Cheers!

Cheers!

Neenie and Pippi were nice enough to come up and watch Sam last night after work so that Ryan and I could go out to dinner. Sam was over-the-moon excited that they were coming up to hang out with her, and my mom said she was really good all evening. It helped that she was so tired from all her play and outside time at daycare that she fell asleep without a peep! Always a good thing :-)

Ryan and I decided to go to El Camino, a funky Mexican place in Brunswick. We haven't been there in a number of years, and although I'd say it was a bit pricey, the food was delicious. I probably could have just enjoyed my margharita and the guac and basket of salty, crispy, addictive homemade chips and called it good, but the tacos I had were tasty too. After dinner, we wandered over to Frontier, where Ryan had a few more beers and I had their delicious blueberry crisp and vanilla gelato. I am not sure I've been running enough this week (TAPER!) to warrant all the calories consumed last night, but it was fun! Thanks Neenie and Pippi! It is always nice to get out on our own for a few hours!

This morning, I headed over to the Cathance trails to run an easy 5ish miles to round out the week at 30. The forest floor is becoming filled with greenery pushing up through the leaf litter, and I saw some more blooming trailing arbutus and a number of star flower stalks with their leaves open, but no flowers on those yet. As I was running around the Heath, I heard a call I didn't quite recognize. Was it a blue jay? Nope. A crow? Nah. Hmmm, what was it? I stopped to look around, and saw two birds, a few trees apart, both about crow-size, calling to each other. The birds were backlit, so I couldn't quite tell what color they were. I backtracked a bit hoping to catch a glimpse of something I could identify. From the shape of its head, I figured it was a raptor of some sort. The bird closest to me startled and flew to another nearby branch, affording me a glimpse of the bands on its tail. OK, enough to let me do some research. I looked in my bird book when I got home, narrowing down the options, and then went online to listen to some calls. Turns out they were Broad-winged Hawks, calling to each other. Neat! A good sighting for the morning, and a nice way to end the running week.