Weekend Update

This past weekend started off well with Alysia and I eating troughs of ice cream at Kilwin’s on Friday night. Saturday morning I ‘wimped’ out and rode the trainer inside. Marty and Jerry rode outside for 3hrs – Marty had all of his cycling clothes on and half of mine. He swears it was nice and I should’ve gone (not sure how since as just mentioned, he had on half of my stuff), but I just wasn’t into riding in a feels like temp of 25. Instead I rented the Sex and the City movie and had a solid 2.5hrs on the trainer. Then it was off to Virginia to start the birthday festivities of our niece Ashleigh. Heard many times this weekend: “It’s my birthday! I’m 4!”

We went to a Mexican restaurant (Abuelo’s) on Saturday night, where I have four words for you: Dulche de Leche Cheesecake. OH MY GOD – it was amazing! Just listen to the description – creamy cheesecake whipped with Mexican caramel and served with leche quemada, a sweetened milk sauce. If you hadn’t yet figured it out, I have a big sweet tooth (it’s hereditary).

Sunday morning we went ice skating and had the entire rink to ourselves for the first hour. It was great and Marty and I had never been ice skating together before. He said it was like the date when your 15 that he never had ;) For the little kids, you can rent these PVC pipe walkers now. Ashleigh grabbed on and was literally running across the ice. I wish they had those when I was a kid, but alas I learned the old fashioned way with lots of hard falls to the bum and head. All the adults did well and no owies until Marty tried to be smart and use one of the kid walkers and do some serious spins. A little blood and a trip to the bathroom to take care of it ensued.

Later it was time for cake and presents! Lots of both. Here are Shana, me and Ashleigh rocking the Dora party hats.

Then a little bit of guitar hero and then Marty and I could procrastinate no longer and headed to the Dismal Swamp for our long run. It wasn’t too dismal this time and we both felt pretty good and put in some good Z3-Z4 efforts in there. I’m feeling like a runner again! Yay! We were the last ones to exit the park and the ranger politely told us that for future reference, the park closes at sunset, and this means ALL of the park (we did a little cooldown past our car). I think what he really meant was, “Do you two imbeciles realize you are the only ones outside right now and the biggest sporting event in America is going to start soon and I want to get home and not wait for you idiots?!” Or something like that.

So we did our 3 hr drive back to NC while most of the rest of the country sat in front of their tv’s watching one of the best superbowl’s ever. I wish we were watching, too, with pizza and beer and all that other yummy stuff. But it did make for a very non-trafficky ride home at least.