Mom, mom and more mom!

 Okay super busy week.  Here are some pictures, send help lol.

Monday:  Vet visit for Stella due to her massive hair loss.  So far no clear indication of what is going on.  Not mange, maybe thyroid or just old age.  Did blood work, waiting on results.  

Also Monday:  My baby turned 11.  Japanese hibachi and sushi for dinner and cake and ice cream for dessert.  Time slow down, please.

Tuesday: A short, hot run.  #teamwinter.  I can handle hot without humidity and would rather have heat than humidity and lower temps.  I seriously can't breath when it's humid out.  I still don't like the fact that it's so hot it makes me sick to my stomach though.  Bleh.

Wednesday:  Finally got to the community market. Love that they are doing this right down the street from my house.  I didn't buy much this time other than the most delicious peach tea made with fresh fruit. 

Thursday:  Went down to Manhattan for Third Thursday.  We had expectations of what the event should be and it wasn't, but at least we now know.  Mom and I ended up at the brewery listening to an amazing singer belt out some of my favorite 80s and 90s tunes and the boys ended up down at the game store buying Pokemon cards.    

Friday/Saturday:  Short hot run minus boom, longer run with boom and clouds.   Getting lucky with all of this cloud cover lately.  Got in 8 and called it good for my longish run.

Saturday part two!  Mom and I headed out to North Topeka or NOTO as they call it to take in the art, food, and beer.  It was a great trip and I hope the whole fam can come with us next time.  Andrew the artist would be in LOVE! We ate amazing food, took in some amazing art, and of course sampled some good beer.  

Sunday:  Racing.  Not a great day for the Ginger racer.  No bravery, no passing, and close to last place or last place all day.  Sigh.  I have to remind myself he is just a kid and that there will be non brave days.  Hoping this was just a blip in the road and that we will be back to passing next week at the night race.

Have a great week y'all!  

5 and 11? Okay. Just breath

 Since I am writing this at 9:30 at night and I am so sleepy, this will be short and sweet.  

Got three runs in but only one with Boom as we have had some pretty bad heat this last week.  We got lucky on Saturday for our longish run due to cloudy and cool weather which counteracted the horrible high humidity.  

Little red finally let us book an appointment to get his hair cut.  Our hair stylist is always so amazed at how thick and crazy his hair is.  He has really liked having it longer even though we all think he looks he has a mop on his head.  

He looks so dang grown up!  I am not ready for my sweet little boy to be a big kid.  

Not going to lie, I HATE summer running. I can't get up early because it's 100 percent humidity and I can't breath or take the dogs with me so I don't feel safe.  I can handle the heat much better than the humidity, but then I feel sick and sweat to death.  Can we just fast forward to fall please?

Over the weekend we adventured even though Tony wasn't feeling great.  His puking headaches have returned with a vengance and also we thought he might have a touch of the stomach flu.  He was brave and came along with us for most of the day but went to sleep early and slept all night.  We stared out at The Chef, a brunch place that was made famous by Bridgett Everett from Somebody Somewhere on HBO.  They have the most amazing breakfast pizza EVER!

Next we headed across the street to Therapie, a local pie maker's shop to have Andrew's new favorite, chocolate silk pie.  WE both blissed out over the most amazing pie.  

Next we headed over to our local museum to enjoy the new NASA exhibit where we played with Gyroscopes, made paper rockets and launched them, and make paper airplanes and had competitions to see who could fly the farthest.  

I ended the night going to our local winery tasting room for some live music and a bottle of Rose.  We missed our graduation party because Tony was feeling pretty bad at that point but we will celebrate our friend's kiddo with a nice gift at a later date.  

Sunday was a big day.  Boom turned the big 5 and we headed to KC to celebrate Andrew's birthday a day early at Brickfest Live.  Not going to lie, I was kind of worried because I didn't really know what to expect at Brickfest.  I had heard mixed reviews and had seen some tik tok videos of it that did not impress me.  I am happy to report that Andrew had a blast we didn't even do half of the stuff we could have done.  While the vending wasn't great, the activities made up for it.  

Here are the pictures but basically we made floor tiles for a huge mosaic, made pixel tiles for the pixel wall, played with glow in the dark Legos, saw many life sized Lego creations, talked with Lego Masters, bought some mini fig bags that he had been wanting, and just had an amazing time as a family.  

I still can't believe by tomorrow I will have an 11 year old.  Sigh.  He looks older and older every day and I am just not ready.  

Y'all have a great week!

Adventures

We like adventures.  As kids we both grew up with single moms who did the best that they could with what they had. Spending money for fun was not a thing.  We have a comfortable living for now so we are going to do all the adventures we can.  We started out the week with a day off trying a new to us burger joint in downtown Manhattan that sources all of their ingredients locally.  

Their famous ice cream was not working, meaning no world famous Tang Shakes (our new basketball coach that took our team to the top this year).   We headed over to baskin robbins instead for some yummy ice cream. I tried a new to me flavor and it was so amazing!  It was called beach day and totally not what I would normally go for (I am a rocky road kind of gal), with graham cracker sand and little chocolate sea turtles.  I give it two thumbs way up!

Post a Target trip to load up on things we needed for the house (hello toilet paper) and a Lego set for passing ALL THE CARS, we headed back home so that hubby could go work at one of our local industrial customer's jobs and Andrew and I to chill.  We ended the day remembering those who gave their all while serving for this amazing country.  Our freedoms are not given and I am grateful for those who gave everything to defend those freedoms.    

I got three runs in this week thanks to the holiday, only one 11 hour day, and the need to get boom boom out and running before it gets way to hot to run with the dogs.  We are sticking to our run 4 and walk ,1 and Boom is slowly coming along. I am monitoring for soreness, stiffness, and any issues but this picture just makes me SO freaking happy.  We have full extension on both back legs!

He seems to be heat acclimating nicely and was pretty excited to get some miles in.  I wanted to do a longish run/walk this weekend in just to see where we were at. I had to run Friday night and Saturday morning, which made me a little worried he might get a little sore (spoiler alert: he was fine, whew).  We didn't get out as early as I had hoped Saturday morning, so I had my hubby on alert just in case I needed him to come pick him or him and I up.  We were fine running to the east and north and there was tons of water from the recent rains on the roads, but when we headed back to the west, the wind was gone and it was steamy, and of course the sun burned off the clouds making us lose our cloud cover.  I called hubby to come and get Boom and I chose to stay out and finish.   I hate summer running with a passion and am not ready for hot and steamy runs at all.  I suffered and had to turn my music up full blast to focus on something other than my suffering, but got it done.  My butt HAS to get up earlier or running isn't going to be safe for me this summer.  At this point, I am just being lazy and could get up, as I am sleeping all night, so I can't even use lack of sleep as an excuse.  

  

We had a couple of fun adventures later in the week. Our cute little community does an event called Bottles and Brews as a fun raiser for our local theater.  You walk around downtown and have stops that have either beer or wine at each stop and an appetizer.  You have 2 hours to waltz around and eat and drink.  We had some amazing new to us beer and dips, wraps, street tacos, and lemon ice cream.  It was a ton of fun and we left full of goodies.  

Coleman Electric was an official drink sponsor too.  We love supporting our amazing community.  Of course when in Oz, take a picture with the Tin man!

I wish our business was downtown.  Maybe someday!

Saturday found Andrew and I adventuring while hubby wasn't feeling great with yet another headache.  Don't get me started.  The endo thinks his headaches are tied into his high blood sugars, but I disagree. He has been in a normal range for blood sugar now for a few weeks and is still having these persistent headaches.  I think we need to now go to the GP and request imaging or something.  These are kicking his ass and I am so tired of seeing him throw up to try and get them to stop.

Okay sorry for the rant.  Kansas is full of the cutest little towns ever.  St Mary's is one of our favorites.  Sugar Creek is an Amish bulk store with the most yummy sandwiches and goodies.  If you have been around my blog for any time, this is where they have the amazing gingerbread house competitions around Christmas time.  We had lunch and chocolate covered gummy bears, my favorite candy treat.  

Later we headed to a new to us little Kansas town, Washington Kansas.  We were suppose to see a race there, but due to all of the rain we had this week, it was canceled.  That's okay, there was a brewery there that we had never visited.  We hoped it had food as well, as the Facebook page was vague about what they had and it was an hour and a half away.  They had some bar type food that was yummy and the beer was amazing as always.  They make a lighter beer called Life Coach and Life Coach with pineapple that is my summer jam and easy drinking beer when it is hot out.  The two on the end were super heavy and barrel aged.  The brown ale was amazing but the porter was too much.  Like you could smell the alcohol before you even got it close to your mouth and I just couldn't do it, which is odd for me, I can usually drink anything.  

Of course the only way to get my kid to come is to let him play VR.  My thing is if you don't mind people watching you flail around and you can find a spot out of the way, go for it.  Some older gentlemen were intrigued and went out and watched him and asked him questions about what he was playing.  

We both tried all of the beers and settled on our favorite.  Mine was the brown ale that was barrel aged and Tony picked the pineapple life coach.

We also got a private tour of their new whiskey operation and the brewery.  I didn't take any pictures as I didn't know if that was okay, but this is the outside of the whiskey operation.  The track at the top is where they will transport the finished whiskey barrels to the barrel house.  

The views were amazing! I can't believe this place is just out in the middle of no where Kansas and it's flourishing.  Of course the amazing beer helps and I can say we were part of helping them get off of the ground back when they started.   

Have a great week y'all!  Running may not happen as I have three 12 hour days planned but oh the pay check that comes with it:)

That time I hit zero

I have zero energy lately and I am not sure exactly why.  I know working 11 and 12 hour days probably has something to do with it, but I want my will power and motivation back to run and walk!  It has totally left me this week which has caused my anxiety to be through the roof.  I need exercise like a drug to keep me calm and collected.  I also had lots of day appointments that took me away from work which stressed me out to be behind, but the dog chiro and my 6 month dentist appointment needed to be done no matter what.  Meanwhile I am pulling in some serious overtime checks and loving it, but I need to run!

Lots happened this week.  Last day of 5th grade and last day of elementary school.  I am slightly terrified about middle school and the fast paced transitions, but also excited for him because middle school and high school were such great times in my life as a kid.  I played sports and did band in middle school and then went exclusively band in high school and I had the time of my life!

Our rose bush bloomed and as always, I love seeing those vibrant pink flowers.  Flowers make me so happy, even if I don't have a green thumb at all.   

We got one 40 minute walk in.

And one 3 mile run in.

We celebrated a birthday!  Happy birthday Tony!  Let's hope we are on the road to better health together.

And we ended the week with 2 days of racing.  I could write a book on this weekend but I will keep it short and sweet.  SO MUCH IMPROVEMENT!!!  Yes I am yelling but he set an all time record for passes.  His placements really don't show how hard he worked.  He has been really down on his red car on Saturday, but he rallied back on Sunday and had much better lines and times.  I will take it even with the drama.

Have a great week y'all!

Emotionally?

 So many emotions this week.

Bittersweet

We had our first beginning band meeting and the band director played my trumpet.  While I still play occasionally, he has skill and plays regularly, and she sounded so beautiful.   Ready to hear my son embark on the band journey.  My journey as a band nerd brought me so many great friends and memories.  

Relieved

Relieved to hear from the rehab vet that it's just a strain and more than likely just his adductor in his hip.  We have lots of exercises, a weight loss plan to get off the few pounds he has put on, and a path moving forward.

Happy

Happy to see all of the color in my yard.  While a ton of my flowers died off and didn't come back this year (even the ones I planted last year that were perennials), my orange flowers from Tennessee always come back and always shine.  Plus, all of our prairie sage bloomed this year so it was the perfect mix of purple and orange.  

Lucky

Lucky to get two runs in this week with my old girly.  We did a 3 and a 7 together and Boom did a 4 before hearing no running for a bit longer.  

Excited!

Going to see the Chiefs play the day before my birthday at Arrowhead against the Eagles.  I splurged and got us really good tickets,  You only live once, right?

Grateful

Non race weekends mean family time.  So glad this kiddo still loves hanging out with me.  Coffee shops to eat his favorite quiche and then exploring at a new to us winery in Manhattan for ciders, bee swarms, and bocce ball.  

And finally, hopeful.

Since boom boom has to walk right now to strengthen things before we run, we are doing lots of family walks.  Plus, my hubby as some doctor's appointments scheduled so we can start figuring this whole mess out with his diabetes and blood sugar.

Have a great week y'all!