Angie's Easter Plant Redux

For those of you who didn't see Brian's orginal post here is my Easter Plant the day I got it.

Here it is a few short months later.

This is why I should not own plants.  I have never been good with them.  Maybe Brian had a right to be concerned about how much water it was getting.  I am hoping to get a 4th of July plant to try again.  I'm thinking of starting with something low matience that doesn't need a lot of water.  Like a cactus.

Anniversary

Of course we started our anniversary by going to our favorite restaurant Texas Roadhouse.  We always overeat there because we are stuffed before we even get our meals because their rolls are so good.  And this time was no exception.  Here we are pre-stuffed.

 (I have been terrible at taking pictures to document our lives since we have been married.  That is something I have been trying to work on.  So lucky readers you get the pleasure of viewing several boring pictures of us waiting for stuff.  Something for you to look forward to!)

For the past few years I have really wanted to take the Venice on the Cherry Creek tour here in Denver.  This year for our anniversary we finally did it!

It was a little different then I expected because it is basically ran by highschoolers.  They are called River Rangers and they teach elementary school students about the environment during the day and run the Venice on the Creek on Friday and Saturday nights.

Us before we boarded our gondola.  I posed first and then Brian imitated my pose.

We learned lots of interesting things about the history of Denver on the tour.  People first came to settle Denver because they believed there was gold to be mined in the Cherry Creek.  Turns out there wasn't much to be mined- but two settlements had already been made, one on either side of the creek.  Because the two settlements were competing the first newspaper of the area actually made the newspaper under the bridge of the creek as not to upset either settlement and alienate one side.  Eventually the two sides merged and that's when it was named Denver.

Also- to those who have not been to down town Denver, it is set up kind of funny.  Some of the roads run diagonally etc.  Well I found out that is because they made the roads to fun parallel to the creek.  And since the creek doesn't just run in one strait line neither do the roads.

Here are a few random pictures of our ride:

In this picture you can see that the creek ahead is raised.  It is kind of interesting how they get us up to the next level.  They put us in what they call a lock.

Once in the lock they start to pour the water in so it raises the boat up.  This is us in the lock waiting to be raised to the top.
The funniest thing about this experience is how many bystanders stop and stare. While in this lock we gathered an audience on the bridge above.  The gate to get  us out of the lock is really heavy so once the River Ranger got us out he got a standing ovation by the bridge crowd.  Also everyone we passed that were also taking gondola rides felt the need to waive at us as we passed each other.  I guess we are automatically friends.  There was a gondola full of smaller children that our guide actually crashed into as they were waiting to get into the lock and they all wanted to give us high fives.  As we were close enough to touch them we obliged.

Our Guide

Happy 4 years Brian!

Awards we get

There are several types of awards we get throughtout life. Some of the seem to really mean something while others we are stuck looking at ourselves and saying really?? I can think of a couple of awards that I have got over the years. When I was a young one, I got a second place trophy for a baseball team that I was on. It was red and quite tall. I was proud of that one and put it on my shelf. Jeff or Craig must have got jealous since I came home one day and it was on the floor broken. I don't think either of them ever confessed. I also received many soccer trophies, but they didn't seem to mean much. Getting trophies for last place never quite does the job. In 8th grade my photo appeared in the yearbook for being the most talented boy in the school. I was kinda embarrassed since I thought most talented in my mind meant most  dorky. Why couldn't I get the award for most popular or best dressed? Those were the cool awards. I guess my 3 tshirts that I always wore and my two pair of tight jeans disqualified me from the best dressed award and I guess you have to talk to girls more to get most popular. I guess I was a little shy sometimes. I also remember that I got an award for the boy scout pine wood derby race. It wasn't for first place or coolest car. I think it was for the most unique or special car. I guess some awards in life are given to those who make a great accomplishment and some are just given to try to make others feel good.

Groupon

I recently discovered Groupon. I thought it was a pretty cool website until they gave my wife 20 free dollars to spend and I got nothing. They must know that girls say " look at this great deal" and guys say " do you really need that".

5 K from Brians perspective

So how do you know when you are not a good runner. Is it when the mom with the double stroller passes you by( who started 5 minutes after you, or is it when the 60 year old woman passes you. Maybe its when the 10 year old passes you and says come on number 137 and than adds you want to get a good time dont you. Maybe worst of all is when there are 3-5 hunderd people and you don't pass a single one the entire time. Of course that means there were plenty of those who passed us with smiles of their faces. You may ask if this will be my first and last 5 K ever. I guess I will have to ask my wife since she is the one who signed us up for it. Now for the highlight of the day. Everyone knows that you can not let your wife beat you in a running race. It would take alot of the masculinity out of me. This is why I beat her by 1 second exactly.

My first 5K

I hate running.  I always have.  I don't mind doing it if is for another reason like playing dodge ball, but running just for the purpose of running has never been an interest of mine.
So why I decided to run a 5k I don't know.  I had been considering it for the past few months and then I saw a discount to join one on living social.  So I convinced Brian to do it and we signed up.

We arrived about 8:00 this morning which gave us just enough time to get registered and visit the booths they had set up there.  It was a combination 5k/ Stroller roll and kids fun run.  It was to encourage family fitness so they had games and a jump house for the kids to enjoy.  Brian enjoyed the Einstein Bros. Bagel booth which was giving away free samples of blueberry muffins and chocolate chip cookies.

Here we are in our pre-race warm ups:

I didn't think the race would be too difficult- because even though I don't look like it- I actually do exercise regularly.  On the rare occasion I do decide to run at the gym I usually do 4 miles and that is not hard.  I started to get nervous when I was looking up information online and people were talking about training for a 5k.  Is this something I need to train for?!  Because I definitely haven't done that.

I was able to do the first mile without much problems, but by mile 2 I was really starting to feel it.  The race course was up and down hill and on the up hill portions I was really struggling.  My jog was as fast as Brian's walk.  Brian had set 2 goals for me before the race. 1. Not to get passed by any of the 5k stroller rollers (who were starting 5 minutes after the regular 5kers)  and 2.  to beat the guy with no legs.  I am sad to say I did not accomplish either goal.  The first stroller passed me at the beginning of the 2nd mile and I knew it was the beginning of many more strollers passing me by.

Halfway through mile 2 I met a 12 year old boy who encouraged me to pick up my pace because I was being timed.  He also encouraged Brian to actually run since he was walking beside me while I jogged.  Not to be out done by a 12 year old we both picked up our pace a little bit, but he was much faster then us and soon out of sight.

After what felt like forever we finally finished the 3rd mile.  My muscles were sore and my legs were starting to feel like jelly.  Brian really wanted to finish with a better time then me so he took off once we had reached the parking lot where the finish line was.  The whole course had been very well marked but once we reached the parking lot it was confusing about where we should go since they were holding a fair with booths it was kind of unclear.  So I watched Brian walk over to one of the booths and just stand there.  I knew he hadn't crossed the finish line, so I waited for some of the ladies behind me to catch up and followed them as they seemed to know where they were going.  I checked on Brian again and sure enough he was still standing by one of the booths looking around to see where I had gone.  I thought for sure I would beat him since I was only about 30 feet from the finish line.  Just as I was about to cross this person whizzes past me.  Brian had found me just in time.  He finished 1 second ahead of me in the official standings.

After the race they had free sandwiches, pizza and jamba juice.  We helped ourselves to the food while we sat and watched the kids compete in the fun run.

Overall it was a good experience.  I pushed myself to do something I wouldn't typically do, and Brian didn't hate it like he thought he would.  Maybe we will do another 5k in the future- although if I get beat by a man with no legs again I think I will retire from running for good.

TLC

So I am flipping though the channels on TV and could not find anything I really wanted to watch. For some reason a program on TLC caught my attention. I never knew that people could be so weird. One girl sleeps with her hairdryer, another eats comet(the cleaner), and a man lives with life sized doll that he carries around(he has conversations with himself and acts like the doll is talking to him). What kind of world are we living in?

Summer Vacation

Now that it's June our summer vacation to Bartlesville is less then 2 months away and we are starting to look forward to it.  We like visiting with Brian's family because there are so many of them there is always something to do or someone to hang out with.
We especially like playing with the nieces and nephews.  They are all so cute and they always say and do funny things that we laugh about even years later.  I should write down all of these experiences so I don't forget them- these are just a few I can think of off the top of my head.

- Klayton running over to me with some crackers, he extends his hand as if he is offering it to me.  I said "oh thank you Klayton!" and reach to grab the cracker.  Instead of handing it to me he shoves it in his mouth and runs away.

- Derek pointing to my stomach and asking if there is a baby in there.  I tell him no.  He then points to my chest and asks if there is a baby in there.  I say no again.  He looks sorely disappointed he was wrong on both accounts.

- Playing with Caty at Grandma's funeral.  I had been playing with her and sitting with her during the funeral and after about 2 hours with her she turns to me and says "who are you?"

- Klayton explaining to Austin that the snapping turtles are bad because they have red eyes.  (I actually have video of this one!)

We are looking forward to many more memories!

Memorial Day

BBQ didn't really go as planned. We thought there was a little bbq at the local park near us. So we packed up all of our food and went over to the park and realized there wasn't one. So we ended up driving to 3 different parks and none of them had one. So we went to Cherry Creek State Park where we had to pay $10 to get in. The only bbq pit open there was at the model airplane flying station. It was very hard to start the fire on the grill because it was really windy, and all of the people flying model airplanes were looking at us weird that we were bbqing there with no airplane.

I had brought hotdogs for Brian and hamburgers for me. I didn't want Brian to touch the raw meat with his hands since we had no way to wash his hands and we would be eating. So I thought he would get over the grill to dump them out of the baggie. No. He decided he would try to toss them out of the baggie from a foot a way. I saw my hamburgers fall to the ground 1 inch in front of the grill. Just splattered on the ground. He tried to salvage some of the meat that hadn't "touched the ground" but the damage had been done. And he ended up touching the raw meat anyway during the salvation process.

We had brought bocce ball to play while we were cooking but since we were at the model airplane grounds we could not play there. So after Brian ate a hotdog and a few Doritos we went to Burger King and then went home.