Races

My bucket list entails completing a triathlon and I somehow convinced Brian to sign up with me. So we are completing the Greensboro Christmas in July Triathlon on July 10th. In preparation for that we decided to complete a duathlon. We signed up for the University City Duathlon (5k run-19k bike-3k run) and it was last Saturday. Brian and I both finished second in our age group with Brian finishing in 1 hour 32 minutes and I finished in 1 hour 49 minutes. We were both really happy with our results and how the race went. We decided that it was something that we wanted to continue doing so we invested in some performance race bikes (thanks to Mom and Dad for letting us borrow their bikes for the duathlon). Brian was so happy with his bike that he wanted to sleep with it and woke up the next morning ecstatic that it wasn't a dream. Below are the pictures from the race and our new bikes.

Sports Games Galore!

So I know that we have been MIA but it has been quite busy of late. Brian got into graduate school at Ball State University in Muncie, IN and starts classes on May 16th. This weekend we are moving him up there and it is exciting for him but also sad that we will be living 8.5 hours away for a year. But we will make it through and it will only benefit us in the long run. Penne will be staying with me in Greensboro and we are going to try and see each other as often as possible with school schedules.

I just finished my first year of graduate school today and am very happy about that. I will be working with my Bariatric program this summer and enjoying the amount of free time that I will have by reading a ton of books and watching tv. I think the local library and I will be best friends.

Penne is doing well. However, within the last couple of months she has begun to bald on the sides of her body. The vet has yet to figure out what it is, which worries us. First they thought it was hypothyroidism and 2 tests later, it wasn't. So now they want to do a skin biopsy, but it is over $200.00 and we have decided to wait because right now it is only cosmetic. Otherwise, she is still a destroyer of toys and a lover of the dog park.

Also, Brian and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary this past Sunday. It is hard to imagine that we have been together that long.

In our spare time, we like to fulfill Brian's bucket list of attending as many different sports games as possible. So of recent we have been to a Carolina Speed game (arena football), Charlotte Bobcats vs Knicks game (NBA), Greensboro Grasshoppers game and Winston-Salem Dash game (both minor league teams). Above are some pictures from the Speed and Bobcats games.

(the player's lower back pad said Bye Bye, kind of funny)

(that is Carmelo Anthony down there)

Baking and Penne

So below are some pictures of what we have been baking at the apartment. The first picture is of a red velvet cake that had peppermint frosting and peppermint candies in the middle and on top. Brian decorated his first cake and it was very good. Then for today's Super Bowl I made carrot cake cupcakes with green grass frosting and football shaped oreos on top. I think they turned out well and it is what I was expecting in my head.

The video at the bottom is of Penne being calm, which never happens in our house. So with our new camera that we got for Christmas, I took the video while Brian was calming her down. She gets very excited when he comes home, so eventually he tries to get her to stop being crazy. This time he succeeded.

She is funny as always and yesterday after I came home from a conference she was playing with herself by pushing the crate door open and close with her nose. Every time it would bounce back open she would turn her head in amazement and then continue the game. I started laughing at her and she stopped. Wished I had that on camera as well.

A New Year

We have been bad bloggers, considering we haven't posted since Halloween. So I apologize, but the end of the semester along with all of the holidays was so busy that we didn't have time. I will try and summarize what has been going on since then.

We were fortunate to have family come down for both Thanksgiving (my parents) and Christmas (Brian's parents). Both holidays were very nice and a lot of fun, so thank you guys for sharing it with us.

The end of the semester was crazy for me, but I was so happy for a break. I was able to go home for a week after Christmas and it was great seeing everyone in Kentucky. However, school starts back up on Monday and it is going to be even busier. I will be working as the project manager for the research project that will be starting up for my assistantship. This will be a difficult work in progress for everyone involved. I also will be starting a second job as a study hall monitor for student athletes. I can only work 10 hours a week due to my assistantship, but it will be an easy job and extra money always helps.

Brian has been working extremely hard at Toys R Us. I know this is not his ideal job, but it is better than not working at all. He worked long hours throughout the holidays and was unable to come home with me. He has officially completed all of his graduate school applications and now it is just a waiting game to see where he will get in. I am so proud of him for working so hard and I know it will pay off in the end.

Below are pictures of some changes to our apartments, the 6 inches of snow we got at Christmas (which delayed me getting home for a couple of days), Penne's snowballs attached to her legs and Christmas morning.

Hope everyone is doing well and we will update as new events happen!

Halloween

So as you know in a previous post, we got our pumpkins from the farmer's market a couple weeks ago. But due to the craziness of graduate school, I hadn't had the chance to carve them yet. We finally sat down Saturday night in the living room and did it while watching The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (my Netflix choice). I carved the face of a schnauzer (found the template online and it looks similar to Penne) on my pumpkin and Brian made his own template of Big Red to carve in his pumpkin. I think that both of them look really great!

Also a couple weeks ago, I made brownies and used some cookie cutters (thanks Vickie, Staci & Barb) to cut out ghosts and pumpkins. Then I put them on my cake plate that has the candy corn ribbon. On Saturday, I also made cupcakes (thanks to Mom, Vickie, Staci & Barb for the cupcake liners) and used orange colored frosting to make them more festive. The orange isn't as bright as I had hoped, but for my first time coloring frosting it came out pretty well. Again these went on my cake plate for display!

Sunday was Halloween and we had bought two big bags of candy in preparation for all of the trick or treaters. We thought that we would have a lot of kids because there are 5 or 6 apartment complexes on this road alone. But we only had 27 kids stop by and we have a lot of candy leftover (although Brian doesn't mind that at all). Penne did pretty good with people coming to the door, at first she was barking at them. But as the night went on she got less and less excited about the visitors. So she is doing pretty good.