Life on the Runn...

So, we were supposed to have an extra-extra long weekend, but thanks to those bitterly cold days back in January and February, Friday found me in my classroom doing my teacher thing.  In truth, as the year winds down, I need all the time with my kiddos I can get, so I wasn't totally disappointed that I was in Waukesha instead of Boulder, where I planned to be.  By the time I was at the airport that evening, however, I was entirely on vacation and absolutely ready for a weekend in my second home.   We planned to make the most of our time and pack in as much as we could without wearing ourselves out; after all, the main event of the weekend wasn't until Monday and involved a few miles of running.  We got started on that immediately; per our tradition, after making the drive from DIA to Boulder, we stopped for a drink at the West End.  It is one of our favorite places in town, so being that my in-laws were visiting and joined Brian on the jaunt to the airport, we...

Some time ago, our cousin Shannon brought up the Rollie Run 5K at Miller Park.  We all thought it was a fabulous idea to wear our best Brewers blue and yellow, tie on our running shoes, and stick on our mustaches.  I immediately relayed the info to my cousin Jenna with the hopes of continuing our run-buddy tradition.  Unfortunately Jenna had to work, but my sister-in-law was up to running and even had a team set for the event; eventually, I decided as much as I didn't want to run without my run buddy, I couldn't pass up the fun (and the training for next weekend's BIG running event in Colorado).  My race goodies                                                 All set (except for the mustache)                                       ...

Less than 18 hours after I touched down in the States, I was at the airport again.  This time, I was with my assistant coach, his wife, mother-in-law and daughter and our eight Acadec kiddos.  While it seemed like I was heading off for another weeklong vacation, I was anxious; you see, I was responsible for eight kids.  I’m kind of a control freak, and not being able to check that they had their dress clothes, their IDs, their food money and their study materials before they met me at the airport was horrifying! Would they be on time?  Would they all have their dress clothes and study materials?  Would they all have IDs? Add to that the fact that I was in a time zone seven hours different than the one I woke up in the day before, and I was just short of a hot mess.  Touchdown in Hawaii It turned out that aside from one forgotten pair of dress pants, all went smoothly, and we were wheels-down in Hawaii about 12 hours after we took off from Milwauk...

After four days in the quiet town of Siurana, we ventured to the big city of Barcelona.  Our first task was to return the rental car, no small feat considering 1) most signs are in Catalan 2) most people speak Catalan and 3) people drive like crazies.  We hopped on a bus and made our way to the center of the city and our hotel, our home for the next four-and-a-half days.  Our first task was to determine what we wanted to do each day.  We were concerned about the weather projected for the weekend, which included rain, so we made a plan to get a lot done in the days leading up to that.  We certainly came to find that we had more than enough time to get done all we wanted to, which was quite different from our previous European trips.  That is, while we or originally worried that borrowing time from this trip to climb would hinder the Barcelona experience, both Brian and I mentioned the fact that we could have stayed in Siurana longer.  This just gives u...