Happy Anniversary Kyle!

Happy third anniversary to my favorite person on the planet. I love you to the full moon and back. You are the tether that helps keep me grounded on this planet, without you I'd surely float away. You love me for me, good or bad. And you're just my favorite. Love you.

Shower Steak

A week and a half ago I came home from a run and Kyle was sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner. A grilled steak and some corn on the cob. We rarely eat together, because he's a typical midwest kind of guy who loves his meat and potatoes. I rarely eat meat, and like to eat healthier or else gorge on pizza or nachos. It's called balance, I think.

My run was terrible, and I was exhausted after a decent build up in mileage, a cruddy solo run, and a long day of work. Kyle asked if I wanted a bite of steak. To be nice I said sure. Despite me not liking meat, he constantly wants me to try some dead animal that he's killed or purchased to be killed, and cooked to see if he'll get my approval. It's weird, but it's his thing. Whatever.

Guys. This was the most delicious bite of food I've eaten in a long time.

He asked if I wanted another bite and was shocked when I said I did.

I told him I desperately needed to shower, because I was about 42 minutes away from falling asleep for the night, and he asked if I wanted him to save me some of the steak. Sure.

I got in the shower, and a few minutes later I heard some shuffling around in the hallway. Surely it was just Ollie coming to sit by the shower and keep me company, per usual. Nope. It was Kyle. With a forkful of steak. He continued to travel up and down the stairs one bite of steak at a time. I ate more steak in that shower than I have in my entire life, cumulatively.

The last piece he brought me was so bloody I thought for sure I'd have to spit it out. Nope. It was the most delicious bite of all. What in the world?!?

I have hated meat as long as I can remember. I've always been able to taste the blood in meat and it just grosses me out. I also get pretty grossed out by the texture of most meat. But apparently when I'm running #allthemiles, my body needs some extra animal protein. I'm guessing that's why the extra bloody piece tasted so good.

I see your shower beer, and I raise you a shower steak.

Cheers.

Happy Birthday Kyle!

Happy birthday to my best friend and husband, Kyle. You are the best pug dad an Ollie Girl could ask for. You are a pretty stellar fisher person, and you match my weirdness to a T. Thank you for being you, and for loving me the way you do.

Premonitions While Running

The other day while wrapping up a super challenging tempo run in dramatically dropping temperatures, I started to get really cold. I had gone from doing back to back tempo portions, and while doing my cool down miles the temps were dropping, the winds were picking up, and since I wasn't working as hard as I was during the tempo portions, I was getting chilly. Plus, I misrouted my run and accidentally tacked on an extra half mile to the end of it.

With about a third of a mile remaining in the run, I had a weird panicky thought about how bad it would be if Kyle came home, let out the dog, locked the door behind him and left to go work on a boat. I had left the front door unlocked, because we live in a safe neighborhood. [Please note: I will not be leaving my door unlocked ever again so I don't even worry or think about trying to get in.]

The last five minutes of the run my arms were experiencing their cold discomfort that is still leftover from the New Years Day super cold run. I came up to my front door, went to turn the handle, only to find the door locked. I rang the doorbell and knocked, assuming Kyle was just inside. And then didn't hear any movement. Uh....

Instantly I started to panic. Toni has a spare key, but she lives two miles from me, and I've already ran 8.5 miles, and am on the verge of freezing. I also don't know if Toni is even home, but at least I know her garage code so I could go inside her house if absolutely necessary. Oh, did I mention that my phone died with 2 miles remaining on the run because it was so cold out? Because yes, that also happened.

During this panic I heard the garage door, and I turn to see Kyle backing out of the driveway. I set a PR in sprinting down my driveway, waving my hands in the air wildly (thank goodness I wear the brightest neon clothes in the world) until I got his attention. He apparently had no clue that I was running, and if I had made it home a minute or two later I would've been screwed. Uff da.

Instead of flowers or dinner for Valentine's Day, I asked for a keypad garage door opener. Operation: don't accidentally kill your wife via frostbite.

New Years Eve Celebration

Early in December, one of my favorite local wineries posted an event on Facebook for a New Years Eve celebration called "but first... Champagne". Excuse me, where do I sign up?? It took some convincing to get Kyle on board, but it happened! He didn't want to enjoy any of the champagne (and technically it's not since the grapes are made here, but close enough, sparkling wine doesn't sound as fun, right?) but I made the executive decision to get him the champagne ticket as well because if he didn't like it I could think of someone who would drink it for him. ME.

There were six sparkling wines/champagnes that they paired with individual tastings. Roughly at the top of every half hour a new drink was poured and more food served.

Somewhere along the way, Kyle and I learned to take a picture with his head a ways away from the camera and mine closer so it doesn't look like his head is 3x larger than mine (it is). Photo win!

The decor in the winery for the event is probably what it'll look like in heaven: chandeliers, glittery signs and cutouts, all the sparkle.

The winery owner also demonstrated his sabering skills throughout the night. At one point a couple of guests tried their hand at it, and I actually thought they were going to leave in an ambulance with a thumb on ice. Don't drink and saber you guys.

There's some blueberry cheese on this plate below and if you haven't had any before, what are you waiting for?! My new favorite thing.

Kyle and I purchased two bottles of the champagne at the end of the evening and this is one of them. It tasted like summer in a flute. 

This is the second one we purchased. yum yum.

Fun night with a fun guy. And the best part is that it went from 4-8pm, we counted down to the new year in France as well as Ireland, and I very well could've gone to bed when it was all said and done, but instead I was a trooper and we went out to one of Kyle's friends after. When I say I was a trooper, I mean, I drank more Champagne and we were still in bed by 11:30pm. Whatever, we're adults. We can do what we want. 

Labor Day Weekend

Friday night after work, Ollie, Kyle and I packed up and headed north to Kyle's parents' cabin for the night. We got there, had an awesome dinner and then spent some time by the camp fire, before I was zonking out by the fire. I attempted to go to bed, but a) I had forgotten my earplugs and everyone snores and b) Ollie was being super weird, wouldn't sleep, was pacing in the bed, and then eventually got sick. So I got zero sleep.

After an awesome breakfast, we went out on the water for a nice long pontoon ride. Despite Ollie's RBF, she really loves boat rides. I think she was also exhausted from the evening of not sleeping. It got a little toasty toward the end of the boat ride, so I was attempting to make her a shaded tent out of my running shirt.

I also thought she'd enjoy having a sleep mask of her own to block out the sun.

Saturday afternoon we headed further north to go up to our camper. There was a campsite potluck dinner, so I got to meet a bunch of our "neighbors" and eat a lot of delicious food (most of which was deep fat fried or included mayo as a major recipe component).

Sunday morning I bailed on my long run and Kyle and I went out fishing. It was the most perfect day to be on the water. Warm but not hot, a nice breeze, no bugs. I was in heaven. Even if the fish weren't biting. At all.

Eventually we caught a couple but nothing big enough to keep. Monday the winds were atrocious so we packed up early to head home. It was an awesome weekend. Why isn't every weekend three days long??

Fourth of July Weekend

I had to work on the 5th of July so as soon as I was off work on Thursday, Kyle and I loaded up our provisions and pug and headed up to the camper. 

Provisions = mix your own 6 pack. Obvs.

Ollie was thrilled to be going on an adventure.

And then she wanted to take a turn at driving. She has a hard time looking where she's supposed to go while driving so her dad is trying to give her pointers.

As soon as we arrived we packed up and were out in the boat. The sky was still all crazy because of the fires in Canada.

My view in the boat. <3

Ollie making sure her dad is catching something (spoiler: we didn't)

And then when the sun went down we got to fish with light up bobbers. How did I not know that's a thing?!? So fun. Except when your eyes suck like mine it's hard to even tell when you have a bite.

Look! There's my tiny little glowy bobber!

On the way home from fishing, I started to feel miserable. I had a monster headache and I couldn't breathe. I realized later that I was having some major allergy issues from all the smoke. Thanks Canada!

I was able to rally a bit in the morning after some heavy decongestant dosage. But the fish weren't interested.

Ollie was thrilled to be the co-pilot on the boat.

Patriotic hair ribbon FTW.

And then I made her a little tent to hang out in to keep her out of the sun.

And then around lunch time I thought I was going to die, so Ollie and I were dropped off to down some more allergy meds and nap. I think we slept for three hours, and got caught up on some reading.

And then I attempted to rally. It was the Fourth of July, after all.

We got hung out and met a lot of new folks that camp on the campsite and had a blast.