Tree House

We have a lot of trees and wood-like areas around our house.  However, when we bought this house, we weren't thinking we were buying a freaking farm house.

Just in the past month or so, we've had 5 baby birds born in our flower pots out front, the mole is still in our backyard digging tunnels everywhere, and just in the past couple of weeks, we've found out that we have squirrels in our attack.  Actually, squirrels AND bats.  Yes, bats.

Ryan had a rodent control guy come out to see why we were hearing scratching sounds around our master bathroom walls.  Come to find out after looking in the attic, he guessed squirrels were living up there and he was going to have to bring traps (doesn't kill them) to get rid of them.  After we caught 4 squirrels and we were still hearing sounds, the rodent guy discovered we also had BATS flying into our attic.  After he came at dusk one night to seal up the area they were squeezing into, he said that he saw at least THIRTY bats fly out of our attic.

Dis-gus-ting.

We think the squirrels and bats are gone since we haven't heard anything in a while, but we still have the rodent guy coming back tomorrow just to be sure.

What else has been going on?  I got 4 cavities filled all in one sitting, we spent $240 at the vet for Zoe, my car didn't start last Friday (stupid battery...my car must think I drive it a lot for work or something) and we have a new VP at work and my boss had her baby and is out on maternity leave until June.  Oh yeah, my year old phone completely died on me about a month ago, so I've been using Ryan's old phone from 2 years ago which is NOT easy since I use my phone ALL DAY long for work! Life doesn't like us right now.

On a brighter note, we went to Maryland this weekend to spend time with Chris, Emily & Rena, and got to celebrate Nate's 1st birthday in Laytonsville on Sunday!  It was a kid filled weekend full of cuteness and unfortunately, Ryan didn't come home Sunday night begging to start a family.  Again, life just isn't fair right now!

Last but not least, here is the cutest video of all time....Rena playing hopscotch for the first time with her neighbor friend!  Sorry I can't figure out how to rotate it :)

Race It

Since Ryan and I are back in Richmond, we knew we wanted to do the annual 10K Monument Ave race Richmond puts on every April.

We started training for it in January, but since we went on our cruise in March, I pretty much slacked afterwards and never got back on track.  Blue Bell Ice Cream came to Richmond right around the same time we got back from our vacation, so really it's all Blue Bell's fault!

Two Wednesday's ago I went for a short 2 mile run and afterwards, my right leg was killing me.  I could barely walk in heels at work for a couple of days and definitely did not feel prepared to run the 10k.

I waited up until yesterday morning to go ahead and give the run a shot.  I haven't even run over 6 miles in God knows how long, so I wasn't feeling too confident.  I started the race with Ryan but since he's a much faster runner than me, he left me in his dust at about mile .0002.

To be fair to myself, I made it a goal to just run the whole 6.2 miles.  There were times I had really bad cramps and some times that I was feeling a little faint, but I somehow ran the whole thing.  Not only that, but I did it in under an hour!

59 minutes and 58 seconds, to be exact.

I'm proud of myself and proud of Ryan for doing it in 45 minutes!  To answer your question, yes, he is half Kenyan.

Just now I decided to look up my past times just to see how I compare to my younger self.  I've done this race 2 times before and couldn't remember how I did it, but I know I trained for it a lot more and had a much younger body!


2008 (I was 23) I ran the race in 58'54"
2009 (24) I ran the race in 58'20"


Fast forward to my verging 29 year old body, I did it in 59'58".   Considering my lack of training, I'll take it!

I hope everyone else who did the race had as much fun as I did!  I'm so glad I decided to run, even though my body is way more sorer today than it's ever been. :)

A few updates

It's clear that I am horrible about updating this blog.  Let's move on. :)

I'm still trying to find motivation to stain the bathroom cabinets AGAIN to make it look nice and complete.  It took me about a week the first time around, so I guess that's why I'm finding it hard to break out the supplies to have another go at it.  Hmph.

Yesterday we spent about 3 hours mulching our yard....who knew it was so much work and more importantly, who knew it'd make my shoulders SO sore today? Being a homeowner is serious business.

We had snow a couple of weeks ago so that made for some entertainment.  Also, Ryan's parents made a trip from Tennessee to stay with us for a few days.  They hadn't seen our house yet so it was nice to show them the area we're living in and so on.  We had so much fun and can't wait for them to come visit again!

They were generous enough for them to give us their old Big Green Egg.  If you haven't had any food grilled on this guy then you're seriously missing out.  Picture this:

I'm loving it for several reasons.  #1 - it means I don't have to cook :) #2 - it gives Ryan a hobby #3 food is DELICIOUS!

Here are some videos & pictures to keep you occupied:

Forgive how dark it is, but everyone needs to hear Zoe's singing talent.  Yes, that's Ryan howling in the background.  They're weird, but I love it :)

Elliot and Riley think it's fun to pretend that they're zombies.  Love those gals.

Token "my dog loves the snow" video.  Ryan was throwing snowballs in our backyard and she loved chasing them.  We really need some kids so you can stop watching these videos....I know.

In love with the Cherry tree that's bloomed in front of our house! Spring is def here and couldn't be more excited for some warmer weather!

That's all I have for now -- I hope everyone has a great week!