Does anybody else find it necessary to brush their teeth immediately after eating cereal?  Is that just me?  I often get up to brush them BEFORE I drink my coffee.  Weird?  It’s the only food that has that effect on me.

My father is in Bardstown, KY right now.  That’s just a bit south of Louisville (I just googled it.)  I want to be clear.  He is on a SOLO bike trip across the country.  I’ve talked to a couple people who asked how many other people he was riding with.  None.  He’s on his own.  Follow his progress on twitter @jerrydfrey.

Okay, I still owe you all some recaps from the Frey Sisters weekend.  Today will be a collection of photos from Friday night’s dinner out at Sanctuaria.  We met up with my friends Laura, Melissa, Jen, Katie and Ranya.

Some of these are obviously before shots.  We were ready early so we had a little digital camera fun.  Not sure why I look pregnant in that one photo but I’m not.  (In case you were wondering).

I’m off for a run.  I may just hit up the treadmill though.  Yesterday I spent the whole time outside feeling like I was going to die.

I want to keep this simple.  I received an email from my friend Emily this morning.  Emily was my best friend growing up in Clinton and is still a dear friend of mine.  I met her boyfriend Aaron last summer and thought he was a wonderful person!  He was recently diagnosed with lymphoma.  It always sucks when people get cancer, but it sucks more when it’s somebody young and (obviously) somebody close to you.

A lot of runners and bloggers do fund-raisers/bake sales for this sort of thing.  That’s not really my style.  I don’t like to make people jump through hoops for a donation.  I CAN do something like that.  I could say, hey, if you all help me raise $2000 I will run the Rock ‘n’ Roll St Louis Half-Marathon for the cause.  But let’s do this instead.  If you can, give a small donation.  If you can’t, that’s okay too.  But I bet you can give a little something.  Let me assure you that Aaron fully deserves what you can give. 

I’m going to put Emily’s beautiful email here.  Visit the link, see what you think.  Look within yourself.  Don’t make me sponsor a bake sale, please!

Dear Friends and Family,

Thanks so much for all of your kind words and encouragement since my boyfriend Aaron was diagnosed with lymphoma. He completed round #4 of chemotherapy last Wednesday and has a follow-up PET scan today to determine how effective his treatment has been so far. After this, we hope Aaron will be done with the chemo and start radiation therapy. I am happy to report that it’s been a long time since he’s been immobilized by the tumor in his hip — the road to recovery is long though. He so misses the outdoor activities he loves — mostly hiking, biking, and mountain climbing!!

Many of you have asked how you can help out Aaron during this time. As you may know, Aaron is a special education teacher at Chase Elementary School in Athens and he is unable to work until his immune system is stronger. Unfortunately, he’s also out of sick leave, no longer receiving pay and facing mounting medical bills. Several of Aaron’s friends and family have established an online fundraiser to raise donations for both his medical and living expenses. Our goal is to raise $6,000 for him by September 14.

Will you take a moment to read more about Aaron’s situation and consider contributing to his fund?

http://www.giveforward.com/helpaaronkickcancer

Again, thank you so much for your kindness and support. We both feel very loved in our community of family and friends.

Much love,

Emily

You all know that working out, and especially, working out with Mike, is an important part of my weekly schedule (and life).  So I decided that a fun activity for my sisters and I would be to all do a workout with Mike together. 

Originally we were going to meet at the park, but Mike decided it would be easier at the gym in the group exercise room.  We wanted to get fun outfits to wear, and we did!  We found these awesome t-shirts in the kids department at Target!

Now, I hadn’t worked out since the previous Thursday, and really hadn’t even run due to my cold, so I knew the workout would be challenging for me.  Carrie is a college student with no time to work out, and Leslie is a Jillian Michaels/Bikram Yoga/Occasional marathoner sort of exerciser.

Anyway, Mike was supposed to wear a costume too, but he texted me that morning to warn me to go ahead and be disappointed because he forgot.  I told him I was used to disappointment.

We got dressed and headed out.  Immediately upon arriving at the gym we ran into my friend Jon, who gladly took this picture.

I was wearing a pink headband on my wrist because I figured Mike could at least wear that.

When Mike saw us, he asked, "Where do you find this stuff?"  as if I constantly wear really weird clothes at the gym.  This from a man who owns short bright purple shorts.

Anyway, the workout was fun.  We did squats, lunges, thrusters (squat with shoulder press), planks, threw weighted balls back and forth, and all kinds of other stuff.  Carrie was DYING, which was (sorry!) kind of funny, and I was pretty tired by the end as well.  Leslie had never really lifted 10 pound weights before so she was working hard also.  Mike was his usual self, which (and I was glad to get confirmation from the girls) meant he was very talkative, but in a low-talker way.  Sometimes I can barely hear him, and I had assumed I was simply losing my hearing.  I was glad to know that they could barely hear him too.  Mike, speak up!  Quit mumbling!  🙂

I requested that they look "fierce."  Carrie wasn’t quite sure what that was. 

After the workout we went to Sweet Art for lunch.  It’s a bakery and sandwich shop that makes vegan stuff. 

I had a vegan philly cheese steak sandwich.  It was both the weirdest thing I had ever eaten and yet also kind of amazing.  The "meat" was made of seitan.  It really had the texture of meat, which was weird.  The flavor of the sandwich was really good though, but the whole thing was tough to eat, because it was really liquidy, and the bottom piece of bread was completely soggy.  I used a fork.  And I had a lemon cupcake.  Non-vegan.  Love that buttercream frosting! And yes, we were wearing our matching "Move your body" t-shirts the whole time. 

Just a quick blog post—things have been busy and crazy here!  Fun with my sisters and friends.

That’s my weekend!  Workout, dinner with friends, bridal shower.  Lots of fun.  My sisters leave tomorrow and then it’s back to real life though…teaching and rehearsals.

Ah…today I woke up and realized I hadn’t taken cold medicine in OVER NINE HOURS.  I quickly took some, of course, but still, obviously I’m improving.  Sadly Chris is sick now, and spent most of the day yesterday lying down.

Today we are all doing a workout with Mike and then tonight going out to dinner with some of my friends.  Other than that…who knows.  We’ve been shopping, watching Alias, and made some vegan cookies (that are QUITE famous in the blog world, but that’ll be another post)…

Carrie at the airport—we had to wait about an hour until Leslie’s flight came in.

Drinking tea at Lemongrass.

HOT POT!

Wonder twin powers…activate?  And I finally don’t feel totally crazy having my ring on my RIGHT hand.  Nothing like being around other crazy violinists to make you feel sane.  (We all had the same childhood of practicing hours and hours everyday rather than doing anything else that regular people did.  Pros and cons.)

The yellow shirts are for today’s workout.  Not quite sure why we tried them on over our ridiculous flowered dresses, but, there you have it.

Enjoy your Friday!  And I’ll tell you all about Mama Pea’s Dough Balls another time. 

One of the reasons my sisters were coming to visit was to go shopping for bridesmaid dresses.  This was not as fun as it should have been because David’s Bridal is just not that fun to shop at.  Sorry, but it’s true.  I don’t want to look at the catalog.  I want to look at dresses.

Anyway, they had a little fun with the dresses–

I liked this one quite a bit, but it wasn’t the best of the bunch.

It’s Little Red Riding Hood!

We did decide on a dress (not pictured) and I think it’ll look great on everyone! 

The three of us!  Together at last….

Much more to come, but that’s all for now.