She's riding her bike! (minus training wheels)

On Mother's Day,

Annika finally decided to learn how to ride her bike without training wheels! I think there was a promise of a sushi dinner that helped motivate her. And motivate it did! By the end of the day she was riding her bike confidently (although going uphill still gives her trouble).

Anybody up for a little bit of Polio with your Mole? Yum! Mark took this photo one day while driving around Dubuque.
More photos of Annika learning to ride her bike on Mother's Day. Big bummer for the day...I went on my 11 mile jog and felt awful afterwards....so I spent the entire day napping in bed. As it turns out, I'm one of those people that need to carry water with them on long jogs. I felt better after my 12 mile jog (drinking water during the jog) than I did on my shorter runs.
Go Annika, go!

My attempts at Blue Hour photography. I tried photographing my garden but I honestly don't think it's good subject material for blue hour photography.
Maybe we need to clean out the rain gutters...again? I'm thinking that waterfall happening right next to the house isn't such a good thing.

The weather around here seems like it can't make up it's mind. We just went from needing a fire in the wood stove to keep us warm to holy-cow-it's-90F-and-I'm-melting temperatures.

The garden and the hummingbirds are going nuts. I feel like my flowers are blooming ahead of schedule this year. Very soon I'll plant out my tomatoes and peppers. I'm having a little trouble in my flower garden figuring out whether or not some of my healthy plants are weeds. I honestly should keep a gardening journal. LOL!

This is it! This is the weekend when I finally run that half marathon! I can't tell you how much I long to have this particular event behind me and looking back at it. Am I ready for it? Are you ever ready for such a long strenuous activity? At this point- my goal is to finish the race. Please don't ask me what my time was....I'm guessing people will be finishing the race while I'm not even half-way through- and I'm okay with that. I am hoping to have a good time, hopefully enjoy the music and the company of hundreds of strangers (whom I'm hoping are talkative and friendly), enjoy staying at a hotel with the girls (they're soooo excited to stay at a hotel!), tour the farmers' market on Saturday and spend a lovely weekend in Madison. I'm hoping/praying that my legs, feet and hips will carry me through the race with minor pain...or none! LOL!

Wish me luck!

I'm off now to make homemade OREOS. I figure this will be the last week where I can afford to indulge just a tiny bit. Hee hee. (oh...and I suppose I should go on a short jog...I'm sooooo not a runner!)

ETA- OMG! Those oreos are sooooo good! You have to try them!