A Semblance of a Normal Life

After a month of moving, the last few weeks of half-marathon training and working on wedding announcements, Duncan and I are finally settling into a more normal life.

We've spent the last month between two houses and we are now officially down to just one. I cannot tell you how relieved I am to cross that huge task off the list; and how excited I am to have a real home with Duncan (and Oly and Butters).

We are making serious progress towards organizing our new home and we can wait to have visitors and guests join us in the coming weeks.

I also crossed off another half marathon off the list this weekend at the Seattle Rock N Roll. It was a CRAZY big race with 28,000 runners and walkers. The race started in Tukwila and ended right next to Qwest field. The morning was crazy as we found over 2 miles of solid traffic to the runner drop off zone and I ended up walking over a mile and a half to the start line. Hey, I'm already about to run 13, why not warm up with a few miles? Right? Regardless, I just barely made it in time to drop off my gear, hit up the port-a-pottie and make it into my corral to start. There were over 35 corrals of runners, I was in corral 13 and it took 17 minutes for my corral to make it to the start line. This race is serious.

Anyway, the run went well enough and I PR-ed! WOO!

Bib

FName

LName

City

State

Country

Age

Sex

ChipTime

ClockTime

Overall

SexPl

DivPl

AgeGrade

13626

Elizabeth

Evans

Seattle

WA

25

F

1:54:57

2:12:35

2430

1040

229

57.3%

They really don't want you to reuse the official photos, but here is my best try at snagging them. I look less like a t-rex than I normally do while running AND you may notice something missing that I usually wear...

No glasses! I started working in contacts last week and they have been awesome for running. Still a bit weird; I keep trying to push my phantom glasses up on my nose, it looks pretty cool.

Hopefully with a more normal life on the horizon, we can get back to some more food and animal related photography. Here's hoping!!!!

England, one million years later

Okay, so it isn't THAT long since we returned. But it has been so long that now we are nearer to Taryn & Tom's visit to the States than to our visit across the pond.

Speaking of England, it's currently #hateEnglandWeek on twitter and the trend is pretty funny, with tweets like (I didn't include the hashtag on all of these, but for the non-twitterers out there, the tags just link all the comments together on one page so you can read through what people are saying about one topic):

"They might have invented the serial killer, we perfected it. #JacktheRipper #HateEnglandWeek"
"The only kind of chips I want with my fish are Doritos."
"It took an American to play an interesting Sherlock Holmes. "
"You had to have 6 different James Bonds. We've only had one Chuck Norris. "
"... spice girls ruined my sixth grade year."
"Big Ben isn't even that big"
"Tea time is stupid."


You get the idea... However base and silly these may be, I've definitely giggled and am appreciating the rivalries developing around the World Cup.

I guess posting about what a great time we had during England sort of goes against the whole "Hating England" thing, but I've got time to blog and gall darn it, I'm going to do it. BUT I am still rooting for the good ol' US of A on Saturday, even Taryn is!

Soooo England... riiiight... since it took me a ridiculous time to even post about two days and an even longer time to get around to the remaining 4-5, I give you a pictorial journey through our trip accompanied by a few captions:

  (This is where the "original" American's sailed from, you know, Plymouth Rock! Taryn and Tom live in this lovely city.)

 A bird pooped on Sir Francis Drake's head... no respect...

 We headed to a small village with thatched cottages to solve a mystery... the village of Cockington! Hahahahahaha. Yes, we are immature.

  

 Proper tea time in Torquay.

 Pinkies up!

That's Devonshire Cream and it is AMAZING. We now have some in our fridge to relive moments like these:

 Priceless! Such a good looking couple.

 Album cover.

We had the pleasure of running some fabulous trails in Plymouth, awesome trails:

 Stretching for your health!

There was a dog or two along the trails, we had to stop to observe.

When you run in England there are really old bridges and ruins around you. Cool!

Our final meal in Plymouth was good ole Fish 'n Chips with a Bitter Shandy.

This particular brand was nasty, but lemonade and beer is not a bad idea, like a suped-up Arnold Palmer.

Then we headed back to London where we welcomed into my uncle's flat for our last evening. His wonderful driver, Colin, picked us up from the train station, showed us around my uncle's neighborhood of Chelsea and took us to the airport the following day. We promised him a pint upon our return to England, he more than deserves it!

Et voila! L'Angleterre!

NOW, GO USA!!!! USA! USA! USA! USA!