Tarheel 10 Miler

This weekend was the Tarheel 10 Miler race in Chapel Hill. It started at the bell tower, ran through some beautiful neighborhoods in Chapel Hill, went up Laurel Hill Road (a 200 foot climb over one mile) and finished inside the football stadium. It was a really enjoyable, pretty run until we reached the hill (or mountain in my opinion). 

I had been battling a cold so took it pretty easy during the race and unfortunatley I gave Trey my cold a few days before the race so he was in the intense coughing stage and unable to run the race but he still came out to support us. Anna and I ran together for the most part while Will sprinted ahead.

Celebrating Our 3rd Anniversary

Trey really set the bar high this year :) 

We sort of celebrated our anniversary by camping in our new tent that I posted about here. The tent/hammock were my gifts to him and when I brought the hammock for him to open he decided to go ahead and give me my gift too. It was a fitbit! I was super excited to try it out, but had to first charge it with the computer. So that Sunday night I finally got it going and started wearing it. Monday afternoon I came home with a headache and then realized that I had a fever :( Tuesday I stayed in bed all day with the fever and then Wednesday got back to work moving slowly with a new head full of mucous. Pretty crappy first week to be wearing a fitbit, but I guess I can only improve from there! 

Wednesday was our actual anniversary, we had tacos after work at home but took it easy. I still wasn't feeling well and we had plans to celebrate the coming weekend. 

Saturday I rested all morning, trying to feel better before our night out, while Trey ran a few errands. We went to dinner at Caffe Luna downtown and at dinner we exchanged cards. Inside Trey's card to me was a room key to the Sheraton! (Remember we tried to stay there on our wedding night but they had no power/water.) I was very surprised and excited. We were in for a night downtown and he had arranged for my parents to pick the dogs up after we left for dinner. After dinner we picked up desserts from Hayes Barton Cafe. They were HUGE. It was packed so we took the cake slices back to our hotel room to enjoy. That was a good decision because when we walked in the room I found this:

Trey had run errands earlier and already put gorgeous flowers and champagne in our room! Our desserts went along perfectly with the champagne. We toasted 3 wonderful years and many more. 

Then we headed back out on the town for a little bit of barhopping. 

We enjoyed a great night's sleep in a big comfy king size bed with no dog bed hogs 

 
The next morning we finished up our wonderful celebration with brunch at Beasley's Chicken and Honey. 

It was so sweet of Trey and turned out to be a perfect night.

A New Doggie Door!

We have been discussing wanting to put in another doggie door off the porch for a while now. We just weren't sure how to accomplish that. We have a doggie door from the kitchen to the screened porch, but then have to leave the porch door open to let the dogs go in to the backyard, slightly defeating the purpose of having a screened in porch. 

We are going to make one last attempt and helping our poor grass in the backyard (basically the dogs running path + very little sun = dirt). We were going to sod that area, but need to keep the dogs off of the grass. So Trey was talking about putting a ramp out of the other side of the porch and fencing off that area (making the back yard much smaller for the time being). Then came the question of how to do the ramp. We were at my parents about a week ago to get the trailer (to use to pick up the sod) and I mentioned it to my mom as we were standing on the back porch. She pointed out the steps that my dad and I built years ago to give me a landing/starting point for my old zipline through the woods. So we took it somewhat apart (enough to get it home), replaced a few boards and then my parents came over to finish helping. 

Dad and Trey had to rig it a little bit, since the new location is on a slant, but they made it work! 

Vegas enjoyed having them in the yard working. 

So step 1 was complete.... stairs! We pulled the (already falling out) screen out of the corner of the porch so they could sort of temporarily get through there, but next needed to put in an actual doggie door. 

My parents had an extra doggie door at their house that they removed to put in a larger one when their dogs got old (and couldn't pick up their feet well). It is the same size as our doggie door in the screen door so we decided to use it! Trey had to put in some extra wood for support but did a great job and now our screened in porch is actually closed off! 

 Complete!

 The dogs testing it out

You can see the sod that we laid and faintly see the chicken wire fence to block them from it. The piece of wood on the side of the landing is to keep them from jumping off the steps and in to the fenced in area... it won't always be there and look so classy.

Tent Camping!

Trey had a coupon and dividends to REI and we have been wanting a tent for over a year now, so we finally bit the bullet! After the discounts it only cost us $65 for a nice 4 person tent! This was my anniversary present to him and we decided to use it for the first time the weekend before our anniversary for a night "away" :) 

When the tent first came in we decided to give it a try in our living room! The dogs weren't too sure about the whole ordeal at first but they got used to it. It was super easy to put up and also fits our air mattress! 

I posted yesterday about our busy weekend. We spent Saturday night camping at Falls Lake in the tent.

Mom and dad wanted to come with us too, they enjoy camping in the RV at falls lake and wanted to witness me tent camping :) We shared a spot so it was super cheap and we could hang out together. Trey and I still stuck to the outdoors and didn't cheat! (Except for using the bathroom there Sunday morning instead of walking to the bathhouse since we were in a hurry to get downtown to see the race!)

 The dogs enjoyed hanging out outside all evening!

 After we got set up Trey cooked dinner. We had burgers, corn and beans on the grill. 

 The tent was sort of my anniversary gift to Trey but I still wanted to surprise him with something. It wasn't our actual anniversary yet but my other gift to him was a hammock! I knew he would want to use it camping so I gave it to him early. It hangs between 2 trees and is super comfy. 

 My view while testing out the hammock. 

 We took a walk around the campground while it was still light out, then headed back to start a fire for smores. We enjoyed the campfire for a while and then crawled in to our tent for the night! We fit the airbed (blown up via the charger port in my car!) and the dogs bed along with a few bags in the tent. The dogs seemed content until about 20 minutes later we could hear gunshots in the distance. I guess that's what people do out in the country, but the dogs were not fans of it. Within seconds they were on top of us in our bed. We finally got them back in to their beds and settled and all slept well. 

Busy Spring Weekend!

We had a very busy but fun weekend. It was gorgeous weather, so great for lots of outdoor fun. Friday night we grilled out with some of Trey's co-workers. 

Saturday was the spring football game. During the quarter change they honored Russell Wilson and put his number on the wall of Vaughan Towers. 

 Russell on the field

 His before being uncovered

 The unveiling 

 There it is!

 "Please stay off the grass"

After the game we headed to Falls Lake Holly Point campground to go camping! I will post more about that tomorrow :)

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to the sun and birds chirping. We broke everything down and packed up the car to head downtown to see Allison and Christy running in the Rock n Roll Half/Full Marathon. 

 Allison did a great job on her first half marathon! 

 About 45 minutes after Allison finished the half, Christy got to the finish of the full marathon. She finished 26.2 miles in 3 hours, 8 minutes! She was the 3rd place female. She has been training by running an insane amount of miles each week and I am super proud of her for getting a new PR. 

We had to check out the "after party" concert area to pick up the plaque that Christy got for placing. 

After the race we went to get brunch at Busy Bee. I had their Juevos Rancheros.... oh. my. gosh. So good. You must go try them! 

After we got home from the race and brunch Trey laid sod! We have a large dirt area in our backyard from the dogs running out the door to the other corner and all of their playing, and the lack of sun that we get there. We have tried to seed it before, successfully gotten tiny little sprouts only to have the dogs demolish it again. So this time we are putting down sod (Bermuda, it's dormant that's why its brown right now!) and keeping the dogs out of that part of the yard until it is secure.

 In order to do that we have added a new doggie door, the start of it is pictured below:

Vegas is excited for her nice back-scratching grass.