Granola!

Kyle's mom made him some granola for Christmas a couple of years ago.  He really liked it and the bag was gone in no time.  I finally got the recipe from her just this fall and I've been making granola like it's going out of style.  It's good on yogurt, plain and with milk as a cereal (which is how I prefer it).  It's originally a Southern Living recipe, but you know how I like to tweak things.  So here's my version:

3 cups regular oats, uncooked
1/2 cup vanilla whey protein powder (or omit and add another 1/2 cup oats)
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 bag dried fruit

Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl.  Stir well.

Combine honey, sugar and oil in a small saucepan.  Cook mixture over medium heat, stirring until sugar melts and is thoroughly heated.  Remove from heat and add peanut butter and vanilla, stirring well.  Drizzle over oat mixture, toss gently to coat well.

Spread mixture into a jellyroll pan.  Bake at 250 for 50-60 minutes stirring gently every 20 minutes.  Add dried fruit.  Let cool completely.  Store in an airtight container.

Cute pics and a few runs!

I took all of last week off from running as my knee  hurt really bad the previous long run...and I ran with it hurting for quite some time (which wasn't smart) but I was back at it again this week.  Tuesday was a treadmill run and this morning I ran outside in the balmy 36* weather and returned from my run covered in frost.  I didn't know I could frost.  But I can.

 Tuesdays run on the treadmill because it was raining.  This includes a .36 mile cool down.  I set the incline at 1% and really try to work on my "speed".

My run today was a tough one.  I felt like I was running through mud.  I felt sluggish and like I was working WAY too hard to maintain my pace, which is slower than it has been. Probably the cold had something to do with it.  Yeah.  That's probably it.

Sorry for the poor quality of the Max pics.  They're taken on my touch at church (during class!) last night.  And the Luke holding Max pictures are from tonight.  See how up-to-date I am?!?

We've been busy around here.  Last Thursday we had a couple college girls over for supper.  Monday evening my cousin, Analisa, and two of her friends stopped by and spent the night.  They had just finished walking 60 miles in 3 days for the Race for the Cure.  I hadn't seen Analisa in a long time so it was nice to catch up with her.  Luke and Leta were in not-so-rare, but pretty unpleasant form that night.  An audience of THREE! to perform for!  Kyle was gone Tuesday night, and we had a couple of college girls over for supper tonight (different ones).  Tomorrow night is a Body & Soul girls night here, plus an afternoon birthday party.  Saturday I'm co-hosting a baby shower, Sunday church and small group at our place, Monday friends over for supper..whew!  I'm tired just thinking about it! But it will force me to keep my house relatively picked up, so that will be nice.

Trick or Treat!

 I feel this is an accurate representation of Luke.  This picture was taken at Body and Soul during our "Salsa Fellowship"

 Obi Wan

We went trick-or-treating with our friends, the Hayes again this year.  In the same neighborhood as last year. The kids had a lot of fun.  At one house Luke got an apple from one of the houses and we let him eat it.  He took a couple of bites and said, "This apple isn't good.  I want an apple from home.  I want a HONEYCRISP apple."

Knock Knock Night

This past Wednesday night we made our 3rd annual return to Quail trip for their chili and Knock Knock night.  It was great to see people we haven't seen in a long time and see how old we're getting how big their kids are getting.  We went with the Hayes' and here's the best picture from the night.

I'll try to get a better picture of the kids in their costumes.  Luke is Obi Wan (sp?), Leta is a ladybug, Max is a pumpkin and Karter is (in his words) a "Yes Sir".  That's what I'm talking about.  Get them a costume that actually teaches them something USEFUL!

5 miles!

1st 5 mile run down the hatch.  My knee started hurting at 1.75 mi.  What's up with that?  Pretty decent pace though.  I'm icing it right now so it should be completely healed in about 10 minutes, right?

Remembered!

Yesterday's Luke-ism that I forgot:

Luke finds a random tor yesterday and says, "I've been looking for this for YEARS!!!!"

Also, on the day he picked out his Halloween costume with Kyle he came home with an Obi Wan costume VERY proud of his light saber and says, "I would've been Elmo, but he didn't come with a sword."

Seen and Heard

Luke-ism from today. (There were 2 so far, but I forgot one...)

Me: Did you tell Leta thank you?
Luke:  No.  Because we do not have to say thank you to people who live in this house.

I quickly corrected him, don't worry.

Since I got all excited on Tuesday and didn't check my training plan, I ran .5 miles farther than I was supposed to.  Oh the HORRORS!  Anyway, I didn't want to repeat THAT mistake today ;) especially since it was raining outside so I opted to run on the treadmill. I'm glad we have it for mornings such as this, but boy was I glad to get off of it!  Bor. Ing.  Since running on the TM is easier, I set the incline at 1 and got truckin'.  I did .25 mile mostly walking warm up and a .25 mostly walking cool down.  The slowest I ran was 6.1  increasing my speed intermittently until I started the last full mile, which I started off at 7 mph and finished at 7.5mph.  I thought I was going to die.  That's pretty speedy for the likes of me.

I went to see my friend who's  PT and she looked at my knee yesterday.  She gave me some stretches and some strength training moves to do.  So we'll see.  My knee felt pretty good today.  Started feeling it around 3.3 miles, but either it stopped hurting or I was to distracted by thoughts of possibly dying from running and wondering how long it would take Kyle to come and find me.  Up next: 5 mile run on Saturday.