Cauliflower Rice - Yum

It's a vegetable & it tastes yummy! Not like cauliflower - only like the seasonings that you add. This will be a weekly addition to one of our meals.

Making Room for New

Trying something new - trying to avoid grains as much as possible. No bread or pasta's. It's challenging, but I'm enjoying it! Instead of whole wheat spaghetti, we are eating spaghetti squash (a vegetable) or kelp noodles. Instead of white flour for our cookies & pancakes, we are using almond flour & coconut flour. Instead of canola oil, we are using coconut oil. Instead of soy milk, we are using almond milk. Instead of peanut butter, we are using almond butter. And the list goes on.. Best part is that the 'new' foods are really yummy! And I don't have that 'weighed down' feeling that I get from bread & pasta. It's great!!!

Birthday Smashfest!

All I wanted to do for my birthday was finish some monster workouts! Didn't go too crazy, as my schedule already called for some big ones. Chris was game too.

Saturday (my actual birthday):

2 hours in the pool = approx 4 miles of swimming

4 hour bike (on the trainer), followed by a 30 minute transition run

We were up early & still didn't finish until 2:30! The rest of the day was pretty simple. I had to run to Bristol to pick up the Sailing Foundation mail. We finally stopped and ate some real food too. (since we had been consumed powerbars & gel's all morning)

Sunday

1 hour run

1 hour bike

1 hour run

I was hoping to get some more swimming done, but it didn't happen. Instead we did some cruising in the red car (my favorite)

We stopped at the Kinsale Inn in Mattapoisett & enjoyed some delicious beer. It was Sunday afternoon, so pretty quiet. A regular brought his remote control fish (it was huge) & had it 'swimming' around the bar. Loved it - I have to get me one of those!! (So I guess I did get some 'swimming' in on Sunday :) Great birthday weekend!!

Fun motivational quotes

BYC painting

House committee projects at the yacht club have kept me pretty busy for the last couple of weekends. This room for the kids desperately needed new paint.

What a transformation!

Just some more trim painting & this room is done!

Also painted the board room. For some reason that room went much quicker - yay!

Austin, Texas!

We headed to Austin for a nice long President's Day weekend. They call it the live music capitol of the world. Handpainted guitars were everywhere.

We had a couple rainy days, but also a couple really nice warm sunshiney days. Worked out well. We did a lot of walking & enjoyed many sights.

We walked over to Austin Speed Shop one day.

We saw West Coast Choppers semi parked out front.

Pretty cool!

We spent some time on Sixth Street

and listened to some great live music (obviously)

Plenty of outdoor activities are available too. Crewing is popular in Lady Bird Lake (felt like we were back in Boston on the Charles)

Extremely dog friendly town. Toules would have had his best vacation ever - but he is just a little too big to bring on the plane :(

Some eclectic & artsy areas too - like SoCo.

We also ran the Austin half marathon while we were there

I met Bart Yasso - super friendly guy. He wrote a fun & entertaining book called 'My Life on the Run'. I highly recommend it for all.

Our portrait after the race. We both had good races for a super hilly course. I was also recovering from a cough/cold and an injury.

We went back after we showered & cheered on the marathon finishers

Other fun activities - water bikes! A fun way to get a bike ride in - versus a stationary or trainer :)

Walking trails. In 2 days - we ran 13.1 miles and walked 17 miles. Whew, my calves were tired!

And one of our favorite finds: Barton Springs Pool. 70 degrees year round. Plenty of swimmers (and ducks)

Definitely my favorite Texas town - We will be planning another trip back here for sure!

and Shorty

Here's my other pal