The Zoo

Sara and I took a visit to the Dallas Zoo last weekend.  It was perfect Texas winter weather...65 degrees and sunny.  Plenty of folks had the same idea as we did, it was packed.

This was my first time at a zoo in a long time.  As a landscape architect, I found myself critiquing the design and layout of the zoo.  The maintenance and layout was a little underwhelming.  We had a great time though.  Lots of different animals to see...elephants,  giraffes, zebras, gorillas, lions, cheetahs, lots of birds, warthogs, etc. etc.  The zoo was mostly african safari themed.  Sara really enjoyed riding the elephant....

Yummm...

Update from the Jacobson residence of Dallas… Kyle is rocking it out at work these days. They have been very busy, which is a good thing! Me on the other hand, I have been mastering the art of being a housewife and job hunting. I must admit… it isn’t an easy job. I have had quite a few interviews now and if you ever need help with behavioral based interview questions… I am your lady! Seriously. I will say, that I have officially accepted my first ‘big kid’ job. But I will share more on that another time.

In other news, while trying to perfect the job as a housewife, I decided to actually try some of the one million recipes that I have ‘pinned’ on Pinterest. I am really good at finding things and then never trying them, but that has changed! When preparing our grocery list, we go through my Pinterest and pick recipes that we have not tried yet. They have been pretty successful if I do say so myself…Kyle agrees. So far we have tried…

Spaghetti in garlic lemon sauce 

Baked spaghetti (This one we modified slightly)

Crockpot Chicken Fajitas 

Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken

Potato soup

Taco Pasta Bake

Broccoli Cheese Bites

Spicy Sausage Pasta

Chicken Broccoli Alfredo

Breakfast casserole

Crockpot BBQ

As I mentioned before, all of these have been successful with a few modifications here and there. If you are interested in the recipes you can click on them and it will lead you to the site where I found them. You can also find other tasty recipes on my Pinterest board ‘YUM-O’! I will keep you posted for more tasty recipes in the future. I usually attempt to take pictures of the foods but they never turn out quite right. They never look as good as they taste. I will work on that. I am off to try a new bread recipe, keep tuned in for the results!

Run. January.

After a taking about a month and a half break from running, I got the legs and lungs cranked back up in January.  This year I am going to try to get more training in than last year.  Last year I ran 920 documented miles.  This year I want to run somewhere in the range of 1300-1500 miles.  I want to start getting into some longer distance races (ultramarathons).

Here is how the first month of 2013 went for me:

My running goals for the year:
1.  Get involved in the local trail running scene.
2.  Run another full marathon...finishing in less that 3 hours 20 minutes.
3.  Run a 50k.
4.  Travel to a different state to run a trail race.
5.  Finish a 50 mile ultramarathon [a stretch].

First up, I am registered for the Grasslands Trail Run in Decatur, TX on March 23rd.