Rants, Recipes, and Running

I have finally reached the final post of our Minnesota trip! It only took me a week to complete this . I'm not so good at blogging consistently. I've broke these posts into 3 categories: Anniversary, Family Time, and finally "Happenings". Instead of writing a book of all the fun we had, I am going with a bullet-point approach. It's Friday. Brain is fried and attention span is not so fantastic. Here are a few of my favorite things of the trip: Waking up every single morning to views of the lake. Does it get better than this?!: Morning runs. Most days I did a 5 mile route that goes on a road behind the lake, and then another road through corn fields. After being stuck in the desert for the past 6 years....seeing all that green was rejuvenating. Lots of coffee enjoyed while looking at the lake..... One morning Ryan & I headed to Glendalough State Park. If you're ever in Ottertail County - I highly recommend checking this out! There's a ...

The utmost highlight of this trip was family. And I'm not just saying that because the only people that probably really read this blog are my family. ;) I mean this with the utmost honesty. I have to say we were quite successful in seeing as many family members we could possible squeeze in during our short time home. All 5 of my siblings were at the lakes for the weekend. Plus spouses. Plus their children. Which makes a happy bunch of 18!!!!! My mom hired a photographer to come out and take photos. And although photos can make us groan in agony ( especially the men ) - I am so glad she did this. It's not very often we got that many people in one place at one time! Saturday my Mom invited her siblings to her house for a get-together. She came from a family of 8 children, so as you can imagine - that can make for a large group! We had a grand total of 36 people at that gathering, and it was awesome. Most of that side of the family Ryan and I haven't seen since our wed...

Somehow, 5 years have managed to fly by since I married Ryan. They say time flies when you're having fun  - and that statement is very true! It almost scares me when I reflect on how fast these 5 years have gone. As cliché as this sounds, I just don't know where the time went! I seriously feel like we were planning our wedding a few months ago. But I am preaching to the choir, here. So I'll move on from my moment of awe.... We spent our anniversary in the place where we got married - Battle Lake, MN . Which is the happiest place on earth, in my opinion! Being in that area always brings back such strong memories of growing up. And now having the memory of our wedding makes it even more of a special place in my heart. Here are my favorite moments of the 1st 5 years: Our honeymoon . We stayed a the Playa del Mujeres Excellence Resort outside of Cancun - and it ranks as my favorite vacation. That place is seriously paradise.....sailing, all-inclusive indulgence, beautifu...

I have to say this past weekend was pretty awesome! It was jam packed and busy. By the time Sunday evening rolled around, I was exhausted! But worth it! I kicked off my 3-day-weekend with a swim/bike brick Friday morning. Which was rough . 1 hour speed work swimming. 34 miles biking. I hit a wall . Learned that taking in some form of nutrition during these long work outs is mandatory. I drove home very pale....(90 + degrees with 60% humidity is no good...) I went straight from my brick work out, to oatmeal, to a bathroom "mini-reno". We replaced light fixtures and painted. Ryan had to do rewiring, I was his "tool girl". This project turned into much more than expected. It took 4 COATS of paint!!!!!! (Pictures to come soon.....once I get around to decorating!!) We took a break from painting at 6 pm to head over to my friend Lisa's 40th Birthday Party! It was the group of girlfriends who spend hours weekly running/biking/swimming together. So it was fun ...

I'm getting "down and dirty" with this half ironman training. I have to say so far it's very manageable and fun! I have to thank my work schedule of 4 10's, so that on my 3 days off -- I am able to get longer workouts in. #spoiled I'm several weeks into this training, and here are a few observations. The Good and the Ugly : The Good One doesn't really get sick of a sport. You're balancing between running, biking, and swimming. So every day, I kind of get excited about which one I get to do! Fun bonding time with training partners! Between Saturday-Sunday, we biked 73 miles. (Which is about 5 hours on the bike total). Talk about some serious catching up/bonding! (here we are on our 34 mi bike/2 mi run Brick Saturday morning!)   Learning new sports. I'm really embracing my love of the water. This masters swim team is going to be hard for me to quit when I'm done training! Mondays & Fridays we do speed work and Wednesday...

If there's one thing I've learned since we moved to the Sonoran Desert, it's that you can garden and eat things from the ground. It just takes some serious labor and love. I cannot just plant tomatoes, water them every other day, and expect fruit. That's just silly and naïve . One must do extensive research! In  fact, I am currently starting my seeds for next years garden. As it takes much love and transitioning to get them ready for Arizona's awful, relentless heat! One thing we've really embraced this year - is making use out of our cacti. We have a beautiful prickly pear cactus in the corner of our yard that bears wonderful fruit! What does prickly pear look like again?   There are 2 distinct parts to the prickly pear. The green paddles (nopales) and the purple prickly pears.   Harvesting these isn't always fun. You will get hairs and thorns impaled into your skin. Unless you were smart and perhaps wore gloves?   The nopales pa...

Ryan and I have been living completely opposite lives lately. But I was able to finagle my work schedule around to get Saturday free, so we could have a day together. And it was worth all the finagling! We took a day trip to Saguaro Lake Ranch to do a kayaking trip on the Salt River. We had 13 miles to kayak, and the river gets very full of tubers during the summer. So we wanted to get an early start. We were on the road by 5:15 am, and on the river by 7:30! This trip made Ryan & I seriously consider buying kayaks. We had so much fun! I'm going to let the pictures do the talking.... We saw a variety of landscapes along the way. We started @ Saguaro Lake Ranch - which historically was the ranch that housed the workers who made the dams on the Salt River to create the various lakes near Phoenix. They provided the kayaks, and picked you up when you finished to bring you back to your vehicle.   Here I am getting the feel for my kaya...