Today was a big day! Registration officially opened for the Anchorage Marathon/Half Marathon in June 2026, and I didn’t waste a second. I signed up, booked amazingly cheap $400 flights on Sun Country, and snagged an Airbnb for our Alaskan adventure next year. It’s happening!

Alaska will be my 42nd state in this running journey, and the lineup leading up to it is looking pretty exciting:

• 🏁 State #38: Indianapolis — coming up next weekend!
• ☀️ State #39: West Palm Beach, FL — locked in for December.
• 🏙️ State #40: St. Louis, Missouri — planned for April 2025.
• 🌸 State #41: South Carolina — booked for May 2026.

We’re planning to rent a car and drive down to explore the wild side of Alaska, bears, glaciers, and all the jaw-dropping scenery we can soak in. It’s going to be epic.

And yes, I know it’s Halloween… but this wasn’t a trick. Just a treat I gave myself, the kind that comes with race medals, travel memories, and a whole lot of state-counting joy.

This past weekend, we laced up once again for one of our favorite fall traditions, the Minneapolis Halloween 5K! It’s usually one of my best races of the year, and while I didn’t run much this time around, I still managed to beat nearly 300 runners out of almost 1,400 participants. Not bad for a casual cruise!

The weather was classic late-October: crisp and cool. Eric wore shorts...a bold move that quickly turned chilly. But we scored a win before the race even started by discovering a warm indoor bathroom and a comfy chair to relax inside while we waited. Mental note: definitely remembering that for future races.

The race itself was full of festive energy. While we didn’t dress up, plenty of runners did and the costumes were adorable. My favorite? A group of six girls running together as a caterpillar. It was ridiculously cute.

After crossing the finish line, we celebrated the best way we know how: bagels and a well-earned nap. Because nothing says “successful race day” like carbs and cozy blankets. And of course, we couldn’t leave Reba out of the fun — she got to wear the race medal and looked absolutely regal (and slightly confused). Already looking forward to next year’s spooky sprint!

 

This past weekend was amazing! We pulled off an epic surprise 40th birthday celebration for Eric’s brother, Byron and it all went down in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The setup? Byron thought he was just showing up for the Newton Hills Trail Race. What he didn’t know was that a whole crew of family members had secretly made their way from Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and even Arizona to cheer him on and celebrate in style. He wasn't surprised to see Eric and I since we had done the race before. But the look on his face when he saw everyone? Pure gold.

The weather was absolutely perfect sunny skies, crisp air, and the kind of fall vibes that make you want to stay outside all day. After the race, we gathered for food, laughs, and birthday fun. 

Turning 40 never looked so good. Happy birthday, Byron!

 

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly seven weeks since my eyes were zapped. Time has flown! 

Overall, my vision is pretty solid most of the time. Mornings are still a bit blurry—likely due to dryness—but things usually clear up as the day goes on. For example, it’s fuzzy when I hop on the bus, but by the time I get to work, I’m functioning just fine.The biggest surprise? My left eye is outperforming my right—which is wild because my right eye was doing great early on. In fact, it seems like my right eye has regressed a bit. How does that even happen?

 

On the morning of my 1-month post-op appointment (technically week 5), I noticed street signs looked blurry during my drive. I figured it was just a slow start to the day and loaded up on rewetting drops, hoping for improvement. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. At the appointment, they found significant ghosting/double vision in my right eye—something I hadn’t experienced since the first few days post-surgery. Meanwhile, my left eye was shining at 20/20. The doctor wasn’t sure what caused the sudden change but suspected it might be due to lack of sleep. I’d had bronchitis earlier that week and was on steroids, which definitely messed with my sleep. Thankfully, everything else looked good, and I got the green light to start weaning off the steroid drops. 🙌 Fingers crossed that helps my right eye bounce back.

 

On the bright side, I’ve been able to reduce the zoom on my computer back to 125%, and I’m working comfortably again. My phone is also back to normal—though I occasionally bump up the text size and bold it, I no longer need the absurdly large fonts.

 

A couple of weekends ago, we went on a trip, and it was amazing not having to pack glasses, backup contacts, or solution. Just grab the drops and go. So freeing!

 

I still catch myself thinking, “I need to take out my contacts,” every night. Old habits die hard. Eric’s had to remind me a few times—“You don’t wear contacts anymore!” 😂

 

Despite my complaints about the right eye, it’s actually better for close-up vision, so maybe that’s my trade-off now.

All in all, I’m really happy I had the surgery. It’s been a journey, but I’m grateful for the progress and excited for what’s ahead.

 

On September 19th, on our way to Wisconsin, a car ran a stop sign and T-boned us near Goodhue, MN. We were going 55 mph. Eric put the car in the ditch. We didn't flip, we didn't spin, we just stopped. All the air bags deployed and we ended up with just bruises, burns and lacerations. But we walked away...alive. The Murano is totaled. I'm so sad and mourning the loss of my most favorite car I ever owned. 

We are very grateful that Linda could come immediately to pick us up. We were half way between home and Mike and Linda's house so we told her to just take us to their house and continue our weekend that we had planned. 

After a week of being down a car, we bought a 2026 Nissan Rogue to replace the Murano. It is a very pretty blue. I told Eric I can't have another red car right now because of PTSD. The new Muranos are not as cool as my old red potato baby. 

Day 13 - First day back in the office. Thankfully I don't have light sensitivity as our office is very bright with lots of windows. However my vision is so blurry again. ARGH!  Trying to work in the office is very frustrating. My vision is crap. I bought a pair of +1.25 reading glasses so I can see my work emails. But I try not to use them because I'm not sure if that will screw up my recovery. I'm constantly using my drops. And for about 30 seconds after I put them in, I have amazing vision. If my vision ends up like that all the time, I will be happy. I'm just not there yet.

I went for my first walk/run since surgery and it went well. I have starburst/halos but that isn't anything new, I had them before surgery. The weird thing is they aren't rainbow anymore. I miss the rainbow halos. I'm still not technically cleared to run but I'm so slow...

Day 14 - I had perfect vision at 2:45 am. I was happy!  But I fell back to sleep and woke up in the same spot I was yesterday. WHY??   Don't get me wrong, my vision is WAY better than it was before surgery. I can see the TV very well and can function for the most part but looking at my work emails is such a struggle. I know this is a long recovery but... I'M IMPATIENT!

As of right now, my right eye is very good and my left eye is SO bad. I've been having many issues with my left eye so I'm not surprise. It is common for one eye to be lagging behind. But this is so far behind that I end up closing it a lot. 

Minnesota State Fair

Eric, DJ and I played hooky on Monday to attend the Minnesota State fair also known as the Great Minnesota get together. 

We started the day early by hopping on a standing-room only bus from the Shakopee transit station. Surprisingly it only took us about 35 minutes to get to the fairgrounds. We got to the fair just before 10am and it was already busy!

Our first stop was Sweet Martha’s cookies and we walked a couple blocks over to the all you can drink milk stand for a great breakfast to start our day.

We ventured across the street to the miracle of birth barn, where we saw baby calves and sheep, and chickens and piggies. They’re also so cute.

After that, we went into the arena where we saw dogs hurting sheep it was pretty cool to see.

We stopped at the pork chop stand so Eric could get his annual pork chop on a stick before we headed to see the 34th infantry Red Bull band playing at the bandshell formerly known as Leinie’s Lodge.

We wandered through the creative arts building to see amazing quilts in art crafts, and went into the education building where we spun the wheels a mini games to win fabulous “free” prizes. We also stopped at the Eco center where we learned about shingles that are now made out of solar panels as well as reuse renew, blah blah blah.

One of our annual stops is to the John Deere made ice cream because the blue ribbon book has a coupon for it this year we got strawberry and as usual, it’s delicious.

Next, it was a stop at the Hamline diner, which has been at the state fair since the 1890s Eric always gets the chicken dinner which was not as good as usual but still pretty good.

We stopped at the University of Minnesota building to see the ax that we won when we beat the badgers last year. Go gophers.

The main reason we went to the fair on Monday is so we can get signatures from some of our favorite Minnesota loon players. Today was Dayne  St Clair and Wil Trapp. Alec loves St Clair, our goalkeeper, so we bought a pair of goalie gloves the night before and had him sign them. He even personalized it with Alec’s name!

Next step was the Horticulture building where saw beautiful flower bouquets, Christmas tree trees and very large vegetables. This year‘s largest pumpkin weighed 1511 pounds!

DJ and Eric got ice cream at the Dairy booth and we saw the butter sculptures of the Princess K of the Milky Way princesses.

We looked at all the Minnesota fish at the DNR pond and I finally got my corn on the cob. 

The last stop of our day was over to Lulu‘s where I got deep fried ranch dressing. It wasn’t as good as last year’s. I don’t think I’ll get it again.

Overall, it was a great day at the fair. The weather was beautiful. It never really got above 72°. It was sunny and comfortable. Per usual, we were there on a record-breaking day. Over 145,000 people visited making it largest first Monday attendance.