Weekend in Review

Friday: Girls Night Out for sushi and sake. Except, sub sake for wine. I had no idea sake tasted like rubbing alcohol. Gross. Nara, in the Crossroads, was pretty tasty. Not my favorite local sushi place, especially the bang for your buck, but I'd missed sushi and was happy to enjoy it again!

Kristin and I waiting for our food.

Andrea and her sake. This was the beginning of a long night for her, as I understand it.

My attempt at being artistic. I'm trying to get this photography thing to stick... We'll see!

The last bite. Can you tell we didn't like it one bit?! There isn't even any eel sauce left on the plate.

Saturday: Took Pete for a walk and ran errands I've been needing to get done. Dropped off a bunch of stuff to Goodwill, washed my car and went to visit someone I'd like to make my new friend:

Is he not precious?! He's a Dogue de Bordeaux, or French Mastiff, like Hooch from Turner & Hooch. If he had been at a shelter and not a pet store (for $1999!!) he would have come home with me. BDR wouldn't have liked it very much, but he stole my heart so I woulda found a way to make it work.

The rest of Saturday brought cleaning, reading and movie time. Then grilling out with some good buds and 4 dogs!

Sunday: Decently long bike ride (17 or so), then Lake Time!! We spent almost all day at Lake Quivira, letting the dogs swim, reading, enjoying the scenic views and swimming ourselves. I absolutely love it out there and plan to spend as much time possible there this summer. Grilled out again with the girls and BDR when he got back in town.

Monday: Slept in! Met BDR at Firestone and went to Einstein Bros for bagels, but in 2 cars. Pete did not like that one bit. When with him, he was barking and whimpering so loudly that my friend on the phone could hear him! Back with me, he jumped out of a moving Jeep (luckily it was going slow) so he could go check on BDR. He landed square on his back, broke his collar, but shook it off and was ready for the rest of the day. Maybe we'll learn that we need to just take 1 car when Pete is along for the ride!

Headed out to the Overland Park arboretum to hike with Peter. I had never been out there, only ridden by on my bike, and had heard good things - so we had to try it out. Other than needing to keep Pete on the leash, it was wonderful! Wide trails, warm sun and beautiful green views. Pete got to swim in Wolf Creek so you know he was happy!

Camoflauged puppy!

Life is good out here.

Peter loves the water!

I even though ahead to take my Forerunner so I could track how far we went. There was 1 more trail we didn't take, but will have to go on it next time.

My only regret: not showering before and smelling like cocoa butter lotion. The skeeters loved it! Whoops.

Got some more pool time in this afternoon, got further in my book, and now I gotta get some family time with T&C and BDR over dinner. What a great weekend! Another busy week and weekend ahead  - with a sorority reunion at the Royals game, Ironman Kansas 70.3, work, and much more!

SATC2 Premiere!

Volunteering definitely has its perks. Not only do you get to feel good about making a difference, but you get free soda, popcorn and a sneak preview of Sex and the City 2!

My pal at Safehome asked me to help her collect donations from the staff at the corporate offices at AMC, while they gathered for a premiere. They brought so much stuff that her SUV was jam packed. Seriously - no extra room at all! How great is that.

It was a ton of fun and a great flick. Very "girl power" and a great escape from reality for 2.5 hours! However, I must admit - they all looked a little old. Especially when Samantha and Miley end up on the red carpet in the same dress. Yikes!

On an unrelated note, my run yesterday looks like Africa:

My Grandfather's Story: Frank Kraft, a Timeless Voice of Aviation

I'm so proud of my grandfather. I never got to know him too well, but his story is wonderful. With an 8th grade education, he became one of the most successful WW2 pilots and then businessmen Iowa has ever seen.

He lived summers in Delhi, Iowa and Winters in Sun City, AZ. He would drive between the two and always stop for a night at our home in Wichita. He would bring us $2 bills as a gift. That was always very special.

Though my memories are few, they are very fond. And I'm proud to share Frank Kraft with all of you!

Trish and Pete's 5k Morning Adventure!

It felt like a scene out of Cinderella. Birds chirping, bunnies frollicking! Everything and everyone calm and happy and content. When its 6 am, all is right in the world. Pete and I got a good 5k run/walk in this morning. Its such a great start to the day, really puts you in the right frame of mind for a day of happiness and success! (It's paying off, I think I have another deal!)

I do think the events of last night played in to this morning's great run. Pete and I had some quality time, went to bed early, and woke up refreshed!

I took the camera with me on the run last night, and got some interesting shots.

MMMMM. Grass! Seriously Pete, at least put some dressing on your salad!

After the workout last night, it was time to cook! I think this is one of the best meals I've made in a long time, fairly healthy as well. (Just ignore the butter!)

Shrimp, Broccoli, and Sun-dried Tomatoes Scampi with Angel Hair

Ingredients

1/2 pound large shrimp - peeled and deveined
2 cups fresh broccoli florets
1 (6 ounce) jar sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, drained and chopped
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package angel hair pasta

1.Put the heat on under the pasta pot full of water.

2.In a large saute pan heat the oil from the drained sun-dried tomatoes. Add butter. When butter is melted saute the garlic about 1 minute, add the sun-dried tomatoes, heat for about 1 minute. Add shelled and deveined shrimp. Cook until shrimp are done, about 5-8 minutes.


When pasta water comes to a boil, toss in the broccoli florets. Cook about 2-3 minutes.

 

Then add angel hair. Cook according to package instructions. Drain and turn into large past bowl.



MMMM. Its looking and smelling sooooo good!



4.Spoon shrimp mixture over pasta and serve

 

Pour a glass of red wine, relax and enjoy!

Oh, and then take the dog out again - cuz he never gets enough!

GOTR 5k Recap

The Girls on the Run of Johnson County season-ending 5K fun run was this weekend at the Garmin campus. GOTR Founder Molly Barker visited from Charlotte, NC for the event. She visited sites, motivated the girls, encouraged coaches. She even had an appearance on Fox News! After the race, Garmin announced their new national sponsorship of the SoleMates program. This is so huge - and so cool for our council to be partly responsible for the partnership!

Packet pickup at the New Balance store on Friday evening was hectic but fun. GOTR program manager Jackie did a great job with check-in, and she had some wonderful volunteers to help!

With thanks to New Balance, we sold pink and green shoestrings to raise some funds for our program. Look how great they match these girls' NB shoes!!

Race day starts early, with coffee duty. Many thanks to our friends at Starbucks at 135th and Black Bob for the morning boost! We prepped the course by placing signage, checked in and registered runners, encouraged the runners and even did their hair! Mad props to Anna for heading that up. The girls had so much fun!

There were 160 girls that ran the race after completing the 10-week session of GOTR, all with family and running buddies. We had over 500 runners! For our first big race, that is so awesome! We on the board were totally not expecting that. Many thanks to our race directors and committee heads. One of our sponsors, Fry Orthodontics, even sent the tooth fairy to run!

Another cool occurence: a teacher from Osawatomie in Miami County was so inspired by GOTR that she worked with more than 30 girls from her school, training for the race. She picked up all their packets and drove a bus up to Olathe for the race. They had matching shirts and obviously had a blast!!

Watching the girls finish the 5k is so inspiring. You can really tell how much they have grown, how high their self-esteem is, and how proud they are. Some sprint, some walk, some do a combo of the two. But no matter how they got there - they finished!

Molly and several board members and coaches were at the finish line, ensuring that every girl received the medal she so rightly earned. I remember the medals and trophies from when I was little, and how important they were to me - and looking back they weren't nearly as significant as one of these lil' guys would have been to me!

One of the other exciting things that happened at the race: we said farewell to our council's founder as she retires to spend time with her family and her own business. Kristine has done so much for the girls and women in Johnson County. We also welcomed the new council director, Kathy Stone, to the GOTR family. We are so excited for what our future holds, and grateful for the strong foundation that Kristine has laid for us.

So to all my friends and fellow board members, thanks for a great week with Camp GOTR. Can't wait to see where we run to next!

The heat is on

Hi. My name is Trish and I'm a car and shower singer.

And, the best part. I'm good. When I'm by myself, I'm the best singer I've ever heard. Its just when other people are around that I start to suck.

Here's the lineup of what was performed this evening post-workout:

And speaking of workouts... yikes. Summer has hit! It was 90 degrees this evening when Pete and I went for a run. I set out to keep it short, but long enough to get sweaty. Luckily, that wasn't hard! We ended up going about 2.5 miles, pretty slowly.

I'm a little frustrated with my fitness level these days. Not that it should be great with the amount of exercise I've gotten lately. However, last summer a 3 mile run was the easiest workout of my week. It was the workout I would skip because it wasn't worth getting sweaty for a 30 minute run. Now, its a lot different.

Don't get me wrong, I've seriously enjoyed keeping it lowkey, walking Pete leisurely and just having fun without the stress of training. BUT. I want it back. I've noticed some of those internal "girl box" comments creeping into my head lately. I'm too fat, I'm not toned, I can't do it anymore, I'm not good enough, I've lost it, I'm not strong enough, etc etc etc.

I of course know these things aren't true, but its hard to push them out of your mind. That's why I think I've got to get back to it some how, some way. Even if its struggling thru the heat like we did today.

Even Pete had a hard time with it... here he is recovering post-run:

My Buddy and Me

Pete and I attended our first Sports Bras to Sports Bars event of the year on Monday. The group has grown! We ended up just walking, because for an unknown reason, my shoulder was really hurting. Weird. So many amazing women. We walked with one studette who has lost over 150 lbs! How wonderful for her. Pretty inspiring.

Whenver Pete and I get to hang out like that, or during the evenings when BDR isn't around, I like to think of how fabulous my pup is. Cheesy, I know, but he is lovingly spoiled rotten, goes everywhere with me - and is just My Buddy. So much so, that oftentimes, I just call him Buddy instead of Pete. And whenever I do - I can't help but sing him this little song.



And watching that video makes me want to go check out some more old school Saturday morning cartoons. Could be a good activity tonight before the Grey's season finale!!

GOTR Rocks.

Its for reasons like this that I love Girls on the Run: http://mollyontherun.blogspot.com/2010/05/childs-hand-in-yourswhat-tenderness-it.html . Seriously, when a "mancoach" is man enough to run in pink and be cheesey for the sake of the girls - that's what its all about. He got out of his "boy box" and if he can do it, so can all us girls!!!

This is a crazy busy week, as our council has Founder Molly Barker arriving tomorrow to visit our sites and support our season-ending 5k. Combine that with the hectic-ness of learning a new job, one of my best friends leaving for Tanzania for 9 weeks, training for the upcoming WIN triathlon and enjoying my dog and my man - life is busy!

But busy is good. Life is good. And I wouldn't have it any other way!

Heritage Du Photos

Heritage Park Duathlon

This was my first duathlon, and all in all, a pretty good experience.  I have NOT been training. I tried to start up again this week in an effort to prepare for the WIN tri coming up at the end of July. Then the weather put a damper on that.

I did do one 2-mile run on Tuesday, that totally kicked my ass. Needless to say, I didn't feel ready for a race.

I was even considering sleeping in, since Karli had predicted storms all day, and riding my bike in the rain is one of my least favorite things to do.

Luckily, I woke up to 55* and fog and decided to give it a go. The first leg, a 2 mile run, went decent. I didn't expect to go fast. I just wanted to keep going and have fun along the way. I ran most of the leg with Rebecca, a new KCM pal.

Getting to the bike, it was definitely wet from the fog, but still no real rain. At some point on the 3 laps, a decent mist started, but it wasn't too bad. I felt great on the bike, even the one hill on Pflumm that I used to seriously struggle with. Maybe I'm in better shape than I thought. I ran across several triathlon friends and several other people that I know outside my athletic endeavors. Friendly faces always make races more fun!

A definite highlight was seeing the Diaper Dandy crew in Nascar gear, on single speed cruisers...

The final leg, a 3 mile run, felt pretty good as well. Of course I did some walking, and I could have pushed a little harder, but my whole goal was to finish and just have fun. Mission accomplished.

Run with T1: 50/52 23:34
Bike: 18/52, 44:04
T2: 42/52 2:09
Run: 40/52 30:09
Total:  33/52 1:39:55

Race highlights: 18th woman on the bike! So much better than in the past. I even heard someone say (shocked), did Trish just pass us?! Hell ya I did!!

Maybe if I actually train a little better for WIN I can rock that race! Novel concept...

Caught pink footed!

One of my dearest friends had an interesting incident with her 3 year old this week. She is an amazing photographer, and luckily was able to capture said incident even though she had to have been FUMING!

I cracked up and had to share!!

I'm SO EXCITED to share my big news! I have begun a new endeavor as a Mortgage Consultant with the Kansas City Mortgage Group.

Finding this position was one of those karma things I think. A contact of my oldest brother used LinkedIn to seek out a new hire. We met a few times and discussed the job, company, culture, etc. And I first sat down with him just for interview experience. But the more I learned, the more intrigued I became. Its a job where I can essentially be my own boss, create my own destiny, and help people all at the same time. Its pretty much ideal. Plus, meeting the rest of the team left a great taste in my mouth and as we all know, first impressions are pretty important.

The mortgage world is definitely different than where I'd been previously. (But really, construction and non-profit are unique monsters in their own regard!) I know that my experiences are totally going to translate to success as a mortgage consultant. And - if I learned anything from completing the Ironman last September, it’s that determination and a positive attitude will allow you to achieve anything you set your mind to.

One of the coolest things about my new company is the people I'm working with. Everyone is so friendly, welcoming and helpful - and there is a ton of knowledge here. They have more than 50 years of combined experience, and for a young company that is amazing. For the second straight year, KCMG has been named by the Kansas City Business Journal as one of the Top 25 Mortgage Brokers in Kansas City. And now, I get to be a part of that.

One of my first tasks was to get fingerprinted (TGO would be proud!) and get my official photograph done. It was pretty fun to be ANTM for an afternoon. Tyra would be proud. Here's my favorite:

I'm able to do loans in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado - so if any of you out in bloggy world are looking for a new home or to refinance your current loan - get in touch! You can email me at trish(at)kcmortgage.com.

I also just sent out a big announcement letter. If you didn't get one, and want it - please let me know!

Back on 2 feet

Pete and I had a great run yesterday evening. It was only 2 miles, but it was hard and my legs were tired! The road to a WIN has now begun! I'm even back to trying the 100 Pushup Challenge. That is one hard program. I did some other strength stuff too, situps, planks, bicycles, the glute-bridge thing that I don't know the real name for. And, this morning, I can tell I got a decent workout in!

I'm really hoping tonight's storm holds out and I can get a decent bike ride in before the thunder and lightning strikes. I'm so lucky to have borrowed a mountain bike from a friend, but I had to drop it off at Elite to get the pedals changed and TGO's tires swapped out. We had planned to ride the Peddler's Jamboree over Memorial Day weekend, but a family wedding is pulling TGO to Milwaukee instead.

So I'm hoping I can convince him that we need to instead race the Dirty Duo later in June. I mean really. There is a huge mud pit that you have to crawl thru to get to the Finish Line. How fun is that?!!?

Anyone else planning to do that race?? Have you done it in the past?

Brrrrr-ainy day!

Whats up with this crazy May weather!? Its supposed to be getting warmer, sunnier and all around gorgeous-er. Instead, its cold and rainy. Wah.

I was looking forward to a Sports Bras 2 Sports Bars run tonight at Pizza 51 with some wonderful women, delicious pizza and cold brews. Alas, the pending T-Storm is raining on my parade.

Luckily one of my fellow runner-girls and I are still meeting for cocktails to celebrate my new job!! She also informed me that there is a Happy Hour app for the i-phone. That might just be the best news of my day!

I'm hoping to get crackin' on my new training plan, utilizing the 100 Pushup plan for strength training, and Lake Quivira for open water swims once it gets a bit warmer out. Cross your fingers that will happen soon!

It might be time...

TGO is picking up the bikes from Elite Cycling as I type. I borrowed a mountain bike from an amazing athlete and friend so we can ride the Katy Trail soon. In the meantime, I'm hoping to hit the Indian Creek and Tomahawk Creek trails to test out the borrowed ride.

As we took Pete for a long walk last night (after TGO made dinner for me!) I started getting a bit of the itch. I think it might be time to start training again. I'm a little hesitant, because I've been in this mode before but it hasn't stuck. I don't want to go spend my life savings to register for a race, so I thought. Hmm... Maybe I should actually find a training plan for the Sprint Tri I'm already signed up for. Novel concept huh? Train to be prepared, and then I can race it and do a little more than just go out for fun and to finish.

So I'm going to try Hal Higdon's Tri 2 program that I found online. It almost seems silly after the LOOOOOOOONG distances I was doing this time last year, but then I remember: I don't think I could run a mile straight right now. Maybe training will be necessary!!

Also, I've had a GREAT week, and I'm excited to share the big news with the e-world next week. Stay tuned!

Last of the Vacaticans

Back to reality on Monday morning. More about that to come...

But first: what a great last few days of vacation! I got to really enjoy 2 weeks of spring. The highlights are as follows....

- Royals v. Twins for Monica's birthday. Went out to the K with TGO and a whole bunch of friends. Despite the slight drizzle and slightly chilly temperatures, it was a ton of fun to get out and watch some ball.

- Lots of Pete time. Between long walks, Shawnee Mission Park and Lake Quivira, Pete and I had some serious quality time together enjoying the sun. I swear, watching him chase a tennis ball out in the lake is pretty impressive. My dog swims better than Michael Phelps' dog that's for sure. He'll even dive off the docks to retrieve his beloved yellow ball.

- Trip to Minnesota-yah you betcha with Mam and Dad to see Gramma and the family. We even went to the store to get Coke and have them put it in a beg for us. (It's funny if you read this with a MN accent, I promise. We'll at least its funny to me.) It was great to see a good chunk of the family and spend some QT with my 87 year old grandmother, Aunt Kerri and Uncle T. The highlight (or maybe I should say Lowlight) of the trip? When Gramma asked for sugar cookies and complained about not being able to bake in her apartment (they live in memory care and the stove/oven are turned off for safety's sake), I offered to bake with her in the main living room. After getting the break and bake dough from the store, Gramma had no interest in baking with me. So I took them down, set the timer and returned on time to take them out. However, the cookies were still doughy in the middle so I let them bake another 90 seconds or so. When I took them out, the smoke escaped from the oven, setting off the fire alarms. The staff at Croixdale sure responded quickly! Luckily the residents couldn't hear the alarm (that's what happens when you're pushing 90) and the Bayport FD was on its way. No real fire, just burnt cookies... and the worst part? Not that I didn't get to meet the cute firefighters, although that too is a tragedy... the cookies still weren't done in the middle, just burnt to a crisp on the bottom!

- Totally booked social calendar for the rest of the weekend. The KC Multisport Wine Tasting at the Cellar Rat was Friday night. Tons of fun and a great chance to catch up with all my swim-bike-run buddies. Saturday, we went to TGO's friends' BBQ, my friend's BBQ, to Tanners to meet one of his buddies and to a bar to celebrate his sister's birthday. And we still made it home by 11! Sunday Funday brought a Reedy family picnic at Lake Quivira, where Pete again got to swim, play tennis and basketball (yes, he played all three sports better than most of us humans!) and we all enjoyed Johnny C's pizza and cupcakes. Afterwards we toured the Boulevard Brewery and completed the day with cocktails and dinner on the rooftop at The Well. And we topped it off with gelato from The Sweet Guy. I don't think the day could have been any better!