My 5th Blogiversary and my 35th Year

I had a great Monday celebrating my 35th birthday! I also started my original blog, Fit in the Midwest, 5 years ago today!

I woke up to Craig telling me to grab a card from under our bed and I guessed correctly--he wrote in it that we should go get brunch because he took off of work at the last minute. Nothing better than spending your b-day with the one you love!

While he meditated, I drank coffee and opened up cards from friends and family. Some of them made me laugh and some made me tear up with joy over the great people I have in my life. 

The kitties got in on the card and present action. My mother-in-law gave me something in an envelope and as predicted by her, Pema got into it and had to investigate what it was. 

Mid-morning, we headed over to Blue's Egg for brunch. It's always so busy on the weekend, so we expected it to be empty on a Monday morning. Oh no, it was as packed as ever! 

We both got french toast--berry smothered for me and strawberry cheesecake for Craig. 

 We shared a nutella latte. Yum!

I had some birthday coupons to redeem, so we headed to the mall to get a few things with those. Hooray for the lovely Sephora free gift (with purchase). The Nars lipsticks are really nice.

Once we were back home, I enjoyed resting on the couch with the kitties, eventually taking a nap with all three of them on top of the birthday mama. 

After some rest, it was time to get moving again. I've been wanting to get to Whitnall Park pond all summer. It was a lovely day for a hike there. 

We kept seeing this plant everywhere and had no clue what it was. 

I love the Camera+ app on my phone and recently discovered that it has a macro setting, so I tried that out and I think the photos I took with it turned out really well.

We managed to get in an over 2 mile walk and were active for an hour. 

After hiking, we had ice cream cones and made a quick trip to the library. Back at home, we sat outside reading, which was a great way to wind down the busy day. I recently got this book from the library and am going back and forth between this title and The Romanov Sisters. I'm loving both so far and am looking forward to reading them on my week off of work! It's been a bummer of a year of reading, but more on that in another future post.

I'll be back with some posts later this week. I've been working on a few drafts of topics I've wanted to write about and now that the crazy busy month of August is over, I have more time to dedicate to those.

Weekend Recap

I started out my weekend with some errands on Friday afternoon and watching this great Danish movie. I'm a big fan of Foreign movies because they actually have compelling stories and I enjoy learning new things about Europe in particular. Craig didn't want to watch this movie, but once he saw 5 minutes of it, he was intrigued and watched the rest. 

On Saturday afternoon, we headed to the Milwaukee Public Library for a fun behind the scenes tour of areas not normally accessible to the public. 

This is behind the dome!

After watching the movie Jerusalem downtown (also highly recommended), we went to Whole Foods for dinner and groceries. I got a bunch of different items from the salad and hot bars. My favorites were the beets, dolma and the curry potatoes.

Craig had a burrito and we shared a delicious strawberry lemonade.

I woke up to some strange noises this morning, which is pretty typical with three cats in the house. I got up to investigate and immediately saw the clothes chute door in our hallway open. I suspected Pema had jumped down it. I didn't see him anywhere, so I quickly ran downstairs and discovered that sure enough, he was in the chute. Luckily, we had a huge pile of sheets and clothes in there, which cushioned his fall. Craig came down to help me get him out and he whined for help. Poor little guy! He got out OK and ran back upstairs. He was freaked out for a while and we tried to investigate his body to make sure he hadn't injured himself. Pema ended up being totally fine and healthy. This is why the saying about cats having nine lives exists. Never a dull moment with cats as pets!

The rest of our Sunday was spent running some errands and catching up on housework. This is one of the few weekends I have without plans for a while, so I savored the free time.