Shorty on the Run: Weekend Recap Fail

So, I will start by admitting that I was a little camera shy because we were visiting Ralph's parents, and in places where I normally wouldn't be shy about photographing, I forgot my camera :(

Nonetheless, let me try to recap the highlights of our trip.

Friday night included a lot of traveling and in the car eats. I know eating in the car is not optimal, but we were expecting a 4.5-5 hr car ride.

Saturday was a more exciting day. The Fourth of July festivities were being held on Saturday, so we watched the local parade and hit up the town barbeque in the park. We akso went for a kayak ride and switched halfway (one paddle). It was a little tougher for me to get us back, especially since I chose to paddle against the wind/waves (how does this always happen?) but I'm happy to say it got easier once Ralph told me the correct form. After our kayak trip, we went for a swim in the lake. Good times! And then a little while after that we went for a 6-7 mile bike ride on the country roads and raced a little bit. Whenever Ralph and I ride together, we'll go back and forth passing each other. My favorite part of riding with him is when he tries to distract me while passing me or by doing an evil laugh while passing me. It's very funny.

Sunday- We went across the ~~river~~ lake by ferry and then drove into Burlington VT. It was kind of quite even though it was the 4th of July, but that was okay with us. We walked up and down their open shopping district, Church Street, and had lunch there. I ended up getting sweet and sour chicken, which ended up messing with my stomach, so I guess I'm glad I didn't photograph it (although I guess it would be good to photograph the culprit?).

However, I can post pics of some cool things/treat I picked up from VT:

Ralph insisted I buy salt and pepper shakers because 1. I bought a big thing of salt, but I have no shakers, so you have to deal with the big jar of it, which is annoying and 2. we stumbled upon a shop in VT called "Kiss the Cook". I was stubborn enough to pass up on regular shakers and go for these fun ones even though they were a few dollars more. Totally worth it! How cute are they?

And even though I had a small jar of almond butter, I stumbled upon this gem:

How could I pass this up? It has the best of everything! Almond butter + dark chocolate+ cherries = one of my favorite treats!

We went back to Ralph's late in the afternoon and instead of going for another swim, we just sat by the lake for a little while until dinner.

Monday- Ralph's dad made us his special pancakes for breakfast, featuring ginger as the special ingredient. They were quite tasty and they reminded me of a spiced cake! A little later, Ralph and I took advantage of our close proximity to the lake. There was a buoy not too far away from the dock, so we decided to swim some laps, since I want to do a triathalong sometime this summer (and before swimming in the lake, I had only been swimming in a pool). I should mention that as much as I love the ocean and beach and open water, lakes sort of freak me out. I realized this on saturday when I was afraid to swim away from the dock. So, we swam 2 or 3 laps to and from the buoy. On the first lap, I pretty much refused to swim any other way than the doggie paddle. The second and third laps, I did a few strokes of the breast stroke and then paddled. After our 3rd lap, Ralph suggested we try to swim to his neighbor's dock, which was about twice the distance as the buoy. I was hesitant to swim the distance, but before I could say 'no', Ralph reminded me that there was nothing physical holding me back, it was purely a mental thing. So I said yes and I swam almost the whole distance (to the other dock, with a short break in between) using the breast stroke. Anyway, sorry for my rant, but I was really happy about that.

Later on we began driving home. It was hot the whole 5 hr car ride home, but we made a few stops to help us cope with the heat (for lunch, and later a root beer float, and we even passed Ralph's previous job site, so he showed me the solar array they just put up).

UPDATE pics from Dinner: