Birthday, Beer, and Baseball

I was hoping to get this post up last week but it just didn't happen. This weekend Ryan and I went camping with friends. I wish I had taken a photo of the monstrous ice cream we ate on Saturday but I wasn't carrying a camera with me! After we got back yesterday, we went out to dinner with a friend. Today we had an awesome BBQ with all the friends who rode in the Tour de Cure with us. So much great food! I made this corn and tomato salad -- it was delicious.

Anyway, I still wanted to share more about our Cleveland trip, so here is more about our weekend away...

Besides the race, we also were able to visit family while in Cleveland. It was a big weekend of celebrations with my niece's first birthday on Saturday, and my brother-in-law's MBA graduation on Sunday. Here are some of the things we did.

Friday, after we arrived, we checked into our hotel and spent some time with family. We went for a nice long walk because it was gorgeous out. Some of us stopped in to a local brewery (The BottleHouse) for a quick tasting. It was a cool place -- pinball machines, and seemed like lots of bands play at night on the weekends. We were the only ones there though at the time...I guess that's what you get for a Friday at 3pm! At night we went out to Chocolate Bar for dinner. The food was good, but it was pretty loud. We had to try a chocolate martini!

Saturday was my niece's 1st birthday. We had lunch and cake and she opened presents. Fun! 

Then we went to the expo for packet pickup. We wandered around for a bit and checked out the merchandise. I noticed the Army booth was having a push-up and pull-ups competition. I decided I wanted to do one of them! When I went up to the booth, I told the guy I wasn't sure which I wanted to do. He asked if I had done a pull-up before, and when I said yes, he told me that was the one I should try. If you follow me on Twitter, you already know I ended up doing 12 pull-ups! I think they were all impressed. Haha. 

After the expo, we decided to check out another local brewery (Cornerstone Brewing). This one was in a little neighborhood near the expo center. They had a big flight of 9 beers, so Ryan and I shared the sampler. Another good stop. 

The rest of the night was just relaxing -- we grilled up dinner and got to bed early in preparation for our Sunday morning race.

If you read my recap, you can find out all about how the half marathon went. Afterward, we grabbed brunch in Cleveland Heights at the Inn on Coventry. It was delicious! After doing a lot of walking, we used the afternoon to relax and went to the movies. We saw the new StarTrek -- I'd recommend it. At night we got Dewey's pizza for dinner. They have so many options! The Bronx Bomber was my favorite.

On Monday the big highlight was going to the Cleveland Indians baseball game. It was really hot out! But a great day for a ball game! We ended up leaving right before the exciting finish with a Tribe win, but we still had a lot of fun. 

It was a really great trip visiting family and running a race. Definitely a good RUN-cation.