Three Cups of Tea

This isn't my usual book of choice.  Three Cups of Tea is about a man named Greg Mortenson who has dedicated his life to building schools for the children of Pakistan. 

I read this book for a class project because I thought it looked interesting.  Umm... yeah.  It was.  I'm one of those people who tends to look the other way when things are sad or uncomfortable.  So you can imagine when I hear about Pakistan or Afghanistan on the news, it doesn't really register.

This book completely changed that.  Greg Mortenson's story really humanized the people of Pakistan for me.  He turned them into living, breathing, and often suffering people instead of just a story on the news. 

The things that this guy has done are absolutely incredible.  He has dedicated his life to the betterment of children in a part of the world that most Americans would never even venture to.  I think you hear a lot about people being dedicated to education (or is that just me because I'm in school?) but this guy is the real thing. 

If you are looking for an inspiring story, please read this book!  I think we often take education for granted, and to see how valuable it is to these people really gives you a better appreciation for what you have. 

The book has been in the news lately because someone accused Greg of making up the story.  I don't see how that would even be possible.  And even if some of the story is exaggerated for marketing sake, he's still an amazing person doing amazing things. 

Read this book.  Do it now.  You won't be sorry!

5K Fun

Today was a big day of running firsts!  Drew and I ran our first 5K hand in hand together!  AND, I finished first in my age group!!!  Are you wondering how those two go together?

Tom called us yesterday and asked if we wanted to participate in a 5K benefiting pancreatic cancer.  A close family friend was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer so we ran in support of him.  There was an amazing turn-out for the race.  They anticipated 300 runners and ended up with 1100!

The Gibson Clan.

Jack, being the experienced 5K runner, had some fierce competition from Charlie.  I think there might have been some smack talk going on.

Competitive Babies.

Kait and her fam were on our team too!

More competitive babies.

Kait's famous on the blog.

Drew's first 5K!

Drew said his goal was to finish in under an hour.  Please.  I know this guy and knew his competitive side would come out.  I may or may not have used that to my advantage to get him to run the entire thing.

We accidentally missed the running start and got stuck in the back with the walkers.  We weaved in and out until we finally caught up with the other runners. 

Drew said he really enjoyed the first mile, but after that he wanted to punch me someone.  The course was pretty hilly, but he did amazing!

We finished right around 31 minutes.  Drew told me I'd better enjoy this blog post because it was never going to happen again.  Whatever, I think he secretly really enjoyed himself. 

Jack and Bryan came in right behind us.  Apparently Jack yelled, "Faster, Daddy!  Faster!" the whole time from his stroller.  He's a great motivator.

"I'm not even tired!"

I should mention that we had a late night on Friday.  So please excuse the horrifying squinty eyes.

Cheese!

We stayed around for the awards afterward.  Kait and I were chatting while the announcer called the names of the age-group winners.  There were some amazing times!  People are fast.  Then we heard him say, "I don't think we have a medal for the unidentified age group, but Jamie Gibson, you've won first place in the unidentified age group!  Jamie Gibson!"

Cue hysterical laughter. 

Apparently Tom didn't fill in my age when he registered me.

Me:  "OMG!  I'm the fastest of all the people who didn't write down their age!!!"

Kait:  "Did you notice that he didn't call a second and third place?  I'm pretty sure the rest of us know how old we are."

Me:  "Bitch."

You know I'm going to tell people that I placed first in my age group.  Because I did.  I did.

Gerry and all of the survivors were so inspirational.  I'm so glad that we took part in this great event.  The race raised almost $100,000 in money for cancer research!

Pressure

Jack had lots of fun during basketball season by going to a couple of K-State games, learning all about Frank Martin, and developing a passion for shooting hoops.

Dunk.

Dribble.

Pass.

Everyone was just so excited to see Jack taking a liking to sports.  Unfortunately, Jack didn't understand the whole changing of the seasons thing.  He doesn't care that basketball season is over and now its baseball season.  He just wants to shoot hoops.  He's been getting a lot of peer pressure to get on the baseball bandwagon.

No thanks.

Bribing him to take the glove.

Come on Jack.  Don't you want to play catch?

Nope.  Just basketball.

He shoots.  He scores!

Shooting hoops with Uncle Drew.

Basketball drills.

Very nice form.

The pressure to play baseball was unrelenting.  Finally Jack agreed to a game of catch.  He did pretty good with his first mitt!

Catch.

Throw.

He still wanted to shoot hoops though.  A baseball fits inside a basket... this makes sense.

Hmmm...

Back to basketball.

Please note Drew in the background hiding the basketball.

Wait, what happened to my basketball?

Uncle Drew, trade me!

Uncle Drew, you're crazy.

It looks like poor Jack has a long life of sports-related pressure in front of him.  I'm sure just when he gets the hang of baseball it will be time for football season!

Carb Loading Pasta Salad

Happy Monday!  I was planning on posting this pasta salad recipe last week, but apparently we skipped Meatless Monday.  Oops.  So, tada:  here's some pasta salad.

As much as I talk about it, I don't really "carb-load" before a race.  I just try to focus on eating really well the week before and making sure I'm eating a normal amount of good carbs at each meal.  This salad made with lots of veggies, beans, and whole wheat pasta sounded like just the thing for race week.  I made a big batch and had it for lunch several days in a row.

Green Bean and Pasta Salad

Ingredients:

• 4 ounces whole wheat pasta (1 1/4 cups)
• 4 ounces green beans, halved crosswise (about 1 cup)
• 1 cup canned red or kidney beans, rinsed
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan (2 ounces)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• kosher salt and black pepper

Method:

• Cook the pasta according to the package directions, adding the green beans during the last 3 minutes of cooking. Drain and run under cold water to cool.
• Toss the cooled pasta and green beans with the red beans, parsley, Parmesan, olive oil, lemon juice, ½ teaspoon kosher salt, and ¼ teaspoon black pepper.

This was so good!  I added extra of everything and then tossed in some chopped broccoli too.  Drew said it was dry, but I'm not a big dressing person.  You could add more lemon juice and olive oil if you found it to be dry.  Enjoy!

Happy {meatless} Monday!

Weekend in Dallas

I've been having so much fun recovering from the race this week AKA not running.  You'd think I'd fill my extra time with blogging.  Not so much.  I've been filling my time with freaking out over all of the crap I have to get done in the next two weeks before the semester ends.  You'd think I'd learn my lesson and not procrastinate all semester and leave everything until the end.  But really, this is my last semester of school.  So I'm in no place to be learning new things.

Let's talk more about Dallas!  Despite all my whining about the race, it was an amazing weekend spent with friends!  We arrived Friday night and headed straight to the Burley house for some drinks and lots of catching up. 

We spent some time decoding a message that Kait sent us.  She also sent candy.  That girl is the best.

Can you tell we're a little obsessed with Mean Girls?

RBV = Red Bull Vodka.  A terrible idea.

Always fun to hang out with Lauren, but especially nice to have someone else around who is snapping photos of everything.

Blogger McBloggerson.

I guess we had a lot of drinkning catching up to do because we were up until 2:00 in the morning.  Not the best idea when you are prepping for a marathon.  But totally worth it. 

The next morning started with breakfast tacos at Good 2 Go Tacos.  OMG.  The tacos were amazing.  Amazing.

Katy loves her taco.

I got way too excited for my taco which is totally obvious by the face I'm making.  Friends, it was called the Honey Bear taco.  You bet your ass I ordered it.  Eggs, spinach, and goat cheese.  Yum.

I'm one excited Honey Bear.

Lauren wasn't messing around when it came to hydrating.  Dallas is hot.  We needed all the liquids we could get our hands on!

Thirsty.

Let's have a moment:  I love Lauren.  I was so excited for her to run her first marathon and just plain ol' excited to spend time with her.  That doesn't happen enough. 

Love.

And you know I love my KC gals.  I take them for granted because I can see them whenever I want, but I really am blessed to have these girls in my life.

I love you, yo.

What about me?

We love you too Bret.  Even though you took Lauren away from us. 

Lo loves tacos.

Pretty friends.

More pictures of Lauren taking pictures.

We spent the rest of the day shopping.  Another bad idea before running a marathon is to walk all day in the heat.  I made up for it by chugging water all day and spending most of my time in the bathroom.  Lots of fun.

Our next stop was life changing.  I've heard all about Crack Pink Berry and how super amazing it is.  I didn't think I'd be that impressed.  I mean, how much different from Peach Wave could it be? 

Oh its different.  I don't know what it was, but this stuff is good like whoa.  It might have helped that I had them pile it high with every topping known to man, including a whole banana.

Yum.

After spending some time relaxing at Casa de Burley we headed out to do some major carb-loading at Patrizio's.  I was just super impressed with the area.  I saw shops I'd only heard of before.  It was fancy, folks.

That's a Christian Louboutin behind us!

Bellinis!

Burleys!

Bruschetta!

Birthday Boy!

From there we headed home for a good night's sleep.  You know what happened on Race Day so let's skip to the after race party.  Brian was kind enough to spend his birthday with us so after the race the Burleys held a super fun Birthday BBQ. 

Mexican Beer is great for refueling.

Yea friends!

Brian's sister Heather brought over what may have been the best 7-Layer Dip ever.  Ever.  Jaime made the mistake of sitting it down in front of us.

Best Dip Ever.

That dip is done-dy like Al Bundy.

Runners!

It was fun to meet all of Jaime & Brian's Dallas friends.  This guy got his beer stuck in a tree.

How did that happen?

We gave Brian a bottle of champagne to celebrate turning 29 and finishing his half marathon.

Happy Birthday!

AND, I was slightly obsessed with the Burley dog.  Cooper is the largest dog I've ever seen and he is hilarious.  If I could have fit him in my suitcase I probably would have tried to dog-nap him.

Cooper!!!

Random texting photo.

We may or may not have ended the night by watching The Notebook.  I love my friends.  We had such an amazing weekend!  Thanks to the Burleys for putting us up and showing us such a great time!