Finished The Night Circus

I have seriously been horrible at posting lately. Sorry!!! I did, however, finally finish The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern last night and I loved it! I was not completely thrilled with the ending, but it fit the book very well. If you've ever considered reading it, go on ahead and pick it up. My main issues with the book were that the timing boomerangs around alot and there are a TON of characters to keep track of. All in all, the story was good and the writing was AMAZING!! I mean, not only the author but the editor of the book went above and beyond with the writing and the flow of the story. It had the potential to be a hot mess, but the disheveled nature of the story actually works for it.

Naturally, credit goes to Disney/Pixar for the source :)

Today, I had the day off, my kids are still on fall break and the hubs was off from work as well. This is generally a rare occurrence, so we made it into a sort of "family fun day." First, we took the kids to the library to return some books and movies we had borrowed last week and to borrow more. Then, we went to a local burger joint and had lunch followed by a trip to the movie theater to see Finding Nemo in 3D. Although we have the movie at home, I thought that letting them see it in 3D would be a fun experience for us all. I really enjoyed it and I think the kids did, too. I had a hard time getting Evelyn to keep her glasses on through the entire movie, but she still liked it. We also stopped for froyo and groceries from the grocery store.

I have to admit that I don't have a bucket list. I generally try to avoid thinking of my own mortality, so I would rather not have one. However, if I did have one, I could scratch something off of it today. Our grass had been growing out of hand for weeks now (as usual!), so once we got home from the grocery store and put away the food, we all headed outside so that I could mow the lawn. Gabriel wanted to "help" me, so I let him ride through the more level part of our lawn on the riding mower. Since I had him with me, I drove slower than I usually do, so I ran out of daylight pretty quickly. Luckily, there are headlights on our John Deere!! So, I mowed half of the yard at 8pm by the light of headlights!! I can now say that I have mowed the grass in the dark! Shane laughed at me and said that we'll see how it looks in the morning. Pfft! It looks freakin great!

Shane has requested that I mention that he made really tasty sub-style sandwiches for dinner. They were on "take and bake" baguettes and each one was custom. We had a PB&J, a ham and cheese, an Italian sub and I had a roast chicken breast cordon bleu type sandwich. Sadly, only Shane and I ate them. (as usual)

It's Been A Minute

It's been a few days since I last posted. There hasn't been too much going on. I have been truly horrible at dedicating my time to training for the half. I'm sure that will come back to bite me on race day. I'm really going to try harder for the last next 5 weeks.

We spent the 4th of July at a friend's house. We actually spent the entire day there! There was a full food spread of slider burgers and hot dogs with all the fixins and sides. They had put tarps over the back deck, so the sun wasn't shining directly down on us and later (when it rained) the rain didn't fall on us or anything else. We also got the pleasure of watching them tell everyone their exciting news!! They're having a baby on around January 8th of next year!! (I've known about it the whole time, so it was fun to watch everyone else get excited). We ended the evening with, of course, fireworks!! The kids got to have fun with sparklers while the boys men detonated the bigger show. By the time we left, the kids were super sleepy and they slept late the next day!! (They usually get up at 7-7:30am)

Despite the fact that I haven't trained at all this week (and most of last), I made plans to go jogging with a couple of coworkers after I got off from work this evening and before Shane had to leave for work. We went to the very start of the trail and walked in the wrong direction for about a mile before figuring it out and turning around. We jogged at some parts. When it was all done, we had gone almost 7 miles. I wasn't wearing my expensive Experia socks today and my feet told me as much when I got out of the car at home to walk up to the house. I guess I know now that I MUST wear the Experias during the half if I expect my feet to stick it out with me!

I'm still working on using up the last of my vacation time before it rolls over again, so I'm not working much next week. I hope that means I can fit in some training runs! We are planning to go to Stone Mountain one day and I am having lunch with a friend on Thursday.

Busy Day Today

We had a REALLY busy day today. Woke up and drove to a little place in town to eat called Chicken World. I had these amazingly good Chicken Cheddar Fries. 

Fries topped with cheddar cheese, ranch, buffalo sauce, chicken strips and lemon pepper

I am so glad that I have never advertised on this blog that I eat healthy. I definitely do not! They were SOOOOOOOO freakin good!

After lunch, we had to take Gabriel to the doctor for his annual check-up. Poor kid had to get a shot and you would have thought it had killed him. He seems to be doing REALLY well developmentally. Of course, the standards that they set for average children really disturbed me. The doctor asked him to name a bunch of colors that she pointed to. She then asked him to sing his ABC's. Then, she asked him to count to ten and spell his name and tell her our address. Then, she told us to make sure to buy him advanced curriculum books so he doesn't get bored in Kindergarten!! Really??? He can count to 50 and he knows more shapes than I did at 12!! What aren't people teaching their children these days if the standards are set so low? I told her that I don't have to worry about him being bored in Kindergarten since he goes to a private school and his teacher next year is the owner of the school and a speech pathologist.

We next moved on to Party City to purchase some things for Gabriel's party on Saturday. We bought plates and cups and balloons and goody bags and fillers. Then, on to Wal-Mart for more of the same, plus food supplies. I still have a few odds and ins to pick up, but we are set for the most part. While we were at Wal-Mart, we also bought Gabriel's birthday gift, a bicycle!!! (Complete with helmet and other protective accessories)

We spent so much time running around that I really didn't feel like cooking, so we stopped by Little Caesar's for dinner to-go. Gabriel also got a bath since he was feeling a little warm to me.

I've spent the last hour baking a cake and cupcakes for his party. I hate the way the house smells when I do that much baking. It's almost nauseating!