Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Fall is Coming!

First, I am really bummed that I am not getting that viewing of my most recent post.  I was super excited about it.  It is pretty long, but it has some really great pictures (so I think) from Ironman Louisville 2011, and my underpants run pics are not anything worse than what you would see at the beach.  I think my vacation pictures I posted from the ocean are more revealing than what I posted!!!  I put the link on my f/b to try to get some more views.  Perhaps I should have made it two posts so it wasn't so long.  Anyway, ranting over, I will get back to the topic at hand.

FALL IS COMING! 

I love fall.  I just put a long LONG comment on Erika's training blog, and then another on my friend Elizabeth's blog about how I love fall so much, I figured I had better just do a whole post to it. (above photo is from fall last year in MI).

Here is what an almost perfect* fall Saturday is to me:
Getting up early, heading out to Kensington, running 10-20 miles, coming home, quick shower, head over to Parmenter's Northville Cider Mill (or Three Cedars), gorging on cinnamon sugar donuts and apple cider (fabulous for the stomach after a long run, but so good for the mouth), and then watching some college football with Ryan in Ann Arbor.  Maybe throw in a mountain bike ride through the changing leaves.  AWESOME

*almost perfect is because I am a Buckeye can't watch OSU play if I go to Parmenters after a long run, unless it is that one fabulous Saturday every other year when OSU plays MI in Ann Arbor.  If it is that Sat, then it is perfect, if it is another, it is almost.  Or, unless it is a night game and we are drving in the middle of the day, but that never happens either. 

I don't get too many of those fall days anymore.  As a grad student training for my first marathon, that ws the schedule.  We had season tickets to UM and no kids.  I would get up and run, Ryan would ride, and then watch football.  Things have changed a bit now that we have kids and can't both workout at the same time.  It worked out well last year that Ryan would ride in the morning, and then I would run in the afternoon, during the football, and just read about it or watch highlights.  AFTER my cider and donuts.  Still not the greatest for the stomach during a run, but it was pretty worth it.  I feel like now that I have kids, watching live television is just not worth the time it takes.  It has actually been awesome knowing that Ryan will want to watch a game and actually be at home for 3-4 hours in a row, and I will just use that time to work out by myself.  This year will be even better, because we actually have more than 1 TV, so Ryan can put a movie or TV show on for the kids and watch football on the TV.  We had to use the computer before and so we couldn't access the DVR for the kids.  However, now that we have kids, taking them to the cider mills and farms is way more fun than just eating there.  They love to play and run around.  What fall isn't complete without a picture of kids in a pumpkin patch???? (Erwins, 2009)


It will be interesting to see how this fall shapes up.  I am already missing the MI fall.  It is weird that Keira is in school already and it is still so hot. I am a gymboree addict, and LOVE fall clothes for the kids, and it is too hot to let them wear them.  The cider mills are opening, and I miss having about 5 or so in close proximity.    One thing that I am very excited about right now is that we do have a fall break.  It coincides with the Detroit Marathon (half), so we are planning on staying in MI for at least 1 extra day to hit up the cider mills after my race, instead of before.  I also am planning on heading back for a baptism I think in a couple weeks.  I have another fall half marathon on the radar that is here and on a Saturday.  It is the 11 12 run 13.1, and once I enter officially, I will post more details.  I guess it is hilly.  There is a flatter one here also on 10/30, but that is a Sunday, so I don't want to do it.

Finally, I stayed up super late a couple nights ago and unpacked, sorted, and then repacked a bunch of our holiday decorations.  The movers labeled a zillion boxes "holiday decor", and they have all the holidays mixed together.  I even found the wheels to our Burley trailer in a box that actually said "Christmas Decor".  I guess that is what you get when you let others pack for you.  I did get all of our fall/Halloween items located and then reboxed everything.  I love decorating the house for fall.  We have a huge front porch, and I can't wait to get a bunch of tall cornstalks for it and pumpkins.  I cleared off the dining room table (hiding our undone framing projects beneath) for our apple centerpeice, and have our fall basket set up.   I hung one of our wreathes already, and it is one we kept up all year round that is fallish, and never took down in the old condo.  After this weekend, it is going to look like fall in the house, even if it is still hot outside!

Monday, August 29, 2011

Ironman Fever, IM Louisville Underpants Recap & Spectating

This weekend was AMAZING!  I had such a blast with the Ironman in town.  It is going to be hard for this post to be organized since my head is still spinning and I am super exhausted.  I am so tired and all I did was watch, not even compete!  Also, my house looks like a tornado has hit it from the neglected mess everywhere, and my car sounds horrendous.  As soon as this post is done, it is back to being responsible.  Also, if being responsible means missing my long swim this morning, then I guess that will have to do. 

Saturday morning was the Underpants Run.  I woke up early to take the kids on a real 6 mile run on Commerce Parkway out towards La Grange.  We got a little later of a start than I had hoped, but were able to get home, showered, and changed for the underpants run, pick up Ryan in St Matthews (who had just finished a ride and was waiting there for us), and get to the underpants run.  Here is my photo for Team Aquaphor. Didn't I say it was going to be awesome?  Also, I was very excited about my new pink test shoes!

Ryan and I:

Ryan actually knew a lot of the guys down there from the VO2 rides.  Here he is with his friend Dan in a luchidor mask from Mexico.  NACHO!

We did a group shot with the ladies from the Monday Mayhem Ride

Here is the big group of the Landsharks.  I was surprised we didn't win for largest group.  That was why I was there!

Me and Rhonda, who is getting ready for her first Ironman.

A group of ladies in tutus.  I am glad I went ahead and did my own thing and skipped one of my own tutus.  I think I would have looked silly being a lone tutu when they had the cute coordinating outfits.

Dan on the course

Rhonda and I on the course.  Ryan took a shot of both of us from behind, but I looked a big jiggly, so I didn't want to post it :) 

We walked around a bit afterwards.  We had paid for parking and all, and transition was just opening up for people to rack their bikes.  It was very exciting to be down there.  The swim was in the Ohio River. 



The kids had a birthday party so we rushed back for that, and then I was able to indulge a bit in some pizza for dinner.  Yum.  After our long day, we slept in a bit on Sunday, and I spent some time making a big breakfast for the kids and getting ready for church before I headed out to the bike course.  It was very close to my house, only a few miles away.  It was really hard to take pictures of the people I knew on the course because they were going so fast.  I saw a few people I knew, including Rhonda, which was great because her chip didn't read over a mat so everyone was worried about her, and she had weird splits once she did get a reading.  I saw someone from TIA, but I am not sure who, because it wasn't Mark or Chad.  It may have been Alan.  I think I saw Chad, and I did see Chad's dad for sure on the bike.  I missed finding Amy on the course spectating.  She was very close to me, though, in Buckner, because she was near this penatlty tent!

I went into La Grange too and took a few pics.  I couldn't stay long because I had to head back to take the kids to church. 


After church, I packed the kids up and took them down to the finish at 4th Street Live.  As we arrived at the finish area, we had just missed Chad and heard them annouce Mark.  I dashed over to see him and his family in the chute.  

Alan was also finishing up, and I couldn't quite locate him.  I had my massive stroller, so it made moving around in the conjestion difficult.  I was able to situate myself on a corner where the kids could see from the stroller and I could see both the finish and the halfway point on the run.




I saw Becky at this point, and was able to run with her a bit.

I also saw Rhonda and did the same.  I wish Rhonda's second pic wasn't so blurry.  She had a walk interval that was scheduled for when I saw her, so I walked with her.


On the way to grab Rhonda, I saw my friend Dave from MI.  I went back and hung out with him for a while.  He made Chad and Dicron head signs.  Those were pretty fun, and everyone got a kick out of those. 


We hung out with Dave for a while.  It was going to be a while before anyone else we knew would either finish or come through the halfway point, so much so that I knew we wouldn't see anyone before the kids had to go to bed.  Keira needed a bathroom, so we went in search of one.  Then the kids complained they were hungry, so I bought them cowbells.  It actually worked too.  I think they were just tired and bored, especially because Keira complained about needing to use the bathroom while we were still in the bathroom.  She was just in complaining mode.  Since we had the bells, we headed back over where Dave was, and low and behold, we found Chad!  He had an amazing finish time of 10:07:06!




I finally had to pry myself away from the excitement and take the kids home.  It was so much fun.  Soren didn't want to leave, but Keira was exhausted and hungry, and we both had to get up early tomorrow.  I was super tempted to go back and see others finish, but by the time I got home, fed the kids, and got them in bed, everyone except Chad's dad had finished.  I tracked him online, and eventually went to sleep.  I woke up to see that he had completed it 16:23:50!  I am so happy for him and really wish I could have been there to see it in person.  Amy posted this to f/b last night.

It was amazing to see so many incredible athletes out there.  I really REALLY want to do this too.  I teared up on the bike course.  I know I would have cried at the finish watching Dicron and the final others crossing the line.  Darn being a responsible parent!  Ryan and I had a discussion last night, and I think St George 2016 is realistic and doable.  It is in May, and on a Saturday for 2012, and as long as it stays that way, I just might be ready because Soren will be in school.  The course looks amazing, and we will be able to make a wonderful vacation out of it.   It seems so far away, and I would love to do Louisville before we leave, so that may still be an option in 2015, but I am not sure.

Friday, August 26, 2011

7 Links and feeling popular!

I was nominated by Kim at (Just) Trying is for Little Girls for this post.  That was one thing that made me feel popular this week. I love being tagged for posts, especially since I don't have a standard format and just blog about whatever whenever.

The Goal:


To unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again.

THE RULES

1) Blogger is nominated to take part

2) Blogger publishes his/her 7 links on his/her blog – 1 link for each category.

3) Blogger nominates up to 5 more bloggers to take part.

4) These bloggers publish their 7 links and nominate another 5 more bloggers

5) And so it goes on!
Most Fun: Ironman 70.3 Muncie Recap  This was hard.  I did lots of fun races this year, and this one deserved mentioning.  It wasn't a top post, or as fun as the Tree Farm Relay, but overall it really was a fabulous day.
Most Popular:  Athritis- Raynaud's Phenomenon-  This one has the gross hand picture, and is one of my older posts, so it has been around longer to come up in Google image searches.  This was based on # of page views.
Most Painful- Live Like Andi 10 mile Race Recap and Being a Responsible Adult.  This race was not so good, not quite as bad as the Pterodactyl Tri, but it was hard to change my goals for the move that was really happening.  That was painful.
Most Helpful- BOB Stroller Canopy Recall- I felt this was most helpful because it was factual, and not really my opinion.  My stroller running tips are what worked for me, but may not work for you, and my overal diet can be all over the place, either very good or very bad, nothing constant, so I would not really advise anyone to do that.
Surprise Success- Racing for Recovery Half Ironman Race Recap-  This is one of my most viewed posts.  I guess I am not terribly surprised, as it was a very special accomplishment for me.  It also has lots of comments from everyone.  I guess my most popular post about Arthritis is really the suprise success, and this my most popular?
Most Proud-  I did it! Martian Marathon BOSTON QUALIFYING Race Recap-  Yeah, I think you all know how I feel about this.  I am forever a Boston Qualifier now after YEARS of trying.  I don't know if I will get registered, and have that coming up in less than a month now, but no one can ever take away the fact that I qualified!
I liked this, it was fun to look back at the older posts and I think it really captured a lot of my favorite posts and events of the year.  I am always nervous tagging people, it is hard to chose.
Finally, back to being popular.  The Ironman is this weekend in Louisville.  I can't believe how many people I know that are going to be in town for it!  I felt special last night because I got invited out to dinner with some of the top TIA and Team Mongo folks that were in town.  We had a great time at the Spagetti Factory.  I may not be able to train with them, but I can eat with them!   Most of them are not bloggers, but I have a huge list of people to wish good luck.  These are in no particular order, and I have left off last names because I don't know if any of them have any scary stalkers searching for them on the internet.  If you want their last names you can be a scary stalker and try to find them on the IM website.  Since they are in alphabetical order, not numeric, have fun with that, at least until tracking by number starts :) I am missing a few bib #s
Go Team Aquaphor, Triathlets in Action, Team Mongo, Louisville Landsharks, and everyone else competing.  Here's to safe race to everyone!
Mark #2024
Chad #824
Dicron #2779
Alan #2875
Susan #641
Becky #260
Bret # 2093
Rhonda # 459
Denise #462
Tara
Angie

I am hoping to watch a lof of the bike course on Sunday, before and after church, as well as try to hit the finish line.  There is a huge range of expected finish times, so I am not sure who I will see and who I won't.  I am hoping to meet up with Meredith, who is in town cheering on friends of hers too.  She is devoting the full day to spectating.  I can't quite do that, but hopefully can track her down. 

Also, the crash diet combined with the increase in running mileage has been rather successful.  Ryan has approved my outfit for the underpants run.  I did receive some hot pink test shoes in the mail yesterday from Reebok (which I cannot discuss publically), so that has made me want to rethink my outfit, but I am pretty sure it is going to be awesome. 

Since I haven't had a ton of pictures lately, here is a picture from last night's dinner downtown at the Spagetti Factory.  I was glad I wasn't the only one with kids.  Angie, who I just met, had a daughter Keira's age and a son older, so at least the two girls had things in common.  The picture isn't great, from left to right, Chad, Mark, Dicron (Chad's dad), Alan, Me, Soren, Ryan, Angie's Husband (totally spaced on his name!!!), Angie, Tara, and Amy.  I am not sure why Soren is the only child in the picture.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Oops! Wrong Blog!

Thank you for the wonderful comments on my last post.  However, I realized it this morning that I had posted my content for my family page here.  Ooops.  My bad.  I decided to leave it up here, and just duplicated the post (and gave it a post date of yesterday) where it was supposed to be, at:

www.melissaryanandkeira.blogspot.com

Getting back to this site, I have a lot of randomness.  I thought I didn't have much until I started writing a ton.  The main thing that I wanted to write about was my dishwasher.  I think all of my facebook friends are probably sick of hearing about it, but I figured I would do one final review of it and then be quiet. 

The one we bought is here.  It is the Samsung 24" Tall Tub Built in Dishwasher, Model: DMT300RFB/XAA

We bought it from Best Buy, but it was on sale for a much better deal than the link shows right now (although I do imagine it may change depending on when you read this). 

Background.  I hate all dishwashers.  I have not been able to find one that I love.  I am beginning to think my expectations are too high.  We always hand wash our pots and pans, and are used to a dishwasher in our condo that didn't clean anything unless it was rinsed almost entirely clean anyway.  We initially had a super tiny dishwasher that was so small it had to be run everyday for just two people, and as a result, you could put really dirty stuff in there because we always ran it before anything had the chance to dry on.  I had only wished it was a bigger dishwasher.  However, what I know now, is that maybe it only worked well because we nothing ever sat more than an hour or so.  After finally deciding we wanted a new dishwasher, partially because we were getting ready to sell our place (back in 2004ish), we replaced the stove and dishwasher.  That dishwasher was OK, especially if you used really expensive liquid detergent.  It didn't do well with powder.  You really had to rinse things, and it was LOUD!  I never knew how loud it was because we always ran it at night while we were asleep or while we were out.  We learned how loud it was more recently when my parents started sleeping on the couch we had in our kitchen (yes, we had a couch in our kitchen, it was a weird room) within the last 2 years.   It did a decent job.  I had sort of wished we hadn't gone so bare bones with it, but it never smelled bad or left big chunks of food in the bottom.  I think we had a band aid that fell in once and stayed in for a while, but it was nothing like the dishwasher that was in our new house.  I'll get to that in a minute.  It also had a big old knob on the front with a timer to set it to delay wash (which was why it always ran at night), and when you set it, it ran.  It occassionally would spread seasonings or oatmeal over the whole contents, though, if you put one really dirty dish in there.  It dried OK, but I liked to have it sit open for a bit before unloading to let the stuff finish drying.  Next up, we had our dishwasher in our temporary apartment.  This one cleaned just fine (we used super cheap detergent without any problems), but had the silverwear in the door, so it was always flopping everywhere.  It also had some fancy electronic panel that I never seemed to be able to get right.  I was always resetting it instead of turning it on.  When I got it to work, it worked great.  However, it was probably 50/50 for if I actually ran it when I wanted.  I would do it at night, and push the start button.  It didn't really have much feedback if you started it or not.  It was very quiet at the beginning, so I never knew if it really started, and sometimes pushed it again, which would actually turn it back off.  So, if I pushed on it an odd number of times, it ran, and even, it didn't.  I finally would just push it and wait several minutes to see what it did after getting tired of waking up with dirty dishes.  We didn't have a ton of dishes in the apartment, so if it didn't run, I had to hand wash at least some of the stuff to be able to get the kids and myself breakfast in the morning.  Annoying!  Finally, we have the dishwasher from the house.  Since I am somewhat a dishwasher hater, when I opened it up and looked inside, I instantly was not happy.  It had lime scale all over the whole thing, as well as smelled funky.  I thought I was just being overly picky, and put some brand new dishes in it that were straight out of the package in it.  I ran it, and it got food crud all over our new dishes.  SO NASTY!  I looked into cleaning it, but I wasn't doing it myself.  After closer inspection, there was rotten food remains gumming up the bottom of the dishwasher and the sprayer arms.  If there wasn't food blocking a sprayer, there was lime scale.  I did run it empty a few times on sanitize, but that didn't do much.  It was just plain foul, and when our microwave broke, I had the repairman give me his assessment of the dishwasher since he was already there.  He was sort of a jerk, but said it wouldn't be covered by any sort of warranty (I was wondering if the hard food disposal had broken perhaps (???), but this one didn't have one at all), and that it would cost hundreds to clean professionally, and might not even work.  Ugh.  That was the end of me using that dishwasher, and for about 2 weeks, we didn't have a dishwasher at all.  I have bad ezcema, and it came back all over my hands from washing dishes by hand everyday.  I couldn't wait for the dishwasher to arrive.  We had a small issue with getting it scheduled from Best Buy.  I am not sure if it was Best Buy's fault or their contractor, but we were initially told we would be called within 48 hours of our purchase to set up the installation.  That never happened.  We called them repeatedly and never got a call back.  Ryan went into the store and they gave us some money back for our trouble, and finally got it scheduled.  It was much different than when we got our washer and dryer from them.  We bought it in MI and had it delivered in KY.  We had the date set before we left the store.  Apparently this is because the drivers can install a washer/dryer, but not a dishwasher.  That explained the difference in experiences.  Anyway, the guys that installed the dishwasher were the best contractors we had in the house since we got there.  They were polite, didn't damage anything, and were non-smokers, so they didn't reek like several of the other people we had in the house.  They did need to borrow an old towel, but whatever.  We have tons of those, and towels were one of the first things unpacked after the bedding, so we knew where they were.

We finally got the dishwasher up and running.  I was thrilled to just have a dishwasher.  I am actually glad I was without a dishwasher for so long because it made me appreciate this one even more.  The main plus with it is that it has a hard food disposal built in that I don't need to clean out.  Yeah!  No cleaning gunk out of the bottom of a dishwasher.  I am not thrilled with the rack.  I wasn't at the store when I saw it, but we bought it anyway because it had the hard food disposal.  The top rack is stair stepped, so it is deeper over the silverwear basket.  I don't like this because we would put tall plastic spatulas and serving spoons in our dishwasher basket, and we can't now because they are too tall.  However, we do have a whole row where we can wash 20oz podium bottles.  In our dishwasher at the condo, we could only fit 2 at a time due to the prongs and the height combined.  However, we only have 3 that can go in the dishwasher anyway, so we managed just fine.  The prongs on the bottom rack are in 3 pairs, and don't line up all the way across.  This makes it hard to put in more than one or two baking racks or large cutting boards at a time.  They are also really close together on the bottom, so only 1 pyrex baking dish fits at a time unless it is really leaned and taking up a lot of room.  The top rack has the prongs really far apart for the rows, but close together in each row.  It makes it hard to fit our bowls, and our glasses are skinnier than the rows, so they tend to fall down because they fit between the prongs, not over them.  I feel like we have to run it about every day and a half, instead of every 2 days like our old one at the condo, just because I don't feel like we can pack it as full.  It does clean pretty well.  Perhaps this is because we can't pack it as full as the old one.  It dries about as well as the old one, so I do like to let it air dry a bit before unloading.    We have really hard water here, so we are using a rinse aid.  I had never used it before, so I am not 100% sure how it works.  We might be using too much, I am not sure.  Our new glasses seem very nice and clean, but our older ones seem a big foggy.  I don't know if this is because they have more residue in general from being old or what.  The thinner glasses seem worse than the thicker ones.  I am not sure if this is from the hard water or the rinse aid. 

The verdict:  This dishwasher is OK.  It is acceptable.  It is a million times better than the funky dishwasher that made things dirtier that was left in the house when we moved it.  I like that is has postive feedback when you turn it on.  I am not sure if it has a delay wash or not.  It is quiet, so it doesn't really matter though.

Sorry for the super boring post.  Other than the dishwasher, I haven't been up to much.  I miss my MI friends, and am in the process of making new friends.  I finally met the wife of my neighbor who qualified for 70.3 worlds.  I am a bit bummed that she isn't as hardcore as her husband, but she is super nice so that is great.  They have 4 children, and their youngest is Soren's age.  I finally know where their house is.  We might walk down there this afternoon after I get my butt off the floor and to the gym.  I am having a good hair day and procrastinating my swim.  I better do it soon, because we are out of bread and I don't want to be starving by the time I get to the store.  I haven't been involved enough yet with the Landsharks to know the right group of ladies.  So far, I am either a lot faster or a lot slower than everyone I have met.  I have not yet found that in between group, the "riff-raff of the elite", as I felt I was.  I hung out with a lot of the area's best in MI, but I wasn't quite good as them.  I would do a ride or run and could hang for their slow pace and really push myself at my hard pace to keep up.  I really improved this way.  I haven't tried to ride with Ryan's groups yet, and I don't know the area here enough if I were to get dropped.  Ryan is still trying to find a long fast ride too for him.The no drop rides I have been doing are more of a social event for me.  I enjoy them, but I don't think I will get better from doing them.  I miss my TIA workouts where I was a middle of the pack rider and I could hang on the run. 

Finally, I am not sure what to wear for my underpants run.  Our church has been beating modesty into the children's brains the past 2 weeks that I have been serving as a Primary teacher.  Ryan has said he officially doesn't care if I go or what I wear, but his availability is unsure.  I may need to find a neighbor to watch the kids for a couple hours.  I don't think I want to wear real underwear, but more of either a bathing suit or sports bra. I think I threw out the suit that would be the best.  Cristina suggested Wonder Woman underoos, but when I checked online, they were pretty pricey ($35) for something to wear for a silly race.  I saw some cute patagonia boy short underwear, but they were expensive too.  At least they would be more useful than underoos in the grand scheme of things, but Ryan said I wasn't allowed to buy anything new for this. Any suggestions?

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Louisville Temple Trip(s)


This week was mostly spent getting into the routine of things.  This was Keira's first full week of school, which meant we were pretty tired by the end of the week.  We had an event with our Relief Society at the Louisville Temple, as well as a stake Primary activity.  It is wonderful to be so close to the temple.  We have still been spending time here and there working on home projects.  They are getting smaller and cheaper, thankfully, but we still have a few things we need to work on.

On Monday, we got Keira ready for school, and then headed to the gym for a long pool swim, and then some errands.  Soren really enjoys getting Keira from the bus.  He is pretty is disappointed some mornings when he wakes up and she is already gone. 




I did a group ride with the ladies of VO2 in the evening.

On Tuesday, while Keira was at school, Soren and I went to the gym and then to storytime at the mall. 




After the mall, we went to Wendell Moore Park/Oldham County Recreation center so that I could sign up for a local mini-tri.  It is a shorter than normal sprint, and the same weekend as an Olympic distance tri that is local, as well as a big Rev 3 race at Cedar Point, so I am guessing that there will be more than the fair share of beginners.  It also has a pool swim, so that will be new to me.  Soren really enjoyed the park that was there, and he actually asked if he could have his birthday there because there was a pavillion, similar to the Novi Sports Park.




When we got back, I got to work on lining up tomorrow's day, including running out to the store to grab some last minute ingredients for some apple muffins.

On Wednesday, Soren and I had a big day while Keira was at school. 

Soren and I went for a 6 mile stroller run with our neighbors, Jessica and Shawn.  Jessica lives across the street and Shawn lives on the next court.  We ran across the railroad tracks to Old La Grange road and back.  Soren was very excited about seeing a train.  It was very loud!  Once we got back from the run, I got cleaned up and then took Soren over to Lisa's house.  She is a member of the RS presidency, and had offered to watch children at her home so that sisters could attend a temple session prior to a "back to school" brunch.  I went over to the Louisville Temple for an endowment session.  It is minutes from our home!  Soren had a great time at Lisa's, and was very excited that she has a horse and a Lightning McQueen cart.  Then, I followed Lisa over to the brunch.  I brought apple cupcakes/muffins with a brown sugar cream cheese frosting from the Martha Stuart cupcake book.  They turned out great, and went over really well, especially once I told people that they were iced "muffins" instead of an iced cupcake, which they looked like, but they had a nice apple spice taste.  We will make these again for sure!   I got home with a little time to spare before getting Keira.  It was great to be able to chat and meet more people in our ward.


That evening, Ryan got Keira's curtains put up in her room.  The kids were pretty excited about them.



On Thursday, we headed out of the house fairly early to go to the county clerk's office in La Grange, to get a new driver's license.   It was fairly uneventful for me, as I had all the paperwork I needed, which was a lot of stuff.  Soren was super excited to be in La Grange.  It has a cute downtown historic area similar to South Lyon.  It didn't quite feel like Northville since it was smaller, but the train went through the town.  Soren was thrilled for all the train signals and signs.  One didn't go through while we were there, but I am sure we will be back (actually, we have to go back because I couldn't get a plate today without KY insurance) to check it out more.






I did a long treadmill run indoors followed by some abs once we finished up there.  Ryan headed home early to get his license, but wasn't able to, due to not having his orginal SS card.  That was annoying, so we needed to work on getting one sent.

On Friday, I just didn't really feel like heading to the gym, and Soren didn't either.  We went over to the Summit because we had been having issues with a curtain rod for Soren's room.  There was a really inexpensive rod up there, and when we took it down, we needed a rod with hardware large enough to cover it up.  After our 3rd try, we finally got a rod that worked.  We spent a little time walking around there too, and went to a fun outdoor store called Quest.   



Once Ryan got home, we went back to the Summit to look at the store as well as wall hangings for the kitchen.  We had a low key evening at home after that.

Saturday was a typical busy Saturday.  Ryan got up early and went out for a ride.  While he was riding, I took Keira and Soren over to the stake Primary activity.  It was at the meetinghouse next to the Louisville Temple.  Since my new calling is a Primary teacher, I was asked to stay for it.  There was a huge turn out, and the children made time capsules to be opened on the day they enter the temple for the first time.  They wrote a letter to themselves (which I helped with), and then had a letter either from a parent or the Primary.  They had 3 stations, and Soren made it through 2 before he was ready for me to just hang out with him, so I swapped places with someone with his group to stay with him.  Both Keira and Soren were excited for the activity, and they each got a block with a picture of the temple on it to display at home, as well as a sack snack.  We took a few pictures at the temple before we left, but it was really bright.




I went on a super hot and hilly run once I got back.  After I got cleaned up, we headed over to the Summit again for dinner at 5 Guys, and then over to VO2 to look at bike storage solutions.  We ended up getting some bike stands for the garage from REI online. We also got some movies on Blu Ray for our new player.  Ryan and I watched Limitless once the kids were in bed.

On Sunday, we had a restful morning.  Ryan had to go in to work for a few hours, and I made the kids chocolate mint pancakes from a mix I found on clearance.  They were pretty filling.  Soren didn't like them, but Keira did.  We went to church and I taught my Primary class.  I was glad that I had the help I did.  We came home and watched "The Fox and the Hound", which is out of the vault and one of Ryan's favorites as a child.   Soren is still big on wearing a tie to church.



Up for next week, Keira is focusing on colors, and has a specific color to wear to school each day for the next two weeks.  The Ironman is next week.  I am not competing in it, but hope to check out the finish.  I have some Aquaphor teammates as well as TIA friends coming to compete.