Yes, we each ate three doughnuts. Don’t judge us.

It was another strawberry kind of day around here, so for dinner we had Strawberry Basil Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Roasted Asparagus and Cherry Tomatoes with Mint.

Then we had lots of doughnuts. Too many doughnuts. Naw, who am I kidding?! There’s no such thing as too many doughnuts! And these Baked Strawberry Doughnuts were totally worth it.

 

Trail running is HARD!

After really enjoying the 10K trail run we did in Allerton, Mom and I were looking forward to the Buffalo Trace Trail Run at Lake of the Woods in Mahomet. We signed up for it, thinking it was a 5K, but it turns out it was actually a 5-MILE run! Oops!

We finished, but it wasn’t pretty. I managed to run the first 3 miles, but then I pretty much staggered the last 2 miles. Mom was doing really well and eventually I convinced her to leave me and save herself, but even she sort of pooped out on the last half mile or so. Her time was around 1 hour and 5 minutes and mine was about 1 hour and 6 minutes, so our mile pace was slower than it has been for our 5Ks but better than the first 10K we did.

I definitely prefer running on plain, old pavement or at least a very packed-down trail (like the ones in Allerton) – running through grass and uneven ground was just enough extra exertion to make it difficult! Mom didn’t place in her age category this time which was a bummer since the trophies were cute buffalo trophies, but according to her “These old ladies are fast!” We don’t think we’ll do this one again, but once we shave a few more minutes off our pace, we may try again and see if Mom can get her buffalo trophy after all.

I can’t get a good picture of it, but…

…I swear my hair is pink now!

I’ve always wanted super pink hair, but just haven’t even gone for it despite having had blonde, black, red, and even blue (well, highlights, but still!) hair. I thought a good way to ease into it would be to have this pretty rosy color and work my way up to hot pink.

Stopping to nom the flowers!

I bought Drew flowers for graduation – I asked the lady which ones were the manliest – but Arthur, of course, assumed they were for him.

Congratulations, Dr. Drew!

Last weekend was graduation here at the U of I and Drew was graduating with his DMA! Mom and I went to see him at the big university-wide ceremony – they just do the undergraduates as a big group, but the doctoral candidates get recognized individually, so it was really exciting to hear them call his name in front of thousands of people. We woo-hoo’d for him!

Then Mom and I picked up Drew’s dad who had driven down from Michigan for the smaller School of Music graduation ceremony and met Dad over at Smith Memorial Hall for the ceremony. It was packed! We weren’t able to sit together, but that’s okay – we still got to see him walk across the stage and get hooded (again – they did that at the big ceremony, too). Very exciting!

Just a couple of dancing fools…

Cleaning and baking, oh my!

Today is graduation day here at the U of I and Drew’s dad is coming down for the ceremony, of course, so after I got back from the Kirby Derby, I immediately got to cleaning. I don’t want him to know how we live! So I did many, many loads of laundry, hoovered, cleaned floors and the bathroom, took stuff down to hide it in the basement storage unit, and then after I was done with all of that, I baked a loaf of Whole Grain Strawberry-Banana Bread.

I love bananas because they’re so easy to eat, but I only like them for a teeny, tiny window of ripeness – as soon as there’s even the hint of brown, I can’t eat them anymore. Which means that our freezer is full of frozen, black bananas. The fridge is also full of huge strawberries, so this bread was the only logical choice for getting rid of a lot of both.

It’s so super tasty! Drew and I each had a slice this morning (well, I went back to eat the heel slice – it was worth it, I tell you!) and it’s lovely and sweet and very moist – and it smelled great while it was baking. I think it would make yummy French toast, but I don’t think it’s going to last that long.