Roni's Beer Can Chicken

Tonight, Jimmy and I made Roni's Beer Can Chicken on the grill. And let me tell you, it was as delicious and easy as Roni said it would be! If you have never cooked a chicken like this, definitely go over to her site http://www.greenlitebites.com/ and check it out. We got 2 whole chickens for about $6 at CostCo.

I bought a fresh pack of Poultry Roasting Herbs from the produce section, as I don't have a herb garden (I'd love one...but I can't keep anything alive!) And we used Montreal Chicken Seasoning, instead of the packet she used, but that was only because I couldn't find the packets of chicken seasoning at our store...Jimmy did tell me where to find it after I came home and told him I couldn't :) so maybe next time we will try that.

We had a delicious dinner of beer chicken, sweet corn (cooked on the grill too, like Roni did...which was also a piece of cake and yummy!) and sliced potatoes on the grill. It was a great grill dinner, for a great weekend!

Charley, Jimmy and I went to the pool with our friends this morning. It was nice to get out to the pool one last time before it closes for the summer. I can't wait for next summer when we will join the pool and Charley will be able to run around and enjoy playing in the kiddie pool.

Tomorrow morning we have found a 5k to run. So we are going to do that at 8:30 then come home and grab the dogs to go and meet Jeannie and her pup Maddie! They are in town visiting some friends and wanted to meet up to take the doggies swimming at the dog beach in Annapolis. I can't wait, and neither can Mack, Chloe and Tucker :) They know whenever the weekend is here they get a long outing, or at least a ride in the car to a park somewhere. I think they were thrown with the 3 day weekend though, because all day today they were following me around wondering when I was going to take them somewhere!

Less then a week until we leave for the beach!!

Have a great Labor Day everyone!!

Awesome Run

Well this morning I got up bright and early with Charley...then went off to the park to meet Roni for a run! I had read on Roni's blog Roni's Weigh that she was training for the relay for the Baltimore Marathon...and so was I, so I sent her an email to see if she'd like to go for a run sometime. Well she said yes and today we met up for our first run.

The goal was to run 40 minutes and we did that. I thought time flew as we were chatting the whole way. And I feel so great that I got up and got my workout out of the way and now can spend the rest of the day being productive with the family.

I was going to post my little chart from my Nike+, but little did I know that if you don't workout with your headphones at least plugged into the iPod it won't keep running and think you have paused your workout. So mine didn't work :( But Roni had hers on and in 40 minutes we covered 3.77 miles. It was great.

Ok, now off to try to get the little one to take a nap and get a few things done around the house!

Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

Thanks for the run Roni!

SIX Months

Wow, 6 months ago today I was in the hospital and just had our little baby girl Charley. She is not so little anymore. She is 1/2 way to ONE. Time flies. She just gets better and better everyday. Here are a few pics of our 6 month old. I don't have much more to type right now...I need to get some things done around here that have been neglected and since Charley is sleeping and the olympics are now over, I sadly have no excuse. So enjoy a few pics and I will be back soon...

She did what?!!

She kissed a boy! Now just imagine Jimmy's reaction, when I told him his almost 6 month old daughter kissed a boy...

Here is the picture story....

This is my really good friend from home Jessica's baby Sawyer. He was born on the 12th and yesterday I went home with Charley to go to his Briss. See Jessica is one of the triplets that I grew up with and her mom is like a 2nd mom to me...well her mom wanted to see what Charley would do if she could get close to Sawyer. Well as you saw, she first licked his cheek and then she laid a big ol' smacker right on his cheek! She did it twice, but I only got pictures the first time. It was SO CUTE! I thought she was going to pull his hair, because that is what she does to me all the time now, but she didn't try to grab him or anything! Don't know where the licking came from though...unless Jimmy has been teaching her something that I didn't know about, because when Jimmy is goofy sometimes he tries to lick me on the cheek instead of giving me a kiss...now I really hope Charley isn't THAT MUCH like her Daddy that she has those little quirks too!! Isn't it enough that she looks just like him!?!? just kidding :)

Ok, now for my bragging and cuteness overload, I promise no more pictures of Charley...well until my next post ;)

She can sit up so well on her own now that I wanted to get some pics of her in her cute white dress that she wore to the Briss, while it was still white and not covered in drool. Well their house was perfect, because they have black carpet (and no pets...hence the ability to have black carpet) :) So here are my favorites, I think all of the ones that I took of her sitting like this and being amused by all of the ladies around oogling over her were great, but I think posting about 20 pics of her in the same position would be overkill :)

OH! And I don't know what Jimmy and I did to deserve such an amazing baby, but everyone at the party held her, and not a word of discontent from Charley. She was happy as a clam all day long, so much so that people were asking what I do to get her to be so good! They were all amazed at how wonderful she was and how she had such a great disposition. One of the triplets parents friends, Mrs. M. who I have met plenty of times (as they entertain a lot and I am usually there) came up to me and gave me the best comment ever. She came up to me and said "She is such a joy, thank you for letting me spend time with her" :)

We also took Charley to her first O's game on Monday. My friend Erica was in town from Chicago with her little cousins and they were going to the O's game, so we went and met them for dinner in the harbor and went to the game. Charley once again was a champ, she just sat on our laps and looked and looked around at everyone and everything and enjoyed every moment of it. The only bad thing was that there were too many distractions and she wouldn't eat, well she'd take a sip of her bottle, then get distracted and stop. On the way out of the stadium, Jimmy was carrying her and she zonked out, it was too cute. But when she got home she was STARVED! But she ate and slept great, since she was so exhausted!!
Ok enough, sorry for the excessive bragging :)

Until next time...

Adios :)

My Addiction...

Ok I recently wrote about my 3 addictions. Well one is running my life and my house is a disaster because of it. The Olympics. Oh how I will have my hand full of things to do once the Olympics are over. Today I came to the realization that my house is falling apart, due to the fact that I sit on my ass every night watching the Olympics, then I go and get in bed and turn the TV on and watch more...I have fallen asleep to the Olympics every night since opening ceremonies...

I keep telling myself...they are only on every 4 years!!

And what made me realize that my house is going to crap. Charley was playing on her gym mat thingy today while I went to go and feed the dogs...well she is starting to move and wiggle herself all over the place...well she wiggled herself off of the mat...and onto the carpet and when she gets tired of holding herself up on her arms, like in the photo below...she will lay her face down on the floor...on her mat, no big deal...on a floor that has been neglected of vacuuming for the last week...in a house where we have 3 shedding dogs...NOT GOOD. I went over and picked her up after I gave the dogs their dinner...and she had a face full of dog hair stuck in her drool. I am a terrible mother...

and it is all the Olympics fault. Though I love them dearly, my life, the dogs, my husband and daughter will all be a lot happier and cleaner when they are over. Oh and the fish are swimming through muck...their tank needs a major cleaning...but not for another 7 days...

Got to go! The commercial is over and the Olympics are back on!! :)

Photo Contest

Over at 5 Minutes for Mom they are running a "Summer Fun" photo contest...and here is my entry :)

3 Addictions...

Addiction Number 1 - the Summer Olympics - especially Baltimore native Michael Phelps...he is kicking some major butt...and that gold medal in the freestyle relay...WAS AMAZING!!

Addiction Number 2 - Triathlons...or races in general. Tonight I signed Jimmy and I up for 4 races...yes FOUR!

First let me say Jimmy got pumped watching, Jeannie, Megs and I run our triathlon the other weekend and wants to do one too. So he wants to do one together -- though he is not a big swimmer -- ok, I have known him for 4 1/2 years now and have never seen him swim a lap. So I was on a mission to find a triathlon that he could do...and I found it!!

Here is our race schedule...

September 1 - 5K Race on Labor Day

September 14 - 5K Race

September 21 - TRIATHLON!! 400 meter (Pool Swim...Jimmy was very happy about that!) 10 mile bike and 5K run

October 11 - Marathon Relay -- Yep we signed up for the Baltimore Marathon Relay - so there is a team of 4 of us - Jimmy, our friend Katea, my boss/friend Steve and I who are running the distance of a marathon divided by 4. So I will run the 1st leg of 6.1 miles

I am pumped. I am going to get my butt into better shape if it is the last thing I do!!

And now for my 3rd addiction...



She is now sitting up on her own and drinking out of a sippy cup!! She is growing up so fast!!!

I am a Triathlete!

**UPDATE** The one picture of Charley finally loaded...see below...more to come!!**

I am a triathlete!! The race was amazing! First let me say that I had no need to worry over the heat, it turned out to be a gorgeous sunny 85 degrees! The weather couldn't have been more perfect! Ok...so let me give you the run down.

Jimmy, Charley and I went to Delaware to my parents house with the dogs in tow on Saturday morning since I had a mandatory meeting for the triathlon at 12:30 in Philly. I went and picked up my packet with my race numbers, , t-shirt etc. and got my official bright orange participant bracelet. This bracelet got you into everything that day and the following day. I went to the meeting and found out a bunch of useful information. I also met up at the meeting with Jeannie from Points and Pounds and her family (they were so nice!).

After the meeting we went to the expo and looked around at the vendors for a few minutes. I bought a gray SheROX t-shirt, I love it, it is woman's fit and fits perfectly. Then we headed back to the car and back to Wilmington.

I went to one of the triplets houses who is due to have a baby anytime in the next 2 weeks. We hung out there for a while, she had a ton of labor questions to ask. Then we headed back to my parents for a nice big spaghetti dinner. I headed to bed around 10pm and set the alarm for 5am as we had to get up and get ready and be at my friend Megs by 5:30am to pick her up for the race.

Here is Charley after we got her up at 5am...she is all dressed and ready in her "Tri Mommy Tri" onesie that Jeannie sent her! She is still asleep as you can see eating :)




We were off, we went and got Megs and headed to Philly. We arrived got all of our stuff out of the car and headed to the transition area. We set up our bikes, towels, running shoes, etc. and then took some pictures (I will have some of them to post soon I hope...Jeannie took some and so did Megs...but Megs is in Ireland for 10 days...so hopefully Jeannie will send me some or I can steal some from her blog!)

Then we had to exit the transition area, as the swim waves were about to start. We all hung out in a big group near the swim out beach. We were there for about an hour until my heat left. Some of the elite participants were already coming back from their swim and were off on their bikes within 12 minutes of the start time! It was great though, we were all cheering for everyone.

Soon enough they called my swim cap color (yellow) to line up and get ready to go. I went off (everyone else we were with were in different swim heats) and got in the pack. We had 7 minutes until we had to get in the water, so I decided to wait until about 2 minutes left to get in so that I didn't have to tread water for so long. We eventually were all in and then we were off!

The beginning was a little slow because there were so many of us, we all had to get apart and paced so that we weren't constantly running into each other. After we all spread out the swim was a piece of cake. I am so glad I did the open water swim clinic. It was nice too, because the swim was broken up by buoys that you had to make turns at, so each buoy was a mini goal to get to, which helped it go by quickly. I was out of the water in 24m 27s. Which was good. I usually swim that distance in the pool in 20m. So to be in such a large group and in the water with currents and to only add on about 4m, I thought was great.

Now, out of the water and jogging to the transition area to get my shoes on and get on my bike. I got all set, and was off running with my bike to the 'mount area' got on and took off riding. The bike ride was great. Nice and flat for most of the way, there was one short hill up a bridge which you had to do twice since it was a 2 loop bike ride. The 2nd time up the hill was tough, but nothing I couldn't handle. Made it through the 15.5 mile bike in 1h 3m 51s. Which I thought was great since the 3 times I rode 15 miles were both in a little over an hour about 1h 6m or so. So I was happy with my time.

Then I was off the bike running with my bike back to the transition area and set that up and slid on my running shorts and was off on the run. Now I don't know if you'd exactly call it a 'run' but I did run the whole 5k. My legs were jelly and my run time sucked big time, but since I had never done a 15 mile bike then a 5k run, I didn't really know what to expect, now I know and know what I would do differently next time. My run time was 33m 54s. I usually would run a 5k in a little over 27m. So I know what I can improve on for next time.

Yes I said next time! :) I think I might be addicted...I spend quite a bit of time at work trying to find another one to do!

My goal for this tri was to finish under 2h 15m. And I DID! My official time was 2h 9m 17s!!!!

All in all the race was no where near as hard as I had feared it would be. It was a heck of a lot more fun and inspiring! I had a blast!!

It was awesome to race with someone and Jeannie kicked some serious butt!! So go and read her post about the race when she gets it posted and tell her how awesome she did!!

Jimmy had Charley the whole time and was running around with her to watch me at the few spots he could. Jimmy was too cute...he came up to me before I left to go and line up for the swim and said "I have been looking all around at all of the other kids here and there are NONE anywhere as young as Charley. You are so amazing for doing this after having a baby just 5 months ago!!" I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful and amazing cheering squad and motivator then Jimmy and Charley. I love them both so much!

Jimmy said Charley was amazing and an angel all day. Everyone was commenting on her cute shirt and the fact they couldn't believe I was out there competing after just recently having her. She was too cute when I was finished and came up to her, she reached out for me. She has just recently started doing this. She will reach out and the bury her head into your shoulder when you hold her...I LOVE IT...though she does then grab two big handfuls of my hair and try to put them in her mouth, but that is just a minor painful detail :)

It was great to see Jeannie again and meet her family. I am jealous that she is doing the Charlotte SheROX Tri in September. I'd love to do it but it is during our week at the beach :( If we weren't at the beach I'd so be driving down there to hang out with Jeannie and compete again! Next year I am definitely in!

Thank you all for your cheering and kind motivating words! Check back in the next few days and hopefully I will have some pictures to share!