Fourth of July

The week before the Fourth and the Fourth weekend were great! Rachel was visiting from her new home in Ithaca and we had much fun. We went to see Body Worlds at the Science Museum Thursday. I highly, highly recommend it to everyone, even very littles. Great exhibit. We played Mini-put in the "Big Back Yard" there too. The theme was source to sink, talking about waterways and pollution, etc. Rachel had an interesting habit of launching her ball from Source to next mini put hole...I'm not sure water can do that, but it made for an interesting 9 holes :) Thursday evening we went climbing...first time in about 6 months for me, and I was SORE afterwards. Then after that we went dancing.

It was so very hot on Friday that we ended up mostly relaxing, watching "The Muppet Show" episodes, and putting frozen bags of vegetables on our heads. I had been at the Raptor Center all morning, after only getting 3 hours of sleep, and I think the combo of the heat there and the activities of the day before wiped me out, hence the staying home. My tummy was not a happy camper.

Saturday Karin, Rachel and I went to DC for the Fourth weekend, but didn't get going quite as planned. As Karin states, it's the bee that stung her in the AM's fault. The extremely summed up version of the story is that Rachel's car was towed because we couldn't remember the date, and her mom had to rescue her by convincing the police to give the car back. They weren't going to give it to us because her name isn't on the title (sister-car) and so we would have been stranded here. On the plus side, we got to watch both the start and end of the England/Portugal World Cup game. Still, after much haggling, the car was returned to us, and we set off for DC.

We got in late - 9:30 on Sat, so we didn't set up tents, but slept in the house instead. Sunday we had girls day, the three of us and my mom went to the olive oil bar, the winery, the market (dinner of brats very important to Fourth of July celebrations), and the the mini-put course. This mini put course contains hazards, water, rocks, rough...just like real course. Great fun. After brats we had a wonderful fire at the property, I drove papa's tractor (1940's ...much fun!), and gormet smores were eaten.

Monday morning Rachel headed for her parent's place, and Karin and I went to the lake to lay on the beach and possibly swim. When the water was seen, the swimming was right out. Lake Michigan had turned itself into a gigantic serving of pea soup. Damn algal blooms. So, walking the beach and avoiding the zebra muscle shells and tanning on lawn chairs w/ our books was the order of the day. We thought about the fireworks as we drove back from the lake and stopped at the candle place, but it decided to rain, so we played Cranium instead. We did get to see the finale to the fireworks from my aunt's driveway, and it was very pretty.

Tuesday the Fourth dawned bright and clear, and Karin and I raced the Hairpin Run 5K in Fish Creek. This was the first year that it has been chip timed. I got a little recipt with my time and average mile and place in my age and overall. Very cool. I sucked it up running though. The time was not terrible, but I felt aweful running. I forgot to use my inhaler before the race and felt it each and every step. Next year. Actually, I'm tempted to work so that by October's race up there I can run better and make myself feel good for the winter. We'll see.

So now I'm back in the Twin Cities, working on the next draft of my thesis and waiting to start my job. That's a whole different story that I'll tell at a later date.