A whole separate post about our vacation. We spent 10 days in the mid-West visiting friends and family in Wisconsin and Indiana, with a day trip to Illinois. Here are some highlights from the trip!
October 9th, my birthday! The first weekend in WI, hubby and I stayed with our friends Kim and Nigel. On Friday, Kim, Brian and I went to lunch with Crystal (above) at Rock Bottom Brewery. Our appetizer was fried cheese curds and from the the two ladies who know about such things, we were told these were good fried cheese curds. Yea!
Saturday, we all got up and headed into Milwaukee to race in Al's Run, an 8k that benefited the local Children's Hospital. This is hubby and I pre-race getting ready to hit the bathrooms and warm up before the start. We had a great run and I enjoyed seeing downtown Milwaukee through running. I finished in 1 hour 7 minutes and 48 seconds. I was the last of our group to finish, but I did finish 5 minutes faster than I thought I would. Yea me!
After the race, we all headed to the Miller Brewing Factory for the tour (and free samples!). This is Kim and I hugging the Miller Lite bottle. LOL! It's silly, but after running 5 miles in the freezing cold and drinking beer, you tend to get silly. It was a fun day. :-)
Sunday, we headed to Kim's bar to watch the Eagles play. After the game, we tried out hand at darts and realized we had NO idea how the darn thing was scoring! Kim came in first and I came in second with the boys trailing behind. ;-) And since I am moving so fast in this photo, the darts must have been some good exercise!
Monday, we headed to Indiana to spend the week with hubby's grandparents. We did take Wednesday to head into Chicago to visit with a friend and her son. These are our train tickets into the city. We almost didn't get back that night! We parked at one train station, but thought we were at another. I took a photo of the sign for the train station and that's the only reason we didn't get left at the wrong one! Photography is good for something!
Hubby and I at the Sears...er...Willis Tower in Chicago. They added what are called ledges to the tower so you can stand on clear plastic 107 stores above the ground and look straight down. Thanks to our friend, here's a photo of us standing on the ledge. It's kinda freaky the first time you go out, but easier the more you do it (and don't go falling to your death).
From the Sears Tower, we headed to Navy Pier. As you can tell, it was a tad chilly and overcast this day. I brought along my gorilla tripod and was able to get a nice photo of us and the skyline in the background. It was nice to have a good photo of us rather than just the self-portraits we usually get. No worries though, we took plenty of those while we were there!
And while on Navy Pier, we decided to go on the Ferris Wheel. It was COLD! We had great views of the city and Lake Michigan. It would have been better had the day not been freezing and overcast, but it was fun to go up. It was one of the things I wanted to do while in Chicago and even though it was really cold, we did it.
On Friday, we left Indiana and headed back to WI to spend the weekend with hubby's aunt and uncle. On the way, we made two stops. The first was the Jelly Belly Factory, of which all we had time for was the gift shop. ;-) The other was the Mars Cheese Castle. We each got to visit something fun. LOL! Here I am outside the Jelly Belly Gift Shop.
On Saturday, we got tickets to attend a Wisconsin Badgers game, so we did. LOL! I take a lot of random pictures of hubby, so this is him getting me back. He was sneaky as I had NO idea he had taken it until I saw it on the camera later. LOL! It was another cold day in WI and our seats were in the shade, making it even colder. Ugh. It took a long time to warm up after THAT game!
Our last self-portrait of the vacation. On Sunday, we went to the Horicon Marsh Preserve with hubby's aunt and uncle. Behind us is the marsh lands. LOL! It was cold that day too, but honestly, it was the sunniest and somewhat warmish day we had the whole trip! And I must say, the weather didn't improve when we got home. It was just as cold and rainy here when we got back as it was on vacation. Guess it really is fall now.
Wow! A Whole Month With No Postings!
Filed Under (baseball), (Eagles), (football), (Orioles), (Philadelphia Phillies)
Well, that's just wrong. I didn't realize I hadn't updated in so long. I feel kinda bad now, not that I think many people are still hanging around, but...I'm going to share some photos from Oct. and there's a bunch as we went on vacation. :-) Here we go!
Brian and I headed to Philadelphia to see the Eagles take on the Kansas City Chiefs at the end of September. It was a fairly nice day, though it was kinda wet out. We tailgated a bit with our friend's Mike and his brother Dan in the parking lot before heading into the game. We had nose bleed seats, but we could see the whole field, so it was ok. The Eagles won and we had a really fun day, though long.
After the game. :-) With the field in the back ground. Go Eagles!
The following weekend involved a full two days of baseball. Saturday we headed to Camden Yards to see the Orioles play. Saturday night was Oktoberfest and we scored free Orioles steins (which turned out to be plastic, eh.) and saw a nice O's win. The O's went on to win Sunday as well, keeping them from hitting the 100 loss mark this year. Yea O's!
Well, this is a tad blurry! Guess that's what happens when you forget to zoom out. LOL! I have a habit of zooming in for a photo, then deciding to take a self-portrait...and this is the result. What I just noticed about this photo is we are framing the ground's keeper at CBP very nicely. :-) The Phils won this game, though it meant nothing in the standings overall, they had already clinched the NL East earlier in the month, but it was good to go to a win. And with the Phils win, we were batting 1.000 for the weekend in baseball.
Sunday - Fort McHenry 5k Tunnel Run
Filed Under (Fort McHenry 5k Tunnel Run), (running) on Sunday, September 20, 2009
I fancy myself a runner...at times. LOL! I'm a slow runner, but I do my best. Sunday, hubby and I had signed up to race in the Fort McHenry 5k Tunnel Run. We decided to it since it was a unique race - run though the Fort McHenry Tunnel on I-95, how many times do you get the chance to do THAT? So, we headed there this morning. It was a huge success for the organizers as 1,000 people turned out, double what they anticipated. It was a good run and I finished faster than my last 5k, which is nice. I took a camera with me as I ran and got some shots of the race. Most of them were blurry, but I got a couple good ones. Here's me running. ;-)
Saturday we headed to Baltimore for the Fort McHenry 5k Tunnel Run. The race itself was on Sunday, but because the race was early and it's about an hour drive, we chose to stay over Sat. night. We booked ourselves at the Hotel Monaco Baltimore on North Charles Street. AWESOME hotel! If you need to stay in Baltimore for some reason, I totally recommend it! After we checked in, we took our bags to the room and found a simply gorgeous room. I took a pic of me on the bed and this is what I got. I feel so tiny in this photo. :-)
Today's photo is courtesy of my new venture - walnut harvesting. We have a walnut tree in the side yard that seems to give a TON of walnuts off each year. For the past 5 years, I have just been annoyed at how many of them are about - bouncing off the roof, landing in the driveway, tripping me when I go outside because I don't see them. Well, this year I decided I am going to harvest my walnuts and see what I get. Today's photo is my first attempt at harvesting the walnuts. There will be more walnut photos in the future - you have been warned. LOL!
Another photo! Today's photo, boys and girls, is all about running. Two years ago I ran the Harrisburg Mile. I then promptly stopped running until I signed up the next year to run it again. Then I spent 6 weeks freaking out and trying to get myself ready to run again. And promptly stopped running again. LOL! This past Jan. I decided to try it again, running that is. So, each Sat. morning, I would head to be park and run a mile. Nothing exciting, but better than nothing. Then classes calmed down in April and I started running a couple nights a week. Then I started adding distance. In the end of June I ran my first 5k (check out the June photo update to see me in my race gear). I'm running another 5k this coming weekend (Sept. 20) in Baltimore. So, today's photo is me lacing up my shoes. :) Hoping my run goes well Sunday. (Sorry it's a tad blurry.)
I am not a morning person. Let me get that out there at the start. It usually takes me a while to wake up and get myself together. This morning was no different. I was barely awake when I poured myself a cup of cereal. I don't eat it with milk, I like it dry. Weird, I know. Well, hubby walked by and patted the arm holding the cereal bowl. Being that I've been awake for maybe 10 minutes, I wasn't real with it. I dropped the bowl. Cereal went everywhere and I got nailed on the right foot with the glass bowl. It hurt! I guess the good thing is that the bowl didn't break. So, here's my poor foot. Hoping there's no problems running. I have a 5k this Sunday!
