I feel like I've been neglecting my blogging duties lately. I guess it has been one of those times where living life becomes more important than writing about it. Also, work has been busy for me, so my usual blogging time slot has been filled up with effort put toward planning a research symposium. But I won't bore you with details about my job.

What have we been up to lately? Well, last weekend - not much. Friday was Winona and Saturday I drove up to the Cities solo for a girls night dinner to celebrate sister-in-law, Jen's birthday. I came home late Saturday night so that I could have the whole day on Sunday at home. We read the paper outside on the deck in our beautiful unsummer-like weather and then went out for a tasty Mexican meal for an outdoor lunch. It was a lovely day. Wednesday night we drove up to the Cities again to surprise everyone gathered at Mike's parents house for Jen's actual birthday. Benjamin hadn't seen his grandparents or cousins in a very long time and since they weren't going to be coming down here anytime soon, we decided to go up to them.

Mike joined a swim club this week. They have open swimming with coaches available to members every weekday morning from 5:30am-7:30am at a local outdoor pool. He's been getting some tips in order to more efficiently swim in his next triathlon on August 8th. He has also started his Twin Cities Marathon training with his weekend long runs. Benjamin and I are volunteering as a waterstop for the run this Saturday. Hopefully the weather is nice. We always enjoy seeing the runners early in the morning.

Speaking of volunteering, I took an interesting position recently. I am now a member of the Great River Ragnar Relay SWAT team as a Major Exchange Manager for the race on August 21st. I am going to manage a large group of volunteers at an exchange in Modena, Wisconsin (pretty much the middle of nowhere). Mike has done this relay race for the past 2 years, but couldn't get a large enough group of runners to run it this year. A call came out by email for people that were able to do more than your average volunteer and since I worked at an exchange for last year's race, I decided to see if they would take me. I'm told that this could involve traveling to the other relay races across the country, which happen in sweet places like Washington State, Utah, Vegas, LA, Florida, etc, etc. Who knows if that will happen, but at least I get a free race entry and an official Ragnar jacket, shirt and hat. I'm all for the swag!

We are still working on planning our trip to Colorado. We've had to move it around a bit due to some scheduling conflicts, but at this point it looks like we'll be going August 12-19. I've been on the hunt to find some reasonable (i.e. CHEAP) lodging and it hasn't been easy. Traveling with Benjamin means that we ideally want to stay somewhere that has a closed off room with a bed so that when he goes to sleep, we can stay up and not disturb him. One bedroom places usually come with a kitchen, which we don't need, but with the kitchen comes a bigger price. Sooo, we'll see. We will be driving there (because we like torture) and will split up the drive to Colorado with one night in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Mike and I made this same trip in September 2004, which is nice because we kind of know what to expect. It is 8 hours to Rapid City, SD from Rochester and then 6 hours to Estes Park, CO from there. We will have to stop along the way though with requisite visits to the Mitchell Corn Palace, the Bad Lands and Wall-Drug, of course. I am personally very excited to stop again at the Sonic in Cheyenne, WY. Those of us in Rochester are forced to watch Sonic commercials on our local tv stations without a Sonic restaurant anywhere close to us. Those delicious shakes topped with mountains of whipped cream get me everytime! Mostly though I am SO looking forward to mountain views. There is just something so romantic about the Rocky Mountains. We can't wait to share that with Benjamin.

It is Friday and we have yet another relaxing weekend at home ahead of us. How'd we get to be so lucky?!?