray-cray!! Who's idea was this anyways?? Oh yeah, Scott's...

 My friend mentioned that it might RAIN on Saturday. UM NOOOO it cannot rain on Saturday, are you kidding me? No no no no.

I just checked the weather underground website, let's pray they are right.

Saturday

Clear. High of 77F. Winds from the WNW at 5 to 15 mph.

So I'm still trying to decide what race I want to do in October. My trainer is doing this Urban Cow Half Marathon and has invited me to do that with her. Which would be a bit out of my comfort zone since I am training for a half marathon in November, BUT I do have a 10 mile long run scheduled that day and 13 is not that much farther after you have done 10 right? But they are spending the night in Sac, it cost

 $68 and I'm going to be gone like every weekend if I do that for like 4 weeks. 

OR there is this Tiger Dash 5k in Stockton which I was thinking about and I could TOTALLY wear my TIGER PANTS again haha.

 It's only $20 and it's not too far away. The downside is it's only a 5k (who would have thought I'd ever be saying that?), and Scott is doing a big bike ride that day in Livermore so he wouldn't be able to go with me and so far I don't have anyone that is definitely able to go. 

Decisions decisions!! What would you do?

It's Really Not That Hard

I don't know why it still amazes me how many mean people there are in this world. You'd think by the age of almost 40 I'd be used to it.

Every job I've ever had I had to work with someone who was just plain mean. Usually I was able to outlast them and they would move on and things would be better.

Bullies at my kids schools.

Bullies online are a newer one. I see them everywhere. People constantly putting other people down, talking mean and nasty things about them. There are whole websites dedicated to slamming people online. Have a popular blog? You're probably being slammed somewhere.

Is it so hard to just be nice? People hide behind this "I'm just speaking my mind" and "free speech" and all that. But really, if you are being mean no one wants to hear it. Just keep your mean thoughts in your head and move on.

One thing I've learned is that if you make an effort to be nice to people you will almost (emphasis on ALMOST) always have people be nice back. 

People are constantly talking about bullying in schools and how we need to stop it. It starts at home. You are the first step. If you talk hate and spew meanness your children are learning that and they will go forth and treat others the same way.

Before you speak, before you type, think about if you would say what you are about to say to that person's face. If you would, think about how you would feel if someone said that to you. Would you be ok with it?

Weekend Exhaustion

I think I need a weekend to recover from my weekend!

Friday night I went somewhere to work on a project that I can't post about on here yet because it's a surprise for someone and I can't take the chance that they will see it.

Saturday we got up nice and early to go do our eight mile half marathon training run. This is the longest run I've done since my half marathon back in May, and Scott had never ran that far ever. We left the house around 6:30 and made a loose plan about where we were going to run. We started off running together and chatting which was really nice. We decided we'd mix it up a bit and run partially in the neighborhood (we joke and call it the compound) and partially outside on the country roads. We did a little over 2 miles then went out on one of the main roads. We quickly decided that there was too much traffic (big hay trucks driving down the road are kind of scary) and that when we got to 3 miles we'd turn around and head back out and around the outside of the "compound" and then back in the main road and finish inside. So that is what we did and after we got inside I lost him somewhere so I just ran my own thing.  I had kept off my audio cues, except for miles. I was pleasantly surprised at my overall average when I was done.

My shadow when I was running the last mile was super long! It was weird running with it. Of course my shadow like that always makes me think of Peter Pan haha.

Scott got home just a little after me and said he ran the whole thing too. I'm so proud of him!! He's come a long way from the days when I used to try to get him to go for a walk with me and he wouldn't even do that.

After our run Scott made us a big breakfast and then we went to my niece Adrian's 4th birthday party. How is it possible that she is four already??  I swear these kids are  just growing so fast.

This how my three kids sit in the back of my car (Jess came home for the party).



Kidding kidding  but it is a bit squishy with 5 of us in the HHR. That hardly ever happens though.

Her birthday party was at Oak Grove Regional Park. It's so pretty there. I used to go there when I was a kid and I remember camping there once with Girl Scouts. They also used to have the Asparagus Festival there before they took it downtown (which ew they should have kept it there). They rented a covered area for the day and her party was "artist" themed. It was really cute!

My dad made these cute easels out of scrap wood they had (and my mom painted them).

ahhh she's so grown up. Kills me!




My cousin Al surprised us by showing up with his wife and baby! Little Evelynn is SUCH A DOLL. Such a happy baby and she liked me!!  Probably because she was born on my birthday haha. My cousin is in the Air Force and they are getting transferred to Missouri. The next time I see her she'll probably be 10. One more reason why I love Facebook, at least I can watch her grow that way.



Me and Jess

Me and Scott

 Miss Ava digging in to her cake!

Tony & Trevor

We had a nice day visiting with everyone and Trevor went home with Tony to spend the night. We ame home and laid around and watched TV for the rest of the night. 

This morning Scott and I went out and rode 50 miles on our bikes. We stayed pretty close to home so we did a lot of winding around the country roads. My Runkeeper paused and didn't restart 2 times so I lost a bunch of miles on it. Here is Scott's (I took of the calories since he burned like 1000 more than me)

Crazy!! Next weekend is the big bike ride (see side bar) and we will ride 12 more miles. It's all flat and roads I've traveled on before (mostly for work) so I'm pretty familiar with the area. I am feeling pretty confident now that I can do the ride without crying too much haha. I think I'm going to pack some Biofreeze with me. The tops of my legs were really burning on the last ten miles of the ride today. I came home and lathered them up and they felt a bit quite a bit better. 

Now I just want to lay on the couch and drink some milk shakes and eat cheeseburgers. Instead I guess I'll make the pork chops I have thawed out and wash some dishes. 

Random Rest Day

Today I decided to take a rest day, even though Thursdays are usually gym days. I'm feeling exhausted like I could sleep for days right now. I figured that might be a sign I need to relax a bit.

If you can call running around picking up kids, running in the grocery store, cooking dinner helping with homework and doing the dishes (maybe) a rest day.

So I've got random crap floating in my head.

First off, I was going to have a glass of wine tonight, because I'm not going running or to the gym (don't run after wine, it's not a good idea!). I had this wine I bought at the corner store the other night for a recipe so I thought I'd just have a glass.

That's some nasttyyy shit. It's ok for cooking so I'm not going to toss it (other than my glass I poured) but no. It's a good thing I have some STRAW-BER-RITA's for back up. Even though they are calorie hogging little bastards. They are yummy and give mommy a nice little buzz.

Hey kid bring me another one.
Kidding kidding. I'll get it myself...
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In happy news did you guys see that there is a new Susan Grafton book out?? She's on W now. W is for Wasted. :snicker: I'm so excited! I bought it yesterday (yes I bought a book for full price, you know i must want to read it to do that I NEVER buy books like that) and have it downloaded on my Kindle. I just need to sit down and read it when I have a moment where I'm not going to just nod off the moment I sit on the couch.
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I think Melissa got tired of doing laundry. I'm down to my last pair of granny panties and I'm moving into the winter portion of the closet. Also, I ran out of wash cloths to dry off with when I get out of the shower. I guess I should probably wash some clothes soon.

Ok that's about all I have for you tonight. Peace out!

What's For Dinner THIS Week

It's that time again! My weekly review of

WHAT'S FOR DINNER. Mostly from Pinterest (you can follow me on Pinterest-my name over there is Mom Taxi Julie)

Tuesday Chicken A La Gloria

What I did different-I used 2% milk and used Chardonnay because I forgot to buy Sherry and my corner store isn't that fancy. Also I'm not sure what a small can of Cream of Mushroom soup is so I used the "normal" sized one from Campbell's. One serving came out to be 362 calories. I served it over a little serving of whole wheat pasta shells because they are faster than making rice!

Monday we had Papa Murphy's Pizza 596 calories, 1000 gallons of salt

Sunday Artichoke Chicken Lasagna  mine came out to be 337 calories a slice. I used whole wheat lasagna noodles and 2% milk instead of whole milk.

Saturday I had some left over beef stew. I estimated the calories to be about 375 for a bowl

Friday night I made Penne With Chicken and Asparagus. When I picked this recipe I didn't think about it not being asparagus season. I thought I'd find some in the frozen section at least but I could only find a mixed stir fry bag with asparagus so I bought that. I didn't end up eating but everyone else liked it (I was full of granola bars) For the recipe I used whole wheat penne and the calories came out to be 319 for one serving. (my servings were rough on this one though because my husband didn't want me to measure it all out ;))

Thursday Beef Stew. No recipe just out of my head. 375 ish calories I estimated. I made corn muffins too. I need to find a lower calorie muffin recipe, these are high at over 104 for a tiny one.

Did you try any good recipes this week? What did you make?