Just call us turkeys

Just call us both turkeys for getting up early early (before the sun) on our Thanksgiving holiday to join a thousand or so other crazy people in the 2007 Houston Turkey Trot. I ran in the race last year with Nathan and my two nephews cheering me on. This time I talked Nathan into joining me out on the pavement!

It was really really cold and really really windy, but really really fun. Nathan and I ran the entire 5K (~3.1 miles) together! We ran at a comfortable pace until the very end. Nathan decided to try for a photo finish and hollered "Let's push it!" as he began sprinting. It was all I could do to keep up. I blame it on his longer legs --- he definitely has an advantage --- but really he is just faster than me. We crossed the finish-line with me right on his tail at 26:13. Nathan wanted to run it in 30 minutes or less. I think he surprised himself with that finish time. Watch out, we may have another runner in the family!

Here are some action photos of the two of us: Nathan and me

We rewarded our success with bananas, muffins, and hot chocolate after the race. We definitely burned of our pending Thanksgiving dinners with the run!

Must resist

I just pulled this loaf of homemade bread out of the oven. It is incredibly tempting to resist cutting into it --- it smells so, so good! But I somehow must resist until it cools...

After practically giving up hope that I could make bread, I finally decided to give it one more try last weekend. I was encouraged by my friends that even I could do it. (I've had many many many failed attempts in the past usually resulting in beautiful bricks. My bread never seems to rise unless I cheat and use the bread machine someone gave us at our wedding.) Last weekend, I used the recipe here since it seemed straight-foward and came with step-by-step pictures. When I checked on the dough after it's hour rise I literally screamed and did a little dance when I found that it had doubled in size just like it was supposed to! It was a first! A miracle! The bread turned out wonderfully and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Today, to test if my last success was a fluke or not, I decided to make the same recipe again. It worked! Again! I just may turn into a bread baker after all...

Things you don't expect to hear at the dentist's

I had my biannual checkup yesterday at the dentist's. Everything went smoothly (and I don't have to go back for another 6 months, yea!), but during the course of the cleaning, the dentist said two very unusual things:

• "Cleaning your teeth is like going on vacation."
  (Not really sure what that is supposed to mean, but maybe that's why I'm not a dentist.)
  
  
• "You have cute implants!"
  (I have dental implants. They look just like the rest of my real teeth, but I never thought of them as cute.)

I guess even a routine trip to the dentist's office can be an adventure.

A trip to France with the comforts of home

Last night Nathan and I took a trip to France without even leaving the house. We turned the kitchen into a French bistro with the help of Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook and Diana Krall Live in Paris. I put the music on while I cooked and danced around the kitchen.

For dinner we started with a mixed greens salad from the backyard garden (more on that later) with spinach, arugula, spicy mesclun, and a Dijon vinagrette. We then had tilapia grenobloise (pan fried with a butter, crouton, lemon, and caper sauce) with steamed garlic green beans. To wash it all down we drank a Louis Latour Chablis from the Cote D'Or region of France. It was a lot of fun to have a fancier-than-normal dinner for two on a weeknight. I highly recommend it!