An awesome fall date

Autumn has fallen upon us, it's one of my most favorite seasons of the year. The crisp green leaves transforming in to magnificent shades of gold, red, orange and brown always catch my eye. I especially enjoy when the air becomes slightly brisk, enough to wear a light jacket, and the way the wind whirls around the fallen leaves makes me feel that there is some magic drifting in the air. This is the time where I break out my light fall jackets and my fall/halloween decorations. Decorating my house with pumpkins, leaf garland, cornstalks, scarecrow men, and candles that smell like fresh pumpkin pie and toasted almonds with cinnamon is one of my favorite traditions. I love the warm inviting feeling it brings to my home.
The only sad thing about this season is that it only lasts 1-2 months in Colorado if we're lucky. And because it is so brief, it's important to get in every fall-like activity you can! So, James and I decided to embrace the season with a little fun last weekend.
We went up to Thornton, Denver to go to a Corn Maze. The Corn maze was about 20 acres in size. It was one of the biggest corn mazes we could find within reasonable driving distance. While driving, James was talking about how he will just jump up to look over the corn stalks to see where we are going. I laughed, he's obviously never been to a corn maze before. When we got to the corn maze, he realized why I had laughed. The corn stalks are definitely over 15 feet tall. So you'd have to be pretty tall in the first place on top of excellent vertical jumping skills.

And of course we had to go to the pumpkin patch and get ourselves pumpkins to carve! There were quite a few large pumpkins. A lot of odd shaped ones as well. Example A: "The Butt" pumpkin.

And to finish off our evening we decided to stop off at Tocabe American Indian Eatery. This restaurant joint was featured on Triple D (Diners, Drive-Ins and Drives) with Guy Fieri. I highly recommend this restaurant. It was so delicious and very unique. It's like a chipotle...but American Indian style. There is stuffed fry bread which is what James got. It's fry bread stuffed with beans, chickpeas if you desire, meat, special sauces and other veggies. Or you can get the Indian Tacos which is Fry bread topped with beans, mean, sauces etc. They were both very different, but both very delicious. Next time you are in Denver, Check it out! It's off of I-70 on Lowell blvd and 44th ave.

It was so nice to have a fun date enjoying the fall season!

Let's go Halvesies

Over the past few months I've been training for the biggest run of my life. I had decided (ignorantly and arbitrarily) to sign up for a Half Marathon. My first half marathon. What was I thinking? The longest race I ran was a 10K! That's only 6 miles, I have to run twice that?

Despite the better half of my judgement, I developed a training program for myself and was determined to finish my first half marathon.

My training schedule was as followed:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
P90X	Run 2 mi. 2 min. run/ 1 min walk	P90X	Run 2 mi. 2 min. run/ 1 min walk	P90X	Run 2 mi. 2 min. run/ 1 min walk	Rest

Each week I increased each run day by a mile for the first month. I got up to mile 7 for my long run on Saturdays. The second month, the first two weeks I stayed at the amount of miles I had done at the end of the first month, but instead of a 2 min. run/1 min. walk, I increased it to a 3 min run and 1 min walk. My last month I made it a goal to get up to Mile 11 1 week before the race, without doing a walking pace the whole time.

This training schedule worked well for me because I was able to increase my running mileage, do some cross training for strengthening my other muscles while allowing my legs to rest, and was able to be consistent.

So how did I do? Well October 9th I stood at the start line in my corral. I was cold, nervous and excited. Moving around to keep myself warm, the shot gun went off and off I went. It was a really neat race. The Rock and Roll marathon in Denver was quite scenic. It took us through downtown Denver, and gave us a beautiful view of the sunrise in the beautiful city of Denver. I finished my race in 2 and 1/2 miles. This was a fantastic experience and I felt very accomplished.

I'm also very thankful for my wonderful husband who supported me through all of my training and at my race.

This experience has taught me a few things about myself: as I continue to follow the word of wisdom and eat healthy, I have no limits to my health; I can do anything I put my mind to; I know the power of mind over body; I look forward to many more races, and hopefully with my family with James; and most of all I can overcome any obstacle, I just gotta keep pushing and keep running. :-)

My goal is to run a full marathon (26.2 miles) within the next 3 years! For now, I think I'll stick with the halvesies.

Ohhh Kansas?

OooooKansas, where the wind comes rushin' down the plains? Yup, that's about it. There is just the plains. Completely flat. Nothing to look at. Boring. That's exactly how I describe our drive to Kansas.

I pretty much begged James to go to Kansas so I could see my, best friends Mallory and Jon Hummer. James was nice enough to let us go to Kansas. I was so excited! I did not anticipate how boring the drive was going to be.

After 8 1/2 - 9 hours in the car, I was h

After our first night there, Mallory and Jon took us to Wichita's Botanical Gardens. It was pretty cool considering we were in Kansas, Land of Boring.
appy to finally arrive at the Hummer's home. It was so great to finally see Mallory. The last time we saw each other was our wedding, and even then it was brief because of all the craziness of the wedding.

It was neat to see all the different types of flowers and plants.

They also had these

gigantic lily pads. I've never seen them so

large! It was pretty incredible. I told Jon he should hop on what to see how much weight they would hold, but he was a sour sport and refused. :-(

And James decided to feed these gigantic cat fish. Their heads were easily the size of half of James' head. It was ridiculous. They were pretty ugly looking if you ask me.

Then we also wen to the little butterfly Pavilion. It was really neat to see all of the butterflies.

We had a lot of fun on our trip to Kansas. I really miss Mal and Jon. I miss how it was so easy for me to just walk over to their house in Fort Collins any time I wanted. Or being able to have my work out buddy and someone to go hang out with and talk to all of the time.

Sometimes change is hard. But through out all of these changes, I know I'll always still have a great relationship with the Hummers.