All you gotta do is put a drink in my hand

If there is one thing that I believe without question it is that you can't have a truly fulfilled life without your girlfriends.  That is exactly how I spent my Saturday night, out on the town in Regina with a pretty cool group of chicks.  Our road trip started from Watrous where I met up with my friend, Kristine, who is home visiting from Singapore.  We convinced our very responsible mother-of-two friend, that a night out for some 'me' time was in order and her loving husband watched their kids for the evening.  I have had a pretty quiet summer so far working a lot and supervising our deck construction, so I too was ready to let loose and get down with my bad self in the city that rhymes with fun.

Like the quiet, reserved ladies that we are, we headed for some martinis at Earls.  That lasted about an hour when I realized I'm not that classy.  Men Without Shame were playing at McNally's and nothing says summertime fun like a group of middle aged men wearing spandex jumpers and platform knee-high boots.  We were right.  The bar was packed with cougars galore so obviously I felt right at home.  That being said, this also wasn't the type of place that frowned up individuals cutting a rug on the stage speakers.. as I may have later found out.

It wouldn't be a night out in YQR if we didn't Pump-it-up for at least for one cocktail.  As we began to start our journey there a stag on a limo-bus offered us a ride.  I would consider that the TSN turning point of the evening, it was definitely a game changer.  Not only was it stocked with ice cold beverages, our mother-of-two discovered she can still shotgun beer with ease and grace.

Upon arriving at The Pump we found ourselves drawn towards the karaoke set up they had on the deck.  Now this wasn't our first rodeo, we have tangled with The Pump karaoke DJ before so we knew his angle.  Before we knew it Ike & Tina were rollin' (rollin') on the river (doo, doo, doo).  Before last call was served we made one last attempt to get on stage inside and sing with the band.  Singing with the band at The Pump is like a mythical unicorn, it is something only dreamed of.  I have tried many a time to debut my musical talents on that stage only to have security escort me off of it.  Well not this time my friends!  We got a hold of that mic and belted out our best 2a.m. version of American Pie that I have ever renditioned.  God dammit I was a musical genius that night.

As the ugly lights came on we decided that our much needed night out was over and rallied the troops home.  I don't make it to Regina that often but when I do it never seems to disappoint.  Thank you once again for allowing us to run a muck in your city with our never ending antics and shenanigans.  

Girls just wanna have fun

Summer in Saskatoon is a magical place.  Full of culture, music, sunny days by the overflowing river and of course one full week designated to making gross and utter gluttons of oneself.  On Saturday night my Splurge group (a.k.a. girls' club) met in Kiwanis Park to absolutely smash on some of Saskatoon's finest dining establishments at Taste of Saskatchewan. 

One would think a group of attractive ladies would come to Taste and nibble here and there on the cuisine that they had to offer.  That would be where you are very wrong.  We donned our stretchiest pants and maxiest of dresses and hit those vendors hard.  I think someone even got a callous from spooning out so much pulled pork onto our plates.  Poutine, pierogies, deep fried Mars bars, Vietnamese rolls, BBQ in a bag, deep fried pickles, tacos, queso, ribs, cheesecake, pulled pork, Chinese food and crepes were just some of the items I can recall in my food haze that 5 lovely ladies took down without recourse.

Now you may ask, why would a fit group of individuals dump all that carby deliciousness into themselves?  It reminds me of these two sayings: Lift big, eat big and work hard, play hard.  After a hard week of working out we decided it was our right to put on an eat show and go hard as a mofo on everything Saskatchewan had to offer us that night.  I don't know if this is related, but on Sunday I did the best double unders of my life and PR'd (got a new personal best record) on a work out named "Annie"... I'm attributing everything to the cheesecake.

Once our elasticized waistbands had been maxed out we decided it was time to carry on.  Until next year, Taste of Saskatchewan, we bid you adieu. 

      

If you ain't dirty, you ain't here to party

My very first blog post ever right here folks.  Before I start I would like to thank a couple people 1. Christina Aguilera for the clever title of this post and 2. my good friend Courtney Berg for convincing me to start blogging, you both equally rock.

What better topic to start my blogging career with then this past weekend's Dirty Donkey Mud Run held at the almighty Mount Blackstrap Provincial Park.  A team of my fearless CrossFit buds entered the BRIO Beaver Beaters to tackle the 7.5km uphill obstacle course in the rain (I would like to add I did not come up with the name, I would have chosen Jacked & Classy if I had it my way).  As most of my friends know I am no cardio bunny.  Me plus running does not equal blissful serenity, what it does result in is a sweaty, red faced, heavy breathing mess experiencing the worst shin splints of life at the moment.  But either way the experience was still AWESOME!  My very first ever "longer distance" run and I didn't die.. frick yes.

Our team was comprised of Matt Shirts-Optional Hamoline, Jesse Perfect-Hair Dziad, Make-It-Rayne Robertson, Courtney The-H.A.M.Bergler and myself.  Our fearless leader, Crystal Sorry-I-Have-To-Work-That-Day-Now Lewis insisted we sign up for the longer, harder, more extreme, KickASS category back in April and let's just say I was more than just a tad reluctant.

It was pouring rain Saturday morning as we embarked on our journey to the unknown.  As we pulled up to the race site we immediately spotted a massive (in the eyes of someone with a fear of heights it was gargantuan) cargo net wall and a barb-wire encompassed mud pit anxiously awaiting the finis-line crossers.  We were freezing as we donned our matching white team wife beater tank tops and bandannas.  Pain is beauty, right?  We saw many other familiar CrossFit faces as we waited nervously at the start line as our group of runners were the first to christen the course.

Dodging the sloppy trails through the trees of Blackstrap made the journey very interesting.  People were slipping and falling all over the course.  The first obstacle was a wall of hay bails stacked up that you had to climb over and subsequently drop into a pit of mud.  Obstacle number two was a swamp walk.  A stinky, sludgey walk through a slough of bugs and god only knows what else.  I'll consider obstacle three the treacherous hike directly up to the top of the "mountain" (I put quotes around mountain because anyone that knows the Blackstrap Ski Hill also knows its nickname as the Pimple of the Prairies), but still it was steep and slippery as sh*t!  The fourth obstacle was a giant homemade slip and slide down a hill that lead almost directly into a wooden wall that you had to scale and climb over.  Next came a giant garbage dumpster full of sludge that you had to crawl through followed by some pallet sled pulls (now that is something we have trained for!).  We got a bit of a break as we maneuvered through the wooden balance beam and army crawled through their manmade tunnels.  We finished off the course with the sky high cargo net climb and dove head first in to a pit of mud to stop the clock.

In just over an hour the Beaver Beaters completed their first ever Dirty Donkey and couldn't have been happier.  We were muddy, soaking wet, bleeding and bruised but we were stoked.  Fifteen minutes after we finished talks of Spartan Races and Tough Mudders ensued...