The Dirty Dash - Sloppy Seconds

Josh and I did the Dirty Dash, for the second year in a row.  It was just as much fun as last time!  This year Sean and Laura, and Laura's friend Jenny ran it with us.  I think 5 is just about the perfect number for a mud run, and we all had a blast!

The Before Picture.  We went with an 80's theme.

Josh and Sean with their pre-run stretch routine.

I don't know how Laura managed this pic - but she nailed it!

The first mud pit.  It was so cold, it stunk, and for a minute I was worried I thought I might have to swim it!

Getting muddy!

The organizers set up a mud pit with pvc pipes under the water.  They had people on the side who would push a button and send a puff of air through the pipes.  The result was explosive mud - pretty intense!

The three ladies rockin' our Dirty Dash Tattoos!  Looking at this picture later is silly....there is so much more going on than just us!

This is me after the air puff mud explosion pit.  I wasn't enjoying it nearly as much as Josh.

There were lots of muddy walls to climb over.  The mud made them extra slippery

The beer station.  You can see the giant slip and side in the background.

You reach a level of muddiness where everything is hilarious.  Toward the end, I couldn't stop giggling. .

The After Pic

Josh and Kiki after picture

This one properly captures how exhausted we were.

We had a blast and we will definitely sign up for round three next year.  As it stands right now, we are doing a mud run in Port Angeles on August 3!  My Dad, and my sister will be running with us, so it should be extra fun! 

Boston

On April 3, I decided I needed a visit to Belle.  The summer was getting super busy, and I needed to visit her before her assignment in Boston was up.  She is a traveling nurse so I do most of my sightseeing around the country by taking trips to see her - Phoenix, Tuscon, San Diego, and now Boston!

I flew the red eye in to Boston, and since Belle was working the night shift, her friend Shari was happy to pick me up.  I asked the woman who I'd never met before if she was there to pick me up, we hugged, I hopped in her car, and she put up with my delirious self for the next several hours.  You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep, Belle surrounds herself with good people and Shari is no exception.  Thanks Shari!

I took a picture of the first thing I saw that would prove to Josh I made it to Boston.

I was still pretty out of it because of the red eye, and Belle worked the night shift so she was exhausted too.  We bought coffee, apparently Dunkin' Donuts is the Starbucks of the East, took Dakota for a walk and then we took a nap.  It felt like college.

She is lucky enough to be close to the Harvard Arboretum.  There was a great path to follow and there were beautiful trees all over to enjoy the weather with.

That evening we went out to dinner with a bunch of Belle's coworkers and saw an improv show at Improv Asylum.  I can see how improv isn't for everyone, but these folks were great.  They changed it up all the time, and we were genuinely LOLing.  They took a lot of audience input, my favorite being the bachelorette who volunteered for a skit.  She was in school to be a doctor, marrying a guy in school to be a doctor, and they got engaged in a convertible, and something about her parent's vacation home on a lake.  It practically wrote itself.  The improv actors were merciless, and hilarious.

The next day was all about seeing the city.  So, in true East Coast fashion...I took my first subway ride!

We did the Boston Duck tour.  The Boston Duck is completely different from the Seattle Duck.  Everyone in Boston that I talked to about it mentioned how cool the tour was supposed to be.  It was a super neat way to see the city, we had an informative, funny tour guide, and they didn't make us use kazoos like the Seattle Ducks.  Aside from being a fun touristy experience, from what I understand the Boston Duck Company is very involved in local community and charity.  And the best part...they let us drive!!

Despite the angle, I am not actually about to run us into the bridge.

We got our nails done on Newbury street.  We stopped at the grocery on our way and found single serve, foil topped glasses of wine.  Of course those made it inside the nail shop.

From there we were off to explore the rest of downtown.  We stopped at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.  Windows were still boarded up and a memorial was growing.  About 2 hours after I took this pic, we walked by again and the memorial had at least tripled in size.

We made our way to Faneiul Hall.  We got recruited to help a team complete a scavenger hunt, so we participated (poorly) in a 20 second aerobics class right in the square in front of Faneuil Hall.

Boston is beautiful.  I loved looking around at all the buildings.  Here on the West Coast we just don't have the obvious history in each structure that you see over there. 

I mean really...this is a parking garage!

Belle and I went out to dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant.  While we were enjoying our meal, a couple came up to us, said "next round's on us, KCCO", and set this on the table! 

KCCO means Keep Calm, Chive On.  The Chive is an awesome website that Josh and I love.  I was wearing my KCCO shirt that day, and the couple must have noticed and been fans too! Check out The Chive!

That night we went out on the town, went to an oyster bar, checked out a great cover band, and met up with some of Belle's other friends.  It was an excellent night!

On my last day in town I had to touch the Atlantic.

Check out this tide.  This is a video of the tide flowing into a little cove, I couldn't believe it so I had to take a video.



The Boston Stereotype of their accent is totally true!  People say "wicked" in actual conversation.  They really do drop their "r's".  I just about died when one of Belle's friends said "Havahd?  Those suckahs are wicked smaht".

It was a fantastic trip.  Can't wait to find out where I get to visit Belle next!

The list - UPDATED AGAIN!

We are six whole months in to our year without and I think we are getting the hang of it.  That's not to say we aren't racking up the dollars to charity, more that we are becoming aware of what we are doing.  We are seeing these habits or things we've decided to do without as things we like to do, but aren't a necessity.

January - The Snooze Button

February - Swearing

March - A thing.  Get rid of one thing every day, all month.  It doesn't matter if it goes in the dumpster, to a friend, or in the Goodwill pile, as long as it goes.

April - Alcohol

May -  TV

June -  Make everything from scratch.  No store bought, prepared anything

July -  Repeat month.  Josh and I will be repeating the Snooze Button without...we are getting bad about it.  Originally this was spending money on anything that is not fresh food.

August - Originally this was meat.  I just found out that my protein levels are low, and I don't enjoy other sources of protein enough to get my levels up enough without  meat, so we've gotten rid of it.  This month we will do without spending money on anything that is not fresh food.

September - Complaining.

October - Coffee.  Tea is still allowed, I'm not a masochist.  Josh may restrict himself to one cup a day, coffee is an integral part of his morning routine, whereas I just really like it.  Updates on this as we get closer.

November - Chips and Sweets - neither of these seem overly difficult to me.  So, I'll combine them and see what happens. 

December - Popular Radio.  NPR and old time radio recordings from the library are still allowed, so is music.  This is purely in response to my annoyance this year with radio commercials.  Wendy's: "mozzerella-la-la" will never be a holiday tune.  But it will get stuck in my head.  Jerks.  And Fred Meyer's Snow Mom: you are Mrs. Foreman from that 70s show, stop pretending otherwise and giggling like the Mid-West version of the announcer for every BBQ sauce commercial (you know the ones where they want you to know their sauce is authentic so they hire a southern-middle-aged-black announcer to tell you all about it and then chuckle good naturedly?).  Grrrr!!  See September, and possibly February.

June - All home cooked meals

June 1 - Josh was camping and golfing with the boys - he went out to dinner at a bar.  And I completely forgot about the without.  I made breakfast at home (eggs), munched on celery and peanut butter for lunch, went to a Korean Day Spa (a wonderful experience), then had Wendy's.  Bad! 

June 2 - We had burgers on the grill at home, and tater tots.  I'm going to say that the burgers don't count.  We had to cook them ourselves, even though they were prepared by the store.  However, the tater tots...they count

June 3 - I made lunches and breakfast at home for both of us.  We went to a Mariners game with my Dad, so we totally gave in to the ball game food.  This counts too.

June 4 -12 - I don't remember exactly what we had, but I know we didn't cheat.  We had homecooked meals with nothing pre-prepared.  It was also sometime during this time that I realized I do 90% of the cooking, therefore, this months without was all on me.  So Josh and I discussed it and decided that we were going to redefine homemade and store bought.  Some prepared ingredients to a meal are perfectly acceptable, like raw frozen burger patties or a seasoning packet for lettuce wraps.  However, any dish or meal that is more than 75% prepped and ready to eat from the store, is considered store bought and if we eat it this month, we will owe to the charity fund.

June 13 - We went to Costco, which means that we needed to eat something before we went so we didn't buy the entire store.  We wanted something quick, so I threw in one of my "emergency" meals I keep in the freezer.  It was a Schwan's Orange Chicken Skillet.  It was delicious, don't judge.  Its nice to keep these kinds of things in the freezer for nights just like this one.  We need something that I can cook at home, that isn't awful for us.  I fully understand that this is not a healthy meal, however, if you compare it to most of the other freezer meals out there this one is pretty darn good.  Excuses for the contents of my freezer aside, this meal counts on the tally.

June 14 - We went out to see the new Star Trek in 3D.  We split a Jimmy John's Sandwhich, and ate a ridiculous amount of popcorn.  Super tasty dinner, awesome movie, and a date with a handsome man - does it get any better?  It could if it also means money for charity, add 1 to the tally.

June 15 - Leftover night!  Turns out leftovers (bacon, shredded chicken, various veggies and ciabatta rolls) make phenomenal homemade sammiches.

June 16 - Happy Fathers Day!  We went to Grandma and Papa's up in Everett and they made us a delicious flank steak.  Nothing you buy at the store can even come close to a meal at Grandma and Papa's table.

June 17 - We got back late the night of the 16th and I'm not sure if I was too tired, or if I just didn't remember, either way I forgot to make lunches.  Josh got a pizza bagel and I had teriyaki.  The guilt for this one just piles up!  I feel guilty for having a bad for me meal, and because I'm cheating on the without.  Dinner was good though - we had veggies, buttered bread and a piece of Hake.

June 18-21 - I didn't keep a menu list, but we were home-cooking fools!


June 22 - We did The Dirty Dash again!  I'll post some pics of when I have it, in the meantime check out the post about it from last year.  We were completely exhausted when we got home, and we took a 2 hour nap.  After we woke up, neither of us were thinking clearly and couldn't even comprehend cooking, so we ordered a delicious pizza from Pop's Pizza.  Definitely worth an extra tip to charity!

June 23 - Josh's table saw decided it was time to drop out of use, and it broke its second motor.  Josh has been looking for a replacement motor on Craigslist, but he ended up scoring a killer deal on a super nice new one instead.  All three of us took the truck down to Tacoma, picked up the table saw, took a nice walk on the Ruston Way waterfront, and since we were in Tacoma...we stopped at Steamer's.  Steamer's is the perfect rainy Sunday treat, even if it costs us $2 more!

This was Leonard's first trip to the Ruston waterfront, and his first experience with the memorial to fallen firefighters.  We had to take some time and let him approach these tough guys.  Leonard was terrified, he was jumping back from them, reaching way out with his nose to sniff them, and circling them like at any moment they might spray him with the hose.  I agree with him, it is a very nice memorial and they are pretty realistic, but its still funny to watch the 100 lb critter who always has my back, be scared of a statue.


June 24 -  Have I mentioned how amazing our new grill is?  The hassle we went through to get it is paying off, it rocks!  AND, even better than the grill, is the phenomenal grill-master.  Josh grills a mean steak!

June 25-30 - We did it! We successfully spent the rest of the month without any store bought pre-prepared meals.  With the heat we had to fight off a pretty wicked craving for McDonald's soft serve, but we won the battle!  There were BBQ ribs, a pasta primivera, some fish,, and a treat night including a boneless rib-eye and bacon wrapped scallops.  We ate well!

Ok, so whats the take away from this month?  Buying quick easy meals from the store is...quick and easy.  But, by avoiding the easy option, we ate a lot more fresh vegetables and otherwise "whole foods".  I think we ate healthier, and its been a good learning experience for me to see that it doesn't take that much more time to cook something from scratch rather than have something ready to go in the freezer.  It just take a little bit of planning.

Total Tally for June:
Josh: 8
Kiki: 8