Last Hurrah of the Summer

Back in May we planned a get together for late August to go to the Toby Keith concert at the Allen County Fair and to camp at Amber's in-laws.  I love me some county fairs and country concerts, so I was all about it! 

It was a great way to spend my last weekend of the summer as Monday was the first day back on campus for students and classes begin today. Thom's parents have a huge swimming pond in their yard, so we spent all of Saturday afternoon laying in the sun on a giant raft. So fun. I want to do this every weekend. I wonder if I could talk my grandpa into making their pond into a swimming pond? #unlikely Or if Amber and Thom could adopt me so I always got to go to there on the weekends?

The loan picture of all of us on the floaty raft.

Saturday evening we went into town to go to the fair. Thom was going on and on about the porkburger at the Pork Producers stand, so that's what I got. Can't turn away from supporting Ohio hog farmers. It was good - very similar to the "other burger" at the Ohio State fair. It tasted a lot like sausage to be honest. Add some mayo and cheese and it was delicious!

Jon Pardi opened for Toby Keith. I have no idea who he is or any songs that he sang that night, but Toby Keith put on a great show. Very Americana. Callie, Mike and Holly all sported their red, white and blue to the concert.

go America.

heart these girls.

Alicia had a contact that lander her and I in the sound booth for the first part of the show. It was pretty cool to see what all those guys do during a show. They are constantly moving around and changing levers and lights and making things vibrate. Our seats were literally right beside the sound booth, so they weren't any better of seats than what we already had, but hey, we sat in the sound booth for a concert!

i was so sunburnt.

For his encore, Toby brought all of the military men and women in attendance onto the stage and sang American Soldier and Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue. It was really nice and touching. The first guy he took up on stage was likely a veteran of the Vietnam War and he had a giant flag that he waved the entire show. Precious.

Add caption

Please note the creeper on the left side who would not quite watching us.

When we got home from the concert it was a little chilly, so we hung out around the campfire for a few hours chatting before we headed to bed. In our tents. It ended up being a lot warmer than I had planned, but for the most part I slept just fine in my sleeping bag. I did take a yoga mat for padding, but that did nothing! ha.

Sunday morning we headed back to Columbus. I spent my afternoon at Bicentennial Park working on my back tan, since my front had gotten a lot of sun on Saturday. I also finished reading "The Longest Ride" and pretty much embarrassed myself while sobbing in the park. Sad stories get me every time!

This was a great weekend to end the summer. I'm already looking forward to the second annual Blairfest next summer. I think it should be a biannual thing - one in June and one in August. What do you think Amber? :)

Weekly Workout Recap: August 18-24, 2014

I'm attempting to document my workouts again. Luckily I use my Nike+ app on my phone, so it documents all my runs pretty well. This week I only made it to the gym a few nights, so I need to do that more since I'm paying for the membership. I also started Insanity on Friday. So far, so good. But that "so far" is only three days in. ha!

Monday: 3 mile run up to campus with a 1 mile walk home, 4 miles on the bike at the gym while watching DALLAS. :)

Tuesday: 3.1 mile run thru Grandview. Ended at the gym and lifted weights and sat in the sauna for a while.

Wednesday: 3 sand volleyball games at Flannigans, 9 mile bike ride along the Olentangy Trail from Grandview to North Broadway with Kayla.

Thursday: 2 mile walk with Jill after work at Fred Beekman Park.

Friday: 2 mile walk to the library in Grandview, 5ish mile bike ride around Grandview, Insanity Fit Test

Saturday: Rest Day

Sunday: Insanity Day #1, 7 mile bike ride downtown to Bicentennial Park

Wembly Watch 2014

For two weeks in July I had a little house guest. Wembly the cat (feline son of Brittany) stayed while his family was moving. 

The first 24 hours was a little crazy. Bowie and Wembly were once best friends two years ago, but they didn't remember each other and spent most of the evening hissing. Sometime around 3am that night Bowie pushed open the bathroom door to let Wembly out and I woke up to a cat fight.

His home for the first two days - my top shelf with my toilet paper. 

By the second evening, Wembly was out walking around the house on his own and by the next day I left them at home for the day by themselves. My house was in one piece when I returned. They rekindled their love story.

Having Wembley around was fun because he's a snuggler. When I went to bed to read at night, he snuggled right beside me. 

I like to FaceTime with my mom and human sister.

I need my sleep. Put away the phone.

Fell asleep while reading.

Having Wembly around was also a pain because he and Bowie fought like cats and.....well, cats. One minute they would be BFF's....snuggled up together. Then before you know it I had to yell at them to break it up. Bowie isn't declawed, so I woke up every morning to at least 15 little blond fluffs of hair around my apartment. I couldn't figure out how they were getting there until I caught Bowie one night with her paws full of the hair.

They were super cute together most of the time. Bowie was obsessed with whatever he was doing. If he was eating, she was eating. If he went to the bathroom, she had to go too. If he was sleeping, she was sleeping. Wembly had a shadow. He would only eat out of his food dish, Bowie would eat out of hers and his. Wembly lost weight while he was here and Bowie gained it. Mostly because she ate her food and his. Girl eats her feelings - good or bad. He only used his litter box, well of course Bowie didn't use her litter box for two weeks, only his. Made it easier on me I guess.

Umm, you went in the bathroom and shut the door without us.

By the end of the two weeks we were all ready for our space. Ha. And I was ready to sleep all night without waking up to break up their play turned fights. I wanted Wembly to stay because he was so cuddly, but my apartment just isn't big enough for two diva like cats and me. There is just room for one Bowie and she lets me stay here too.

Snuggles before Wembley went home.

And yes, I understand that this post makes me sound like a crazy cat person. Please note the majority of it is written in sarcasm. :) But I do love me some kitties.

Dublin Irish Festival

Last Friday night Jill and I went to the Dublin Irish Festival in a neighboring town. I had heard about this festival for years and had never been. I had even put it on my 101 Things to do in 1001 days, but didn't make it in 2011, 2012, or 2013, so when my Friday evening rolled around I suggested checking it out.

Pot O' Gold selfie

It was definitely nothing like I had expected it to be. I thought it would be a small festival in their city park, but it was HUGE! It was $10 to get in (since I'm a student) and we walked around for hours looking at crafts, jewelry and shows and still didn't see close to half of everything they had to see. 

Just one of many market tents.

There were also soooo many food tents and trucks, along with 7 stages of music and shows. We met up with Amber and Whitney and watched the Red Hot Chili Pipers, who were extremely entertaining. They were a bagpipe band that played a lot of popular songs on their bagpipes and danced and jumped and basically made me exhausted just watching them. They were awesome.  I'd definitely go watch them again.

I wasn't sure what to wear. I thought wearing green would be to obvious that I was trying to fit in, when in reality everyone was decked out in their green. I opted for a casual razorback baseball tee and shorts and was definitely underdressed. Oh well. Now I know.

It was a great evening at the Dublin Irish Festival. Now that I know it's a huge festival, the largest 3 day Irish Festival in the world, I will be heading back next year even though I'm not Irish or wear a kilt!

Brickyard 400

I went to my first NASCAR event two weekends ago when the Brickyard 400 was held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Caroline called me earlier in the week and asked if I would be interested in going. I didn't have any plans for that day and had never been to a race before, so I thought 'why not?' Plus, it was only a three hour drive from Columbus and cheap tickets.

Since I'd never been to a NASCAR race before, I was unsure of what to wear. I felt like their would be two extremes - NASCAR apparel from head to toe and the ladies in the boxes that wear dresses and wedges. I had such a hard time figuring out my outfit, but ended up going with my denim shorts, a neon racer-back tank from Target, new gold Sam & Libby sandals and gold bangle bracelets. I really tried to play up the jewelry on my wrists. I looked to Emily Maynard for a casual, yet dressy, stylish look.

I left super early on Sunday morning and drove to Indy. Caroline and I met up and parked her truck and drove down to Speedway. We were able to find parking pretty easily for $20 and we were really close to the the track too. We opted to get real tickets from will call instead of printing them at home. There is just something about having a physical ticket to keep.

At the entrance gate.

We had about two hours to walk around before the race started, so we walked thru the merchandise trailers and caught a little bit of the Brantley Gilbert concert on the infield.

Dale Jr's merc trailer.

Brantley is up there somewhere. Justin Moore too.

Even though we had two hours til race time, we wanted to get to our seats so we could see all the 'pregame' stuff. Our seats were in the South Terrace, which is basically little league bleachers in the infield.

Turn 1 in the background.

We rented headsets because the cars are so loud, but also because you can tune into the tv channel and the drivers and hear what is going on.

I'm all about saving money when I can. At this race, and maybe other races too?, you can bring in your own food and drink. So I packed some chips and candy to munch on during the race and bottles of water for use to drink. Caroline made fun of me because I packed my Vera Bradley lunch box with a few of the Smirnoff slushie things and brought my Tervis cup. Yes, this was probably the only Vera Bradley piece there.

I may not be first class, but I'm not white trash either. :)

Then I look over 10 minutes later and Caroline is eating broccoli and carrots from ziplock baggies! Probably the only unfried vegetables inside the race track.

A little less than halfway through the race, we decided to move to better seats. The place was basically empty on our side, so there were lots of good seats at each of the turns. We moved to Turn 2 with no problem - just found a gate that didn't have a yellow shirt guard at it.

Better view at Turn 2

 

 

 

Our second seats after the race.

As we were walking thru the infield to get to the gate to go to our car, we detoured to see the finish line. While doing this, we end up seeing Jeff Gordon doing a press interview. He waved at the bachelor party of boys yelling at him over and over that were beside us. We also tried to talk a guard into letting us get our picture with the bricks, but he said no. :(

Hi Jeff!

Finish line in the top middle.

Security let us take this picture but not with the brick.

As we were walking near the press box to get back to our gate, we literally ran into Jeff Gordon's winning car. We had to stop for it to pass in front of us. We met a new friend while waiting who had been out on the track to kiss the bricks. He showed us the guard that let him out there, so we politely asked this nice guy a million times to let us kiss the bricks too. He finally agreed!

Important vehicle crossing.

Posing for a picture.

Kissing the bricks!

This new friend, who was also a 2007 OSU graduate like me, walked us into the garage loading area where we got our picture taken with the winning car, met Jeff Gordan's pit crew, got a lug nut from his car and got to see all the trailers that the cars are carried on. Not a bad end to our day at all.

Jeff Gordon's winning car.

Someone from Jeff Gordon's crew who said he couldn't pass up getting a picture with two lovely ladies.

Hugging Kasey Kahne's trailer is kind of like hugging Kasey Kahne.

Thank you new friend for taking us in to the pit/garage area even though we had no idea who you were.

lug nut from the 24 car.

The tower and finish line.

It was a great day at IMS. I would definitely do another race. I've watched NASCAR off and on my whole life. My grandpa is always checking in on the races when we are at his house on Sunday, so it was cool to actually see one in person and hear my grandma tell me about how they would go to the races when they were younger.

We topped off the day with dinner in downtown Indy with Lauren and then I headed back for a long, late drive to Columbus. But it was worth it.

Now I just need to do an NFL and an NBA game and I'll have made it to at least one game in all professional sports!

Remembering a Fallen Soldier

In early June, Justin Helton, a soldier from Beaver (which is a town next to my hometown) was killed in Afghanistan. I didn't know Justin, but I remember him from playing basketball and baseball against my brother many years ago and Molly knew him too through high school activities. 

SPC Justin Helton

The day that he was returning to Pike County for the last time, I was actually going to be in town, so I was able to watch the procession bring him to Waverly and then again to Beaver for the funeral. 

Returning to America.

I was about 2 hours ahead of the procession as I drove down 23 to get from Columbus to Piketon, but I cried the entire way because of the support so many people and businesses were showing for Justin. Almost every businesses had a sign up in his honor, flags lined the highway and hung from overpasses, people were sitting along the road to pay their respects. It was just so touching. I'm a softy anyway, but add something patriotic and I'm total waterworks.

I watched the first day of the procession at the church with Mam, Papaw, Randy, Molly and John. There were around 400 bikes that rode with the hearse from Columbus to Waverly. 

This is the town square of his hometown.

Saturday night we went to the Chillicothe Paints game for my Dad's birthday, but it also happened to be Veterans Night and they recognized Justin there as well.

precious men standing that were a part of the Vietnam War

On Sunday, Justin's funeral was held at Eastern High School, so there was a procession from Waverly to Beaver and it went through Piketon. Molly, Mom and I went down and watched in front of Richie's. This day was sad because so many people that we knew were riding along with the hearse to go to the funeral.

Molly and I, thankful for Justin and our freedom.

I'm so thankful for Justin and the many, many soldiers that serve our country each day. I was glad that I was able to be in Pike County the weekend that his services were held so I could pay my respects. It was a very patriotic and humbling weekend. I hope I never have to attend something like this ever again.

I rag on my hometown a lot, but I'm also very proud of how they come together to support each other. The number one reason why I'm proud to be from a small town. :)

Justin's funeral services.

You can read all about Justin and his services here. Please remember his family, girlfriend and all his friends in your prayers, along with the same for the four other soldiers killed at the same time.