Since I am a glutton for punishment, I have signed myself up for two of them. The first of the two is a trail marathon in Indy on August 3. I don’t have any goal for this race except for just completing it and running as much of it as is reasonably possible. I haven’t run on trails regularly since high school, and I will probably not have a chance to run many trails in the next few months, so this may prove to be interesting. I will try to plan a few long runs on the trails in our local state park, but no promises there.

In addition to that small detail about the race being on trails, there is an even bigger unknown. August weather in Indiana. The average temperature in Indy on August 3 is 83 degrees, presumably with 95% humidity. Essentially, I expect it to feel like 90-100 degrees out there. Sounds like fun, eh?

The second race is a small inaugural race in Southern Indiana on September 28. I chose to register got peer pressured into signing up for this race for a few reasons. First, a bunch of people from my running club are doing it. Second, peer pressure. Peer pressure is no joke, it can be a huge motivator, don’t underestimate it.

After returning from vacation last month, I have been working on being more deliberate about my running. I’ve failed spectacularly at that, but, somehow, I have still been logging a decent number of miles each week. I have been averaging slightly more than 30 miles per week. I think the sweet spot for me running a marathon is somewhere between 30 and 50 miles per week depending on where I am in the training plan. Fewer miles and I will be unprepared, more miles and I fear that I will get injured/stressed out/tired/other bad thing. This is a fairly personal thing, my way is definitely not the “right” way, but I think it will work for me.

I have a goal in mind for that second race, but I’m not ready to put it out there yet. I need to do a few of the longer, long runs to understand how realistic it might be. More updates coming soon. Even non-runners love running fodder, no?

When I first sat down to look through my pictures from Norway, I realized that there were not many pictures, and even fewer good ones. I’m a bit disappointed, but not really surprised. It is pretty difficult to manage Kai while effectively taking photographs. We have a lot more pictures from the second half of our trip in Prague where Chris joined us and championed the photography effort.

In my last post, I went on a rant about the high price of food in Oslo, although, all said and done, I managed to only spend $298 on food, entertainment, and transportation over the three days that we were there; I feel pretty good about that.

So what does one do in Oslo anyway? That was a big question for me before our trip, but I quickly found out that there are many exciting things to see there.

We visited many museums such as the Fram, Munch, Nobel, and Viking Museums as well as my very favorite, the Ski Museum. I almost didn’t make it to the Ski Museum because it is a bit out of the way and involved a long walk, ok, not that long, maybe a mile, straight uphill from the nearest Metro station, but I am so glad that we went. I really enjoyed reading about the history of skiing and, for some reason, Kai patiently allowed me to do so.

Because the weather was chilly and drizzly, I sought out as many indoor activities as I could find. Kai seemed to stay quite warm in her stroller sleeping bag*, but I kept getting chilly and I kind of regretted leaving my Uggs at home. Don’t get me wrong, we did many outdoor activities as well, just fewer than we might have done had it been warm outside.

*If you live in a cold climate and need or want a stroller sleeping bag, I highly recommend the 7AM Enfant one. It is by far the most awesome one that we have used, Kai’s feet stay warm even in sub-freezing temperatures when she kicks her shoes off.

So more about Norway, I’m not finding a lot to say. I am glad that we went. I cherish the opportunity to go new places, see new things, learn about other countries and cultures, but I’ve had trouble writing because it wasn’t all that I had hoped for. I still haven’t written posts about the Maldives for the same reason. [Chris, remind me that I should get on with that as well!]

My main hangup with Norway was the people. They are very beautiful, arguably the most beautiful people in the world, but they can act kind of ugly. They were friendly in much the same way that I have experienced friendliness in France; read that how you will. I had a few experiences in Norway that just rubbed me the wrong way. None of the situations were dangerous and I understand that they do not reflect the behavior and attitude of each and every person in the country, but I’m just having trouble getting past a handful of extremely rude people who I encountered.

Overall, Oslo was a safe, clean, beautiful city with many activities for tourists, nevertheless, I don’t think it is at the top of my ‘revisit’ list.

Big mistake. Finding food for us took much longer than I expected. I quickly found out that it would be difficult to find even a fast food sandwich for us to split for under $12. I was also realistic enough to realize that splitting a European-sized sandwich with Kai would not even come close to filling my oversized American appetite.

I started to get kind of nervous. I had been warned that Norway was expensive, heck, I had even been warned by a Brit who thought Oslo was far more expensive than London. It just didn’t sink in though until I was converting the prices of things in my head.

Thinking back on our trip to Japan, I made a beeline for McDonalds. We had a few meals there in Japan and they were pretty reasonably priced. I shuddered at the idea of feeding Kai McDonalds. Bad. Mother.

I could not believe my eyes when I saw that the price of a Big Mac Value Meal was more than $17. Yikes. My fear of feeding Kai McDonalds went out the window because even that didn’t seem like a reasonable option.

I needed to buy some time while I figured out what to do. I stopped at a convenience store to buy a small (~16 oz) carton of milk for $3 and a banana for $1.22. At least Kai would forgive me for another hour or so while I got this sorted out.

Finally, I found a grocery store that was open. I bought some fruit and bread so we would have something to snack on while we were out and about, but there was nothing in this store that would make a meal suitable for Kai without my having access to a kitchen.

I eventually settled on getting us $12 fast food sandwiches. Naturally, I ended up eating nearly two $12 sandwiches because Kai didn’t like either one. I should have seen that coming.

In the end, we did not end up spending a fortune on food in Oslo, but we also never ate at an establishment that offered seating of any kind. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing though; sometimes it is stressful to take a toddler into a restaurant by myself, so alfresco dining had its perks.

We got to see a lot of awesome stuff in Oslo, but I’ll share more about that another day.

The first leg of our journey took us to New Jersey where we had a twelve hour layover and an opportunity to hang out with my family all day. We got to have blueberry pancakes, a trip to the zoo, and a big dinner before heading back to the airport for round two.

For the second time that day, Kai fell asleep before takeoff and managed to sleep until the final approach into our destination airport. The sounds pretty good, but there is a bit of a downside for me; it means that I did not sleep much at all as I was dealing with various limbs falling asleep from her weight and the inability to get up to use the bathroom for nearly seven hours. Still, this was a much better alternative than a cranky, wakeful baby.

Sunday morning we arrived in Oslo, caught a train into town, and secured a super early check-in into our hotel. So far, so good!

Have you ever wondered how Duke gets in and out of the car? I can tell you for sure that he does not jump and that he leverages all 200 pounds of his weight to keep all four feet on the ground. I didn’t really give much thought to loading and unloading Duke until it fell on my plate to do it last week and it dawned on me that I could not pick him up.

Thankfully, after tormenting me for several hours, Chris spilled the beans; he has been using a genius technique to get Duke into the car: put him on a leash and ask him to walk right in.

Not so bad at all!

After kenneling Duke, Kai and I spent the bulk of Friday night figuring out how we were going to share a carry-on suitcase for nine days. It would have been pretty easy if she didn’t wear diapers, but we’re not quite ready to leave those home yet. [Foreshadowing: It was a really good decision to pack enough diapers rather than buy them in Norway!]

Saturday morning Late Friday night, we set off for the airport and the beginning of our adventure.

I was so excited. Probably more excited than I should have been. I woke up early Sunday morning, searching feverishly for the perfect salad recipe. Not only did it need to sound tasty, but it needed to use up the veggies that were left over after making Pad Thai the day before and as many ingredients that I already had on hand as possible. By the time the sun came up, I realized that the perfect recipe didn’t exist, but, I hope, I had figured out how to properly layer an Asian themed salad which could use leftover romaine, mushrooms, and carrots, from the Pad Thai and edamame from the freezer.

After a trip to get more mason jars, I was excited to get started building my salads in a jar. Carefully layering the ingredients in the jars was kind of fun, in large part because they looked so pretty when they were finished.

On day two, I can confirm that my first salad tasted freshly made. I will try to remember to update on Friday to report back on how the salads hold up through the week. From what I’ve read, they will hold up just fine for up to five days. The key is that the wet ingredients are separated from the more delicate ones by the height of the container. In theory, this means that the lettuce does not turn into a pile of slime after a few days.

I look forward to a success story later in the week, as it will certainly be quicker and easier to only cut and wash salad veggies once per week!

Ingredients:

• 10 tbsp sesame ginger dressing
• 1.5 cups shredded carrot
• 1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 2 cups mushrooms, sliced
• 3 clementines, peeled and sectioned
• 2 cups edamame pods, shelled
• 1 head romaine, cut into bite sized pieces

Directions:

• Layer ingredients in five mason jars in the order listed above.
• Do not shake or turn upside down until you are ready to enjoy!

With just two hours until I planned to leave work, I logged onto the Internet hoping to find a flight upgrade notification. I did and I was super stoked all over again.

Until I looked more closely. Our flight from Indy to Denver was cancelled.

Immediately I called United on one phone while using the another to blow up both of Chris’ cell phones with calls and text messages. Minutes later he arrived at my desk to finish my phone call with United while I packed up my stuff. Our only hope to get to Denver tonight was to rush to Cincinnati and catch a Houston-bound flight and we needed to leave ten minutes ago. We picked up Kai on the way out of town and decided to go for it.

I felt a rush of adrenaline as we drove to Cincinnati, excited that we had a second chance, but nervous that we wouldn’t make it. With eleven minutes before the checked bag cutoff, we pulled into the expensive parking garage closest to the terminal. Chris jammed inside with our suitcase and the snowboards while I packed up Kai and the car seat before hurrying inside to meet him. As I approached the ticket counter, excited that we had made it, Chris’ face told a different story.

Two hours after we began our journey, we were again piling into the car, hungry, tired, and deflated. Shortly after getting back on the road, we ran head on into the storm that had grounded our flights. Snow, sleet, and freezing rain were flying at us in a scene reminiscent of Rad Racer, if you are the right age, you know exactly the level that I am talking about.

We crept back home from Cincinnati at a snail’s pace, our return trip taking almost twice as long as the journey there. I’m super disappointed that the trip did not work out; it seems that Vail is getting hammered with snow right now and the conditions will be perfect for anyone who can make it out there.

Hopefully we’ll have a chance to get out there later in the season.

After the initial shock wore off, I decided that it was time to take charge of two of our highest spend categories: Eating Out and Groceries/Toiletries/Other Household Goods, aka ‘The Walmart Bucket’. It turns out that Duke’s House is single-handedly keeping both Walmart and our local restaurants in business. It was time to make a change. In that vein, I have started doing this crazy thing that other people have reportedly been doing for years. I have been meal planning.

So far meal planning has been working. For the most part my grocery lists have been quite accurate. I can only think of one instance where we needed to go back out to the store for one more item and we have been avoiding weekly trips to Sam’s Club, which we all know can get expensive in a hurry. In short, not only is meal planning working, but it is going really well.

When I plan our meals for the week, there are a few critical factors that I keep in mind:

• We usually get home from work, more or less, at 6pm. Dinner must be on the table by 6:20.
• The meal must be Kai-friendly.
• Bonus points if it can be frozen. (I can make a double batch and have less work to do during a future week.)
• Dinners that can, in large part, be cooked or prepped on the weekend are a plus.
• All meals must be “from scratch”. No processed foods allowed, with the exception of “good” lunch meats three times per week.

Sounds simple enough, right?

I didn’t think so at first, but it is going really well so far. Most weeks, I have been able to cook double batches of about four of our dinners for the week on Sunday then freeze them in two portions, one for later that week and one for the future. Kai has been much more open to eating foods than I expected her to be. She has tried and loved all kinds of things from Chicken Curry to Tofu Pad Thai to, Chris’ all time favorite, Fish Tacos. There has only been one night so far that I just could not get dinner on the table before Kai went to bed (don’t worry, we fed her something else) and that was a result of me being at work too late, not the meal I chose for that night.

(If you are super curious, click to enlarge.)

I am still working to expand our breakfast and lunch items, but I think I have the dinners solidly in place. You’ll notice that not all of the lunches are populated, the basic plan is to have turkey, chicken, roast beef, veggie (usually mashed white bean), and peanut butter (except for Kai) sandwiches with fruit (and veggies for Kai) each week for lunch. Our breakfasts are super boring, Green Monsters for me, bagels for Chris, and either a bagel with sunbutter or a bagel with ricotta cheese for Kai. As I get more adept at planning, I think I can expand the breakfast and lunch menus some, for now, I think we’re doing pretty well with it.

For the first time in years, I finally feel like we are able to eat “real” foods without me sacrificing entire evenings to making dinner and the next day’s breakfast and lunch. It has been pretty amazing so far. I will do another post to get into the how, for now, here is a peek at our menu from the past two weeks.

Also exciting, I finally seem to be getting a bit faster. I was beginning to get frustrated with my lack of progress. I think that doing a lot of my runs on the treadmill at the end of last year was holding me back. It is a lot easier to run faster when you don’t have to consciously turn the speed up. I have a feeling that I can achieve some quick, but significant improvement in speed if I concentrate on doing some longer run and just overall higher mileage. Sometimes that is easier said than done, but I need to make a more conscious effort to stay on track each week because it is far too easy to let one day off slip into three days off.

My goals for February are pretty simple: Run More. Run Faster.

The next morning, we got started bright and early exploring Lisbon and Chris was feeling super enthusiastic, practically dancing in the streets.

One of the things that I was especially drawn to in Lisbon were the mosaic sidewalks. Most of the city was destroyed by fires that started as a result of the Great Earthquake of 1755 and, when the city was rebuilt, this type of sidewalk was installed with beautiful and intricate patterns. I can’t even imagine the work that must go into making one of these!

Our first stop in Lisbon was the Tagus River waterfront. It was sunny and warm there with a great musician playing for tips. We might have stayed there for hours had Kai not gotten impatient for us to keep going. By this point in the trip, I think she was starting to get a bit tired of riding around in the stroller so much. I don’t blame her, in fact, I was delighted that she tolerated it for this long.

Next stop was to see the “World’s Sexiest Bathroom” before we continued our journey through the winding streets of Lisbon. Obviously I needed to see why it was so great. I paid my 50 Euro cents and went in. It was nice and clean and had some pretty cool wood paneling on the walls, but I don’t know that it was deserving of such a bold title.

After climbing many hills and carrying the stroller up more staircases than I can count, we arrived at the top of the city. A whole neighborhood full of breathtaking views and plenty of cafes to enjoy them from.

We tooled around there for a bit and grabbed some lunch before heading back down the hill and over to the Belém neighborhood to taste pastries from the most famous pastry shop in Lisbon. In many ways, it reminded me of going to Cafe du Monde in New Orleans for beignets. The Pasteis de Belém is a pastry shop that was opened by a group of monks who needed to fund their monastery. The shop has been in business since 1837; it sounds like this gig is working out for them.