no clever title here

1. NASC: I've gone 1 week of being artificial sweetener-free and I gotta say, it hasn't been difficult at all. With my main grocery stores being Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, that practically eliminates any chance of me purchasing products made with artificial sweeteners. The majority of items they carry are made with no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives, no MSG and no added Trans Fats. What did I ever do without a Trader Joe's??? I ate fake food, that's what.

2. Running: Last week was a great week for running, I put in 20 miles. 3 miles on the treadmill, 5.5 miles (around Lake Union, then to Trader Joe's for groceries), 3 miles on Thursday morning, and 8.7 miles on Friday evening since the weather was so nice. I figured I would do my long run on Friday instead of Saturday since we had a busy day planned.

Check out that early hill climb. The elevation chart doesn't even do it justice. It was a killer on my quads, but I knew it would be all downhill after mile 2 so that helped ease the pain.

3. Say Cheese: Saturday we met with our friends Chris and Laurie for a six-hour engagement photo excursion (with a break for Thai food in there somewhere). They have a professional-grade camera and were willing to put up with our nonsense so we took advantage of the lovely spring day and went to a few of Seattle's best locations for photo ops.
(I'll post some more pictures later when I get a chance)

Chris also had two tickets for a harbor cruise that they couldn't use, so Todd and I sailed off at 9 pm and spent three hours cruising around the Puget Sound with a bunch of 40-50 year olds. It was a great evening but we were both so wiped out from the day that we were ready to jump ship after an hour and go to sleep. Still, it was fun to go on a nighttime cruise and we spent some time just talking and entertaining ourselves with a game of who-knows-who best. I don't remember who won. Let's just say it was a tie.