Ridiculously hot and humid would be the weather description for most of the week, and then the humidity moved out and the temps dropped for a delightful Saturday and today. I’m gonna blow through my workout week so I can get to the weekend, because the kids were in town and it was epic! 🙂

On Sunday morning I finally got back on my bike for a ride with Bill. We had so much fun despite the morning temps being in the high 80’s to low 90’s with high humidity. We’re blessed to live near a very shaded trail where we stayed pretty comfortable, especially since we were riding – running would have been an entirely different story.

 

Wednesday’s Firecracker 5K in Reston Town Center was a blast even if it was miserably hot and humid. I can always count on my friends to help me kick Independence Day off with a bang, and this year’s addition of the next generation of runners made it all the more fun. Stay tuned later this week for a full recap.  😎

 

Thursday’s ridiculously early solo run was hot and slimy… I could have run later in the day between early morning and early afternoon clients, but I would have had to carry a knife to cut through the humidity. It was that ugly…

By Friday evening, the temps were dropping and the humidity was moving out. Jospeh and Julie were in town for the weekend, so after a dinner of homemade chicken Parmesan we headed outside for s’mores.

Funning story – after it was dark I walked up the stone steps toward the house using my phone to shine light on the steps while looking down so I wouldn’t trip. Julie told me that there was a raccoon on the deck, but I thought she was kidding because earlier in the evening we’d been talking about not seeing our raccoons recently. Anyway, I looked up and was pretty much eye-to-eye with a young raccoon who was frozen on our deck staring at me. He turned and ran. Score: Deb – 1, raccoon – 0.

 

Funny story #2 – As we were roasting marshmallows and enjoying our s’mores, Joseph saw two eyes shining back toward the fire just a few steps up from the patio. He shined his flashlight and there was the raccoon with his head slightly cocked watching us. I screamed and in the excitement tried to take his picture, but kept closing out the camera app instead of hitting the shutter button. Score: Deb -1, raccoon – 1.

Fortunately, there wasn’t a third raccoon encounter to break the tie. 😉

 

Saturday morning we woke up to temps in the low 60’s, practically no humidity, and a gorgeous sunrise as this unedited photo shows.

 

I met my running friends at 6 AM for 7 miles on the W&OD Trail. We were bummed that our friend Kim wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t join us. 🙁

 

Once home I hit the shower while Bill worked out in the basement and the kids played tennis (Daniel, Jess, and Pablo arrived Saturday morning). By noon, everyones workouts were behind us and we took off for Vanish Farmwoods Brewery for the afternoon.

Not being a beer drinker, I had no idea what to expect (some smaller breweries just have beer and water, maybe soda). When we got there I was shocked at the massive size of the place, at the number of young families, at the number of dogs, at the variety of foods and drink, at everything about this self-contained afternoon destination spot. There were several covered pavilions, an enclosed taproom, open fenced-in fields with tables, a huge fenced-in area with playground equipment, and much more.

Well-behaved dogs are allowed everywhere except for in the main taproom. The weather was so perfect that we found a table in an outdoor pavilions and took turns staying with Pablo the few times we needed to go inside to order drinks, etc. and it was totally no big deal.

Pablo made a lot of new doggie and little kid friends. It was interesting being on the other side of the leash watching as people asked Daniel and Jess if they could pet him.

 

The guys got flights to share, but since I’m not a fan of beer I checked out what else they served and found soda, bloody Marys, mimosas, and sangria (watermelon, cantaloupe, and mixed berry flavors). I chose a mixed berry sangria which hit the spot!

 

For lunch, we all hit the Mexican food truck for tacos. There was also a burger truck, an ice cream truck, and the brewery had barbecue which is supposedly very good. I also tried street corn for the first time – yummy!

 

I took Pablo outside for walks a couple of time, just to give us both a break from sitting. He had a great time and always pulled me back to the same spot where the scents in the grass must have been very interesting.

 

I made sure to snap a picture of the kids…

 

And before we left we asked someone to take a family picture for us…

 

Everyone had a lot of fun so we will definitely be back next time we get our family together with time to relax. I’m also thinking it would be a great place for my running friends to hang out!

 

In case you skipped checking in on my blog this past week, here’s what you missed…

 

Looking ahead to this coming week…

  • Tuesday or Wednesday – Firecracker 5K recap
  • Thursday – I hope to post another recap from one of our hikes out west.

 

In addition to the exercise I mentioned above, here’s a complete run-down of my workouts from this past week (completed mostly in our home gym)…

 

  • Questions:
  • How did you celebrate Independence Day? 
  • Have you visited a microbrewery?
  • Did you race on Independence Day or this weekend?

 

And that’s a wrap… Have a great week!

 

Disclaimer:  This post contains affiliate links which means if you click on the blue product link and then make a purchase, I will receive a commission for referring you. You will pay no more or less for the product; however, Amazon will show their gratitude for my referral by paying me.

 

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I’m linking up with Holly at HoHo Runs and Wendy from Taking The Long Way Home for their Weekly Wrap. Be sure to check out not only the hosts’ posts, but the other great bloggers joining in on the fun!