January or June?

Hey guys? So what's up with your weather? We've had some really unseasonably warm weather. Saturday the temps climbed to the upper 50's (or maybe lower 60's, I dunno.) After we got our fajitas on at Chili's and ran a couple of errands we were greeted back at home by this adorable sight:

Pippin's totally got the sidelight curtain thing figured out. When we leave he runs to the sidelights and watches us go while we wave 'bye to him. While we're gone he lays on the steps where he can see the driveway through an octagonal window to the right of our front door. So, when we drive up he's back to the sidelights welcoming us home. Even though I'd run 21 that morning and Brent had tackled 14 it was too nice not to get some additional exercise. We took Pippers for a nice neighborhood walk. On the way his gal pal Abby (a big brown Lab) was sunning in their front yard so Pips and Abby romped around for a while chasing each other while we talked to her "parents". Pippin has a major history of tiring out on long walks so we were concerned I'd have to end up carrying him back (as usual) since he had really gotten a workout with Abby. No worries though, he was ready to walk and we did our usual 1.5-2 mile walk without incident. Obviously as this sign points out, we were going the right way. Maybe a cross training activity after the marathon???

We had a quiet New Year's Eve considering most of Nashville's celebrations center around country music. Ick! There are no fireworks or other large public gatherings downtown, which is disappointing each and every year. We had a nice dinner and saw the Chronic, what? the Chronic, what? The Chronicles of Narnia. It was really good, I would highly recommend it especially if you like movies like Lord of the Rings (THE best movie ever!) or Harry Potter. I think Brent probably enjoyed it a little more than I did since he hasn't read the book. I read the book about 1.5 yrs ago as part of a book club I was in, so I knew some of the "surprising" things that would happen. The witch is freaky, she did a great job! Even though it's a children's book there is a lot of death/violence so I really don't think of it as a kid's movie.

Since our anniversary is New Year's Day it sort of feels like a 2-day anniversary. We always wish each other a Happy Anniversary! at midnight and then again when we wake up. The past 7 years has absolutely flown by. It seems like forever, but then again it seems like just yesterday. We didn't do much for our anniversary, we went out to lunch and since it was such a gorgeous day we decided to take Pippin to the dog park. I doubt we've been since early October. He was SO excited to be there and since a ton of other dogs (mostly 3x his size!) were there it was a lot of fun. He ran and ran, and at times he was chased and chased. He peed on everything in sight (including the little doggie water fountain!) and made a lot of new friends. It's a great socialization thing for all the dogs, and Pippin always makes his rounds with both the dogs AND their owners. He's quite the little social butterfly. There has been more than one occasion where he'll just jump right up into people's laps like he knows them. He did great - in the summer months he'll run and play and then crash under a tree but yesterday he ran the whole time. I think our am walks are really starting to build some endurance with him.

Sun night we watched Fun with Dick and Jane. It was pretty good, not worth a movie price but worth renting. It was fairly funny, but not hilarious. I liked Kicking and Screaming w/Will Ferrell a lot better.

Today we slept in, yeah!! I made a big breakfast of pecan waffles around 10 am and an hour and a half later my parents called for lunch. They were passing through on their way home from visiting my brother in Cincinnati and were going to take us out to lunch. We were so NOT hungry! Oh well, we had Wendy's so I got a small chili and a baked potato. The weather was perfect - it was 78 today! We walked around a car lot afterwards and the wind was really picking up. A storm was moving through and at point the wind nearly knocked me down (literally!) The weather lady said wind gusts were in the 50 mph zone this afternoon and for once I believe her. We got out of there right as it started to rain and were able to beat the storm back to our house. We decided it was too perfect to skip running so we suited up in tanks and shorts and headed out!! Crazy! We did 6 miles in the blustery, humid afternoon in 57 minutes. I was worried about the rain so I didn't take my camera, but the storms managed to completely miss us. The clouds were massive and beautiful, I wish I had taken the cam! The first portion of the run was really tough with the wind, but the loop back was great with the wind behind us. It was really humid but probably great training for what Miami will feel like. It's supposed to cool down later this week, so when we got back we decided to enjoy the day some more and we took Pippin for a 2 mile walk. He's been great lately - he walked the whole way and didn't try to take a nap in anyone's yard.

Last night I did 3 miles on the treadmill. I normally take the day off after a long run but I had an ulterior motive - Healthy Choice ice cream bars. For whatever reason I felt like I wouldn't be able to enjoy one if I didn't exercise. They're only 140 calories each, so the extra calories I burned are just a bonus.

That's it for now! I am in total denial about going back to work tomorrow. UGH! Even though I worked all week last week it was nice that most people were off. Blah!!

Happy 2nd day of 2006!

Rachel

Exercise:

Sat - 21 mile run, 1.5 mile walk

Sun - 3 mile run

Mon - 6 mile run, 2 mile walk