ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

Ran 3 miles with Marcy today on some really great trails that went into some woods and over wooden bridges. She wore her Garmin 405 and her data from the run is here.

Payton and I are headed out Friday morning on a road trip to Texas to see our girlfriends that we miss so much. First stop, Marcy and Aubry's, where we'll spend a couple of nights. Looking forward to some sushi eating, running and birthday partying while we're there. We should arrive Friday afternoon and the next post will be from their house. See ya soon!

That was my run this morning. Even better, Andy joined me for the first part after having given his shins a rest recently and he had no pain. Yea!

We are officially the parents of first and eighth graders now! The kids had a great year of school but will have lots of fun this summer on different activities.

I always give Payton books for her last day of school and this year it was two 400-page books (the next two books in the Twilight Series) that she'll probably have done in a week. The book I got her a week ago was similarly long and she finished it within a week. Now that summer is here and she has more time, I expect her pace to pickup even more.

I hoped to get Blake books too but he opted for a wooden Melissa and Doug magic set instead (I got him a smaller set at FAO Schwarz in December and he loved it so much, he wanted a bigger set with new tricks). Once he's perfected this set of tricks, I'll see if he'll put on a magic show for us and let me record it.

Summer has officially begun!

We are lucky enough to have our lawn mowed every week by Andy's dad but since he's out-of-town for two weeks, he left his mower for us. And because I'm a good wife, I wanted to document Andy's first time mowing our lawn.





I can't tease him too much...I've never cleaned our house. I leave that to the experts.

Today is Last Day of School Eve and Blake had a class party comprised of sugar, bingo, sugar and more sugar.

Notice the Krispy Kreme donut and the chocolate chip cookie? Yeah, they also had Smarties and ring pops! I'm all for a little sugar but I think even the kids got burnt out on it.






Blake and Mrs. Wood today...


Blake and Mrs. Wood on the first day of school...

I've never ventured into ground turkey land so tonight was a first and it won't be the last. This recipe is time-consuming but it's so good that 3 out of the 4 of us had seconds...including Andy, Mr. Red Meat Eater.

Also, we're keeping local produce growers employed with the amount of fresh fruits and veggies consumed in this meal.

Just have to throw in a Payton post every now and then. She doesn't let me take pics of her very often but she loves the pink hair so she happily let me this time.

Mediterranean chicken skewers (purchased frozen at Sam's and put directly on the grill still frozen), fresh corn on the cob, honeydew and grapes.

This recipe doesn't require you to turn on the oven or stove except very briefly to allow some liquids to boil (which only took about 2-3 minutes). That makes this recipe ideal for a day like today when our house is 84 degrees.

There are a lot of ingredients but most of the time is spent chopping ahead of time. I bought the rotisserie chicken already cooked to simplify.

I can't say the kids really liked it much. The curry flavor was just a bit too powerful for them I think. I don't always cook things I think they'll like though so this will go into what Payton calls the "interesting" category. I did like it and found it a great summer dish.



Recipe

I've been running at the track so far but 11 laps running in circles is boring. Andy says I can get the GPS watch when I'm done with the 9 weeks of training (I just finished up week 6) so I used Google Maps distance measuring tool to map out a path in our neighborhood. Part of it is on a trail by the pond so I couldn't just use the normal street maps.

I was supposed to do 2.25 miles today but ended up doing 2. I'm thinking it was harder for a few reasons: I'm not used to running in the morning, hadn't eaten anything, temps are higher and street running is different than track running. I'll push for 2.25 next time.

Did a weigh-in at the YMCA yesterday and I'm down 8 pounds. 17 to go!