Early Dawning, Sunday Morning

Well, I've been sick this week. I normally don't get sick this time of year. Usually, it happens either before I get one or after my flu shot wears off.  I do feel lucky, because I know a lot of other people who were knocked on their asses for weeks by this thing. It's been a few days, but I'm already starting to perk up a little. Whew!

Before I got this crud, we had a lovely weekend full of cross country skiing.

Thanks for some of these photos, Burne.

On Saturday morning, I started this program called Trainer Road that is supposed to get me in shape on my bike trainer this Winter. Sadly, I haven't been able to do a work-out since because of this damn cold...Next week!

I made some hippie-style tofu quesadillas for lunch and then we went out to meet our friends Chels and Burne to ski at the Lake MacBride Nature Reserve Area. There hasn't been enough snow to ski there for over three years now. There wasn't a ton there last weekend either, but enough for us to ski for a couple of hours.

We did a little bit of trail blazing to check out the Osprey nests too.

On another of our trail blazes, we found ourselves on the frozen lake. It was beautiful and wide open, and since the temps were at about 0 degrees and had been for the last few weeks, we were in no danger of falling into thin ice.

We finished skiing and headed to Big Grove Brewery in Solon for an early dinner. Some of our other friends met us there that we hadn't seen for a while and we had a really nice time.

At our dinner, we made plans to meet to ski again on Sunday morning. We knew it was going to really warm-up and there was a good chance of rain that afternoon, so we met at 10 am.

We decided on Ashton (the cross country running course for the University), because it's pretty flat and better for our beginner friends.

We hung out with some our friends we do RAGBRAI with. A couple of them needed some kind of beer nourishment. I said, more power to them, but if I drank that early in the day, I'd have an instant migraine and fall asleep in about two seconds.

John and I finally went off on our own, because we wanted to do another lap before it was too warm to ski.

We got home, and unfortunately, put our skis away (maybe for the year. Sigh), ate lunch and then went to the gym to swim laps and get a steam in. It was nice and easy and mellow.

My girls told me they were going to be at the gym around 4, after they both got off of work. Stinky won a free membership to this FXB place for ten weeks and so she was working hard on the weekend as well. While I was talking to them, the girls asked what I was making for dinner. I told them I was making enchiladas and black beans and I told Coadster I'd make her some Mexican rice too since it's her favorite. They came over and we actually had a proper Sunday dinner. When the girls were younger and in a million different activities in junior senior high school, I always made a big point to have a proper Sunday dinner because I never knew if we'd manage it during the week. It was really nice to go back to that, even if it was probably only one Sunday. As always, I take what I can get...