4th of July Weekend, 2011

This weekend was all about balance!  My brother and his wife flew into Milwaukee on Wednesday night, and Scott and I headed up to Wisconsin on Friday night after picking my mom up at O’hare, where she had flown in, after being in Spain, and had been trying to get home since Wednesday by using a friend’s buddy pass on Delta.  She ended up traveling to 8 different cities, taking trains, planes, and automobiles, all to get home, because flights were overbooked all over the place, and it looked like for awhile she wasn’t going to make it home in time for our 4th of July family weekend, but we were all so happy she did!  Way to go mom!  Bootcamp really paid off, so that you could run down all those modes of transportation!

We got in to my parent’s house late Friday night, and immediately went to bed.  I had to be up early on Saturday to get my bike and swim workouts in, so that I could hang out with my family for the rest of the day.  It was a perfect day, and I took the opportunity to try out my new race kit from Element Multisport!

After going up and down beach drive a bunch of times for my hill repeats, I then headed to The Town Club to do my swim workout.

Scott and I had lunch at The Town Club, and caught some rays, but it got too hot, and we called it quits pretty quickly.  Saturday night, we had a get together at my parent’s house, and we had all kinds of good food, like paella, salmon, beef tenderloin, homemade pizza, queso de cabra, fruit salad and more!

Setting up for the party

Taking a break from setting up for the party

All of our close family friends wanted to hear about my Oakley Ambassadorship and my trip to Napa, so I educated them on the awesome women’s line, and everyone wanted to try on the new Drizzle sunglasses that will be coming out later this year!

Then it was time for bed, and another early morning for my long run, and another swim at the 25yd outdoor pool at The Town Club.  I was pumped!  This time I got my whole family involved in the swim, which was so fun!  I had a main set of 40x50yds, and each one of my family members jumped in for a few!  It made those 40 reps go by fast, compared to if I had done them on my own.

We all headed home after pool time to play some croquet in our backyard.  It was so fun!  I love yard games!  We then had leftovers, and then headed to DQ for some blizzards, one of my family’s favorites!

Jenny (my sister), me, Scott, Tara, Ty (my brother)

The Fam minus my brother, who’s taking the picture

We then called it a night, and I was excited to sleep in a bit more on Monday the 4th!  But, I was looking forward to going for a recovery run with  my mom, brother, and sister.

The recovery run group!

My siblings

After a very fun recovery run, I did some light stretching, and then we all headed down to the local parade to celebrate the 4th!

Scott apparently didn’t know when the picture was being taken, and forgot to smile…lol

A free rootbeer float at a 4th of July parade….ummm yes please!

After the parade, we headed over to a friend’s for a BBQ and some more yard games!  Bags and Bocci Ball….I love it!  And then, Scott and I had to head back to Chicago and get ready to go back to the “real” world.  But, big thanks to my coach for throwing me a HUGE curve ball, and giving me a rest day today!  I have been able to catch up on so much, and one of those things is sleep!

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July too!