Relaxing weekend

So I know people always talk about busy they are and what not, but this summer has been the most jam packed summer I have ever had. The closest thing we had to a free weekend was one weekend we had a block party (1pm - little lady's bedtime) and my first 5k the next day. So we decided to just enjoy this weekend before things get crazy again.

Saturday morning I woke up and felt like getting my "long run" over with. My 10k training plan has one long run a week leading to the race day. I am going to try to do them on Saturdays because then if something comes up, weatherwise or what not, I can run it on Sunday (the hubby has agreed to watch little lady for my long runs). This week was just a 3 mile run (the longest run before race day will only be 5.5 miles so I feel like I can handle that). I don't know if the long bike ride really built some serious muscle or what, but this run felt awesome too. Although I have a feeling that part of the sweet run action is that I haven't run with little lady since the bike adventure. She definitely makes it a challenge, but I think she helps with my speed. I am not a fast runner at all, but have trained for my runs pushing a stroller and an extra 20 pounds of cuteness which seems to make me speedier on race day. (By speedy I mean that my fastest race was about a 10:30 minute mile.)

After my amazing 3 mile run I came home, showered and offered to take little lady to the Farmer's market so that the hubby could have some time alone. Little lady and I walked to the Farmer's market which is about 1.5 miles away when you take the trail. If I just walked down the main road it would be about a half mile. It was on this walk that I realized how much I have changed in the last 6 months. I was wearing "nice" clothes to the farmer's market and during the walk started to sweat a bit. I actually wanted to slow my pace so that I didn't make my clothes stinky (I did not slow down). I really used to hate sweating. I would not even attempt things because I didn't want to sweat or get dirty. I still like to keep some clothes nice, but I love changing into workout clothes or junky outfits and going for it.

Anyways, at the farmers market we only bought a 1/2 peck of salad cucumbers. I want to make pickles with them. Our garden has so many zucchinis and tomatoes, but we have not gotten a single cucumber from it. We were bummed because last year I made some amazing pickles with our cucumbers.

We got home from the farmer's market, had lunch and little lady took a nap. I had promised I would help hubby with our landscaping. About a year ago they widened the road that we live on and the construction ended right in front of our house - with a new street light at our driveway (we are so popular we have our own light!). The road crew had told us they would be using our front area up to this built in staircase. We have a little hill in front of our house that the previous owners filled with flowers and rocks. It's actually really pretty when it's blooming. It also takes a lot of work to weed and we don't seem to get around to weeding it as much as we should. Before construction we relocated the plants that we liked the most and piled the rocks together. There were a lot of rocks! Construction ended in the beginning of July and we have just left this giant pile of rocks on top of the hill. Hubby decided this was the weekend to move them. He just wanted to get rid of the plants on the wall and just leave it as a rock wall. We laid fabric down to hopefully prevent weeds from growing through it and then moved rocks, a lot of rocks. It looks okay. I am thinking it will grow on me. We still have plants and rocks on the other side of the rock staircase. We will have to fix that area up next year and hopefully keep some of the plants there.

The rocks look much more tame than the wild plants next to it.

I love this staircase! The road crew had said they were going to have to tear it out, but thankfully they stopped at that new street light pole.

This was the size of the pile on the top of the hill. We now have a nice patch of dead grass to remember our rocks.

Our relaxing day didn't end there though. One of our long lost friends contacted us on Friday night and invited us over to catch up on Saturday evening. We never do anything and are never in town if there is anything going on so we decided to be those people who take their kid to a hang out. Little lady is seriously the best baby ever! She acted cute and played with our friend's sister's kiddos. They had a blast and we had so much fun catching up with old friends. There were three friends there that had stood up in our wedding and we actually haven't seen them since little lady was born. They do now live two hours away so that adds in to having a hard time meeting up though. It was really nice to catch them in town. We were so thankful we went and that little lady managed to stay up two hours past her bedtime without being super cranky!