It’s officially summer, y’all! And boy, did this week feel like it. Although I like outdoors activities and the general laidback feeling that kind of comes with the summer, I do NOT like the heat. This 90 degree + stuff can go away any time. And Dobby agrees! I’ve been pretty good about getting up early and getting him out walking before it becomes miserable, but I slacked off once this week and decided to sleep longer and poor little Dobby didn’t get a walk that day. Him and I both agree that if South Dakota could just be a nice, cool 65 degrees year round, we’d be happy campers.

But even though I don’t like the heat, I do like the summer activities. And I managed to fit a lot of them into this last week! On Monday, I went on my first bike ride of the year with some of the ladies from WARC. It’s probably been a solid year – at least! – since I’ve been on my bike so my tooshy was sore for a few days after. And it was a bit windy when we went, but we went early enough in the morning where it didn’t feel too terribly hot yet. We rode our bikes around beautiful Lake Kampeska and by the time we were done, I had put in about 16 miles. I started and finished at my parent’s house, so those of you doing the math, I did do slightly more than the 14 mile lake loop! It was a great time chatting and catching up with the WARC ladies, especially since I hadn’t seen Jenn in a little while! 🙂 And I look forward to more biking opportunities as the summer continues.

Tuesday, Dan and I ventured over to Koch complex to watch some softball! Jenn and Owen invited us to come watch Grace’s game, and we could not have had a more beautiful night for some ball. The temps finally dropped and gave us some reprieve from the heat, it actually got to a point where I was starting to get cold! But I’d still take that over being a sweaty, melting mess, so I wasn’t complaining. It was fun watching Grace play and hanging out with the McElroy’s. I wasn’t a huge softball player growing up, but something about being at the fields just screams “summer time!” to me. 🙂

And of course it can’t be summer without getting that first sunburn right?? On Wednesday, my office had a team outing at Lake Kampeska. We rented a pontoon and boated around the lake for a few hours, even stopping at the prop for lunch. And even though I applied sunscreen a gazillion times, I still got a pretty bad burn. 🙁 Oh well, had to get the first one out of the way at some point, right? But we had the perfect day to be out on the lake. It was warm, but not outrageous, and we finally got a break from the wind as well! It was a super fun day spent with some pretty cool coworkers.

It was the perfect week to kick off summer and I’m excited to see what other adventures we have in store. Hoping Dan and I can go camping sometime too! And as most of you probably already know, I officially started marathon training a few weeks ago, so if that heat can stay at bay long enough to get my long runs in, I suppose I can deal with it.

Who has fun summer plans to look forward to!? What kind of activities say “summer” to you!? I want to hear about it. 🙂 And remember to use lots of sunscreen and drink plenty of water!

Stay safe and healthy my friends!

Until next time! 🙂

Megan Reiffenberger