No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth, I've just been running all over it!

Wow!  Where has the last 7 months gone!

Apparently life has completely gotten away from me and I have been neglecting my blog!  When I was just sitting here this morning reading back through a few of my posts, I realized how much I really have missed writing these updates!  That needs to change!  Writing these posts was a fabulous way for me to reflect back on adventures, keep a log of these adventures and keep in touch with all of you!

I know that there is no way that I will be able to completely recap everything from the last 7 months (I can't believe that the last post I did was from my Birthday Ragnar adventure last June!) s instead of tryign to go back and recreate posts for each adventure, here is a snapshot of the second half of 2015... a photo journey of the many adventures and a brief synopsis!  Over the next week I will then go back and get caught up on the adventures thus far in 2016.  My goal after that is to get out here and most at least once a week for you!  Whether it be a recipe, a recap on one of the crazy adventures planned for this year or who knows what else!

We spent A LOT of time at the ballpark!  Thanks to the Host Family program with the Green Bay Bullfrogs, we were able to host their Radio Broadcaster for the Summer.  Parker was with us from the end of May thru the middle of August.  Between his crazy schedule at the ballpark and traveling with the team, the only time we really saw him was at the ballpark, but it was still an awesome experience for all of us.  We watched more baseball in those few months than I think we ever have, but it was so worth it!  I am excited to say that we will be hosting again this year and, at this time, it sounds like it will be on of the summer interns.  

We headed north for a night to spent the night on a Bed & Breakfast train!  After a dinner on the moving train, we relaxed with a few drink and new friends on the train and then retreated to our own room in the sleeper car.  Of course, while the rest of the train slept in, I headed out for a morning run!  90% humidity, but I didn't care!  Afterwards, it was a warm breakfast before we headed off the train and had to drive home!

On one of our trips up north, I got to reconnect with a few friends from high school, take a hike up Silver Mountain and spent the evening catching up and laughing the day away!  Thanks for the memories ladies!  Until next summer when we can do it again!

Who says you have to do a virtual run solo?  Not with my awesome friends!  We ended up starting the morning later than planned because of a nasty storm that rolled through early in the morning.  In the end, our group was smaller than originally planned but we got in those 4 miles... and the best part?  Before this fun morning, every one of my friends that was there, met at least 1 new person that day!  I love when I can introduce my running friends to each other!

July meant the return of one of my favorite races of the summer!  The Cliffrunner 10k trail run.  6 miles of hills, rocks, dirt, cliffs and everything in between!  I was determined to beat my time from last year and thanks to my new friend Melissa that I met on the course, we pushed each other and ran an amazing race!  PR by almost 15 minutes over last year!  That's going to be tough to beat in 2016, but you know I'm going to try!

Meet Snickerdoodle!
In August we met this little sweetheart and a few weeks later she became part of the family!  Full of spunk and energy... and yes a lot of sass, the house is no longer quiet!

Over the summer, I rediscovered my love for yoga.  Last winter I took some Hot Yoga classes and realized that I did NOT like hot yoga... however, yoga outside on the city deck downtown?  That's a whole difference story!  Now I look forward to those days that I can squeeze in a yoga class into my schedule!

3 years on a row!  Warrior Dash WI!  John  went with me again this year, as did Darrin and my dear friend Lisa!  We spent the morning climbing, crawling and swimming through tunnels, mud, ponds and more!  I think we found mud in places that should never see mud but we didn't care!  After all that fun, we headed home, took showers, relaxed for a bit and headed to the next adventure of the day...

As if running warrior dash wasn't enough for one day, Lisa and I finished off our day by running the Packers Training Camp 5k in and around Lambeau Field!  While we were there we ran into Lori and a few other friends who all said we were completely nuts for running both race in one day, but that was part of the fun!  2 races + 240 miles =  lots of mud and laughs.  

Sound like a perfect day to me!

Over the summer, I also discovered this amazing pond, just a short run from my house!  How did I not even know this was here until now?  This quickly became one of my favorite places to run, especially in the early morning!  I would often leave the house before dawn, just so I could get here in time for sunrise over the water!

After running the Chicago Ragnar earlier in the year, I jumped at the chance to work the Great River Ragnar for Bondi Band.  Lots of driving, 2 long crazy days, scorching heat but loads of fun hanging out with some other awesome vendors and crazy runners!  Never again will I look at a frozen fruit bar the same again!  I gave up trying to keep track of how many I ate... it's a good thing Chris from FrioFrio was keeping track for me!

Finally the weekend that we were all waiting for arrived!  Girls Weekend 2015 brought us to Minneapolis for Women Rock!  Last year's girls weekend was 3 of us... this year it was 7!  Everyone seems to want to join us on our adventures, and I don't blame them!  With the exception of Lisa, our official cheerleader, the other 6 of us all met at the gym over the last 2 years and have continued to do things together now that several of us have switched gyms.  We will do what we can to find fun and laughs wherever we go!  The weekend was filled with running, laughs, hot guys, amazing food, lots of walking and everything in between.

A last minute add to my race calendar!  I scored a free race registration to the Lake Country Half Marathon in Oconomowoc (Near Milwaukee) Labor Day weekend!  The course was one of the prettiest courses I've run and I was completely enjoying the day... until the sun and humility took over!  When I started out the day, I was feeling good, had a great pace and was loving the day.  Unfortunately, at about the halfway point, Mother Nature decided that was enough.   I will say that this was the first race I've run in a LONG time that I actually felt like quitting.  I didn't.  I kept moving, even if it was just walking.  In the end I really didn't finish that far off my usual pace.  One of these years, I will go back and re-run this course so I can see what I can really do!  Besides, the scenery was amazing!

How to do pull off a PR for a 5k?  Find a run at an airport - on the runway!  No hills to worry about!  Oh yeah... and it helps when you have a friend running on your heels that you are determined to NOT let her beat you!  Lisa, Emily and I all set new 5k PR's on this warm afternoon and had fun doing it!  

For the 3rd year in a row, we got the crew from work together to run the Fox Cities Marathon Relay!  It's always a fun filled day, with no pressure of how fast you have to run.  It's about spending the day together, doing what we enjoy!  The highlight of this year's race for me?  By complete change, my dear friend Tracie passed through the exchange point just minutes before I started my leg, while she was running her Full Marathon!  I ran hard for that 1st mile to catch up to her and was able to run the rests of my 6.3 miles with her!  This girls is such an inspiration and one day, I will be able to keep up with her for more than 6 miles  :)

Last big race of the summer!  The Inaugural Bellin Women's Half Marathon right here in Green Bay!  We got the girls together for a fun weekend of shopping at the expo, dinner and the race!  The weather was perfect and the course was beautiful, and how many people can say they had their race bling handed to them by Katherine Switzer?!?!  Can't wait to run this one again net year! 

Hope you enjoyed this stroll through some of the highlights of 2015.  I know I missed a few, and will probably make mention of them over the next few weeks in follow up posts.  It was a fun filled year of adventures and 2016 is starting off to be more of the same!  Stick around and follow the adventures!  Or better yet, if you live in the area, come join me on some of my upcoming adventures!

2015 was awesome, lets make 2016 EPIC!

Hike, Bike and Ice: Munising weekend 2014 comes to a close

As always, any good vacation must come to and end. 

Unfortunately, that was today.  But I am not going to let it put a damper on any of the fun adventures that we had this weekend!  The weather was awesome (a little rain overnight on Friday didn't bother us since we were sleeping), we met some great people and of course kept busy!

I will admit, I had every intention of getting up and going for a run along the lake this morning, but that never happened!  I actually slept until almost 8:30 (a very rare thing for me as my internal clock rarely lets me sleep past 7am).  We finished off the stuff we had in the fridge for breakfast and started loading up the car.  By the time we got everything packed up and the bikes on the car, we figured that we would head into town to grab a quick (early) lunch at the Lunch Bag again since I had another certificate to use there.

As luck would have it, the Lunch Bag didn't open until 1pm, so we were not going to wait that long.  Since the certificate we had was only good for another few days, we decided to run back to the hotel to drop it off the certificate for Pam, the uber helpful gal that was working in the office most of the weekend.  If we couldn't use the certificate, she could use it to enjoy lunch one day!

Good bye Munising!  Thank you for another weekend of awesome memories and adventures!  Next stop, on the way home, the UP State Fair.  I have not been to this fair since I was probably Darrin's age, if not younger!  

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This year, Sunday at the Fair was Scout Day!  All Scouts, in uniform, got in for free.  They also had scouts there doing demos on cooking, hiking, knot tying and more.  Once we got to the fairgrounds, the first thing Darrin wanted to do was find the Scouts... My mission was a restroom.  Thankfully the restroom was on the way to the scout tent!

When we got to the tent, Darrin was actually put to work, helping with some of the dutch oven cooking they were doing as well as helping with a Hiking preparedness presentation.  

We then spent the next few hours walking through the exhibit halls, browsing the fair vendors and eating a few fair treats.  We were just on our way our to the car and Darrin realized there was something going on in the grandstand. He said it looked like the Demolition Derby so we decided to go check it out for a while.

Come to find out it was actually "Armageddon on Wheels" - where demolition derby and dirt track racing collide! A Mini Van racing?  Chasing a retired police car?  Why not!

The next hour or so was filled with various races, interesting vehicles, lost of dirt and crashing!

Darrin decided one of the coolest trucks out of the course during the first part of the show was the modified Sprint Truck... truck?  Yes!  Someone modified their truck to resemble a sprint car!  Unfortunately, after he took the last jump on the course, his wings fell off the truck on his way off the track.  Hopefully he could get them fixed before the next heat!

The highlight of the afternoon (at least in our eyes) was the bus race.  Figure 8 bus races!  Everything from short buses to full size school buses were unleashed on the figure 8 track, with the mission to be the last one left standing, or the first on to finish 8 laps!  

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Finally we needed to hit the road for home so that we could get laundry and everything else done before it got too late. Once we got home, I had an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge to take care of, thanks to our good friend Dean. (hence why I added "ice" to the title of these blog posts)  I was going to post a few pics here, but we actually only got a video and my computer is not cooperating and allowing me to post the video (I tried adding the ones that I took of the bus races at the fair and I have not been able to get it to work).  One of these days when I have time to play with it more I will have to post the videos.

Overall, it was an awesome weekend that I am glad we had the opportunity for!  This was the 4th year that Darrin and I made up to Munising.  We have not decided if we are going back to Munising next year for our summer adventure or if we are going to go somewhere else to get in some hiking and biking.

No matter where we end up going, you can be sure that we will find all kinds of interesting things and places to explore!

Total miles for today = 2.3
Total miles for the weekend = 30.8

Yes this is short of our overall goal, which I knew was going to be tough.  We may not have made 50 miles but the miles that we put in were nothing short of awesome!

Now time to switch gears and start preparing for back to school!

Hike, Bike and Ice (part 2)

Any morning that you can wake up with the sound of the waves less than 50 yards from your front door, you know is going to be a good day! The waves also so relaxing that we didn't wake up as early as we originally planned!  Hitting the trail at 7am can't happen if you don't wake up until 7:30!

The fog over the lake left an almost eerie look to the morning and brought with it some chilly air.  This was not going to be the morning for the shorts out on the trail today!  We grabbed a quick breakfast in the room (hard boiled eggs and refrigerator oatmeal!) and headed out on the 20 minute drive to the trail head.

I didn't have a chance to get a photo of the parking lot of the trail but there were a few cars already here... which we figured were probably people that were out camping on the trails somewhere.  A few minutes later we were on our way!  The fog out on the lake was floating into the woods so it gave the trail a very calming, serene feeling.

Start of the trail

A few miles in on the trail, we came across Chapel Falls.  This is a high cascading falls that you can either see right from the top or from across the ravine.  When we got to the overlook to the falls from the other side of the ravine, it was so foggy you could hardly see the falls - but you still could hear it!

Chapel Falls

A short while later we made it to Chapel Rock.  We actually didn't even realize we were there until we were literally right next to it because the fog was still so thick!  In the below picture, the beach is actually just beyond the tree but you can't even see it below!  From here, our original plan was to head down toward the beach and head south, but yesterday when Darrin was looking at the map, he asked if we wanted to add a few miles to our adventure and head up to Spray Falls.

Chapel Rock

We hiked up towards Spray Falls, knowing that we had about a mile and a half to travel.  With the current pace we were hiking we guessed on how long we would have to hike to get there.  With the dense fog still around us, it was difficult to tell where we were and how for we had traveled.  After a while, we knew that we were getting close, however with the rain that fell the night before, the trail was starting to get really muddy and, although my shoes were already wet, I decided that I didn't need to get them covered in mud to. We opted to turn back around and head back to Chapel Rock/Beach.  We figured that we were probably only a short distance from the falls.  I guess we will have to come back another time to find Spray Falls!

Lunch stop @ Chapel Beach

Once we got back to Chapel Rock, we actually saw the first other people of the day on the trail!  We left the parking lot nearly 3 hours ago and did not see a single person on the trail, up until now!  The dense fog obviously kept more people at home early in the morning. We stopped and chatted with them for a while and then headed down to the beach to find a spot to have lunch.   

The beach was deserted except for us, a seagull and one gentleman walking along the shoreline.  We found a big log to stretch out on, have lunch and relax for a while,  With the fog and cold breeze, we didn't stay down on the beach for too long.  It was time to get back on the trail and keep moving!  Darrin was on a mission to get back to the motel in time for the Packers pre-season game.

The lake is out there somewhere!!

The fog still was just as thick as this morning, even though it seemed to be trying to roll back out.  We kept watching it roll out, only to have it roll back in a few minutes later.  When we got to Grand Portal Point, we came across a group that had actually camped on the bluff the night before.  They commented on their fabulous view that morning - a large white wall of fog!  

Mosquito Beach

We kept moving and before long we made it to Mosquito Beach where it was time to stop for a snack break.  While we were sitting on the shoreline, I noticed a bald eagle flying nearby, which landed right on the top of one of the nearby trees.  It was then that we noticed a second one soaring around the same tree.  We watched them for a while, until they took off, heading south and getting lost in the treeline.

Mouth of Mosquito River

 Next stop, the mouth of the Mosquito River. We had fun looking at all of the "rock men" stacked up on the bigger rocks!  Someone obviously was having fun building these little piles all over the mouth of the river! By this time, I lost track of how many miles we actually walked but I knew that we were on the last leg of our adventure - and we were both starting to get tired!  Knowing that we were at less than 5 miles to go, we kept us moving!

Mosquito Falls

After nearly a full day of hiking we finally made it to the final stop on our adventure - Mosquito Falls!  We had a mile to go, we were tired and getting hungry so we didn't waste much time at the falls.  We made it back to the car, scraped some mud off our shoes, exchanged those wet shoes for flip flops and headed back to town!

This was a awesome day, but time to go back and put our feet up for a but while we contemplate dinner!

Dinner at Mudoon's Pasty Shop

We finished out this day with dinner from Muldoon's Pasties.  Last night was the best fish in town, tonight, the best pasties in the Upper Peninsula!  The rest of the evening was spend relaxing at the motel, chatting with the group of scuba divers that were staying right near us and watching football.

Total mileage for today = 16.5
trip total so far = 27.5

Tomorrow - final day of vacation, heading to the UP state fair!

Hike, Bike and Ice weekend 2014 (Part 1)

This past weekend was the 4th annual mom/son Michigan Adventure weekend.   From my last posted, I said announced this year's challenge of 50 miles of hiking, biking and running. We knew this was going to be a tough challenge, a lot of miles but we were going to give it our best shot!

 When we made it into town, our motel room was not quite ready (we anticipated this since we were getting to town before lunch!), so we left the car at the motel, grabbed the bikes and headed out to Sand Point and Munising falls. The falls are just a short ride from the motel and are one of the first stops that we make when we get to town.  We were going to head to Sand Point first, but for some reason, we decided to stop at the Falls first.

While we were hiking back town from the falls overlooks, we ran into group that was trying to get a group picture.  We offered to take the photo so they could all be in it. We started chatting with this group a bit and found out that the one young man was originally from the Czech Republic, currently living near Detroit, the other two young men were his friends and the older couple was his parents that were visiting from the Czech Republic for 2 weeks.  The boys were looking for waterfalls that they could actually walk it... They were on the mission!  Since Darrin and I have visited virtually every waterfall in the area, we knew exactly where they needed to go.  We gave them directions to Tannery and Memorial Falls, right down the road!  Darrin's favorite falls to walk though/under.

 After we got back to the parking lot, we decided that we didn't need to go to Sand Point.  We could just take this group to the falls.  We waited for them to get back down from the falls and told them that if they wanted to, we would bring them to the falls that we had mentioned.  They were more than a little excited when we offered this!  We spent the next hour with them, guiding them back to the hidden gems of waterfalls that were just down the road.  They boys all enjoyed getting into the falls, following Darrin's lead and walking right into water!  They all said it was really cold, except for Darrin - he said it was warmer than last year!  lol

 After the adventures at the falls, we headed back to check into the motel, change clothes and head into town for lunch.  Since our motel is only a short distance from town, it was a quick bike ride into town for lunch at "The Lunch Bag" - the awesome little cafe that we found at the end of our trip last year!  First place we stopped this year after checking into the the motel was the last place we visited last year!  Once again, we had great food and got some great ideas for places to visit all over the UP!

After lunch we stopped at the local winery so I could see what else new they might have, tasted some of their new creations and picked up a few bottles of wine.  As we were walking out the door, I spotted a brochure for the local frozen yogurt hot spot that was right down the road... so dessert was next!

By this time, we had put on a few miles riding around town, checking out the local waterfront park and were ready to head back to the motel. One of the places that the guys at The Lunch Bag told us about was a place the locals apparently call "Paradise"  It was a remote beach area just on the other side of Christmas.  So we figured we would see if we could find it.  Time for another adventure!

We found the road off the main highway without any issue and a few miles later we found the small dirt road.  This was definitely a typical Upper Michigan road - dirt, narrow and full of potholes!  We figured we were getting closer to the lake, but unfortunately with the rain the few days prior, the road ended up a little rougher that I was comfortable driving on so we ended up turning around.  Thankfully there was a small clearing there that we could turn around in - otherwise it would have been a long drive in reverse back to the other road!

Once we finally made it back to the main road it was smooth sailing back to the motel.  On the way back, it hit me.  We are on the shore of this massive, wonderful lake - I wanted FRESH fish for dinner.  We saw several signs for the local Elks fish fry and one other, but I didn't want some frozen, over processed, over cooked fish.  I wanted something that was swimming in the lake yesterday!  So, when we got back to the motel, we stopped at the front office to check with Pam and what she recommended.  She gave us the name of 3 different places, so we had a decision to make!

I did some research online.  One of the places was further out of town than we wanted to venture, the second was more of a supper club (and far dressier than any clothing options that we had with us!).  The 3rd was the steakhouse and bar that was on the corner where we had to turn when we were looking for "paradise" just an hour before. So we were off again!  Back to Christmas we go!

Foggy's did not disappoint!  From the outside, this steakhouse bar/grill looks like your typical small bar.  Nothing fancy on the inside but I was pleasantly surprised that it was not just a bar that served food.  The front half of the building was the bar and the back half the restaurant.  They even have a huge grill in the middle of the dining room where you can grill your own steaks!  You can read my full review of the restaurant here.  Fabulous food, great service and reasonable prices!

After that awesome dinner, we made out way back to the motel to relax and figure out our game plan for tomorrow.  Darrin opted to add and extra section of trail to our hike so we needed to figure out how early we needed to hit the trail so that we could get back in time for kick off of the Packers Pre-season game!  As we were sitting outside, enjoying the view of this amazing lake, we decided that we needed to get out and move a little!

We jumped in the car and made the 20 minute trek out to Miner Castle - another must stop each year that we are here.  We made it out there about a half hour before sunset and decided to stick around to see what kind pics we could get...  The scenery did not disappoint!  The colors in the sky were amazing - the pictures that we were able to get could not capture the true uber awesomeness of the fire in the sky!


When we finally made it back to the motel, we were beat!  We tried sitting outside to enjoy the calm quiet of the lake, but the mosquitoes were ready to dinner... and we didn't want to me the main course so we headed in and called it a night!

Day 1 total miles = 11

I leave you with a few images from Miners Castle...

Part 2 coming soon - we tackle 14 miles of pristine wilderness and cliffs!

Recharged, Rejuvenated and now back to Reality

View from Piestewa Peak summit, Phoenix AZ

All good things must come to an end... and now it's back to reality.

Spring Break/Vacation 2014 was here and now is a wonderful memory!  After spending a week in sunny, WARM Phoenix, with great friends, I have spent the better part of the last week trying to get back into my "normal" routine!  I am really not liking the fact that it has snowed not once, but twice since we got home last Thursday!  

It was an amazing week filled with adventure and fun.  There is no way that I can give everything that we did proper detail here so here's a "quick" summary:

1.  Running:  We wanted to get in a bunch of outside miles while were had the chance, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Saturday morning, however, we hit the streets of Glendale for the Kiss Me I'm Irish Run.  I can officially say that I completed my first ever 17k race!  Yes, 17k - in honor of St Patrick's day!  It was so nice to be able to throw on my running skirt and a tank top to go for a run instead of putting on multitudes of layers just to stay warm!  Plus there was free beer at the end!!  Official course time = 1:52:24  Yay!  Granted, my knee ended up paying for it over the next few days, but it was worth it!

Start line of the Kiss Me I'm Irish Run 17K

2. NHL Hockey! Nothing brings back the college days like watching some good hockey!  While we were in the area, the Phoenix Coyotes just happened to be playing at home vs the Calgary Flames so we had to fit a game into our schedule!  What a day!  Running in the morning, relaxing by the pool all afternoon and a hockey game at night!  That makes a good day in my book!

3.  Brewers Baseball!!  We were able to get to 2 games to watch the Crew in action!  Unfortunately we missed meeting Hank by a few days as he had already made the trip to his new home in Milwaukee.  Nothing can make you forget about the long, cold, snowy, cold, harsh (and did I say cold) winter that we have experienced in Wisconsin this year, than some Brewers Baseball in Maryvale AZ! 

4. Hiking!!  We made two morning adventures out to Piesetwa Peak and both hikes were worth the climb!  Once you get past the half way point distance-wise on the hike to the summit, you are actually only about 1/3 of the way elevation-wise to the summit!  Over the second half of the climb, those switchbacks get tighter and steeper!  You have to really work for it, but your efforts are definitely rewarded once you reach the summit!

Molly, Matt and I, on the way back down the mountain

Piestewa Peak Summit!

5.  The Food!  I was determined to find a way to enjoy the foods of the area without completely falling off the wagon.  Yes, there were many times when we went out to eat that I did just order a salad, but these salads were amazing!  Who can complain about a huge bistro steak salad like this with tons of spice and flavor and a honey balsamic vinaigrette?  Don't get my wrong, I did splurge and enjoy many things that I normally try to stay away from, but I just made sure that I didn't do all my splurging in one day!

Southwest Bistro Steak Salad from Oregano's in Tucson

 6. Relaxing!  This was the one thing that we made sure happened!  We knew there was a bunch of stuff that we wanted to do, but we also wanted to make sure that we had plenty of time to relax and enjoy the time away from home, work and life in general!

 7.  Fun in the sun! When in Arizona, why not rent a convertible?  Especially when you find the deal that we found!  For less than the cost of a compact car, we enjoyed the Phoenix sun in a 2014 Mustang Convertible!  John said that we will never own one for several reasons... WI weather really does not make one practical (so my solution... we move somewhere warmer!) and with how tall he is, he said he always felt squished (hence why I put the top down whenever we were driving somewhere!).  Regardless, it was a fun car to drive when we had the perfect weather for it!

My 2014 Mustang Convertible for the week

All in all, it was a fabulous week spent hanging out with friends, reconnecting with others that we have not seen in years, relaxing and just enjoying each others company. Getting away from the every day stresses of life is always a good thing to do from time to time.  It was nice to get away, but all vacations must come to an end and reality must be faced!

Before we knew it, it was back to the cold and snow.  Back to the gym.  Back to running in near freezing temperatures.  Back to work.  Routine is good to get back to.  Maybe one day we will be able to say that reality is in some sunny warm location, but until then, we just will have to settle for enjoying it in short spurts on vacation!  Time to start planning the next trip!

enjoying out last full day in Arizona!