A typical Saturday morning...

Getting in an open water swim before next week's triathlon? Check.
Going for a canyon run? Check.
Taking a walk on a beach? Check.

Enjoying views like this:

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Double check!

Michael commented that we used to do these sorts of outings more often, although I'd like to know how much we're "not" doing these days, considering all of our trips over the past few weeks to northern and southern counties.  This morning did, however, seem like a special treat, mainly because we only expected to head south for a quick open water swim and then return home.  But how lame would that be?

The morning started earlier than most, even considering my tendency to get up and go.  I had been itching for an open-water swim before next weekend and planned to do an ocean swim.  However, I found a "clinic" of sorts - pay to swim a mile in a reservoir.  Great!  I figured that it would boost my confidence if I could execute the swim without a panic attack.  Having not dedicated as much time, energy and anxiety to swimming over the past few months, I had no idea how the swim would go, but I did feel confident that it would not be a repeat of last year's first open-water swim of the season which consisted mainly of some hyperventilating. 

At any rate, we ended up cutting it a bit a close for my swim - I believe I arrived at 7:55, and the swim began promptly at 8:00.  Someone else did not know exactly when I needed to leave, and obviously I communicated well with him (no, it wasn't our dog Gus).  Yikes, I was the last person to arrive!  Most had arrived early and splashed around, while I put on my wetsuit as fast as I could and tried to look nonchalant about the fact that I was putting on my swim cap and goggles as the 'director' shouted directions at us.  The good thing about the late arrival is that I had zero time to think about how far out the buoy looked.  When they blew the whistle, I jumped in the water (or waded out to it) and started to swim.  As usual, the beginning is kind of a scene as people are trying to get space and figure out their stroke.  It took me a moment to settle into a rhythm, but I finally began to focus on my stroke and breathing and did not think about time or how far I had gone.  The course was extremely simple - just out and back, turning around two buoys.  My sighting was pretty horrible, but I did not wander too far off course.  I felt pretty good, and by the time I knew it, I had turned around the buoys and had headed back to the 'beach' area.  Around the last 100 yards or so, my right calf cramped up horribly (mother-fer!), but I just dealt with it and exited the water.  I glanced down at my watch, thinking that I'd be happy with a 35-minute swim, and it read under 30 minutes.  Holy crap, I guess I have improved since last year!

Once the swim was done, we were more or less out of there.  Michael couldn't resist taking an awesome photo of me (I'm obviously the short pale person to the right):

And then, we headed to the coast - Crystal Cove State Park, to be exact, where we hiked/ran El Moro Canyon and then went down to the beach and enjoyed watching the waves.  It was a gorgeous day to be out, and we couldn't believe that we'd seen and done so much in a morning's time. 

So, taking full advantage of our Saturday, we came home and took a nap!

And my evening should have some of this, just to top off the day:

Celebrating a milestone

So, Michael and I have crossed the five-year threshold of marriage! Exciting, I know! We've definitely had some excellent times in those five years and plenty of perfect days, and we've weathered a few trials with grace, on the whole. Michael now fully understands that he needs to feed me and walk me if I'm in a terribly grumpy mood. See, I'm just like our dogs!

We ditched notion of the romantic presents a few years back, settling a more pragmatic approach - joint presents. The bike rack for our 2nd wedding anniversary marked the beginning of that trend, and in the following years we've bought a tent and also taken a major trip (that was last year!). This year, our major purchase was FAR more exciting:

In case you were wondering what it is, we bought covers for our bikes. We will be taking them out to Colorado, and we thought that it might be nice to cover them for the drive. This way, they won't be completely covered in bugs! I know, isn't very romantic, but we're pretty excited about the 'bike defender', as it's marketed. I also cheated and did buy Mike an actual present - new cycling shorts! He's been wearing these really gross ones and hadn't experienced the wonder of a good biking short. He is now hooked!

In terms of celebration, we returned to our new favorite burger place in Hollywood on Thursday night. For a moment, I worried that it wouldn't have that "OH WOW" factor like we experienced the first time that we ate there. That, however, was not the case - we enjoyed every single morsel of the burgers and fries that we split (2 burgers, 1 order of fries). After dinner, we returned home and then these guys showed up:

If you've seen the musical Avenue Q, then you are familiar with "The Bad Idea Bears". They are little beings that come and fill your brain with bad ideas by making them sound like excellent life choices. They usually attack younger people, adolescents, for example, who decide to throw a huge-ass party while their parents are out of town and they are convinced that their parents will never, ever find out. So, in our own case, we didn't throw a massive party, but we returned home, opened up a bottle of cabernet and proceded to drink almost all of it. That kind of killed all of my motivation when I woke up on Friday, not with a rager of a hangover, but just low-energy enough that I didn't want to do anything all day except nap.

Fortunately, we did recover and bounced up early on Saturday morning - our actual anniversary day! We had a jam-packed schedule - morning hike with work friends and then head south to Corona del Mar to visit family for the evening. At a certain point in the day, I feared that we were trying to be too ambitious, but we managed to hike the 10 miles to the "Bridge to Nowehere", despite numerous river crossings thanks to the (it has been a VERY wet year). The hike took us here, the renowned "Bridge to Nowhere". More on that hike to come...

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After the hike, we sped home, showered, changed and headed south. We spent a lovely evening catching up with family whom we hadn't seen in over two years, and then Michael and I slept like the proverbial logs at their place in Corona del Mar. We woke up at a decent hour and headed out for a 25+ mile ride, from Corona del Mar down to Dana Point. Parts of the ride looked like this:

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The ride was great with the exception of riding through Laguna Beach - total nightmare on weekends, apparently! We experienced tons of traffic, jerks driving cars that acted as though cyclists shouldn't be in a lane, plus lots of pedestrians and tons of traffic lights. At one point, I actually thought that I was going to not clip out and, therefore, fall to one side because there was a red light and we had to stop on an uphill incline. It sucked! With the exception of Laguna, we enjoyed the ride - lots of nice hills but stretches where you could go pretty fast and a good road to be on. Parts of the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) even had bike lanes which was a total treat!

Although we didn't have a romantic weekend to commemorate five years of wedded bliss, spending time with friends and family and being so active that our bodies are in full protest mode (my arms hurt from hiking?!) seemed like the perfect way to celebrate this anniversary. The only thing that really could have improved the weekend is if the US Women's team had actually won the f-ing World Cup!

Well, cheers to us, and better luck next time to Team USA!