Monthly Archives: August 2012

The Color Run Albuquerque, NM

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 I’ve always wanted to do a Color Run ever since I saw someone post it on Facebook.  Since June, I have been bugging Mike to go and talked the brothers into going too.  I was definitely made fun of a lot and was even scolded when we found out the Bike MS race was the same weekend!  So we made a sacrifice and continued to press on with the plans!

The crowd was pretty big for such a small town.  We had 6,000 people.  Places like Philadelphia and New York had 65,000 people.  I can’t imagine!

Pre-race stretching.  Is that guy going to the bathroom?  (He isn’t, but it sure looks like it and makes the picture more funny!)

Here I am coming across the finish line.  Out of the four of us, I was last, but I have my reasons!  I did it in less than a half an hour and consider that great considering I stopped running when we were getting sprayed and talked to the people.  The boys made it a competition.

Mike won the “Who Got The Most Color Running” contest.  We really didn’t get that much until the Color Festival.  It’s where they count down from ten and everyone throws their dust in the air.

This is what I looked like…and then…

Brad and Jared both had red dust and I got it all.  I am still trying to get it out of my hair! 

This is my absolute favorite picture of the day.  The powder was so thick that it felt like it was night-time.

Can you believe this was taken on a cell phone?  What a cool idea.  It was pretty fun standing in it.  What a fun date idea too if you want to bring the significant other.  We had a blast! We are definitely gonna do it next year. A lot of people walked, some people had strollers, and some people were in wheel chairs.  I highly recommend it for anyone.

Mountainair, NM

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 When I moved here three years ago, I knew NOTHING about New Mexico.  Las Cruces was a stopping ground on road trips to Texas and Florida, but that was about it.  We started doing mountain bike races and I was introduced to all the other cities of New Mexico like Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Gallup, and Los Alamos.  It’s pretty neat to explore these places and especially enjoy the awesome scenery.

Ever heard of Mountainair, NM?  Me neither.  Something about a town that’s named after a fresh mountain breeze.  I wish I would have gotten the pictures of the “main street”.  It was pretty much the whole town.

Anyway, Mike is finishing up the NM road series (he is trying to move up from Cat 5 and this was the last race).  I decided to join in, even though I had NO TRAINING whatsoever.

We got there and warmed up on the road.  It was cloudy, which was nice so we wouldn’t burn to death.  The race was 40 miles long and had a small climb at the end.

Mike was able to stay in the lead and got fifth in his category of more than 25 guys…awesome job!

My story ends tragically with being the naive one of my group.  I was in a group of 13 girls.  Three of them fell off the back and I was able to stay with the whole group until mile 25.  It was there a huge right turn happened.  One, I hate turns on a road bike and two, I hate people who cut me off on turns on a road bike.  And that’s what happened.  Four of us fell off the back of the group, and well, we stayed back.  I had so much rage and energy that I “pulled” the girls a lot to see if we could make it.  After being yelled at for going too fast, I slowed down and stayed with the girls.  At the finish line, they all slipped past me.  I was used. 😦  But I did learn to not help people if they are going too slow!

So I did it!  A road race!  9th place. He he.

Back to School and Wrestlemania!

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 So I apologize for my hiatus from the blogging world, but I am back!  So you will be getting a lot of posts in a row.

Back to school happened.  That is why.  We had to take our first day of school picture in front of the fireplace.  I say “we” because Barney thought that he had to join in when it came to the picture deal, along with his friend Frog.

Then we had a friendly game of Wrestlemania with Frog…

Where he decided to throw him around a little bit for some attention.

 

 

Cocoa Cookies and Green Chile Enchiladas

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 I walked in after work on Wednesday ALREADY missing the days at home where I could try out recipes and use my husband as a guinea pig.  I get the itch to cook and bake at least once a week, so here is what I came up with when it came to what we had in the pantry.

(recipe courtesy of www.pbfingers.com )

Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies

Makes 10 – 12 cookies (depending on how much dough you eat)

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 teaspoon cocoa powder (may increase to 3 teaspoons if you desire a more chocolaty cookie)
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 3 tablespoons canola oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup old fashioned oats

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Combine flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
  3. In a smaller bowl, combine sugars and beat in one egg.
  4. Mix canola oil and vanilla into sugar mixture .
  5. Slowly beat sugar mixture into flour mixture. Your dough should be slightly runny.
  6. Gradually beat oats into mixture until a thicker dough forms.
  7. Use a tablespoon to portion out cookies onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or sprayed with cooking spray.
  8. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes, until tops of cookies are slightly browned.

I really liked them, the husband wasn’t too thrilled with them. If you are expecting the normal chocolate chip cookies, you may be disappointed.  I realy thought they had good flavor and it was nice not to have to use butter.

My second recipe is courtesy of my mom.

Green Enchiladas

I bought the taco size corn tortillas from a local market and cut up onions, boiled shredded chicken, and poured some green sauce inside each tortilla. I rolled them up and placed them along my pan (I ended up with ten rolled up tortillas), and then poured the remaining sauce over it.

I really like the Las Palmas green sauce (found at Albertsons and Walmart) for a mild taste.  The hubby wants a more FIRE BREATHING approach, so I suggest adding some jalapeno or green chiles to the dish.  You can make it with flour tortillas, but the corn really makes it taste better in my opinion.

Great and easy recipe!

Teacher Prep

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So we were allowed a lot more time before school started to get our rooms set up.  We had more time than usual that I actually finished early and was a little ancy to get my kiddos.  Well, not too ancy. 🙂

This is my eleventh year of teaching.  Sigh.  It makes me feel old.

I didn’t really change much to my room this year.  I really like the traditional row set up because it keeps their attention, plus they can easily get into groups if they need to.  I have an advisory class this year that I am kind of excited about because they are a small group of kids I have to take care of and stalk on grades.  No pressure that I have to staff members’ kids in that class, one being my boss.

Last year, my animals were getting stolen left and right…let’s hope these little critters have a good year!

SO smug.

Hiding.

Shh….she’s sleeping….

Tasty Treats

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My uncle sent these to me in the mail this week. It smelled like berries, BUT…this is the gloriousness that I saw when I opened them:

I LOVE chocolate covered strawberries and these were so good.  They didn’t have the leave son them so you could take a big bite and not have to worry about it.  Needless to say the hubby and I were very grateful.  P.S.  He sent them as a congratulations for winning state.

Mike and I went on a quick date night last night to our favorite local spot: Thai Delight.  Mike really likes the miso soup, and I admit I am not a huge fan of it, BUT the green onions make it very tolerable.  It reminds me that I need to find recipes with green onions.  They always seem to make the recipe ten times better, any suggestions?

Mike ordered our favorite dish, the Chicken Pad Thai (Hot) and I ordered the Beef Noodle Soup (Hot) . 

Well, I made a mistake.  Hot on Pad Thai is totally different from soup.  I had to drink so much water! I was literally crying on the way out.  It was embarrassing.

So we had to go get some frozen yogurt at Keva Juice to cool my mouth off.

Mike was annoyed because I wouldn’t let him eat until I took a picture.  🙂

 

Goodbye Summer of Fitness

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 Alas, I have to say goodbye to summer (even though technically we still have a month and a half AND I still have a vacation planned in a few weeks to prolong it!).  To celebrate my last day of summer, I went and got a pedicure and my first manicure.

I was a little nervous about putting color on them because I didn’t want to look like some crazy teacher with hot pink nails (which I chose for my toes), so the lady next to me talked me into using her nail polish.  It looks brown, but its actually a peachish-pink color.  Not sure how I feel about it.  People at nail salons are always so friendly and chatty.  I think it’s because we use the place as a reward center.

When I get up in the morning, I’ve been getting up an hour earlier and working out.  I REALLY need to get into shape for the Color Run, a road race coming up, and for the half I want to do next month.  And if I want to maintain my first place status in the local Horny Toad Hustle mountain bike race…I need to get riding.  Part of my workout is a weight training session along with cardio. 

I have learned to new words in the exercise world this week, due to the Insanity workout and elite fitness workout.

Word 1: BURPEE

Word 2: SUPERSET

I seriously thought a burpee was a blanket for babies to spew their milk on.  I found out they are the jump up in the air and then hurry and do a push up type of exercise. Insanity workouts are the king of these!

According to www.wikipedia.com, it means this:

  1. Begin in a standing position.
  2. Drop into a squat position with your hands on the ground. (count 1)
  3. Extend your feet back in one quick motion to assume the front plank position. (count 2)
  4. Return to the squat position in one quick motion. (count 3)
  5. Jump straight into the air as high as possible. (count 4) [1]

Second, a superset is a set of workouts with no rest in between. 

And now you are enlightened.

So goodbye, Summer of Fitness.  Back to School Fitness is now in session.

It Starts.

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 Did you ever play the Lion King game on SEGA?  Well if you never did, right at the beginning when you are logging in, Rafiki goes “It starts.”  It sounds so creepy, like your life is about to end.

Anyway, it did start today, work that is.

The dreaded 5 in the morning.  I know some of you like the sound of this and….. hiss to you! 🙂  Anyway, I was pretty proud of myself for getting my butt out of bed and actually doing a workout before I got ready.  I am especially grateful for the pictures that come with it. 🙂

The nice part is we don’t have the kids for another week, so this week is pretty much practice, and if I’m a little late…no biggie.  I get excited buying back to school clothes and stuff.  I got myself a cool lunchbox to take my 7 Day Carb Cycle diet food in.

It was cool because I was at an inservice training for the new assessment program for the district all day and they held it at the brand spanking new high school in town, Centennial High School.  It was so clean and nice.  There are so many neat things about it, like rooms that the lights turn on as soon as you enter or remote control curtains.  They totally hooked up this place.

WARNING! AWESOME PIZZA RECIPE!

Tonight for dinner I made pizzas with the Lavash bread again.  I was craving a BBQ chicken pizza.  I highly recommend using Trader Joe’s BBQ sauce.  It has some major kick.  I sautéed some chicken, onions, and peppers and topped it with cheese.  My new favorite pizza.

My sister told me that if you put the pizzas on a cooling rack, that they are crunchy throughout the whole pizza.  Usually, just the edges get way cooked and crispy, but this totally helps.  Also, it takes less time to cook.  It usually takes me about 12 minutes on 400 and tonight it only took 5 minutes.

Before I go, here are two really fun websites for teachers or parents that want to make some fun activities…go check them out.

www.wordle.net

www.prezi.com

 Any suggestions for quick morning workouts to do at home? 

Lazy Saturday.

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 Today felt like the laziest day on record this summer.  This last week I have felt like I have done nothing but sit online all day.  I don’t feel guilty at all because starting Tuesday my life will be nonstop busy until the end of May.  I will be wishing for moments like these!

I bought a couple of necklaces for back to school and I was thinking how glad I was that I made a holder.  I never wore jewelry before because all of my necklaces would get stuck together. 

Easiest holder ever.  I used a bulletin board, black fabric, and a stapler. 

I bought this fabric at the IKEA in Tempe for the same room I have this holder.  I want to make curtains out of it, but need to bust out with my sewing machine.

Thankfully, this is a check I can put on my “vision board”.  I think Mike has more done on his side of the board than I do.

This next little goal is scary considering I only have five months left.  Thankfully, the Tour De Safford is coming up in October and then I can choose a local one to finish off the year.  Better get running!!

Today my plan was to go ride, then it was going to the gym, and then it ended up with a home cardio session.  Way to make a decision Liz!  To make it an hour-long, I improvised and used a few workouts together.

I started with this bad boy.

And then did my Workout #4, which was awesome (I will post soon!)….and then finished off with some of this!

 

 

I seriously could not stop laughing while I was doing this, at the fact that I look like a total dork when I dance.  It reminded me of the days my friend Felicia and I took a hip hop class with a guy named “Al Money”.  He would get a little impatient with me because I couldn’t get the steps.  It was awesome!

P.S. A group of friends of mine played mud volleyball today. I’m a little sad I wasn’t part of things, but remind me to get a team together next year!! It sounds like so much fun. 

Our Version of A Date Night

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 Many marriage counselors have talked about couples making sure they have at least one night a week designated as a date night.  Very good advice indeed.  I love looking up articles on ideas of date nights and trying to do it.  Las Cruces is a little hard to be creative, so usually dinner and maybe a movie are what we could do….or…..we can go with our usual version of a date night like we did yesterday.

We drove over towards White Sands Missile Range to a campground called Aguirre Springs.  I highly recommend if you ever come through New Mexico to stop towards this direction.  First of all, White Sands is just 20 minutes away, but there is also some awesome hiking and camping too.

Mike was excited because it was the time of night where all the creatures were coming out.  He happened upon a king snake and a rattler, not to mention a herd of cows that ran off in a stampede.

Really I took this picture because my triceps were hurting from my gym workout earlier in the day.  I’m still not used to riding downhill on a road bike.  You use totally different muscles!

This was my piece of wildlife I came across on the road.  This guy was extra feisty and even started coming after me.  Usually, they just sit really still and hope to look like they blend in with their surroundings.

I know biking might not be your first choice of a date night, but I love how it gets us outdoors and not to mention, it makes us happy getting that awesome endorphin release.

P.S. Girl’s Nights are also a must too.  I actually tried to round up a group of girls earlier this week to go to dinner.  It ended up being three of us, but I love having to dress up and enjoy a meal that doesn’t involve me cooking and especially, cleaning the dishes. 

This picture was taken before I went because I tried on a new outfit of mine.  It reminds me of the pictures on Facebook where they make fun of teenagers making duck faces or taking their picture up high to make themselves look more flattering. Really, Mike wasn’t in the room and I wanted a picture of my outfit. 🙂