WIAW On Vacation...

I am currently sitting on the couch at my aunt's house at Ocean Isle Beach, NC. Beach vacations are my favorite. The family is asleep and I am really wishing I had slept better last night.

My sinuses have decided to cause me some misery. I am waiting on my doctor to refill a prescription so by this time tomorrow I will be feeling much better. 

We have plans to spend some time at the beach and go to the movies later. 

So now onto the WIAW eats. 

We stopped for lunch at Cracker Barrel in Memphis on Saturday. I had a baked sweet potato with this salad, I ate it before I could take a picture. It was that good. 

We stayed at the Embassy Suites in Nashville. The construction in the hotel was a bit annoying, but the breakfast almost made up for it. Spinach and mushroom omelette with pancakes and hash browns. 

Pre Wilco dinner in downtown Nashville, no picture of my veggie burger. It was so good. There were black beans and chick peas in the burger. Dessert is pictured above. Cinnamon donut holes with caramel dipping sauce. I could have eaten the entire order, but I shared. 

Real food on the road. We decided to stop at an Ingle's grocery store near Asheville, NC and I had the salad bar. Makes me wish we had grocery stores like this in Oklahoma. Carson had a made to order sandwich and Josh and Camy had chicken strips. So much better than fast food. 

Then there was my post horrible run breakfast yesterday morning. Eggo waffle topped with peanut butter. I went a little crazy with the peanut butter and ended up cutting up a banana to top it off. 

Check out the other WIAW eats at www.peasandcrayons.com. 

At The Beach...

We got to Ocean Isle Beach yesterday afternoon. After unloading the car, a trip to the grocery store and spaghetti we walked down to the beach. 

It was pretty windy, but it was a beautiful night. 

I got up this morning, though not near as early as I should have, and laced up for a run. 

I ran on the beach for a while. Let me just say that it was hot. Like running on the surface of the sun hot. Okay, maybe not that hot but it was 80 degrees and there were not many clouds in the sky. Trust me, it was hot. 

This is me not having much fun. In fact, I think you can barely call what I did running. It was hot. If I am going to run again I am going to have to get an earlier start. 9 am was not fun. 

After, 3.3 miles we got some breakfast and packed up for the beach. It was cloudy and even sprinkled on us for a little while. A rainy day at the beach I'd still better than a sunny day at work. 

What a great day at the beach. I got a little too much sun so I am really cold now. 

We did walk down and get ice cream.

I went with the root beer float. 

Here's hoping my sinuses are a little less crappy tomorrow. 

Waiting for Wilco...

We are sitting on the top of the hill at the Lawn at Riverside Park in Nashville waiting for Wilco to come onstage. 

Is it horrible that I really don't care if I see Bon Dylan?  I am all about Wilco. This is the fourth time Josh and I have seen them; Tulsa, OKC and Denton so far. 

It is an absolutely beautiful night here in Nashville and I am excited for the girls to see Wilco for the first time. 

We got downtown early and had dinner at the Rockbottom Brewery. The highlight of the meal was dessert. 

Yum!

Now it's almost Wilco time! 

Have a good night. 

Let's Start With Some Music...

We decided to spend the first night of our vacation in Tulsa. Not only were we dropping off the pups, we got to listen to some pretty amazing music. 

Tedder, mentioned at the top of the flier is my sister-in-law's amazingly talented boyfriend. He plays or has played the saxophone in three of the four bands that were scheduled to play last night. 

I had never been able to see him play before and I am kicking myself. The event was a fundraiser, raising funds for Ryan (boyfriend) and Jordan (sister-in-law) who are moving to Chicago in a couple of weeks. I would pack up and move with them in a heartbeat because I love Chicago, but sadly their new place is pretty small. 

Back to last night. 

The first band features a cello, banjo, saxophone (Ryan) and a rapper. I was skeptical but it worked and they were very good. 

This is Ryan, yes he was wearing a tuxedo, with the third band. He had never played with them before and he sounded amazing with these guys. 

Jordan had some her friends from Studio 7 Fitness, where she has developed some amazing abs pole dancing come out and perform during the show. She has sure come a long way from the eight year old she was when I first met her 21 years ago!

Carson with the worlds best mother-in-law. 

Josh and the girls. They enjoyed their first show. I think they are ready for Wilco tomorrow. 

We are almost to Memphis, had some serious traffic outside of Little Rock that slowed us down. 

More to come...

On The Road...

Blogging from the road. We have been on the road for approximately 16 minutes and we are already on the turnpike. 

We are headed to Tulsa tonight to drop off this guy. 

He is being amazingly calm with his sister Penny. They are going to have their own vacay at the Doggie Do in Grove with Aunt Connie. Fun times!

There is also a concert happening tonight that we are getting to see. Two birds and all. More on that tomorrow. 

For now its the open road. 

Well keep your fingers crossed its all open. 

Cheers to vacation and the next eleven days with the family, Wilco and the beach. 

I wonder if we forgot anything. 

Disney Cruise Day 1...

This is the first of multiple posts about our vacation. When we started on the Dave Ramsey Plan we promised the girls that when we got all our bills paid off, except the house, we would take a real family vacation.

I contacted the travel agent in January and I couldn't believe it was finally time to go. The posts will have lots and lots of photos. Here we go...

I've Done Nothing All Week...

Or at least it seems like it. I feel like I've been very disconnected even though I have lots of things to talk about. Maybe even a few complaints.

I plan to get all caught up this weekend before my kiddos get home from their extended vacay.

Here's what I need to recap...

• Our trip from Virginia to West Virginia, including an explanation on how it is it's own state.
• A discussion on free range chicken and hurricanes not near the ocean.
• Power outages and almost running out of gas.
• How much work stinks after you've been off a week.
• July 4th.
• Running and feeling good and feeling like I'm dying.

Looks like it could be an interesting weekend.

 

Happy Friday! It is only mildly pathetic that we have no kiddos until Sunday and I am surfing the net on my iPad and Josh is watching golf on a Friday night. There just doesn't seem to be any movies out right now that I can't live without seeing.

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Picking Blackberries and Running Some Hills...

On Monday Linda and I headed up the hill behind the barn with some of the kids to pick some blackberries. Bo the dog decided to come along with us and we got quite a few berries. We even got to pick a few wine berries and try them, I have decided they are my new favorite berry.

On Tuesday morning I was ready for a run. I got Karen to go with me. The pictures I took don't accurately depict the hills that we ran. We got in 3.5 miles but I think there is some sort of hill calculation that would play into it and it should have been closer to five normal Oklahoma-type miles. Plus it was a cloudless, sunny day. There were some trees but not near as many as I would have liked. We got followed by dogs on three separate occasions, including some mean looking yappy little dogs. They were pretty funny though. Thankfully, all the dogs were nice ones.

Thursday morning I was up early and determined to beat the heat and hit the hills again. I headed out solo this time, it was 6:15 Oklahoma time and no one else was up yet. I headed down to the end of the driveway and turned left instead of right. By the way, it was about .45 mile to the end of the driveway. It was all downhill going out and uphill going home. Plus it was gravel. Know what's worse than running on cobblestones at the Cowtown half marathon? Gravel.

I think I'm going to have to plug in my Garmin when I get home to get the elevation of both runs because the pictures don't do it justice. It was damn hilly and it was hard and fun. I love a good hard run and I am so glad to be running hills again.

I only packed my running shoes for the week so they saw some travel, some hills, and some horses. They are in need of a trip through the washer when I get home Sunday.

 

Things are Getting Interesting...

We made it to Nashville and we might be having some technical issues. Outside of Little Rock Jen noticed a strange noise coming from the front driver's side tire. You might remember Jen's car from last years trip to the beach. We had some technical issues then too.

So we got checked into the hotel and took the kids down to the pool.

We asked at the front desk for suggestions for a place to order pizza and they directed us to a great place that delivered. The very nice woman at the front even agreed to let us eat by the pool, which they don't allow normally, and we were able to feed the kids not in our hotel rooms.

After we drug the kids out of the pool and back to the rooms I got Camy, Carson, Hailey and Hannah situated to watch some tv I headed down to the fitness center to torture myself on the treadmill.

I don't know what it is about the treadmill but I can't seem to run on one without getting blisters on my feet. I did 4.4 miles in 45 minutes. In my mind I imagined I was running to Target and back. I even called Josh and got him to talk to me for a little bit so it was just like running with friends. I even caught the end of the Track & Field Olympic Trials and got to see the finals for the women's 100M. It made me very happy to be running even if it was on the treadmill.

I thought I was only sleeping with Camy last night, apparently Hannah had other ideas. She woke up at about 3am and said she was scared and wouldn't let me tell her no. She crawled in bed with Camy and I and helped hog the bed. Not such a good night sleep.

So now we are hanging out in the hotel waiting for Firestone to call us and tell us how long it'll take to fix Jen's car.

 

On The Road With Paige...

We are on the road. We have a very long trip ahead of us but it seems to be moving along just fine so far.

I am in the car with the youngest and oldest cousins. Karen and I have Haden, Hannah (aka Hurricane Hannah) and Paige. Ah, Paige she is one of a kind. She is the oldest cousin, I became an aunt because of her. She was the first baby Josh and I ever kept overnight. She is a teenager now and it is definitely interesting when she is around.

This is Paige, you don't need much more explanation than this.

Quotes from the car with Paige...

• "Is that what happens when you spill paint in the garage?". This was after I showed her where I burnt my hand last weekend.
• This is not a quote but the entire conversation between her and Karen when Karen was trying to get her to start a movie was very entertaining. So much so that I opted to just listen rather than help.
• She told us that her mom told her she couldn't bring a blanket in the car. But two pillow pets were ok. (Apparently her mom has no recollection of this conversation.)
• "My brother gets the scardy farts."
• We are taking turns playing music from our phones and Paige is playing music by Flight of the Concords.
• Paige said she was gonna use the goldfish crackers as a training tool to get Haden to say mama.

In case you were wondering. This is Haden. So far the dog training techniques are not working on him.

We made it to Nashville and the trip just got more interesting. More on that later.

 

One of Those Days...

I'll be leaving for vacation Saturday morning. I've got all the snacks already, and I baked up some cookies tonight too.

I can't decide if it's harder to leave for a vacation or harder to come back to work. Although today it seemed way harder to leave. I will be gone for the last week of the quarter so there are lots of things to do before the end of the month. I do have someone to handle part of my job while I an gone but I have a lot of stuff to get done before 5 pm tomorrow.

Today was one of those days that I worked the entire day with that goal in mind and at the by the end of the day things had not worked like I needed them to and I found that there could be a few big kinks in the process. I won't bore you with the details because it really is boring stupid crap. I almost started crying on a call with someone this afternoon and had had enough by 5:00.

I already got my run in this morning so my stress relieving options were baking and the bottle of wine in my fridge.

So I got some baking done. Cookies for the road trip this weekend because really can you have too many snacks?

And then we ordered pizza for dinner so I had a little wine.

now I am wondering if 7:54 is too early for me to go to bed. I have been sleeping horribly all week I am going to skip the Y in the morning and hope I can sleep until my alarm goes off. That hasn't happened since Monday when I overslept and missed my run. Guess I have been so worried I would oversleep again that I've been overcompensating. Kinda sucks.

We did watch our new favorite show Dogs in the City. Penny just loves this show.

So here's to hoping tomorrow will be a better day and vacation that starts in less than 24 hours.