A Mouse in the House ~ Part Deux & other long weekend stories.

What a great weekend!!!

Having worked extra hours to take Monday off, I am having an awesome weekend. Mind you, the rolling thunderstorms and loss of power some days are becoming a long lost memory as today is spectacular!

Canada Day, 141 years old!! I can still remember our Centennial celebrations....don't even go there with the comments, LOL.

The weekend was very busy but I'll cut to the chase, the Canada Day 10K race!

When I left the house this morning at 5:45A.M. yes, that it correct 5:45A.M., Lily was fast asleep after chasing the mouse around the house all night, sigh....not much sleep for this chick.



Glenda picked me up and off we went to collect Jen and Barb and then head downtown and over to Quebec to meet the rest of the gang at the bronze monument for the legendary Canadian Hockey great, Maurice, "The Rocket" Richard.

Bright and early and the best day weather wise of the whole weekend, we were ready to go!

We assembled for the start, and as always, a hug for everyone, well wishes for a great run and away we go, we always start together, but we run our own race and meet up at the end.

It was spectacular as we headed across the bridge towards Ontario, along a lot of the route we ran in April for our Marathon training. Beautiful vista's over the Ottawa River and a lot of undulating hills. The day was sunny and really warming up while we were running. Luckily we were in the shade along the river until we ran up a very large hill and headed along the parkway back towards the War Museum. (please see previous posts for pictures of this area).

As we headed back towards the downtown area, the police were cordoning off areas for the celebrations that were starting to take place in front of Parliament Hill. Downtown was already packed. The entertainment was beginning at 9am.

We headed back over the Chaudière Bridge to Quebec and finished up the run to thunderous applause from the spectators!!!

Awesome.

Today I felt great!!! I ran a steady race up hills and down, thanking the great above for this day!!

Chip time: 1:03:42!!!!

We waited for our friends to finish their race and headed off for breakfast! Yes it was only 9A.M.

It was a fantastic way to spend the morning with good friends, lots of laughter, a little exercise and of course the 'BLING'!

As for the Mouse in the House.

I came back from breakfast and Lily was up and awake. I went outside to read (in my NEW bathing suit).

Talk about timing. During the day I put a bell collar on Lily so I know where she is, she is very shy and often hides so I don't know where she is. So, I'm on the front deck and hear "the bell", in I go and dangling from her little Lily lips is the 'MOUSE'.

GOOD GIRL, you're back on the payroll!!

After a couple of attempts to catch the cat and the mouse, I'm successful! With my work gloves on, I take the mouse from Lily and this time I take it down the road to release it.....close up the doors, pour myself another cocktail and begin to write my story.....

Does it get any better than this??? Happy Canada Day!!!

Life's fun if you don't weaken,

Lily

Wet Weather, Air Show and a Mouse in the House...

Thank you so much everyone for your very useful ideas with respect to my Try-a-Tri, I am definitely going to put some of them into action!! Thank you all! A quick release and bathing suit are first on the list! NO! Not a quick release FOR the bathing suit....stop it you guys!!!

The Wooo Hooo Du (thank you Blue for the great name) will be going on just as planned. This I know will be an absolute riot! And no Ted, it's not too cold to swim in Canada in the summer!!!

Tuesday is Canada's 141st Birthday, Canada Day! Our National Holiday!

Last week I worked extra hours so I could take tomorrow (Monday) off, making it an extra long weekend, now I just wish the weather man would co-operate.

I actually started this post on Sunday but the wildest thunderstorm rolled through just as I was writing it up and I had to shut down.

Thursday morning around 3:30 am, Lily (the cat) was tearing around the house knocking things over, meowing like crazy and just generally being a pain in the you know where. I stumbled out of bed to come face to face with a mouse with Lily in hot pursuit! Gah, now the three of us are running around. You have to picture my house is or was an old cottage before I started renovating it, so there are a ton of hidey holes for this mouse to head for. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, I finally catch the mouse and turf it out the patio doors and head back to bed. Not even thinking that the mouse would even be in close proximity in the morning, I let Lily out the back door and head for the shower to get ready for work. When I get out of the shower, yup, you've guessed it, the mouse is back in the house and the cat in tow. Somewhere in my house is now a mouse.....hope I find it soon!

Due to the stormy weather we had (all of June), our local Carp Airport had to cancel the air show on Saturday and yesterday when that fast moving thunderstorm rolled in all the planes were grounded once again. I just heard on the news that they are considering cancelling the show permanently due to the poor attendance. It is sad news for all of the avid aviation fans in our area.

Our run yesterday was great! Now we are getting back up in mileage I'm loving it! We have been running on the Cattail Trail which is just stunning! We have been lucky with our Sunday running, the weather is hot and humid but sunny until the afternoons when the thunderstorms roll in. After the run yesterday, Jen and I headed over to pick up Brenda (who is recovered from her appendectomy) and we headed downtown to pick up our race kits for the HBC Canada Day 10K.

Downtown Ottawa was teeming with tourists, Canadian flags flying everywhere, every building has a Canadian Flag on it, it is spectacular! Ottawa Tourism is expecting over 300,000 people to be here for the Canada Day celebrations. (I'll take pictures tomorrow).

Our race shirts are awesome, and the swag in the bag is GREAT! It is an early start tomorrow, 7:30am race start. Since we live over an hour away, we will be up early and on the road by 5:45am. After the race a gang of us are meeting up for breakfast and then I'll head home and spend the day on the beach!

I can hardly wait! So, pictures, race report and more to follow! Have a great Monday everyone, I'm off to buy a bathing suit!

Life's fun if you don't weaken
Lily