Freshman Year

After a long week, it was nice to wake up at my Mom's house this morning.  I scheduled a few tweets for work and headed out for a quick run before getting back to the grind.  It was a hilly run that looked like this:

Even with the hills I was able to maintain a pretty good pace.  Gotta love the 4000 ft elevation drop. I'm totally off of my training schedule but I figure I can get in a couple good long runs before we head to Europe in 13 days!

Time: 36 mins   Distance: 4.05 miles   Avg. Pace: 8:53 min/miles

After getting cleaned up and some work done it was time to take my little brother Riley to freshman registration.  It totally brought me back to when I started high school. I vividly remember going to my registration, even what I wore.  As I watched the kids in line, unsure of themselves, with anxiety and excitement taking their school pictures, trying to open their lockers and getting their class schedules I was thankful I was all done with that.  Though I did meet two of my BFFs Sarah and Lisa that year. 

Riley is playing freshman football this year which I think is great.  It's also a great way to get to know some of the new people that he'll be going to school with and being confident heading into the new world of high school.  He is also quite the ladies man. Every time we walked somewhere on the campus there were girls waving and calling for his attention. It was so cute.

After registration I took he and Emma for a celabatory frozen yogurt treat.  We stopped by FroyoLife.  It was delicious!  I basically tried half the flavors and had fun with all of the toppings.  Between the three of us we ate 2 lbs of froyo.  Delicious.  It was awesome getting some one on one time with my Californian siblings.  They are getting so big and are just great kiddos...ok teenagers.  I will be 30 years old when Riley graduates in 2014.  Man I feel old!

We headed home and so I could get some work done before Mom and Mike got home.  We had a nice evening talking, eating a delicious chicken, caper and artichoke dinner Mike made and hanging out.  It's nice spending some time with them not in heavy duty grieving mode.  Tommorrow my Uncle Ben, his girls and my Aunt Jan's family is coming over for a little BBQ. 

Huskers Win It Again

The Colorado-Nebraska game has become a yearly tradition for Josh and I.  We've gone to the game every since we started dating back in 2005.  This year the game was in Boulder at Folsom Field.  Tom, Margie, TJ, Josh and I all spent Thursday night at our house and woke up early to get ready for Game Day.  I was up at 7ish making pancakes for everyone.  After a quick stop at Walmart and the liquor store, we headed to Boulder.  We got a great tailgating spot right on campus around a bunch of other Huskers.  It was an absolutely beautiful day!  

 

Tom's tiny little shirt that he's proud of.  It is pretty funny.

 

This was Margie's first Game Day experience so I took her around the parking lot to meet some of the other characters tailgating. Along the way we definitely found some characters. 

                                     

 

Of course we had to take a picture with Lil' Red.  Check out the coolest way to get to the game and tailgate.  Where they got a hold of this ambulance I have no idea.

 

After a few hours it was time to head into the game. 

Thanks to TJ we had great seats!  We were right onthe 30 yard line 14 rows up.  We were surrounded by Buff fans but had two other Huskers right next to us. It was awesome being able to cheer for the Huskers in the midst of a bunch of Buff fans. 

We were two happy fans.  A lot of the CU fans left half way through the forth quarter when it was undeniable that the Huskers were going to win again. The final score was 28-20 Huskers.  It was a great game as it is every year. 

After the game a couple of middle aged men were apparently being extremely sore losers.  I was just standing at my seat and one pushed me as he walked by.  I have a nice little bruise on the back of my left from it.  Josh of course told him not to push his wife and the guy grabbed Josh's shirt and started pushing. At this point a bit of a brawl broke out and some nearby fans had to pull these two bg guys off of Josh.  I mean really, it was completely uncalled for. I hadn't done anything to either one of the guys. What's worse is that another CU fan and his wife walked by and said it was my fault because we were in their house.  Really?  It's ok to push women around in Boulder.  Awesome.  Shows yet once again how classless CU fans are.  It's no wonder why the Boulder Police department has to send out memos and such to tell the fans how to behave at games.

Luckily, the police caught up with these two assholes at the top of the stairs. I gave a statement as did a few other surrounding fans.  As it turns out one of the guys that was involved was an off-duty police officer.  Way to represent the Boulder force.  They were ticketed and were able to leave. I hope they get in trouble.  That pretty much ruined the rest of my night but at least we were able to enjoy the game.

Go Huskers!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!  Did you all think about what you're thankful for?  I'm thankful for a lot; my friends, family, my husband and little Lucky, my job, my house, to have the means to head to Italy this Christmas, my health and so much more! 

I hope you've all enjoyed your day as much as I have.  My day started with the United Way's Turkey Trot.  Josh, Grandma Walker, Liz, Ted, Audrey and the Schedel kids and I all headed to Wash Park about 9 am this morning.  I don't think we could have asked for a more beautiful day.  At 10:15 we were off!  After being elbowed right in the chest, I finally broke through the huge cluster and reached a comfortable pace.  The first two miles were awesome. I was enjoying the weather and the scenery.  Josh was long gone so I just listened to my iPod and people watched.  By mile three I was totally overheating.  I could feel my body starting to drag but I held on.  This was my first 4 mile race but I really liked the distance.  It was just long enough for me not to feel bad for totally gorging myself.  Here are my stats:

Time: 35:34             Distance: 4.01 miles                Average Pace: 8:54 min/mile

Overall I feel good about the race but I feel like I would have done better had I not overheated so much. I knew once we got to the starting line that I should have worn a tank top rather than my long sleeved shirt.  Josh totally kicked my butt.  He finished in 28:55 which is a 7:14 min/mile pace.  Not gonna lie I'm kinda sad that he can still beat me.  But then I remind myself that I totally have him beat in distance edurance.  Anyway, after collecting the kiddos and finding Grandma and Liz we headed home to kick off the Thanksgiving festivities.

After some spinach dip, a Hanky Panky (or two) and some cheese and crackers, it was time for the main event.  It was so good I did not want to stop eating but I had to save room for some pie.  I had a silver of pumpkin and apple and sat around the table listening to my grandpa's hilarious stories from when he was learning to ski.  Once we were all able to actually remove ourselves from our chairs, the games came out.  I probably played my worst game of Scrabble ever! 

We're all home now, plus Tom, TJ and my cousin Margie.  Tomorrow we're heading to the CU-Nebraska game in Boulder.  It's going to be another beautiful day here.  We're going to tailgate a bit and then meet up with the rest of the fam at The Harvest House on the way to the game.  It's going to be to go to the second game at Folsom Field this season where my team beats the Buffs.  Go Huskers!

Happy Birthday Lobster!

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who has donated to my TNT efforts so far. You guys are so awesome, that in just 2 days we raised more than $1000! If we keep it up at this pace, we'll be to $5000 in no time! Thank you so much for your support.

Happy Birthday Lobster!

Today is my lobster Josh’s 28th birthday. Have you all seen the Friends episode where Phoebe says Ross is Rachel’s lobster (they join claws and mate for life)? That's where the pet name comes from. But I digress. Aside from enjoying some Indian food and cheesecake with Josh’s sister, her husband, kids and family friend, today was mainly spent trying to recover from yesterday.

Let’s recap yesterday’s debauchery. My day started with an awesome 5k run around our neighborhood. I was only planning on doing a slow 2 mile run because it was my first run since the half last week. I was feeling so good at 2 miles; I decided I do 2.5 miles. When I hit 2.5 I was still just warming up, so I decided to just do the 3.1.

Time: 27:35        Distance: 3.1 miles (5K)         Avg. Pace: 8:54 min/mile

After cleaning up it was time to head to Fort Collins for the football game. Tailgating here we come.   A few things have changed since the college days. First of all were in the alumni parking lot not partying with the students on the other side of the stadium, we actually brought food with us, 1/2 of the group consists of married people and we actually paid for tickets. Otherwise it was a flashback to college.

Especially when this came out….

Yes that is a six person beer bong.  Yikes, I know.  Another way I can tell we're not in college anymore...a few people did actually say, what about the Swine flu  while debating whether or not to drink from our old friend?  This was quickly followed by old school reasoning...the alcohol will kill it. 

Anyway, after a game of washers, eating and drinking we headed into the stadium. The Rammies were doing awesome and were even up by 14. All the ladies took turns being thrown in the air every time CSU scored. Not gonna lie, I don't remember it being as scary when I used to be thrown in the air in college.  Either I've become a bigger wimp than I used to be or I didn't have enough beer to make it seem like a good idea.  Regardless, by half time there was no more of this…they gave it away and ended up losing their 5th game in a row.

After some downtime at Kevin’s house it was time to hit Old Town. When we were in college, we would just walk or ride our cruisers down to Old Town and back. These days we don't know anyone that actually lives in Old Town anymore so we had to pile into Russell's big new truck and drive down there. Old Town is definitely one of the best things about Fort Collins. There is always something going on down there. From Brewfest to the Greek Festival that ran out of food the first day of it's inaugural year.  Can you tell I miss living there?

Back to the debauchery. We tried to hit most of the old bars we frequented (that hadn't closed down...Zydeco's what's up with that?), starting with the oldest and smallest bar in Fort Collins, Town Pump (Odells has a special brew you can only get in FoCo named after it) for jello shots and some booze soaked cherries...this pretty much sums it up.

From there it was off to Lucky Joe's my favorite bar in the Fort for sure!  You could typically find us here on Saturday nights. 

I found myself looking around for people I may know, when I realized I don't know a single person that is still going to school at CSU which is just crazy to me. 

While at Lucky Joe's there were two different groups of people out celebrating their friends' 21st birthdays.  I officially felt like an old chick at the bar especially when one of the birthday boys was like hey is that ring real? Are you married? I said yep and he was like wow, how old are you?  Like I was super old.  Sad...at least he didn't call me ma'am like the girl at American Eagle a few months back.  That one hurt.

The Ladies

Liz, Jennell, Myself and Bronwyn

Josh and the Crazy Asian...aka Kevin

Me and Russell-Yes I realize I look naked but I swear I was wearing a shirt.

After a few peanut shells in my deliciously fresh Sunshine Wheat, we headed to a few other places including The Drunken Monkey which has swings for bar chairs:

After a pit stop at Jimmy John's, it was time to call it a night. Once we were able to wrangle Josh and Jason we headed home. 

It was a great time, but now I remember why I don't go out like this very often...ugh, the next day is awful.  Two naps later, I think we are just about recovered and ready to start the work week.  Hopefully this scratchy voice I've developed today will be back to normal tomorrow.

I hope you had a great birthday Josh. I love you!