Sunday, July 18

Weird and Recommended

Our friends Nikki and Jason introduced us to an excellent cookbook, Great Good Fast, by Martha Stewart. Ours is currently on loan from the library, but I might have to make the purchase....
After a trip to the Sunday Farmers' Market, I made this.  And I think you should too:


Tuesday, July 13

Training

I will be the first to admit that Ben is right, A LOT.  I used to say "always" instead of "a lot" but then I started being right more after we got married (kidding).  No, but really, those who know both of us well, know that we are two totally different people, exact opposites.  So, it's true that opposites attract!  When Ben and I were in the Dominican in March with a group of college students, several times we would hear "you and Ben are verrry different--it's so cool to see how you work together!"  We took a lot of pride in that.
I am very emotional, and Ben is very even keel.  That sums it up.  And Ben calms me down, brings me back to reality, while I encourage him to share his feelings ("feelings...talking about feelings...") more.  It's a great combo.  We're quite proud of our differences.
And here is an excellent example of why we need to do this half marathon together.  Last night we went for a run, only 2 miles, but at this point if I can run that without stopping, it's a great accomplishment!  Ben is obviously in better shape than I am, and faster, but has been mostly sticking with me when we run.  He took off ahead of me last night and I was immediately discouraged and outraged.  Instead of it making me want to work harder, I had to fight with myself to even keep running.  Of course, the rest of the run I was thinking about what I would say to him when we got home, along the lines of "YOU LEFT ME!"  And of course, when we arrived home, Ben said "great job!" and a conversation ensued.  Basically, within one nanosecond of me starting to whine, I realized that Ben knew exactly what he was doing to push me along in our training.  Our goal is to run this "race" together in life and sometimes we're in different places.  The job of the person ahead is to reach back and encourage the person behind, and the person behind's job is to keep the other in focus and work hard to catch up to be with the other.

Love all this sappy running metaphors..

Oh, and I love my husband who just surprised me at work for lunch.

Wednesday, July 7

July

Although July is not yet over--I'm sure that the most important thing we'll do all this month is this:




June

We went to Michigan and stayed on the Lake as a family. Got to see the Post's and some really great friends.




May

We headed out to Colorado for the Donohue nuptials. It was gorgeous and we had a sweet condo with a sweet view.

And Steph got over her fear of horses, and Ben made friends with a cowboy named Jason.

April


This is what we did in April. Just in general.

March

We went back to the Dominican Republic (Pico Escondido) with these cool kiddos on a work team and sucked at taking pictures.
It's not like we met and got engaged there or anything...