Sweet Martha Cookies, Milk and a Simpsons poster...look
who had a good day



Well Thursday marked our 9th Anniversary. We made it this far! Yay!  We celebrated by camping with Danielle and Bradley on Wednesday night. DJ, Abbie and Ethan joined us for s’mores. It was a great night for fire and camping. The weather was perfect, it didn’t rain and it wasn’t too cold or too hot.  We spent our day at the Minnesota State Fair.  It was such a nice day.  We got to see things we don’t normally see at the Fair like the Parade and Exhibits at the DNR building.  We saw a demonstration of hawks that are being rehabilitated at the rapture center.  They were so fast to swoop up their prey.  It was very cool.  We had the usually favorites like cheese curds, corn on the cob, deep fat fried Milky Way and Sweet Martha Cookies and milk.  It was such a great day.  We spent over 6 hours at the fair.

Also this past week…
On Wednesday, before the camping, I worked at Ameriprise’s Habitat for Humanity build.  I got to paint trim all day.  I’m such a disaster when it comes to painting.  I was covered in white paint. But I wasn’t at work so I guess that was a good thing.

Friday wasn’t very exciting.  Eric had his company picnic in the afternoon so I got to ditch work at 3pm because he picked me after the picnic which got done early.  I also went for a run and that was about it.

Saturday was a dismal day. It was raining most of the day.  We went to Marine on St. Croix for Andrew and Ann Kirn’s open house.  They bought Andrew’s mom’s house and did some updates. It was amazing. What a beautiful house and the yard…wow it was awesome. I’m so jealous…but not jealous about the commute.  It took us over an hour to get there from our house. I also went for a run in the evening.  3.25 miles.

Sunday we bummed around Eden Prairie Mall and in the evening Greg, Celeste, and Evelyn came over to visit.  After that I went for another run.  Yep I ran 3 days in a row.  I did 2 miles but it was the fastest 2 mile ever outside for me so I was happy. 

Last night we had another Twins game.  It was a pitchers’ duel which I really appreciate because the game only lasted 2 hours and 10 minutes.  I was home by 10:30 and in bed by 11.   Of course no run yesterday.

Speaking of running…
I’m not sure how much running I will be getting in this week.  It is supposed to be really hot all week and I don’t do well when it comes to running in heat.  I’m going to try tonight.  I’m also going to try something new tonight…the Jeff Galloway Method.  Basically you run for a set amount of time and then walk a minute.  Apparently it makes you run longer and faster and you feel better at the end.  People swear by it.  But then there are others that say that it really isn’t running then.  I’m not sure about this but I’ll give it a try.  Actually there might be some truth to it because when I was doing this at the Community Center and my mile pace was much faster.  Plus if it is going to be hot it might be good for me to walk a minute to “cool off.” 

Well I've been running off and on since January 26, 2012.  Some months I run a lot (February, March and May). Some months I've run once (June). So far this month I have 8 runs for 19.90 miles. I had my longest one today at 3.6 miles.  I felt good for the most part.  I want to beat my May totals.  My longest run so far has been 5 miles. I have ran 4 miles a few times. But generally I stick around 2-3 miles.

I'm slow...very SSSLLLOOWWW.  My fastest pace is inside on the track.  Eric thinks I'm weird because he said that everybody runs faster outside. I think part of the reason why I run faster inside is I have desired pace per lap and so I run faster to make sure I make my goal.  When I'm outside, I don't have a consistent "lap" so I'm just doing it for...well...fun I guess. (GASP!)  I like to take in the scenery and as a result I am slower. 

Yesterday I got a new toy. My "reward" for helping Eric type his paper for Cluster 2 was the Nike+ GPS SportsWatch. I'm in love with it!  It motivates me to keep running and run faster.  It shows my current pace and when it gets to slow I kick my butt into gear.  After each run I plug my watch into the computer and download my run. It is so cool because it shows a map of my run with the distance, pace and elevation.  And it is so much more accurate then my stupid iPod Nano (which I broke the screen recently)

Here are my runs by month.

So I’ve viewed many other people’s photos on Instagram but I never signed up for it and didn’t have the app on my phone.  Instagram, for those of you who don’t know what this wonderful thing is, is a free photo-sharing program that allows users to take a photo, apply a cool digital filter to it and then share it on Facebook, Twitter and just about every other social networking website. It was launched in October 2010 but was only accessible to Apple stuff until April of this year. And how someone who loves to take photos like me has lived this long without is beyond me.  Well that changed today, I am now officially an Instragram user and I couldn’t be happier.

I am in love with this new app. I even had to take a little walk to the Stone Arch Bridge to snap a few shots and apply a retro filter so it looks way cool.  I didn’t really get much exercise on my walk as I wanted to snap photos of everything downtown.  There is so many cool things to see in Downtown Minneapolis. 

I applied it to the picture I took of Mom at the Fall Festival. I think it looks very cool.

So watch out World, I discovered Instagram and I’m in love.  You will see many more pictures from me.  I’m so excited! :-)

We had a really fun weekend.  We started Saturday by driving down scenic WI Hwy. 35 along the Mississippi River.  I forgot how beautiful the drive is. You can tell the Mississippi is low because of the sand bars. It is kind of sad. We also saw some crops that looked horrible with the drought. We stopped by George's Lounge to meet Mom, Mike, Nancy and Dylan and had pizza for lunch. We headed over to Winona Bowl for the Bowling Tournament thing. It was fun.  Even Mom bowled!  We played 9 pin strike which means if you get 9 pins on the first throw it is a strike. I got a few of those.  We played poker too where you throw a dollar in and when you get a strike you get 2 cards and when you get a spare you get 1 card. At the end of the ten frames you look at your cards and whoever has the best hand wins the pot.  Eric won games one and three and I won game two so we got $15. My scores were horrible, thank God for handicap! After we finished bowling 3 games we all met over at George's for dinner and learn who we were paired with and the winners.  Mom and I were paired with really good bowlers so we tied for 3rd.  We got $7.50.  Woo hoo! Mom won for lowest game for women and Mike won lowest game for men. It was so much fun!

Yesterday was the Fall Festival at Sts. Peter and Paul Church. Yes, I know August is really "summer" but that doesn't matter, the Fall Festival is always in August.  We changed our usually routine.  We still delivered the pies and cakes in the morning. But we didn't go to the Polka Mass Saturday night and we didn't do the take-out meals. Instead we got Chicken and JoJos from East End Bar. The increased the price of the meal to $10...it was $8.50 last year!!!  We went to Whitehall for 9:15 Mass and then we up to the Festival to play Roll Out the Barrel. I actually won!  I got a metal media stand? and some canvas wall hanging.  We went into the school to try for a cake in the sucker pull.  This year it only cost us $15 for the cake.  We played Bingo in the afternoon.  Mom was the only one in our group to get a Bingo.  We stayed for the Polka music in the evening and didn't get home until after 8pm.  It was a long day. I'm so glad we decided to spend the night and take today off from work.  We got to sleep in.  It was so nice.

Can we say gambling problem?

The problem with the Olympics is that the coverage goes until 11pm so I’m up really late every night but 6am always comes at the same time…too early!  The USA is currently in the lead over China and that makes Eric very happy. Every day I get in the car after work and he has the latest update on medals.  When China was leading he kept saying wait until track and field, they can’t beat us.  Well that seems to hold true so far.  Our Fab 5 gymnastic team didn’t do too hot in the individual events.  Aly got gold on floor and bronze on beam.  Gabby, the individual all-around gold medal winner, finished last in beam and the parallel bars.  I think she got lucky in the all-around.  Track and Field isn’t nearly as interesting as swimming but oh well. As I mentioned before, the Olympics pretty much consume my life right now.  I listen at work, I watch at home, I even listen to it in the car on the Olympic station on Sirius.

LOL! Eric just informed me we are leading in all medal categories. He really loves the USA.

On Monday we started the 100 mile challenge at work.  Basically we have to wear a pedometer walk or run  100 miles by Labor Day. The first day I got about 7 miles and 8 miles the next.  Yesterday I was a slacker and only did 4 miles. I went for a run on Monday, it wasn't too bad. My toe hurt a little.  Tuesday I only went for a walk and my toe actually hurt more. Well I'm only at 4 miles today so I need to get outside for a walk.                                                             

I really love the Olympics, the wins, the losses, the come from behind victories, the unfortunate falls that ends Olympic dreams.  It is such real life drama.  You got the legends that are going to retire like Michael Phelps.  You got the up-and-coming stars like 17 year old Missy Franklin with 5 medals.  You got the 71 year old Japanese man who still is competing in Equestrian.  There is the Judo woman who overcame being sexually assaulted by her former coach to win the first ever USA Gold in Judo. And let us not forget the double amputee runner from South Africa! Of course you have the controversy…i.e. the Chinese swimmer that managed to swim 5 seconds faster than she had ever done before (unheard of in sprint swimming).   We are watching the 1500 meter (metric mile) semi-final where the Canadian just fell. His Olympics just ended.  It is such great TV.  Reality TV as it is meant to be.

I also love the stories of previous Olympians like Olga Korbut, the Soviet Union gymnast that mesmerized the world in the 1972 and melt the hearts of every one including President Nixon.  Or the Magnificent Seven from 1996 Olympics where Kerri Strug landed a second vault after spraining her ankle on the first vault and ended up tearing a few tendons in the process.  There are so many stories and not all are about gymnastics but those are the two that I remember off hand.

I’m glad that NBC has all these events streaming online so I can listen to it during the day. I know shame on me, “watching” TV at work.  But not really, I’ve been really busy this week so I really only listen…unless there is some amazing happening that I need to see.    

This past week has been uneventful for the most part.  Tuesday we saw the Twins lose to the White Sox.  Liriano, the former Twin was pitching. Wednesday we met Greg, Celeste and Evelyn for dinner since it was Celeste’s birthday.  That was the most exciting thing about this week besides the Olympics.

Ok one more thing about the Olympics.  So Ankie Spitzer, one of the widows of the 1972 Israeli Olympic team that were kept hostage and ultimately murdered, wanted a moment of silence to remember those that lost their lives 40 years ago. She has the support of most countries but the IOC president, Rogue said, “There are now more than 40 Arab delegations. It’s a difficult decision, but my hands are tied.”  Spitzer responded, “Your hands are tied? No. My husband and his teammates’ hands were tied. So were there feet. To the furniture. Then they came home in coffins.”