Sunday, September 11, 2011

Backyard Again, Perfect Strangers and a new Toy Store in Town...

The weather has changed here in the last week. Weather in the 50's and 60's. Abnormal for this time of year in Indiana, but a welcome reprieve from the 100 degree temps of late. With the change in season has come a change in outdoor activities; no more pool time yet more backyard play time. We've found ourselves on the playset or across the street bouncing almost every night. And the girls love it.
 We have a tree swing that the bigs are only now strong enough to swing on
 Saturday I rose early to meet a group of four women (we dub ourselves the Perfect Strangers) to run 18 miles. We dedicated our run in remembrance of 9/11 and wore flags on our chests (and in our pony tails):
 I believe there are a total of about 10 of us in our running group and this particular morning 6 of us ran. We are all training for either the Chicago Marath.on or the Mon.umental Marathon here in Indy. It's the tail end of training for the Chicagoans and the mid-way point for us Monumentalists. Yet somehow our training plans have started to collide and we're at the same mileage. Next week every single one of us will be running 20 miles. Together. And I never believe I'd utter these words about running 20 miles, but I cannot wait. I'm serious, if you are thinking about training for a marathon, you MUST join a running group or club (if you are a woman, we'd love to have you join us!). Makes the miles so much easier and tolerable. We share some pretty intimate stories and also share in our aches and pains. I've grown to lean on and love these women more than I could imagine.
After a quick shower Mike and I packed the girls up to head on over to a new Toy Store in town called My Toy Garden that one of his clients has been working hard to open. We ran into several friends and even met some new ones in the beautifully creative store. We spent over an hour playing, exploring and watching magic...
 Can you guess what kind of magic we witnessed?
 This man arrived and wooed every little (and big) kid in the store with his balloon magic
 Izzy asked for a flower
 Mike and Jason have continued to brew their own beer all summer long. Their current batches include a Phat Tire and an Octo.berfest. Both are delicious (and potent!). However, now they've upped the ante to creating whiskey. Yikes. They scored a large bag of corn from a friend up north and it's been sitting in a burlap bag inside of a plastic tub for several weeks. Stinky. The stink meant it was time to shed the corn kernels of their newly sprouted roots and add yeast to create a "sour mash." Sour indeed. While the boys were elbow-deep in said mash, the kiddos played outside. Only coming in for snacks. Here are Ben, Iz and Elaina:

Unfortunately our Col.ts lost today. But fortunately for me, game time meant Mike and Iz went to Jason's house for 3 hours while Laney napped and mommy read. Perfect, relaxing Sunday! As I write the temps are back into the 70's and beautiful. Guess all that closet-switch-out work I did last week was fruitless. Need to find all those stowed away shorts and tees. Whoops!

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