Noah's Ark!!

What a great birthday present. :) I got to Eau Claire the night before so we could leave nice and early Wednesday morning. Aaron and I had a couple adventures, involving a golf course at night and my first taste of Jeff & Jim's pizza. I am such a cautious baby, that a lot of the time I can come close to ruining experiences for myself with worry. Aaron is a good companion in that he puts my fears to rest, often with logic to soothe me.

We woke up pretty early and got on the road about 9 am. I was really worried about the weather since it was overcast in Eau Claire when we departed. I wasn't expecting to drive my car all that way (neither was my car), but there weren't too many problems. She slipped out of gear a couple of times, but by the time we bought some transmission fluid and checked the gauge, Bernadine seemed to be back to normal. My car has a name, yes. I come from a car family. It's nice to be able to describe any situation to my dad and get several solutions to try in response.

It was hot and muggy in the Dells; perfect for getting in the water! We kept it pretty tame on the rides. We didn't ride the big attractions - Black Anaconda, Time Warp, etc - since we weren't really feeling the long lines. We didn't even get in the wave pool! :( We took it all at a slow pace, even going around the Lazy River 3 times! We laid around for a while, and eventually left due to the weather. It got cold and cloudy fast around 3:30. On the way back, I wish I had caught a glimpse of the dried up Lake Delton. I couldn't really tell anything was different in the Dells, though. Just Orlando-like tourism grabs everywhere.

We drove back with only a couple of stops (thanks for the gas, Aaron!) and missed the bad weather. Aaron convinced me to run a mile when we got back, which I'm glad he did. Only, I forgot to take my inhaler before going out and therefore struggled most of the way with only half my lung capacity. I hadn't run a mile since sophomore year, so it was a shock to my system. I've been skiing three to five miles every day, but the experience can't even compare to full out running. Running is almost TOO hard on my body, since I still haven't fully recovered and it's Sunday. I'm going to try to be able to run with Aaron in the fall though, so I'm going to kick it into high gear and try to run once or twice a week instead of skiing.

Then I ate the rest of my mushroom, green pepper, and extra cheese pizza from Jeff & Jim's and we got ready to head to White Trash Wednesday. It unfortunately turned out to be a dud of a night, crowd-wise, not to mention my first bowling game. I didn't hit a single pin the first five frames and ended with 27 points. It was a little embarrassing, but mostly funny. Being lefty, bowling with alley balls is really hard for me and my thumb since the holes curve the opposite way. I found my "Secret Handshake" and ended up beating Aaron 92-89 in the second game. Hahahahaha. I think everyone was a little surprised at me, especially me!

The night ended with an episode of Heroes and an early turn-in since we had worn ourselves out at the water park. I had to wake up extra early to head back home and babysit on Thursday. Quite the bummer, but Aaron was leaving for work anyway. At least I was driving home during the day, since driving at night is my least favorite activity.

Overall, it was a fantasticccccccccccccccc birthday present. And the other half is coming up on the 31st with the Twins game!! I can't wait. I love being spoiled.