Just The Two of Us

This is my official "Happy Easter" post. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter, wherever you were and whatever you were doing. Matt and I had a very quiet weekend, which was much welcomed but somewhat strange at the same time.

Nevertheless, we did it up right. Our Easter activities inlcuded standing in the back of church for mass (despite arriving 20 minutes early), an Easter egg hunt in the house and yard, Easter dinner and even a visit from the Easter Bunny himself! :) Below is a picture of our dinner, which involved way more food than two people could possibly eat. (Hooray for leftovers!)

I was able to use and incorporate a lot of family heirlooms and traditions into this meal. I finally pulled out my Grandma Govert's Noratake salt and pepper shakers (hidden behind the bunny centerpiece). They match our china really well, and I love that they are an Irish heirloom from my grandma. I used the springy yellow serving dishes, which were a birthday gift from my dad. I ordered a Honey Baked ham and made cream cheese corn, which are typically found on the table at Matt's family dinners. All in all, it was a very pleasant day.

In other news: Perdi has been on a diet for about 4 months now. As of last week, she has lost over 3 lbs! Only 3 more to go, and she will be at her target weight. I am so proud of her, although the poor dog is HUNGRY. Last night, she finally figured out how to open the "dog proof" dog food containers. I figured it was only a matter of time. They were promptly moved to the pantry. Don't worry, we are not starving our poor dog! She gets carrots to supplement her diet, which she seems to really enjoy. Although she would have MUCH rather have had a piece or two (or 20) of the Easter ham. :)

Only 5 days until the big marathon. I am getting nervous and am starting to ask myself what I got myself into! It will feel so good to have this milestone behind us. However, we fully intend to keep running after the marathon, just maybe not such crazy distances every week.

My next blog should be a "before" post of our guest room project. We will be giving that room a face lift in the next couple weeks. I am picking out paint samples this afternoon...EEK!

Half Marathon #2

This weekend was a busy one. We were lucky to have our good friends Jake and Meredith come out to visit us. They flew in on Friday night and we stayed out way too late catching up! The main reason for their visit was to participate in the Platte River Half Marathon relay on Sunday. So on Saturday, we decided to help them prepare for running in the altitude by going on a hike near Golden. The first trail we picked was a little too trecherous. But we did find a second trail which turned out to be a really nice hike, although a little windy. We were so lucky to have great weather the entire weekend for all of the outdoor activities we participated in. Sunday was race day. We prepared by eating a big pasta dinner at Olive Garden on Saturday night. Then we went home and had a quiet evening watching a movie and falling asleep shortly after. All through the week, the forecasts were calling for rain/snow on Sunday, but when we woke up, it was a typical bright and sunny Colorado day. Perfect running weather, except for the gusty wind that persisted all weekend. The race went really well. It was almost entirely downhill, except for the last mile, which required us to run up and over a bridge/overpass. My mentality was to run faster to get it over with or give up and walk. We ended up running faster and finished the half marathon with a personal best of 2:03:06. That's three minutes shaved off of the half marathon we ran last fall! Jake, Mere and their friend Heather ran the relay, which consisted of two people running 5 miles and the third person finishing the last 3.1 miles of the race. Jake ran first. He took off pretty fast, but I managed to catch up to him eventually. (Matt had to stop to use the restroom at the very beginning, but he eventually caught back up to me.) When Jake finished his 5 miles and Mere started running, I couldn't keep pace with her very long at all! It was a fun race, made even better by having so many friends to run with. Here are a couple finish line pictures for you!

The countdown is on for our full marathon: less than three weeks!!

A Short Run

My photo blog had a good run. We made it through January and February. Two months! However, as you can see, it has gone downhill since then. I was thinking I would compensate for the month of March by posting 31 (of the 700+ ) pictures from our trip to Ireland. But then I realized I haven't really been taking photos from April either. The thought of getting caught up at this point seems unrealistic. But I still plan to post our favorite Ireland photos at some point!

I have really been enjoying the past two weeks. I finished my 6th Master's class on the 23rd of March. The next one starts next week, but it is SO nice not to have to think about school for a while. I have been working on lots of sewing projects and getting caught up on marathon training. My list of sewing projects keeps getting longer and longer, but I am equally excited about each one. It is so fun to be able to make things exactly as I want them, even if I still need quite a bit of practice with my technique.

Last night, I made this pillow for the living room.

It looks really nice with our living room rug and couches. I was browsing the remnant fabrics at JoAnn and I spotted this pattern. I picked it up, even though I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with it. As soon as I got home, I knew what i wanted to do with it, and finished it in about an hour.

Did I mention that Matt is in Wisconsin on business this week? With him being gone and my break between classes, my boredom has turned into productivity!