A Re-evaluation of Goals. . .

I found myself having fallen into a trap. “You are defined by your actions.” That’s what they say. Well it turns out you have to be careful with that. I defined myself by my actions, had given myself a label, and now I was having a little identity crisis because of it.

A little background…

Growing up, I was involved in dance for 12 years, then marching band for another 7, but I wouldn’t call myself athletic. I was overweight (and obese by the time I reached high school). When I was 24, I decided I had enough of being unhappy with myself and began to lose weight by taking control of my eating. It wasn’t until a full year later that I found myself embracing an athletic endeavor: running.

Why did I choose running? A few reasons:

• It was free (although it might have been nice to know at the time the value of good shoes!), and seemed easier to learn than all the gym equipment
• I think somewhere deep inside of most of us is a desire to run. We see the freedom it represents, and we want to be able to do it and to enjoy it
• There was this guy. . . . He had just started running a couple of months before, he was the only resource I really had as far as learning to run, and let’s face it, I really liked him (he’s now my husband!)

I did my first 5k a few months after beginning, an 8-mile Turkey Trot that Thanksgiving, and ran an entire half-marathon less than a year after starting to run! I had found my niche. I would be a runner. That’s where I was finding success and a community with which to relate. I think we probably all find a niche when we’re losing weight; it’s another support group, if you will.

My running endeavors didn’t stop there. Eventually, I discovered the trail running community and fell in love with that sport. There was something amazingly inspiring, something incredibly badass about it. I wanted to be a badass too. So I signed up for and completed several ultras over the next couple of years (ultramarathon = race longer than a 26.2 mile marathon). My longest race was 52 miles. But for some reason, that just didn’t seem like enough when there were people out there completing 100-mile races. I need to go for the belt buckle!! (When you finish a 100-mile race, that’s your finishing prize instead of the traditional neck medal) Fall of 2015 I decided I was going to go for it. I registered for a 50k in April with plans to do another 50k in June, a 50 mile in early August, and my first 100-mile attempt in mid-September.

Then things seem to hit the fan. It’s February. The Gorge Waterfalls 50k is less than two months away. And I just don’t want to train. At first I thought it was mostly because I wanted to spend those hours with my best friend, my husband. He left town last weekend for several weeks, and I thought it would be easier to get out there and run, run, run. It wasn’t. This means it’s something deeper than just wanting to spend time with him. I slumped into a weird funk, those times when you don’t want to do anything, you don’t want to eat well, and you just feel bleh. Again, at first I thought it was because my husband left town. Things are always weird when he’s gone. But it was something deeper. It was something that needed to be dealt with.

I hope you have someone in your life who asks those difficult questions, who asks you “why” and makes you truly think about your decisions. This person is my husband. He’s a wellness coach, so he makes a living out of reading people over the phone and asking them the difficult questions. We started talking about my running goals and how I was feeling. Here are some things that came out of that conversation that I desperately needed to have:

1. Why am I really doing this? Is it what I truly want? I want to do it because I feel like I need to. I need to prove to myself that I can follow through with my running goals. I need to prove to others that I can do it, too.
2. Why do I feel the need to prove myself to others? I will never be fast. I feel like I need to go long distances to prove to others (and myself) that I belong in the “athletic” group since I didn’t grow up as an athletic individual.
3. Does this goal actually make sense for me and what I truly want? Well, when I think about it what I really want is to be happy with my body and feel confident. Running long distances, while it makes me confident after the fact, doesn’t really empower me the way weight-lifting does. I’ve been happiest with my body when focusing on weight-lifting. And if I’m really honest. . . I just can’t keep a good handle on my nutrition when I’m running. I always want to eat crap, especially on long run days. Maybe it just doesn’t suit my personality. My fat kid side comes out in full force, and it cannot easily be stopped. Eating crap is such a big part of my past, and maybe I just need to acknowledge those situations which put me in danger of relapse, much like a recovering alcoholic avoiding bars.

I think too often we find an activity and then define ourselves by it. “I’m a runner”,  “I’m a biker”, “I’m a teacher.” In reality, though, I’m Megan. I’m a woman who runs to enjoy a pretty day. I’m a woman who enjoys painting. I’m a woman who loves lifting weights and feeling empowered. The danger in “I’m a runner” is how you tie your identity to that one activity. What happens if you get injured and can no longer run? What then? Have you lost yourself? What if you simply just come to the realization that you don’t enjoy it anymore? Or that you don’t want to sacrifice other aspects of life to put in the time to train for ultra distances? That’s where I found myself as I had this conversation with my husband.

Yes, my original “active” niche was running. That doesn’t mean it has to ALWAYS be my niche. It’s okay to change. I'll still run, but they will be shorter distances (half-marathon or so most likely). And maybe I’ll get the itch again someday to train for long distances.

Most people have heard of SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound. However, given my recent identity crisis, it is clear that setting these goals is not enough. There has to be a follow-up process. We need SMART + ER goals. UC Davis describes them well. From time to time, we need to re-evaluate our goals. What’s working? What’s not? Do we REALLY want that? A great way to think about whether you really want something is to think of it this way: do you want it enough to do what you have to do in order to achieve your goal? For example, if your goal is to lose x amount of weight or body fat, do you want it more than you want (insert favorite unhealthy food)?

Goals are important, but just as important is reevaluating them, tweaking them, and asking the difficult questions. These things will be so much easier if you don’t define yourself by your action of choice. Don’t “be a runner.” Be someone amazing who happens to run.

Conclusion: I'm going to do the Gorge 50k because I did sign up for it. I'm going to follow through with that one, and it’s going to be beautiful and an awesome experience. After that, I'm going to focus on doing shorter races that allow me to truly enjoy the scenery (without worrying about cutoffs!) and don’t cause me to stress over training. I’m going to focus more on weight lifting to sculpt the body that I want as well as feel empowered. Of course the fear is that others will look upon my decision as if I've given up or that I quit. I fear that those I've inspired to begin running will feel as if I somehow deserted them. I hope neither of these fears become realities, but ultimately I have to understand that I don't always have full control over how others perceive my actions and decisions. What I do have control over is how I perceive by actions and decisions.

After having that conversation, it's amazing how much lighter I feel and how much more driven I feel to eat well and take care of my body. It's night and day. Sometimes you just have to have those difficult conversations and have a good cry.

The Big Move. . . So Far. . . !

Roll over.  Look at my phone to see if it's time to get up yet.  4:25 a.m., five minutes before the alarm will go off.  YAY YAY YAY!!!!  It's moving day!  

Since this has been meticulously planned to be a surprise for my family currently residing in our new destination, I haven't been able to post anything in blog form or on Facebook, so let me bring you up to speed. . . There aren't many couples who make monumental decisions while standing in line at Golden Corral.  Of course, if you know us, we aren't like many couples. 

mid-March while visiting my family in Boise:  Brandon and I finally decide on where we're going to move. . . BOISE!  We also decide we want to make it a surprise for my family living there (mom and dad, and my brother and his family), and not tell them until we actually get up there in the summer.

March 21:  I turn in my resignation to Plano ISD and begin filling out applications for teaching jobs up in Idaho.  "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon

May 12:  I interview for an 8th grade teaching position (a bit of a change from where I've been for 7 years. . .) via FaceTime at my current school.  Three hours later I am offered and accept the position!  "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon

May 17:  We volunteered at Whispering Pines, a trail race put on by our favorite race director, David Hanenburg.  As we left the race, this was the first time it really hit that we were moving.  We said goodbye to some of the people we've met through trail running and really enjoyed working with.  It was more emotional than either one of us expected on this day.  "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon 

May 30:  Brandon finished emptying our storage unit into our apartment.  "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon  Then began the purge. . . 

He had already started packing things in boxes too. . .

June 6:  Last day of school. . . I actually had a pretty emotional goodbye with some students this year.  Working at this particular school allowed me to build relationships with students deeper than any possible at a traditional "see you for 50 minutes" high school.  "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon

June 9:  We try to make this surprise easier for us to pull off. . . so many times we've wanted to tell my parents and family up in Boise that we're moving up there!  It's really difficult when they ask the question, "So when are you going to come up here?"  Brandon is typically bad at keeping secrets when he's excited about something.  ;)  It's pretty cute.  We decided to tell them we're coming to visit around July 31. . . Summer vacation plans were already to go to Silverton, Colorado from July 8-23.  July 23, fly to San Francisco from Denver (we changed this from the original plan to fly there from Dallas - which we originally booked back in December before we had such solid moving plans) to visit Mary and Jason (and run a half-marathon theoretically) and return July 30.  So we told them we'd be able to head up to Boise from Denver after we arrived July 30.  :)  This will make the family vacation in Silverton with them much easier!  "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon

June 10:  Last day of work for PISD. . . Approximately 20 seconds after getting home, we start packing things and mocking up the U-Box space in our apartment!  U-Boxes are 257 cubic feet. . . 8 x 5 x 7'6".  "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon

He's not excited. . . not at all!  ;)

June 13:  By this day, we've finished mocking up the space, including taking apart our bed . . .

Our new sleeping arrangement:

This is actually more comfortable than you would think. . .  two quilts, a mattress pad, a sheet, and our duvet cover. 

"I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon

And here's some of the interesting packing that occurred.  What can I say. . . we have fun.  :)

Closet in a box.
We consolidated our wardrobe to a working wardrobe. . . in a box. . . until we could pack it in the suitcases for vacation.  

Sometimes I get a little too artistic with my box labeling. . .  ;)

Lid won't fit?  No problem!  That's what tape is for!  ;)  Too bad I wanted to get into this approximately 10 minutes after I sealed it up. . . 

Very descriptive labeling of boxes. . . and "random clothes" really is very descriptive of the packing material.  

June 21:  Hang out with Raylene day!  ;)  We played mini-golf and drove go-karts with my cousin Raylene and our friend Mary today.  Also, we somehow have amazing friends that we can con into checking out apartments for us and sending us pictures.  ;)  Kirsten and Colleen checked out a studio apartment at Camel's Back Apartments.  Since this place is located right at the trailhead, it would have had to be a complete trash hole for us to not want to live there!  So luckily we got to see that it's not.  :)  Thanks Kirsten and Colleen!!  So, after seeing the pictures she took, we called the apartments, put down our deposit, and waited for approval!!  We have a place to live!!!  "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon  I'll post pictures of the new place once we have our stuff in it.  

June 22:  Okay, trying to keep this surprise is going to be really difficult as intended . . . there's not a chance we'll be able to keep it while spending a week under the same roof with my parents!  We decide to tell my parents on July 13. . . the first day of family vacation together and Mom's birthday!  The plan:  to make her a cute card the divulges our new address.  :)  "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon

June 24:  TETRIS DAY!  We rented a 10 ft U-Haul truck to transport our stuff to the U-Haul storage place where we then unloaded it from the truck and into the U-Box.  Loading the truck took a couple of hours since we had to go down the hallway, up the elevator (which we got stuck in on the way down for 5-10 minutes toward the end of this process), down the 4th floor hallway to our apartment for each trip to the truck.  Then to the U-Box!  Loading the box took no time at all since we mocked it up in our apartment!  Except. . . the box has a lip on the top and side where the door opens. . . it makes the door opening smaller than the actual cross-section of the box.  This is rather unfortunate, for it means our plan for the bed was ruined . . . and therefore we now get to UNPACK the entire box to rearrange some things.  Boooo!!!  (I think it's worth mentioning that this plan was actually the second idea for how to situate the bed. . . ) And of course, at this point it is really really stinkin' HOT!  So out everything comes.  We went through a couple of back-up ideas before we ultimately end up going back to our original idea for the bed.  Luckily by this time, some clouds graced us with their presence!!  I love clouds in the summer. . . So we repacked the box, and. . . we still liked each other by the end of that day.  ;)  

"I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon

After this lovely 7-hour workout, we treated ourselves to some Indian food.  :)  Yummmmmmm.

June 25:  We take a few more things to the U-Box, then tell them we're ready to ship!!  

And then the apartment looked like this:

"I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon

June 30:  Last day at our Plano studio apartment.  We've loved living in this little place.  It's been good to us, and it was awesome being so close to work and to the highway.  Since there was nothing in the apartment, including food, we ate at a restaurant downtown Plano for breakfast.  We forgot how much food you get!  "One meal" of oatmeal at Angela's fed me three times.  :)  

Now the transition to staying with Brandon's parents until our leave date, July 8th.  "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon 

July 5th:  We went for one last run as Texas residents at Cedar Ridge Nature Preserve.  I will miss that trail, but I know I have wonderful trails to look forward too!  The run was a bit of a rude awakening, since I haven't really been on trails more than once or twice since my 52 mile race at Possum Kingdom April 12 (the heat is just soooooo unmotivating).  I've got to drop some of this extra weight and work on my training if I'm ever going to reach some of my goal races.  We will definitely miss our running friends!

July 1-7:  We got to go play with some friends and family, run necessary errands, make Mom's birthday card, and get ready for our big adventure!   "I think this is really going to happen." ~Brandon 

And that brings us to today. . . 

July 8:  GO TIME!!  

Packing the car and trunk didn't take nearly as long as we thought!

Today's drive - Dallas to Bernalillo.  We listened to The Ticket radio station for the last time as we drove out of the metroplex (btw. . . why are there so many cars on the road at 5:30 in the morning?!?).  One of the last segments we heard before it became fuzzy was one talking about mountains.  One of the guys went to Vail, Colorado for his family vacation and talked about his experience, how beautiful the mountains are, how it's better than the ocean (definitely!!), the amazing weather (especially compared to the hellacious weather of Dallas), and the overall feel of mountain towns.  This was the perfect start to our road trip!!  What better way to get in the mood for a couple of weeks in Silverton. . . the definition of small mountain town with its booming population of 628.  *sigh*  For our road trip, we also made a very large playlist consisting of a variety of sounds:  Bollywood, BeeGees, Motown, Queen, Beach Boys, Eminem, Nikki Minaj, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Les Miserables, Disney songs, and many many others.  Putting such an eclectic list on shuffle is quite entertaining.  ;)  Along the way, we decided Neil Diamond (one of the artists on our playlist) is the ultimate cruise ship singer.  I will say, his version of Red Red Wine reggae style is just flat awful.  Here's what I'm talking about, for your listening pleasure.  

We left Fairview (near Allen/McKinney) around 5:15 a.m. CST, and made it to our motel in Bernalillo by around 3:30 p.m. MST.  Total trip time of a little over 11 hours which included stopping 4 times, 3 of them for meals (very quick meals of course, but meals nonetheless).  On a health note, I'm pretty pleased with our eating today.  It can be difficult to eat quality food (but still inexpensively) on the road.  I feel we succeeded in this today, so our road trip is off to a great start!  

July 9:  On to Silverton!!  We left Bernalillo early in the morning after a fantastic continental breakfast at Days Inn (as fantastic a spread as one can expect), stopped in Durango for lunch and groceries, then headed down 550 for the winding and beautiful drive to Silverton.  It was raining most of our drive there, though, so I didn't take many pictures.  I've detailed the first part of our stay on a different post since this one is focused on the move.  :)

July 11-12:  Hardrock 100!  The only reason I include this in the moving blog is because it was sooooo much fun to follow this race and think about how soon we will have our own foothills and mountain access to train for something like this!  Now that we're not in Texas anymore, this race doesn't seem as out of reach. . . don't get me wrong, it's still quite a long ways out.  ;)  

July 13:  Today is my mom's birthday, and today is the day my parents find out we're moving to Boise!!!  I'm so excited to watch her open her card I made.  I wonder what her first reaction will be!  Hopefully it will be one of extreme excitement and not one of being upset that we didn't tell her sooner.  ;)  Brandon is going to take video of her opening her card.  If it's any good, we'll post it later too.  =0p

Hardrock 100 and Silverton, so far!

Silverton!  My favorite place on earth!  I was looking for little things to paint earlier this summer and came across this drawing which expresses my feelings perfectly. . .

We arrived on Wednesday, July 9th to the rain.  We hung around town for a little bit, checked in to Montanya's where the lady we met last year now works (she used to work at Stellar. . see last year's blog posts), then headed to our campground.  We were hoping the rain would stop so we could set up our tent, but seemed we had no such luck.  It wasn't a heavy rain. . . no torrential downpour like Texas tends to have. . .but it was still slightly inconvenient.

It was pretty cool (no pun intended) falling asleep going in and out of sleep to the cold mountain air.  By morning we were ready to get up since neither one of us slept very well.  We were trying to share an XL cot, and that doesn't stay particularly comfortable.  Mostly, however, our not-exactly-pleasant camping experience (this was only the third time we've tried camping) can probably be attributed to the fact that our car is stuffed with a month's worth of stuff!  Our trip to Silverton is not the only thing we packed for. . .we packed for a week in San Francisco, and then going up to Boise.  So, after the first night, we packed up our tent (luckily before it started raining again), checked in with the office of the campground to see if we could change to a cabin (they only had a cabin available for Friday and Saturday night) and began our quest around town for a place to stay Thursday night.  Now, most of the places were booked completely. . . and here's why.  On Friday, July 11 at 6 a.m. 140 brave and completely badass people will head up the mountainside, each with the dream of finishing 100 miles by foot before 6 a.m. on Sunday, July 13.  So not only are most of these people looking for a good night's rest in a bed, but they have crews and pacers who equally need rest before they embark on a long day supporting their runner.  Finally we found a place right in downtown (not that anything is really too far from downtown in this cute little mountain town) that was only a block from where the race started (we planned on getting up early Friday morning to watch and film the start of the 2014 Hardrock 100 Endurance Run).  

Oh man is this place nice!!!!!

Microwave, fridge, KEURIG!!!!

Nice comfy bed. . . oh so much more comfortable than the cold cot.

Nice view of downtown so we can still people watch if we happen to be inside. 

 The bathroom was really nice too. . . extremely soft towels, big shower, another window with view of downtown (I guess in case you're into that?), and a jacuzzi bathtub!  :)  It was so nice to be warm again.  And. . . . Merry Christmas to us we decided to book this same room for the few nights we're in Silverton after spending a week in a house with my parents and my brother and his family.  :)  You only live once, right?

As I mentioned before, Hardrock 100 runners, crews, pacers, and enthusiasts are in town.  This makes people watching even more fun!  First of all, as I mentioned last year, it's always fun to play the game of "runner or not runner."  Secondly, this year's entrants list is STACKED with pretty high-profile trail runners.  This means that practically every trail legend is in town for this.  This also means there is WAAAAYYYY more media here than normal.  Honestly, I'm not a big fan of how much media was here this year, but luckily the method of choosing runners prevents this type of all-star alignment from happening often, so it'll probably be back to normal next year.  :)  At the beginning it was hard not to gawk at all these trail runners you only hear and read about.  By the end of the weekend, however, it's just normal to see Kilian Jornet walking down the street (and just now while writing this. . . Timothy Olson shirtless walking down the street).  It was pretty darn cool to be able to see so many awesome trail runners in person:  Kilian Jornet, Anna Frost and Ricky Gates (both were pacing for Kilian), Timothy Olson (and his adorable long-haired son), Scott Jurek (who didn't get to pace for Seb), Joe Grant, Anton Krupicka, Dakota Jones, Erik Skaggs (who didn't get a chance to pace Dakota), Darcy Africa Piceu, Krissy Moehl (who paced Darcy for the latter part of her race), and then some local legends Joe Prusaitis and John Sharp.  

Race morning was much clearer than last year. . . hardly any fog at all.  They went up a hill toward the shrine at the beginning of the race, so I hiked up there around 5:20 (I wasn't sure how long it would take me to get up that hill since my lungs aren't used to this high altitude of 9300 ft. . . I did better than I thought!).  Here's a couple of shots from that morning and the video of the start:

From atop the hill (by the shrine) at about 5:30 am, July 11th, morning of Hardrock.  The sun is beginning to shed light!

I walked over to this hill directly behind the school where they start. . .taken around 5:45 a.m.
You can see the start/finish line on the left side of the red building. 

All the photographers and videographers climbing up the hill to get photos of the start.
I bet they LOVE carrying the extra weight of cameras!

Leaders on their way up the hill.  Adam Campbell leads the way, followed by Julien Chorier and Timothy Olson, Kilian Jornet, and more fuzzy people whom I can't identify at this time.  :)  Oh. . . and the guy running up the hill to the left of the trail in this picture is Jamil Coury. . .who always seems to run with a camera on a stick and captures amazing footage!  He paced Timothy Olson, and from what I understand filmed the whole time he was with him.  I can't wait to see that.  :)

The back of Darcy Piceu (pink shorts). . . I didn't realize it was her until after she was at the top of the hill.  The woman on the left in blue is Diana Finkel, who for some reason hasn't been able to get past mile 85 for the past three years.  :(  She started off more conservative this year, staying with Darcy for a while.

With all the hype about the field at Hardrock 100 this year, I was surprised to see so many of the notables drop.  But in a mountain race especially, one never knows what the day(s) will bring.  Dakota Jones, Seb Chfdaigodhabwauio (I don't feel like looking up his last name either. . ), and Joe Grant all dropped with injuries or medical issues.  

In the end, here are my highlights:

• Kilian Jornet - one cannot make reference to this race and not talk about the winner.  This guy is superhuman. . . he not only won, but obliterated the course record by 42 minutes (finish time 22:41:35), and I don't really think he was trying for it.  He reports running the first 72 miles or so at an "easy pace" (still in the lead, however) before actually pushing.  Also at one point, he WAITED for his trainer/friend Julien Chorier who was a few minutes behind because he was tired of running alone.  Once he had the company of his pacers, however, he started running his own pace again.  This guy is a mountain goat, and he did not disappoint with his performance.  Since I've known of him, I've wanted to see what he was capable of on this amazing course.  And I still don't think we've seen the fastest time he could put down here.  I love that he runs for the enjoyment and the company of other runners.  I also love how ridiculously nice this guy is!  He showed up for the HardBLOCK kids run the day before, taking pictures of some of the finishers, and taking pictures WITH at least one of the boys.  He took pictures along the way during his 100 mile race, and was showing the RD and the people around the pictures he took directly after finishing.  ;)  It's hard not to like this guy.  

• Timothy Olson - tons of respect for this guy!  He had a rough go in the middle section.  From what I understand, around mile 45 he spent 90 minutes on the side of the trail vomiting.  He didn't stop, though.  He managed to pull it together enough to get to the next aid station, then spent around 45 minutes regrouping there.  Still a LOOOOONG way to go, but he didn't quit just because he wasn't going to win.  He pulled it together and still managed to finish 13th overall, 12th male.  Like he said in his pre-race interview, he was just there to experience the mountains and run this race.  Sure winning would have been nice, but he wanted to connect with the mountains.  

• Sarah McCloskey - determined!  She was third woman (which became second with Diana dropped) for most of the race. . . until she became hypothermic.  She spent two and a half hours at Cunningham aid station (mile 91ish) before heading out to finish.  It took her over 7 hours to go the last 9 miles, but she finished!!  Amazing.

• Weather conditions - Friday night was not pleasant for the runners.  Storms plagued the area.  One runner's headlamp was struck by lightning as was his pacer!  This was atop the highest point on the whole course.  They were both fine, and the runner still finished 3rd place!  A group of runners huddled together in a cave, if I remember correctly, waiting for the worst of the electrical storm to pass.  One of them wasn't able to recover from the cold, wet conditions, even after waiting in a camper's tent for a while.  It's amazing to think about what these endurance athletes endured during the night.  I can't imagine being at the back of the pack when dusk on Saturday comes and you tell yourself. . .  okay, let's do this again!  Luckily, no major storms came up on Saturday night.
• People who do this over and over again. . . Betsey Kalmeyer (who finished second woman . . . 8 hours and 8 minutes after the first place woman) finished her 15th Hardrock.  She's 53.  Kirk Apt finished his 20th Hardrock!  He's 52.  
• John Sharp - this guy is a Texan through and through.  This was his 3rd Hardrock finish, but by far his best time!  He trained like crazy for this race, completing the Brazil 135, and doing the Texas Independence Relay all by himself. . . all 200 miles of it.  His fastest time previously was 43:49.  Yesterday, he finished in 37:04!  Wow.  Beast.  I love how he doesn't look like your typical long distance runner either.  Short, strong, stocky.  And we saw some other Texans we knew too. . . Joe crewing for John, and then Matthew Crownover wearing his Rough Creek shirt. . . he was there to pace another friend.  

Changing the subject a little here. . . another fun thing about being here, like I've mentioned before, is getting to talk to the locals.  A lot of them get into dealing-with-tourist mode during the day because of the train traffic.  So, it's fun to talk with them and watch their demeanor change as they realize you're not one of the train tourists and you don't ask stupid questions.  ;)  One of the retail workers we spoke with told us some of the stupid questions she gets asked. . . like, "Do you paint your mountains red?"  Wow.  Just wow.  

Family is coming in today for the week!  I'm so excited to spend this week with them in my favorite place!  Silverton is definitely my uber-happy place.  :)

And now for some gratuitous mountain pictures. . .  

The moon is soooo bright up here!

Nothing like the town being IN the clouds.  This was actually after it cleared up a bit.
We couldn't see anything when we woke that morning.  

The town from the hill with Kendall mountain in the background.

Walking around the city park.  Not fair.  

Awesome cloud picture taken after the storms passed through Silverton Friday night.  Credit to Brandon Walters for this photo.  :)  It does kind of remind us of the part in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. . . "Arthur!"

Happy 3 years to us! :)

It must be summer again, and therefore blogging season!  That's not to say many things haven't happened since September, I just haven't had time to sit down and write about it!  But that's not the purpose of today's blog post.  :)  Today I want to make you all insanely jealous and show the world how awesome my husband is.  ;)

3 years. . .in some ways, I can't believe it's already been 3 years.  In some ways, I can't believe it's ONLY been three years!  I feel like Brandon and I have known each other forever and always been best friends.  How is it possible I've only known him for a little over 4 years?

Our anniversary has become like Christmas for us in that in true Christmas-like fashion, we woke up insanely early just out of pure excitement.  I looked at the clock; it was 3:53 a.m.  Ugh. . .too early to get up.  Or is it?!?  We both laid there for about 10 more minutes, and eventually I hear "are you asleep yet?" Nope.  Not asleep.  And honestly, I feel pretty rested.  You know, Plano Super Bowl is open 24 hours. . . and is right down the street. . . 

Off we go at 4 a.m. to go bowling!  :)  Luckily, Tuesday nights are ladies' nights, so women bowl for free, and since it's super early Wednesday morning, it's still ladies' night!  Yay for cheap bowling!  So we both played 7 games for about $15.  And really, stupid early is the best time to go bowling!  No one else is there, we got to choose the genre of music playing over the speakers, and we can be our normal goofy selves. :)

I made an amazing discovery while early morning bowling too. . . 

I bowl MUCH better at 4 a.m.  (And just for clarification on the picture, Brandon was "DUMB" and I was "GOOBER")  He was so excited (feel the sarcasm) with my starting our first game off with 4 strikes. . . ;)  It didn't last the whole game though, so in the end I had a score of 171.  I think that's a personal best for me.  Overall, I won 4 out of 7 games, and definitely had a higher cumulative score!  Yay!  Too bad we didn't wager anything on this outing. . .

Now, something else we tend to do on these celebratory days is eat. . . lots . . . and things we don't normally eat (this is a habit we will be changing).  The place we were going for breakfast didn't open until 7:30, and since we woke up at 4, we needed a little something to tide us over.  A little back story:  there's this place in McKinney . . .

. . . and every time we pass it Brandon says, "You know, I hear they have the best donuts. . ."  Of course, we've never tried them.  Until now.  :)  And you know what?  They might actually be. . .the best donuts, even according to Brandon, the donut connoisseur.  We drove a short way down the street to the Heard-Craig house where we got married.  We do this every year to see how the garden is fairing and just remember a fun day we had.

Gazebo was the background of the ceremony

Love love love this man!

Then on to breakfast at Spoons!!  :)  This is where we had breakfast the morning of our wedding after the 5k we ran with some of our family and friends that morning.  That's still one of the best ideas we've had, running a 5k the morning of our wedding.  :)  

Next stop?  Main Event!  We wanted to play mini golf, but with as nasty as it was starting to feel outside (ew humidity), we opted for indoor mini golf at Main Event in Frisco.  And of course we were there so early that no one was at the game counter yet so we had to play some arcade games to pass some time.  Yay Skee Ball!  I don't know why I enjoy that game so much, but I do.  ;)  We played our rounds of mini golf with people doing the ropes courses above our heads (very interesting set up they have there).  And, like I said, we like to eat good food on these days, so we went to Taste of India for lunch!  Mmmmm Indian food. . . that's something that's changed over the past few years.  ;)  More on that later. . .

Back to Main Event for "horsies!!"  They have a Derby Club Owners game in the Plano Main Event, and we've become big fans of it (especially my little kid, I mean, husband).  ;)  

We finished out the Fun card with this game and some more skee ball, and then. . . time to be put down for a nap!  I, like so many adults, really regret those times I refused to take a nap as a child.  How could I not know that naps were one of the greatest concepts of all time?  I can see why my grandpa used to take siestas every day.  Too bad we can't incorporate that into the school day somehow.  Before taking our naps, we exchanged letters.  Instead of buying each other presents, this is what we do.  We fill the day with experiences and write letters to each other.  I will say Brandon is sooooo much better at expressing his thoughts and feelings in words than I am!  One day perhaps I'll get better at that.  Instead I just wrote mine on a fun Taste of Mexico coloring page I found amusing at Kroger.  ;)  On to nap. . .

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After a LOVELY 2 hour nap, we decided to head out for our anniversary pizza (another anniversary tradition so far).  We went to Mellow Mushroom and consumed far too much cheese.  Our stomachs made sure we knew it later, too.  Sometimes you forget about (or ignore) the consequences you know you'll face later.  ;)  And what anniversary would be complete without sharing a little Cold Stone?  (like I said. . . we like to eat on these holidays. . . and like I said, we'll be changing that)  More dairy.  Probably a bad idea. ;)  

On the way home, we started looking up Michael W. Smith songs from 1992. . . there aren't many people who would probably understand this, but the night before Brandon started singing Picture Perfect from his Change your World album, and it just came back to mind.  I couldn't remember what other songs were on that album, I just remembered Picture Perfect was the first song.  So of course, let's use the smartphone and YouTube to look them up!  ;)  We're weird, and we like it that way.  

The rest of the evening, when we weren't uttering "uggghh" in response to the stomach not being a big fan of our one day food change, was spent laying around playing spades online with each other and watching Zorro, the Gay Blade, an amazing Zorro spoof featuring George Hamilton.  :)  (You can watch it in 7 pieces on YouTube if you're intrigued. . . )  

I had such a wonderful day with my best friend!  I can't believe I get to hang out with him all the time (especially during summer).  It's like having a slumber party with him every day!  I am so lucky to have a husband who understands me, cares for me, and loves me deeply but who also can make me smile at any moment, who puts up with my goofy self, and encourages me in so many aspects of my life.  

Now to the changes I mentioned earlier. . . throughout the year, but especially around anniversary time, it's fun for me to look at things that have changed over the past few years.  Here are a few things I've thought of:

• the hair.  I'm loving the partially shaved head!  Best haircut I've ever had.  :)
• thrift shopping.  I get most of my clothes (that aren't from Woot) at the thrift store now.  In fact, one of my favorite dresses was a $3 thrift find.  
• no makeup.  I used to put on a full face of makeup every day.  Not so much anymore.  I think this is partially a confidence thing and partially a lazy thing.  ;)  I'm liking my face more now, so I don't want to take the time to cover it up.  Not to mention, Brandon likes the clean face better too.
• vegetarian.  Ha!  Never could have called that one. . .especially when you add in the "can't really eat cheese" part.  
• Indian Food.  I love the stuff!  Never knew it before a couple of years ago.  Now, I think I'd eat it almost every day if I could.  =0p
• running.  I like to run!  And long distances too.  I've now completed 4 ultra-marathons and have my sights set on more.  :)
• weight lifting.  I love what lifting does for my body and for my mind.  
• music.  I used to always have music playing in the car when driving or riding somewhere.  Now, I sometimes sit in silence, sometimes listen to NPR (I LOVE some of their weekend shows!), and sometimes listen to the Ticket (a sports radio show that's really mostly about things other than sports).
• outlook on living.  You know this from earlier blogs with the downsizing I've done and my outlook on making sure to live, not just work.  Brandon and I also have ambitions of building our own tiny house sometime in the hopefully not-so-distant future.  :)

There are more, but these are the ones that came to mind that I thought I'd share with the world.  

Well, it's SUMMER!!!  Off to go have some more fun with my husband/best friend!  :)