David's Birthday!!

If you read this blog, I'm sure you realize that Friday was David's 30th birthday.

Yay!!!

Since I was "forbidden" to throw him a party (he claims he doesn't like attention, but I don't buy that), we met a bunch of his friends in Soulard for Oktoberfest.  It was a good time, but I forgot to take pictures after the first, oh, seven minutes.

That might explain why I only have two pictures from the whole night... but at least those are good :)

Once the event shut down, David and a bunch of law school people headed to the newer casino in the area....where David lived his dream to be a high roller, if only for one night.  He actually did pretty well (and even taught me how to play craps), but it was 4am before we got home.  But it was David's birthday!  I couldn't complain, no matter how late it got, right?

Needless to say, I was a tired monkey.  

Saturday morning, David headed off to Columbia pretty darn early and I tried to motivate myself to go on my run.  I didn't drink at all the night before, but the lack of sleep and heat (hovering around 90 for most of my run) made it the most difficult run of my training season.  

I've decided that, while preparing for a race, at least one run just has to suck.  It's going to be terrible, awful, and make you question whether you're insane for thinking you can run at all.

Saturday was that run for me.  

I actually spent about 10 minutes flat on the ground at about mile 12 trying to convince myself that I could do the last 8 miles.  Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your perception) I was 8 miles from my car.... so I had no choice.  I finished, but it was pretty darn awful.  

At least I know that there's no way the actual race can be this bad.  It's just not possible.

When I got home, I gave myself an ice bath, a nap, a bottle of wine, and a heaping helping of Chinese food.

Life was good again.

 Sunday, we ended the birthday weekend with a trip to go ZipLining!  There's a place pretty close to Hermann, MO that has tours. I bought some discounted passes a while ago and it was so fun!

 The harnesses were less than flattering on everyone, but they were still fun...

I won't subject you with commentary for every photo.  Just know we did a 10-line tour over some awesome ravines.  I really want to go back!

Since we were so close to Hermann, we decided to top off the day with a trip to the wineries.

 It happened to be Oktoberfest there too!

And you know we both enjoyed that :) 

On the way home, I somehow convinced David to stop at a place called Pumpkins Galore.

I love Halloween.  Have I mentioned that??

David tried his hand at the Pumpkin Cannon, winning a t-shirt for his amazing aim.

Isn't that impressive?  He was so proud!

  I got to play around with some livestock...I think David was impressed when I had a conversation with one of the employees about bucket feeding cows.

Or maybe he wasn't. I could be projecting... I was impressed with myself :)

David just demonstrated his lack of comfort with farm animals...

Obviously, these bales were the highlight of the trip for David.

 On the other hand, my highlight were the fancy pumpkins we bought.... I'm so excited for pumpkin seeds!