Sweet Dreams...

"If you want to have sweet dreams, you have to live a sweet life." Barbara Kingsolver

August was certainly a month for living the sweet life.  Somewhere between packing to move out of my apartment, acquiring a new office space and starting a new teaching job, I managed to log a heck of a lot of miles out on the trail. Of course, since I'm still severely uncoordinated on a mountain bike, I also acquired this the night before I started the new job:

My new boss gets cool points for finding this amusing.

Thankfully the swelling had gone down by the time I went to surprise Pop by visiting him in my favorite place on earth.

Okay, so maybe Mama Liz isn't making is look so appealing in her winter clothing, but I didn't say it was warm in northern MI, I just said it was beautiful! 

Of course, upon surprise arrival at their cabin, I was greeted by Amanda, the super guard dog:

Of course, I didn't think this licking was so cute after Pop informed me that the reason the vet put the cone on her head was to keep her from licking her own paw because her mouth is so full of nasty bacteria. Excellent. I'll be disinfecting my lips daily from now on....

The sweet life continued in MI with a lot of fun laughs with friends, some early birthday celebrations and a lot of time on my favorite trails.

I believe I once thought I could never ride this...

I mean, really, where else in the world could you be mountain biking and end up here? Not that I wasn't tortured by a few miles of uphill in the sand to get there, but then aren't some of the best things in life often hard to find?

I returned back to MN just in time to continue celebrating my birthday (who doesn't like to celebrate for a whole week) with a race on the actual day and food so good Big E licked the plate the day after.

Note to self: Don't dare this guy to do anything you don't actually want him to do in public.

Can't say it was a bad August! September started off fabulous so far too with a driveway bonfire:

complete with ghetto guac:

Sweet dreams!