Once in a Blue Moon

Once in a blue moon, this homebody goes out on the town. And last week, it was to see the founder of Blue Moon at Crystal Bridges Museum's Oktoberfest. Since we moved this summer, Trea and I have spent literally all of our free time working on the house, and it was so nice to have a date night that did not include sitting on the couch watching TV.

The Great Hall was beautiful, with tables decorated with pumpkin vines and Blue Moon bottles, and we eagerly dug into our roasted pumpkin -- filled with gruyere and bacon -- as soon as we arrived.

We tasted several different brews, and some of them were pretty strange. My favorite, of course, was the original Belgian White Blue Moon, and I did not care at all for the beer-wine hybrids that the company is trying to market. Wheat ale and merlot, anyone? NO.

After a glass of champagne and tasting 6 different beers, we were treated to something truly unique -- a beer float. Delicious vanilla bean ice cream topped with Blue Moon's seasonal Gingerbread beer, which will be out this winter. It was amazing. They gave us tiny little mini-floats, and I could've had about a dozen of them. 

We followed up with dinner at Table Mesa {dinner while sitting in a restaurant! Not takeout on the couch!} where I had a chicken curry burrito that I'm still having dreams about.

And after all that beer tasting and indulgence, you guessed it... I have lots of running to do.

Birthday Bash

September is Trea's birthday month, and this year I celebrated by making him run a 5K with no training. He loved it. {That was sarcasm.}

Bentonville had a Birthday Bash 5K the week of his birthday, and it seemed like the perfect race -- celebrating the one-year birthday/anniversary of Wishing Springs Trail, which is where we used to run before we moved.

Who wouldn't want a birthday cake race shirt the week of their birthday -- followed by birthday cake flavored snow cones at the finish line?

We got up painfully early for a Saturday, discussed staying in bed, whined about how we weren't prepared, almost flaked out, and then pinned on our race bibs and faced the music. At this point, I hadn't run more than 2 miles since the Bentonville Half 5K, and Trea hadn't run a step in about a month.

The race was point-to-point and started in our old stomping grounds, just a few miles from our old house. It was nice to go back to where I've spent most of my time running and where we first started.

The first mile went pretty well; we were keeping a slow, steady pace with a goal only to finish. Then the wheels fell off, just as we expected. I felt pretty good and could have probably jogged slowly the whole way, but poor Trea hadn't run in forever, was still barely awake and had forgotten to take his allergy meds in our haste to leave the house. He was miserable, so we took a few walk breaks along the way. The last mile was the worst, as with most races, but he stayed in good spirits the whole time and we finally, finally made it to the finish line. It was nowhere near our best time, but it wasn't my slowest either.

We were greeted at the finish by a snow cone truck passing out free birthday cake flavored snow cones, and I must say, I don't know why all races don't do this. After trudging along the trail with not much shade, we were so grateful for an icy treat.

It was humbling how beaten up we felt by only 3.1 miles, and I think we were the first ones on the shuttle to head back to the starting line and our car. {Thank goodness we were first. I hope they burned those seats after hauling all those sweaty runners around. GROSS.}

Afterward, we could barely move for the rest of the day and groaned with every step. We are embarrassingly out of shape but we're getting better! I've talked Trea into going to the gym with me a few times, and I'm back to running three times a week now, slowly building up my mileage.

I have another 5K on the calendar for the end of October (my first costume run!), and my only goal is to finish each race better than the last. I'm getting there.

Moving On

Trea and I left our little house in the woods last week. We're still in the same area, but we moved to town, near restaurants and shopping and bike trails, to a neighborhood where I can finally walk out the front door and run on safe roads with sidewalks. We're in our dream house, where we never actually believed we would be. 

This is what we wanted, and yet, I'm nostalgic for our first house. 

Just after we moved in, 2007.

It's where Trea proposed before we even had a key to the front door. 

And after our wedding, it's where I hung the necklace I wore and where it stayed for 5 years, making me smile every time I saw it.

It's where we brought home baby Bella.

Where we made things beautiful.

Where we learned new things.

It's where we found ourselves.

We have so many memories in that house. It's the only place we've ever lived, so it feels like our entire history is there. 

We shed so many tears leaving this place, but I think we made the right decision. The new house holds lots of possibilities, and I'm so excited to go for a run in our new neighborhood as soon as I recover from all the unpacking. 

But a little piece of me will always miss our house in the woods. It was exactly what we needed when we needed it -- the perfect place for our beginning.

Five

Five years later...still just as many butterflies.

He's a crafty one

After you've been married for a while, you can feel like you know everything there is to know about someone. You've heard all their stories, you understand their quirks and you can almost finish their sentences. But occasionally, you learn something completely new and different...like I learned this week that my husband's an artist! When did that happen?

I already knew he was a great cook...

And he's handy when I need a seam repaired...

But I had no idea he could paint!

When we were on vacation in Wyoming, we stopped in for dinner at a little restaurant in West Yellowstone. There was a painting of a blue buffalo behind the bar, and we both loved it. I snapped a picture of it with my phone, and Trea said he wanted to try to paint it sometime. I didn't think he would actually do it, and I had no expectations of how it would turn out. But last weekend, he painted a blue buffalo in one afternoon, and it looks almost exactly like the one from the restaurant!

So since he has discovered this new love of painting (and he's really good at it), I signed us up for date night at Painting with a Twist in Fayetteville. I haven't tried painting since 7th grade art class, and I fully expected our evening to be a total failure for me, but fun for Trea. It was kind of the opposite.

We were each supposed to paint one half of a nighttime city skyline on two canvases that can be displayed together. I did not have high hopes for us to actually pull this off, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I'm not completely terrible at painting! (When given specific, step-by-step instructions.)

This place is more like a painting party and less like a painting class. They try to ply you with wine the whole time so you don't feel like a loser when your painting looks like a 3rd grader did it, but this plan did not work on us. We were serious and focused the entire three hours -- so focused that Trea rinsed his brush in his wine glass. He was stressed out like I've never seen him before. He was exactly this much fun until his last brushstroke:

In his defense, his half of the painting was more challenging than mine, so he felt a lot more rushed to keep up with the class than I did. This was his workstation not even halfway through the evening:

Aaand this was mine:

Though things got a little tense along the way, it worked out in the end. We went home with some pretty darn good looking paintings!

Our bridge didn't quite turn out the same color, but other than that, we were pleased as punch with our little artistic endeavor. Now, who wants a painting for Christmas?

Wild West Adventures: Part 2

Our most fun day in Jackson Hole was Trea's birthday. We got up early and headed into Grand Teton National Park for a three-hour scenic float trip down the Snake River. We didn't expect that driving to the river would be half the fun, but on the way, we spotted a black bear up in a tree having a snack (which I didn't get a good photo of) and we saw a mama and baby moose!

They were so pretty, trotting in the early morning sunshine. This is my favorite shot -- a moose silhouette through the aspens.

The weather there was chilly in the morning and warm in the afternoon, so we were bundled up for our river ride.

The views were unbelievable. (Have I mentioned Wyoming is pretty?) Some of my favorite memories from our trip are ones that were so gorgeous that I couldn't pick up my camera to snap a photo because I was too taken aback by the perfection of it all. When we were drifting down the river under a clear blue sky, aiming directly at the highest Teton peak and a bald eagle took flight very close to us and soared down the river in front of the mountains, everyone in the boat sighed quietly, "Wow..." Trea said, "Take a picture!" But I was too busy just taking it all in.

Later, we drove down Teton Park Road -- a winding highway through the park that brings you about as close as you can get by car to the Tetons. I wish I had a dollar for every time we said, "Wow, look at that!"

We had lunch at Jenny Lake Lodge, and this is the ultimate destination for us to stay someday. The lodge is surrounded by little cabins, and you're about a stone's throw away from the Tetons. This place is peaceful and remote, and the views are so lovely that you feel like you should whisper... maybe so you don't break the spell or disturb the perfection. I don't know why, but as we walked the grounds of the lodge while we waited for our reservation time, I noticed we were not using our outside voices, even though I have never felt more outside.

We got a table for two right by the window looking out onto the mountains. It took us forever to order because we couldn't stop staring outside.

I couldn't capture the whole scene because of the lighting and window screen and I'm not a photographer, but it looked pretty much like this.

Borrowed from the kind folks at Jenny Lake Lodge

After a delicious lunch, we of course had to see Jenny Lake. Man, it does not disappoint. I cannot wait to go back so we can hike here! We didn't have time for the famous Jenny Lake waterfall hike on this trip, but we definitely will next time.

We headed back to Teton Village, and just about every time we drove anywhere, we saw bison. Lots of them! They were so fun to watch.

Next, we rode the (free!) Bridger Gondola up Rendezvous Mountain for happy hour on The Deck. It's more than 9,000 feet up, and the ride was as much fun as the destination. At one point, I looked down below us and saw a moose on the side of the mountain!

We were some of the first to arrive when The Deck opened, so we got a table right on the edge of the cliff. So. Gorgeous.

For dinner, we ate at Couloir, a fabulous restaurant above The Deck. We had some fantastic food and got to keep admiring the view until the sun went down.

Next stop -- Yellowstone!

Back to basics

Running
Last Christmas, I got a gift card to my favorite running store. Then I found out I had a stress fracture. So that gift card has been in my purse, mocking me, for nearly 8 months. But now that I can run again, I finally got to spend it! And on hot pink shoes, no less!

Brooks Pure Cadence. Be jealous.

With my fancy new, minimalist shoes and fragile hip, I decided to start from scratch and go back to basics. That's right, we're back at square one with a couch to 5K program. I'm doing run/walk intervals, and I'm loving every minute of it. It stinks to start over, but I figure this is a good chance to build a good foundation. So even though I can't run far, my goal is to run faster. I've always been a slow poke, but I'm determined to keep my run intervals at a 9:30-10:00 pace (that's fast for me, y'all). I can only run a little bit, but maybe I can run better than I used to. We'll see.

Swimming
And since I'm going back to basics and I need a diverse workout routine instead of just pounding the pavement all the time... I started taking swim lessons.

Trea and I are both taking adult beginner swim lessons at our gym, and we LOVE it. I'm a terrible swimmer, but I can get by. Meaning, I can swim one length of the pool and not drown. Trea, however, is the worst swimmer I've ever seen. When he gets in the water, it's like both his legs are made of lead. He sinks like a rock. So of course, he never wants to go to the pool with me, which is no fun. But after just 10 minutes of swim class, he learned how to float and was swimming all over the place! And now he loves it! He even got up one morning last week at 5:30 a.m., went and swam laps, and got ready for work at the gym. I've created a monster. But at least now we can workout together!

Biking
Last summer, I got an awesome Scott Sub 45 Solution that I adore, and I'm constantly trying to talk Trea into going riding with me. But since he has a mountain bike and not a road bike, he has to work a lot harder than I do to keep up with me on pavement. So a couple of weeks ago, Trea got a new Trek hybrid that's more comparable to mine. And now we can ride together without all the grumbling about how he hates his bike! It's a nice change.

The best thing about these latest developments is now I have options. My only options used to be either running outside or running on the treadmill. But now we go to the gym together, swim laps for a while, then hop on our bikes and ride all over town. We're still just beginners at everything, but we're off to a good start. I'm sure we're going to sign up for a 5K at some point in the near future and focus on training for that, but for now, I'm happy that we're changing things up. I can't run every day, or even every other day yet, because my hip acts up when I'm on my feet too much. But I can swim, bike and run almost as much as I want!

The most wonderful time of the year

No, Christmas is not the most wonderful time of the year. Not by a long shot. Kayaking season is!

As you might have heard, I still can't run. But surely my old lady hip won't keep me from kayaking. Trea and I first kayaked on a trip to Puerto Rico in 2009, and we loved it so much that we bought our own 2-person kayak a few months later. We live in a little town with lots of small, calm lakes, and one of our favorite things to do in the summer is take the kayak out and paddle around and just listen to the quiet.

The first time we took the kayak out, I bought a couple of waterproof disposable cameras, and we just got the pictures developed YESTERDAY. Because we're organized and on top of things over here. It was so fun to see three summers' worth of pics -- 2009, 2010 and last year.

Kayaking fun in 2009!

The lake where we go is gorgeous, and we usually just paddle around the perimeter, admire the beautiful houses, daydream about someday owning a lake house and look for cranes. We LOVE cranes. They're the pelicans of Arkansas.

Summer 2011

Summer 2011. We both slimmed down and got better hats since 2009.

On hot summer weekdays, if we can both leave work on time, we'll pack a cooler with a picnic and have a quiet dinner on the water while the sun goes down. It's a nice change of pace, good exercise and so tranquil. We love the lake, but we don't like most normal lake activities like skiing or tubing or wake boarding, so a real boat with a motor would be wasted on us. We just float and paddle and chat and hang out. With no phones, no TV and no distractions. Just peace.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

I ate a horseshoe

This is the last installment of my Midwestern Road Trip Vacation Extravaganza, and I promise to find something substantial to blog about soon. But since I still can't run, well, you get to hear all about what I can do: eat. 

In Springfield, Ill., the last stop on our vacation after St. Louis and Chicago, eating a horseshoe is commonplace. It's a crazy dish that I'm still having dreams about and is served at just about every restaurant. We went to D'Arcy's Pint, where if I'm being totally honest...I didn't eat a full horseshoe. I ordered a ponyshoe -- a half portion -- but it was still enormous. 

Horseshoe: Texas toast topped with the meat of your choice, fries and cheese sauce = HEAVEN. I went with the Deluxe Pony, which also included seasoned ground beef, grilled onions and bacon. This is the main reason why I need to be able to run again. 

My husband is a big history nerd, so we made a special stop in Springfield to check out anything and everything related to Abraham Lincoln. It was quite a culture shock after spending several days in Chicago, but Springfield turned out to be a really cool place and we had a surprisingly good time. But Trea and I have a good time wherever we go. Literally, we entertained ourselves for quite a while with just a statue of a dead president and a camera. 

Hi Abe!

We spent hours at the presidential library and museum...where, oddly enough, there's a wax replica of the entire Lincoln family, with volunteers standing by offering to take your picture. This was both hilarious and disturbing.

And never be fooled by a city's nickname. The wind is not just limited to Chicago. The entire state of Illinois was out to ruin my hair and all my photos.

Walking around downtown near the old state capital building.

We spent all afternoon at the Lincoln tomb, which is in one of the most beautiful cemeteries I've ever seen. I don't know why, but I've always loved cemeteries. They're so peaceful. I used to go to a little cemetery near my college campus to write when I was in school because I could just be quiet and reflective there. So yes, it's probably a weird thing to do on vacation, but we spent forever after we saw the tomb just walking around the cemetery, gawking at elaborate mausoleums and reading headstones. Odd to say that it was fun, but it actually was.

And on a happier note, we experienced another culinary tradition of the Midwest that forever changed my life: Maid-Rite. The Maid-Rite sandwich shop in Springfield opened in 1924 and claims to be the first drive-thru in the U.S. A Maid-Rite is a loose meat sandwich, which sounds disgusting, but is actually one of the best things that's ever happened to me. There's seasoned ground beef, mustard, pickle relish and onion on a little steamed bun. Also? This Maid-Rite makes their own root beer that they serve in a frosty mug! I think I actually liked this meal better than the horseshoe. It was so good!

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We loved Springfield, and one of these days, I hope to go back if for nothing else than just to eat Maid-Rites and horseshoes! 

Have YOU ever eaten a horseshoe? Or a loose meat sandwich?