one last hurrah

All of my grandparents are still alive, which is pretty amazing.  I'm lucky to have all this family still around.

Several of them have birthdays in the early part of August, so the poet and I decided to take our barking squirming family on the road up to PA for a itty-bitty vacation before I hunker down into my new job and he hunkers down into the school year.  In case you are wondering, the weather there isn't any better than the weather in DC, although maybe slightly cooler overnight, but generally just as rude.  

Since I declared August 1 my official return to training, that meant that I needed to pack all of my swim/bike/run paraphernalia along with our piles of puppy.  While traveling, I managed to fit in a MAF test at the track of my old high school (which is now turf and rubber instead of grass and gravel):

MAF tests in the heat and humidity have not gotten any more fun since June, in case anyone is wondering.  I also met up with some great girls to do a fun and chatty longish ride with only one major mechanical and one crash that was totally my fault (I tried to photoshop my SOAS kit on me in this picture but it didn't work, sigh):

And I managed to squeeze in the better part of my scheduled swim and a run with my mom for the first time in my life.  She started running about a year ago and has finally gotten off the treadmill and headed outside, which meant we could do a little chatting as we trotted around the trail by our house.

Trying to fit in a normal schedule of swimming, biking and running around spending time with family and all the events that come along with that was definitely challenging.  We did manage to sneak down the shore for a day to pile more pizza-eating and beer-drinking into the weekend, and I got to spend time getting smashed with some friends I haven't seen in several years (posting this picture is going to make my phone ring, I am certain).

I'm not sure how much relaxing actually got done in the end, but we stuffed as much fun as we could into a few days and now I'm more than ready to get my life back on a normal track.  Before we left PA, I went to a magical place called "Produce Junction" with my mom.  $31 bought us all of this:

Which meant that I made this for dinner last night (peppers stuffed with beans, green chiles, quinoa and other delicious):

But I need some suggestions on what to do with the rest of it, which includes eggplants, 5lbs of spinach, red and sweet potatoes, and the biggest brussels sprouts I have ever seen in my life.

We were glad to go and visit but like always, we're glad to be home, except for maybe Graham, who got a lesson from my dad about how to really kill squirrels.

Goals for this week: don't let any produce go bad and complete all my scheduled workouts instead of just "capturing the spirit" of the session.  How was your weekend?  What should I cook?!