The Babies are Coming!

The egg on the right there we believe was layed by one of the chickens that we incubated and hatched ourselves last November!  How little and cute it is!

And on to the real news. We've got our incubator set up again!  Sadly, our little egg business is taking a bit of a hit because there are no eggs for distribution this week.  Rob is planning on incubating 40 eggs, not all of which will hatch and/or survive I'm sure.  They should hatch a day or two before Easter so we're going to have cute new baby chicks just in time!  I'll take pictures once it is all set up.  We couldn't get very good pictures of the eggs as they were growing.  You can see veins forming in the eggs and eventually a heart and then a mass that is the chick!  I'll try for you guys though :)  And then of course there will be lots of pictures of the babies once they are here!!!  So excited!

Side note, these are my favorite birds!  We have 4 Light Brahmas, one of which is extremely friendly that I named Jane.  You can usually tell which one it is when you are in the pen, as she walks right up to you and will allow you to pet her.  But basically, I call of them my Jane birds.  Aren't they so cute and pretty!  They are very fluffy and soft too :)  I love my Jane birds!

Texas Trip - Day 4 - Capitol 10K

We popped out of bed right on time, ate a bit of breakfast and headed for downtown.  Missy was worried about parking but it really wasn't a problem.  We found a street spot and there is no charge for meters on Sundays.  

 It was pretty packed for the race:

Off we go!

Look at Missy run her first race ever!  Go Missy go!!

I ended up pushing harder than I thought since I was feeling good and lost Missy at some point.  I ended up joking around to a girl around mile 4 and we ran the rest of it together.  Her name was Ellie and she was sweet!  She is from Austin and I thank her lots for keeping me motivated and moving for those last 2 miles.  We were both pretty excited that we RAN the whole thing with no walking breaks!  I finished in 1:05:44, 2 minutes less than my last one!  Woohoo!!!

Missy had an awesome race too.  She ran the whole thing also and was SUPER excited!  I think she is hooked.  There is nothing like race day!

There is always tons of loot after the race.  LOL.  I've got all my bottles!

They were giving out whole bottles of this coconut water.  I loved it!  I have been wanting to try it but its expensive and I was afraid I wouldn't like it (and waste the money).  Yum!  I will look into this product more but I think it was all natural.  I'm not sure though.

After the race, we headed back to get showers and then decided we were hungry.  All weekend, Missy had been talking about this taco place she loves so I suggested we got some for lunch.  There was no convincing Missy.  She jumped at the idea!  Apparently there is a little fued between 2 local taco joints there and everyone has their favorite.  Missy's is Tacodeli.  They try to use as many local and organic products as possible.  I seriously love Austin.  All this yummy, natural, healthy food!  The line at this place was out the door too!  Luckily we got there just before the rush.  

I have to say they were really excellent!  Next, we decided to do some random shopping at local running shops.  We stopped for some coffee at a local place (Epoc I think?)  I was so excited to get Mexican Hot Coco but I asked for a Mexican Mocha.  They put cayenne powder in the mocha and its delicious!  I wish I could get it around here!  Also, this place had a Starbucks sign that I won't post.  They had it hanging outside before Missy said but got in trouble so they hung it inside and colored in the "STA" and "C_ _ EE" and half of the B... Think about it ;)  We also hit the vintage shop next door.

I got this awesome gym towel from one of the local running stores.  I LOVE IT!!!

We drove around the city a bit and stumbled on the Texas State Cemetary, where there is a huge civil war cemetery.  It was very pretty and I love looking at old headstones!

For dinner, I wanted to try something local.  I looked up some places online to see what was generally good and we settled on going to The Salt Lick which is not far outside of Austin.  There was about a 45 minute wait once we got there which I don't think is that bad.  (Line of cars to get in the parking lot and the waiting area outside)

I don't think we even waited that long.  It was BYOB also so we picked up a couple of local beers to bring to dinner too.  Also, Missy had hurt her akle a little during the run so she was resting it a bit.

We tried ending the night with a movie but were both exhausted from all the activity all weekend.  It was time for bed and heading home the next day!

Back in NJ where its cold and lacking Missy.

Missy is graduating in the summer with her PhD so who knows when I'll ever get out there again.  I had such an awesome time and we clicked again like there was no time apart at all!  It was great meeting her friends, especially Alyssa and Abby who I just adored!  Maybe Missy and I will have to fly out there sometime again to visit them after Missy moves closer to me! 

Texas Trip - Day 3 - Renaissance Fair

Before I got to Texas, Missy had asked me if I wanted to go to a Renaissance Fair while I was there.  Of course!  I had never been to one and was pretty excited.  Abby, another of the friends from Thursday, asked if she could tag along with her 18 month old son Ethan.  Even Ethan had a costume!







I decided to try some Mead since I'd never had it (honey beer basically)

I also had some guy majorly flirting with me and he asked for a picture so I had Missy get one too.  My story of the weekend "Robin Hood was hitting on me!!"  Haha, he had an awesome costume and he was nice.  I made sure to try to show the wedding bands a bit.  LoL.

We saw the parade and the jousting.  It was a good time!

Missy and Abby went on the swing while I watched Ethan.  He was so cute and happy to watch people on the swing.  Missy was screaming for fun while she was on the swing.  The queen had been walking by at that time and she stopped to play along, telling the girls "You are not doing it correctly!  It must come from the gut!" and then they went back and forth until she was satisfied and told them "well done ladies!"  LoL.  It was fun!

On another note, Ren Fairs can seriously be addictive!!!  You could spend so much money on this as a hobby.  I'm in trouble!!!  Rob and I already made plans to go to the one in Lancaster, PA in the fall.  October 8th and 9th is Wine Weekend so we're going then in case anyone wants to meet up!  I say this because... I bought a corset!  And I'm going to try to make a dress to make it look more princess-y rather than bar maid-y.  LoL  I love it though!  I also got a cute thingy for my hair.  Also, Missy (who asked me to drive back because she was tired), thought it was a hilarious sight seeing me drive in full period garb.

We ended the night by having dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  It was a tiring day!  And before race day!  Eek!

Texas Trip - Day 2 - State Capitol

We got up nice and early on Friday to hit the gym before Missy's appointment she had.  We weren't sure what we would be doing around lunch so we stopped to pick up something just in case.  We stopped at "My Fit Food", a local chain that supplies fresh cooked, all natural, healthy meals in microwaveable containers.  Again, WE NEED ONE!!!  The food was so delicious.  Also, you could choose between small and large servings (and some had medium too).  What a great idea this place was! 

I hung out at Starbucks while Missy went to her meeting.  Then, it was off to the running expo to pick up our race packets.  The expo wasn't too bad.  Very small but I was just excited they had something!  I saw a shirt I should have gotten that said "If I collapse, pause my Garmin".  Hehe, you get it if you run.  Oh, Missy gave me a present when I arrived.  A running shirt for when I did my half marathon that said "I do half marathons because they're half the distance, and I'm lazy like that".  Ha!  Love it!!!

After that, Missy realized she needed a new pair of running capris so we hit the outlets nearby.  After a successful trip, we decided we needed more frozen yogurt!  I liked this place a little better because it had more tart flavors.  I got Avocado fro yo although the peanut butter was beckoning me!  This was so good, I didn't even add toppings because I didn't want to ruin it!!

We decided since it was still early on Friday, we would head downtown to hopefully get a peak inside the State Capitol Building.  On the way, Missy drove me through the old rich neighborhood where all the big beautiful old houses were.  I have a thing for old architecture :)

We decided we were pretty hungry and Missy wanted to show me the HUGE Whole Foods they had in town.  Apparently they are from Austin and she showed me the old original one too.  The big new one has a parking garage under it!  We probably could have eaten enough of the free samples there to be full for dinner.  LoL.   Also, it was so nice out, everyone was outside!  So jealous but I won't be jealous in August...

We decided to hit a little bar type place nearby for dinner.

Finally, we got ready and went out to meet friends for Missy's birthday.  She picked a local bar she thought I would like because they had all my favorite drinks and drinks we used to have a lot of in college!  Her friends were really nice and the same girls from the night before also came.  They are too sweet!  (Alyssa from the fro yo picture and Abby who you will see tomorrow).

We had done so much walking that day, I got 16000+ steps!  Woohoo!  Too bad my steps challenge at work didn't start last week!