Surprise Success!!

I did it... I pulled off my first ever surprise party for Terry and he didn't have a clue until we were almost at the table! Yay!!

And despite him saying ten thousand times the next before, that he really looks forward to a low key evening with just the two of us.... He enjoyed himself and I think we all had a great evening.

Everyone just really played along nicely during the week and not leaking anything (!) and one of our friends helped out with getting the balloon and the cake to Wild Wings... Perfect surprise.... SWEET!

Here a couple of pictures:

Here the balloon again, without an old banana in the background.

Presenting the cake to the bday boy.

The crew singing "Happy Birthday"! ;-) Gotta love them!

In other news:

This morning, Terry and I ran the Green Valley 10-miler (race report will follow once the results are posted) and it sure was beautiful out there.... Just really really chilly at the start. My feet were frozen for the first three miles.

I am really sore right now, which is half due to the race and the other half I believe is yesterday morning's yoga class. It's the same soreness that I had last week after the power yoga class and I thought it was due to the fact, that I haven't done any "power" yoga in a while. Well, I was just as sore after yesterday's class and the only thing those two classes had in common is "pigeon pose".

Pic from http://yogaheals.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/stretch-like-a-pigeon/

"It opens and increases the flexibility of the hips...."

Well and that seems the problem... While I don't feel that I am overdoing it during practice, having sore hips and buns two weeks in a row most likely due to pigeon pose tells me, that my hips are way too tight..... Instead of writing this blog, I really should get my yoga on.... I am just way too lazy right now.

Happy Birthday, My Love!

Today is my lovely husband's birthday!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Pooh Bear! ;-)

It's a big milestone birthday and by the time this blog publishes, you most likely already know, that I got several of our friends together for a little suprise birthday party.

I know, I know.... You wanted to have a relaxed birthday.... Just the two of us... yada, yada, yada..... I hope you enjoyed yourself anyways..... Oh boy.... I really hope so.

Blast From The Past!

While this is posted, we are on our way up north to visit a high-school girl friend of mine. Can't wait to see her!

Most likely, we are creeping along a wintery autobahn and try to stay out of trouble.

For the post title: My brother gave me a scrap book for Christmas with old pictures.... very old pictures. Most of them have been copied from slides. Not only do I have a scrap book now, but also all the other pictures that didn't make the cut in digital form.... Here we go with a little selection! ;-)

Everybody still having fun or are you just happy that the holidays are over?? ;-)

Winter Wonder Land

Yes, we sure had a white Christmas here.... Actually, I can't remember ever seeing this much snow in the area ever, but in all honesty, I am probably in denial.

Needless to say... My running is basically non existent... Oh well...

Merry Christmas!

Earlier this week, we decorated the tree.

Un-decorated tree:

 Pauli wanted to play too:

 Getting the lights on the tree:

 Fine-tuning under mom's supervision:

 TA-DAH!!!!

Merry Christmas

and

a happy, healthy and successful year 2011!

Our self-timed family picture series... We gotta work on that! ;-)


PS: Did I mention that there is snow? A lot of snow?? There will be more pics soon! ;-)

Remember?

My parent's dog Pauli way back when we picked him out of the bunch... Sometime in the summer of last year.

Not so little Pauli anymore.....

 

 

 And there is also a cat....

And tons and tons of snow....

Not to forget the Gluehwein/ Kiddie Punch

And of course cookies... A lot of cookies...

Not much running going on so far... We headed out for a run today and had to cut it short, because we had wet feet with all the slosh and at one point the trail got very icy.... Anyways... So far, we just enjoy our time off and take things very easy and eat a lot.

Alabama Road Trip

Oh wow.... This didn't even feel like a weekend at all. Good thing, that I have only 5.5 working days left for the YEAR!

As you might have guessed by the title, we did a road trip to Alabama over the weekend.

Since we are kind of used to getting up at ridiculous hours for training and racing, why not get-up at 4am on a Saturday morning for a road trip to Montgomery, Alabama. Out of bed at 4am and on the road at 4.30am. I was up for another hour to keep Terry company while driving, but then took a really good nap and completely missed Atlanta* and then some, waking up on time to announce that I am hungry and need to be fed immediately. Fortunately, this coincided with an empty gas tank and my wishes were fulfilled pretty quickly! Nice, how that sometimes works out! ;-)

*It takes an hour to get from one side of Atlanta to the other side.

Sorry, babe... I cut of your head... Most of the food that you see is actually his. I had scrambled eggs and turkey sausage (cut off at the bottom) and a HUGE muffin and yogurt with granola and fresh pineapples... That's a lot of food... Very yummie though! No calorie restriction for me on a road trip or on vacation... Forgetaboutit!

Shortly after that, we crossed the state line between Georgia and Alabama, entering the central time zone. Terry's first words: We are one hour younger!

All in all, we made the trek from Greenville to Montgomery in around five hours and that was totally worth getting up early. Most of the day, we spent in the hospital with his Dad. One of Terry's brothers also came by with his family and so I had a chance to spend some time with my niece and sister-in-law while the boys got caught up.

In the early afternoon, we checked in the hotel (thanks to my raffle win from a couple of weeks ago, the stay was for free!) and rested up a little, before we headed out for a high school reunion pre-meeting. Turns out that this was the first meeting for most of these guys since they graduated 20 years ago. So there was a lot of catching up to do for them, while I passed the time raiding the buffet... several times. This wasn't an official reunion yet, but more a meeting to get going on the planning for the official reunion that most likely going to take place sometime next summer.

When we finally got back to the hotel room, I went asleep almost the same moment my head hit the pillow. What a long day!

The next day, we got up without an alarm and then headed out for a six mile run together. I mapped out a two mile loop in a residential area close to the hotel. Once we were half way through the loop, we came across the "Blount Cultural Park" so we decided to check it out. Turns out that we were in a pretty park with a theater (Shakespeare Festival), a museum, walking trails, ponds and some structures that would remind you of an English country side. All in all, very pretty. We did several loops in the park before heading back to the hotel and ended up with 6.75 miles. the run was a little faster than I was planning on doing, but that's what mostly happens when Terry and I run together... My easy pace is a fast walk for him... almost.

Pictures of the park are taken from here. I didn't take a camera or phone, because I didn't expect there was anything to be seen... Silly me. So just imagine this with a gray sky and brown leafs! ;-)

After the run, we headed out for some breakfast and then stopped at the hospital another time before hitting the road again. We did a short stop at the Tanger Outlets in Commerce to take care of some Christmas presents and finally got home around 6PM. Another long day, which made for a short weekend.

One more note on that run and the "aftermath":

This was only my second run since my took a run break two weeks ago. My first run back was an easy 4-miler on the treadmill after which I didn't have any issues. After this run on Sunday, I felt my IT band tightening up again, once I sat a little while in the car and sure enough, I was back to hobbling. The scheduled run this morning was cancelled, but after massaging the area with the roller things feel much better today. I put it on my to do list, to roll out my IT band and quads throughout the day for the next couple of days even if I don't feel pain walking and let's see if I can't get a grip on the matter.

I am not joking... The roller is sitting on my desk right now...  Funny enough, nobody has asked any questions yet! ;-)

Gotta roll!