Tag: Catching Up!

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Catching Up!

Happy Monday!  The snow was falling all weekend but that didn’t stop us. 🙂  We still ran outside on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings.  The schools were closed on Friday and we had the roads to ourselves.  It was glorious.  Nothing beats fresh snow to run on.  After our run each day we would shovel the driveway then hit the hot tub. 

Not being able to stay put we had to venture out and do some shopping.   We ended up ordering wood floors for the great room, foyer, and den.  New carpet for master bedroom and staircase.  I’m glad to get these projects done before the warmer weather and biking season begins.  The carpet sample below will be the carpet on the stairs and the master bedroom.  Well, actually we chose a shade lighter.  The wood sample is a composite type of wood.  The wood has a weathered gray tone in it.  
We are also having the stair rail stained darker to match the wood flooring.
Also in the master bedroom we are considering installing a barn door that would lead into the master closet. This is the hardware we like.  We would use a white door to match all of the other doors.
Finally, we are contemplating replacing the granite in the guest bath to a lighter color and adding wallpaper to the ceiling.    
After all of the shopping and decisions we made about updating the house we decided it was time for a beer.  We ended up at our usual spot as of late, Bigalora- they really do have the best happy hour!

Image result for strongerWe watched a ton of the Olympics and really enjoyed the skating and snowboarding.  We also found time to watch one of Dave’s favorite movies- Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.  We cracked up.  I brought home from the library the DVD Stronger with Jake Gyllenhaal.  We were so touched by this movie.  It was sad, profound and uplifting, and one we highly recommend.  


Running log for week: 18 miles

How was your weekend?  What would you do if it snowed a ton and you were off from work for three full days??

Karen

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Catching Up!

Hello everyone!  How was your weekend?  
We were busy as usual…here is a rundown of what we did.

My Friday was spent with KJ!  We made a LEMON POPPY SEED CAKE and I made the SOUP that Lauren had requested.  It was a magical day and one for my memory book. 🙂

Have you been to Bigalora Pizzeria yet?  There is a newer location in Rochester and the happy hour is amazing.  We ended up there on Saturday night to enjoy a drink and have dinner with friends.  They have a fantastic beer list.  All beers are $2.00 off pours and wine is also on special.  I started with the Backward Bastard from Founders and ended up with New Hollands Dragon’s Milk.  Very good.  For dinner we enjoyed a brussel sprouts pizza and a chopped salad.  We definitely went off our diets for this dinner but it was worth it.  We agreed not to do the Time Restricted Feeding on the weekends so that we could enjoy friends and craft beer.  

Sunday was rough here in Michigan.  We got dumped almost six inches of snow!  After shoveling the driveway, we decided it was time to run on the streets.  It was cold but so worth it.  We sweated out all of the calories we took in on Saturday night and felt so much better afterwards.  

Since the roads were snow covered we used our snow running spikes.  Running on snow is difficult but with these spikes it’s a piece of cake.



Amazon has them for $5.99-$10.99.  We got ours at Costco last year for $7.00, but they were sold out last time I checked.

Sunday night we watched the Super bowl and we started the TRF again, not eating after 2:00 pm. We both are fair weather fans and could really care less who won the Super Bowl.  I love the 1/2 time performance and thought JT hit it out of the park.  Dave was somewhat rooting for the Patriots but didn’t mind the Eagles winning.  It was good football either way.

Running for the month of January was a whopping 59 miles.  That is almost 2 miles per day.  Next month the goal will be slightly higher.  

Did you have a regular activity this month?    

Karen

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It’s Monday again!

Hello all, hope you had a wonderful weekend.  We were busy again seeing friends and narrowing down a new SUV for Dave.  Here’s what we did this weekend.  On Friday I was so happy to spend the entire day with KJ!  I got to Lauren’s house early so she had plenty of time to get to work.  As I was driving there I almost hit a dear.  It ran right out in front of me and I slammed on my brakes and just missed it.  Thank God.  My heart was racing and I was thinking that today was not my day to meet my maker.  I am so glad the deer made it across the road without causing an accident.  Anyway, I got to Lauren’s in plenty of time and we even had a few moments to go over KJ’s schedule for the day.  Whenever I babysit KJ, I also make arrangements to make dinner for Lauren and Christopher so when they get home all they have to do is relax and enjoy each other.  My mom used to do that for me and I appreciated it so much.  I made a wonderful beef barley soup in the crock pot.  I had a bowl for lunch and it was delicious.  Super easy recipe, you can click on the link to view it.  It’s so good that I made it today before work for our dinner tonight.  Beef barley soup recipe

Here is my little buddy!  He is such a character- he must laugh at least 50 times an hour.  I feel like a kid when I spend time with him.

We stayed home Friday night and watched a movie I picked up from the library- Atomic Blond with Charlize Theron.  We really enjoyed it.  Her body is amazing and she did plenty of her own stunts in this action packed movie set in Berlin 1989.  The film is based on the graphic novel titled The Coldest City.  I am sure there will be a sequel to this movie.  

On Saturday we ran first thing.  We were able to log another 3 miles on the calendar. Errands the rest of the day.  We met friends for dinner at a local restaurant called Bigalora- a wood fired pizza Cucina.  We chose this place because of the Brussel sprout thin crust pizza and the craft beer selection.  We were in heaven.  They had so many wonderful stouts to choose from.  I ended up with Founders Backward Bastard and Dave ordered a Dragonmead Armageddon Grand Cru. Sehr Gut!!  

Image result for bigalora pics

On Sunday we decided to go to the North American Auto Show in Detroit.  

This is one of the SUV’s Dave is interested in.  He wants to purchase the new vehicle from the factory in Volvo’s Overseas Delivery option.  Volvo pays our flight to Sweden and two nights in a hotel in exchange for purchasing a new car/SUV.  We would add a few days more to explore and make it a real vacation. We will see what he ends up purchasing.  He is still in the research mode.

This could be my dream car 🙂
The Auto show was packed, they are expecting record numbers this year.  A good sign for the auto companies and for Detroit.  

Since we were already downtown, we headed to the new Founders Brewery.  The brewery opened its doors on December 4th to a large crowd and it’s been crowded ever since.  

While there, we of course had to have a few samples!!  We also bought a couple of shirts in the gift shop. 🙂
I posted this pic on Sunday night on Instagram.  Spring really is just around the corner (58 days away). 

How was your weekend?  How are your New Year goals going??  We are still plugging along and trying to eat healthy foods, exercise daily, and drink beer only two days a week.  So far, so good.  We have also cleaned out the pantry and reorganized it and today Dave is home cleaning out his closet; all in an attempt to get organized and make our lives simpler.  

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A weekend with friends using VRBO

Hello everyone! We spent a few days with friends over the MLK holiday. 
Image result for boyne

We planned our trip having dinner with friends, when someone suggested we do something over the long weekend in January.  Dave and I booked a house on VRBO (Vacation Rental By Owner) and we couldn’t be more pleased.  We has so much fun and the house was just spectacular. There were plenty of bedrooms and beds for each couple.  The house had two fully stocked kitchens.  Two full baths.  Plenty of clean linens and towels, and blankets to wrap ourselves in as we talked for endless hours in the family room.  When we weren’t skiing, we were ice skating, sledding, shopping and cross-country skiing.  We even went on a horse driven sleigh ride on Sunday night in the freezing cold. 🙂 We stayed up late drinking Crown Royal, beer and wine, and drank coffee late into the morning while lounging in our pajamas. Each day new snow would fall and each day was colder than the last.  We didn’t care- we were there to enjoy and enjoy we did!  

The house came with games, pads of paper, pens, menus, restaurant suggestions, and fun things to do while in Boyne…The homeowners really made our stay comfortable.  I am thinking hard about reserving the house again this summer for a family vacation with the kids and KJ.  There so much to do in the summer months in Boyne-we could swim, zip-line, rent kayaks, golf, play on the beach, barbecue, have corn hole tournaments…my mind is reeling! 

VRBO was a breeze to use.  As soon as we located a property in the area we wanted we booked it.  Partial payment (30%) was due on day of booking and final payment was due one week before check in.  A ($300) fee was added to my credit card for any damages, that has yet to be refunded, but I am confident I will see that soon as we left the place looking just as good as it did when we checked in.  The cost was $280.00 per couple for three nights- a real bargain considering that was the only real expense.  We brought some meals, alcohol, water, and snacks from home.  We only went out to dinner once and we all paid for our rentals for skiing.  

Vintage 2-Family Cottage, Walk to Lake and Downtown Boyne City, Michigan

Vintage Family Cottage

First floor full kitchen facing dining room

Private loft queen
Second floor living view toward private loft
Second floor living room with balcony
Second floor bedroom with queen and toddler bed

First floor living room with daybed in front cove

Can you see how relaxed we look?  We just loved our weekend away with friends and using VRBO was the best.  

Have you ever used VRBO before?  I loved the ease of the website and reading the reviews of the properties.  I will make sure to review our stay after I get my refund back 🙂

We did manage to run each day (6 miles) while we were in Boyne; it was cold, but we managed.

Karen

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Catching up

Can you guess where we spent the first week of the New Year?  Yup, on a cruise ship. 🙂  We jumped on board on Tues, Jan 2 and traveled the Caribbean for an entire week. The ship was called the Reflectionfrom Celebrity.  We boarded the ship in Ft. Lauderdale and planned to stop in Key West, Grand Cayman and Cozumel.  The rest of the days on board were cruising days. Our assessment- we are not cruise people.  We would rather be on land where we can run and bike and sightsee.  The entertainment on the ship was terrific and the food spot on, but there was just not enough to do on the ship.  It was an older crowd and we did do a lot of quiet activities like read and sleep.  When we booked the cruise we were hoping to have a slow vacation and we definitely met that goal, but I guess we are the type of people that would prefer more activity. Now we know. 

The Key West stop was cancelled due to high winds and the excursion we signed up for in Grand Cayman (swimming with the stingrays) was also cancelled due to high winds. Very disappointing. 

 Reflection truly is a beautiful ship

    

Another complaint is the ship had very limited craft beer selections.  I mostly stuck to wine but Dave likes to have a good beer on vacation and the ship lacked in that area. 

 Dave was able to find a few he enjoyed throughout the week.

This picture was taken after we danced to Silent Disco, you put on headphones and only you can hear the music- you dance and dance with your partner while they hear a different song!  It was so much fun!

While in Cozumel we rented ski boats for the day.  We had so much fun!

Grand Cayman Island

On Grand Cayman we found a store that sold craft beer. We enjoyed a few of their local stouts.  They allow drinking and walking around- so why not do what the locals do? 🙂

 

The ship had a beautiful library stocked with great titles.  

Dave managed to run 20 miles on this vacation.  He utilized the running path on the ship and he ran on the two port stops.  Karen ran only 5 miles the entire week- a very bad week for Karen. Even though I packed all of my running gear, I just couldn’t muster up the motivation to run on the boat track- too windy and I can’t stand running in circles. My running happened on the treadmill getting lost in the ocean views.

How is your 2018 shaping up?  Speaking of shaping up, ha, we are now on a very low calorie high protein regime.

Karen

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Catching up!

Hope your weekend was wonderful!  We were busy as usual.  On Friday Dave and I went out in search of a good beer and got lucky at the Rochester Tap Room– we enjoyed a KBS from Founders.  The manager allowed us a bottle even though the public release is not till Monday- helps to always talk to the manager 🙂

Saturday was Dave’s work/friends party.  We had such a good time.  We played two truths and one lie and honestly I think it was the best party game I have ever played.  On the invite Dave alerted his friends to come prepared to play the game and think ahead of time what their two truths and one lie would be.  We played for two-full hours and the truths and lies sparked such good conversation.  It was amazing and I feel like I know these people so much better.


The menu was very basic for this gathering.  I always start out with a written menu, that way I know what I need to make or purchase from the grocery store.  Since most of the invitees are health conscience, the menu contained lots of veggies, fruit and cheese.  They really enjoyed the salad on a stick and the tortellini skewers with roasted peppers.  The key lime shooters were a cool refreshing dessert choice.  

Party II for 12 people- Start time 6pm
Roll up sandwiches from Papa Joes -pick up on Saturday  Cold
Veggie and Fruit tray from Costco- pick up on Friday  Cold
Tortellini Roasted Peppers skewers- make on Saturday Cold
Bacon brie Crescent Wreath– make on Saturday Hot
Easy Wedge Salad on a Stick- make on Saturday Cold
Greek Salad- make on Saturday  Cold
Chicken skewers–make on Friday  Hot
Key lime pie shooters-make on Saturday  Cold
White chocolate pretzels-make on Friday  Cold
Beer and wine
Lime cut up
Dave sets up bar area
Glassware, ice, lime, cranberry juice, wine and craft beer
Coffee bar- assorted coffees
Sugar and creamer
Desserts
Three stations:
1.       Bar  
2.       Main food 
3.      Desserts and coffee 

The party was a success and I hope we can continue this tradition next year.  

On the exercise front, we ran on Friday, Saturday and Sunday- logging in another 9 miles.  Since the roads are snow covered we used our snow running spikes.  Running on snow is difficult but with these spikes it’s a piece of cake.



Amazon has them for $5.99-$10.99.  We got ours at Costco last year for $7.00, but they were sold out last time I checked.

How was your weekend?

“DAKliving” is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.