Yesterday was a long but definitely fun-filled day. I spent most of the day hanging out with and catching up with one of my friends from college. I met Kelli my first week at Andrews University because she was my RA on the first floor freshman hall. Even though I moved to the 3rd floor on the opposite side of the building for my sophomore year, I got lucky and she was my RA that year as well! Over those 2 years we got to know each other pretty well and she was an amazing support while I was going through my mom’s illness and then her passing during the fall of my sophomore year. It’s been 2 years since the last time I saw her, and so when I found out that she was coming to town, I was grateful that I’ve been off work for a couple weeks so we could spend some time together. I think we ended up up chatting non-stop for almost 6 hours yesterday! We started by heading up to Columbia for brunch at Cafe Mezcla which, if you live in the area, is amazingly delicious! I think the service is a bit slow, but the food is worth it. I’ve been there a few times and I think I’ve always gotten the same thing because it’s just that good!
I got a nutella freeze and a crepe that I think was called “Sunny Days”. It was a crepe filled with eggs, cheese, fresh baby spinach and tomatoes, and aioli. I don’t think I could choose which one was better because my taste buds were exploding with happiness from the deliciousness they were being bathed in. I’m generally trying to avoid dairy at the moment but I haven’t come here in a long time so this was too good to pass up!
Afterwards, we drove up the road 10 minutes to go for a walk around Centennial Lake. The temperature wasn’t high but we’d gotten a decent storm the night before so all morning it had been extremely muggy and gross feeling outside. Blah. But the 2.4 mile loop is a beautiful walk and time just flew by without me even noticing because we were so caught up in catching up! Here’s some cute baby geese that we saw towards the end of the walk.
We stopped at Whole Foods on the way home and I grabbed a Kevita drink because I hadn’t brought anything to drink and the heat had made me pretty thirsty. They’re kind of expensive for a bottled drink but a great treat since I don’t get them often.
When I got home, I was supposed to be getting ready to go meet my sister, Hanna, at the pool but I had a soft and purring kitty on my lap and I couldn’t convince myself to get up. Shadow doesn’t often sit willingly in my lap so I had to embrace the opportunity! She left me a lap full of fur though…
So Hanna finally had a breakthrough with swimming today!!! She was so excited about it and I’m relieved that she’s finally grasping it! I was getting nervous that it was going to take her over an hour to get through the swim at the Iron Girl in 5 1/2 weeks.
We were going to go to the pool in her neighborhood but I guess some kid pooped in the pool (grossss) so we called up Lisa and decided to meet over at her pool. I’ve been trying to help Hanna get comfortable swimming and trying to keep moving because she keeps stopping even in the middle of a lap. It’s not exactly like I know 100% what I’m doing, but I get through alright and I’ve been trying to help her the best I know how. She was having issues with breathing as well as apparently constantly breathing in water from her nose and mouth. After she’d been swimming for about 40 minutes, she grabbed me in the middle of a lap with tons of excitement and exclaimed, “I’VE FIGURED IT OUT! I wasn’t breathing on every third stroke,” (that’s what works best for me and keeps things even) “I’ve been breathing on every FOURTH! I wasn’t counting the first stroke as one!” HA, I’m not sure how I never noticed this, but I’m glad she figured it out! She was so excited about this revelation that she was like, this is a game changer! I feel like I could swim forever! I think she ended up swimming around 800 in total even though it took her a while. We celebrated with some waterslide runs before they pulled us out because of the incoming thunderstorms.
She was pretty disappointed because she wanted to jump back in and do another 200 so she could say she had done 1000m. I’m not sure how far I went because I kept stopping to help her or be encouraging but I think it was around 950-1000m that I ended up doing. Afterwards, I took a quick shower before taking her home (She’s 20 years old and still doesn’t have her license -_-).
By the way, I wear my rings when I swim because I don’t feel like I have anywhere safe to put them and I don’t know if I could live with myself if I lost them or they got stolen. My engagement ring was my mom’s so it’s irreplaceable. What do you do with yours while you’re swimming?
I was meeting up with Brady’s family for dinner at Zen Asian Grill but a huge storm rolled in on my way there. I saw an insane lightning strike that looked like it hit right where I was headed. Brady was already at the restaurant and said later that the power had shut off temporarily during the beginning of the storm which I’m guessing must have been the lightning. When I got there, the weather was insane. It was pouring. Like really pouring. I didn’t want to get out yet because there were some insane lightning bolts flying around the sky and I knew I’d get soaked. Brady saw me pull in and decided to be the ever amazing gentleman that he is and come rescue me with an umbrella. This is one of those few times where his chivalry did not pay off… the umbrella was useless because it was so windy and the rain was flying sideways. I was outside for less than 10 seconds between the car and the door of the restaurant and I was 100% drenched. Literally dripping in water. The best part? It was fully sunny, rainbow and all, less than 5 minutes later.
Nothing like some spicy food to heat up this drenched poodle.
It was quite a day and I think I slept pretty well last night because of it.
Any advice on how to teach Hanna to stop breathing water in through her nose while swimming? She said the nose plug makes her feel like she’s drowning.
Do you swim with your wedding/engagement rings on? Should I be more concerned about that?
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