One day down, 355 to go.  Sigh.  New Years are rather tedious.  We had a solid start to our year though.  Friday was a non-event as I was saving my strength for New Year’s Eve partying.  (This strategy didn’t really pay off, but it gave me a good excuse to lay low Friday.)  We went to the Brooksider, only to find it over-run with Iowa fans watching their bowl game.  We retreated to the safety of the patio, but that got a little chilly eventually so we wandered over to Hooper’s and watched the first half of the Missouri game.  That was enough fun for a Friday we figured, so we called it a day.

Saturday morning we started the day off right with breakfast down at Eggcetera.  Lay down a base for the day, if you will.  It was typically packed, but we found two seats at the counter, which suits us fine.  After breakfast I took the dog down to Penn Valley park for a little exercise.  That’s not nearly the facility that Shawnee Mission is, but a heck of a lot closer.  It was predictably crowded given the warm weather, so Teagan got lots of playtime in.  After that bit of exercise we cleaned up and headed down to the Brooksider.  Some friends of ours were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary, and as we just so happen to share the same anniversary date we figured we might as well go weasel in on some congratulations too.    Our scheme worked well, and we scored cake to boot.  After that we headed down to the Plaza and enjoyed a delicious dinner at Capital Grille for our own little anniversary celebration.  I rank that place my favorite restaurant in town.  Wish we could go more often, but it’s a bit out of our normal dinner budget.  I will commonly complain if the tip on a given dinner is higher than my average bill at the Brooksider.  Kind of my “cost benchmark” I guess.  Well, the sales tax on this dinner was higher than my typical Brooksider tab.  Gulp.  Eh, what the heck, we only go there every three years or so, and it was without a doubt the best meal I can remember in a long time..  (About three years, actually.)  After dinner we scurried back home and sat in front of the TV the rest of the night.  Didn’t see anything close to midnight again this year.

Sunday we decided to kick the year off right with some exercise.  Donette headed out and did a six-mile run by herself, and I joined a large group of cyclists down in the River Market for a semi-organized ride.  It was a 21.2 mile ride, and I could definitely tell that I’ve been off the ol’ bike for a few months.  The extra-hilly course, the 20 mph wind, and the 40 degree temp didn’t help things either.  It was a good time though, if it’s anywhere near 40 degrees next year I will do it again.  One of my high school friends showed up too, so I had somebody to suffer with for the duration.  (Although he’s actually been riding all winter, he wasn’t gasping nearly as hard as I was.)  I got to try out my new Garmin toy too, which worked as advertised.  Here’s the rather overwhelming data it kicked out of the ride:  Tour of Three Bridges Ride.  Luckily it doesn’t have an audible alarm on the heart-rate monitor, it would have been going off like a tsunami siren.