the march 2013 running recap.

total run mileage: 65.67 miles
highest weekly run mileage: 29.68 miles
# runs: 11
# rest days: 17

# xtraining workouts: 3

favorite run: the hot chocolate 15k in san diego. the course was pretty rough, i had no idea there were so many hills in san diego! but got to do it with my mom and we had a blast:)

most hardcore run: the 10 miler i did last friday. i skipped the morning run and decided i would do it in the afternoon because i got off work at a decent time. forgot to factor in that it would be 85* at 330p with no clouds, oops. but i got through it and felt very accomplished!

current reads: nothing serious, crud.

current shame-inducing guilty pleasure: travel sites! i have some seriously cool things happening the rest of this year and i have been looking things up like a crazy person. tours, places to eat, those cant miss touristy attractions. oh i so have the travel bug!

source

current obsession: getting ready for spring! well, the few very short weeks we get here in vegas haha. my flipflops and super cute dresses are all set to come out of the closet!

current drink: water and more water.

current song: such the hopeless romantic:)

current wish-list:

·         a magical shopping spree that i could update all the accessories in my closet

·         another magical shopping spree so i could reinvigorate my closet with things that fit and with the so cute new things on the spring shelves.

·         hey, its a “wishlist”:)

current need: to get back to regular blogging. i think i was trying to “reinvent” the wheel a little bit in what i want this little blog to be. instead im just going to go with the flow and see where it takes me.

current triumph: a successful return to the indoor soccer field! i know that sounds silly, but i havent played in years, literally. crazy how it all comes back so quickly and naturally. and im having a blast!

current bane of my existence: taxes. they are just mean. enough said.

current goal: to remember this…

source

current indulgence: easter candy…well these specifically…

current excitement: two pretty fun plans finally fell into place in the last week. funny how those things happen on their own, when they are supposed too. and they both involve traveling to fun new places! more details on both soon:) i told ya, my travel bug is getting out of control!

the marine wedding.

so in all of my november craziness i got to attend wedding #4 of the year for my brother from another mother, scott. i have literally known him since i was in 3rd grade. he and my brother grew up together from pre-k. scott was always part of the family and pretty much my brother. while he and kyle took very different paths after high school, somehow they ended up doing the same thing! see kyle didnt attend college right away and then joined the marines at the age of 20 (ps i cant believe he has been in for 4 years already!). scott went straight to the naval academy at anapolis and upon graduation decided to also join the marines! weird, i know.

about 6 months ago (give or take) we got a text from scott that he was engaged! he had met a great girl named kelly through a friend at the naval academy and get this, they literally grew up 7 miles apart from each other in california! of course we would be at the wedding we told him after learning it was sometime in novemeber. as luck would have it landed the week before thanksgiving so we were going to head down south 2 weekends in a row haha! but there is no way i would be anywhere else:)

we left for southern california saturday morning since the wedding was on sunday afternoon. since we would be back down there a few days later we decided to only stay the one night. upon arriving we went to one of my favorite places, el torito! now i know its more tex-mex than mexican food but i dont care. i love it anyway:) we milled around in a big shopping area till we could check into our hotel later that afternoon and actually got rained on! and you thought southern california was always sunny, ha.

that night we met scotts parents for dinner at their house. i havent seen them in, well a lot of years, and it was time to catch up. we got a quick glance at the groom on his way in and out the door for dinner with the guys:) dinner was friggin delicious, as always! it was fun to just hang out and catch up.

the wedding wasnt actually until 3p sunday so we got to sleep in quite a bit that morning. we scored a late check out and just hung out in the morning. about noon we milled around to getting ready and then went to olive garden for lunch around the corner. the wedding was literally 8 minutes away from the hotel so we took our time. kelsey (my brothers girlfriend) met us there so we could all travel to the wedding together. it was still a little hard for me to believe that scott was getting married!

the reception was at a beautiful park that looked over all of fullerton and brea. it was outside and just pretty all the way around! it was a country wedding theme with the girls wearing brown cowboy boots, the boys in suits rather than tuxes, and the bride wore red cowboy boots underneath an ivory dress with pockets:) scott wore his dress blues and looked so handsome. they are so grown up now! my brother was in the wedding, but being deployed he couldnt exactly make it haha. scott actually kept him in the wedding and during the ceremony they said a prayer for him and all our troops abroad (most of the groomsmen were also military). can we say serious tears?!

after the first kiss as husband and wife it was time to celebrate! we headed off to the reception while the wedding party took pictures. they had super cute little appetizers and an open wine/beer bar! i did get a little sad and pretty teary eyed as i watched them taking pictures, i wont lie. it was a little tough to go to this one by myself so soon after the breakup. i knew we werent ready to get married, but just felt even further away from having that in the moment. thank goodness for the wine!

luckily kelly had put myself and kelsey at the kids table with people our own age and my parents at an adult table. it was fun to hang out with everyone and catch up with scotts brother, jeff. i hadnt seen in a really long time, along with a few others at the table. dinner was delicious and everyone just seemed so happy! i finally got to meet kelly and hug scott as a i now married man:) she was so super nice and was so excited we could finally meet, i guess shes heard stories lol.

 i scored a passenger seat in the car so i could have as much fun as i wanted at the wine bar! the guys at my table were very gentlemenly and i never had to refill my own glass:) we danced and gathered around to catch the bouquet, all the fun traditional wedding things! way too soon though we had to head home. all 3 us had to work the next day and it was a 4 hour drive home:/ we found scott (who had changed into a suit like the other guys lol) and kelly to wish them good luck and to say goodbye. this one seemed harder as we really didnt know when we would see them again. they were headed out on a mini honeymoon and then to beaufort, north carolina where scott is stationed. ps that is where the movie walk to remember takes place! then in januaryish scott is getting deployed for a year and kelly will head back to california to be with her family while he is gone. they are too cute and going to be adorable to watch grow married together!

 

congrats scott and kelly!!

the three year anniversary.

it was 1 week ago today that i got to officially celebrate my 3 year anniversary with my love:) we did do most of our celebrating the weekend before since we only really see each other late at night when comes home during the week. so lets rewind to that saturday...

after a 12 miler that morning, a long nap, and the normal saturday errands we were finally ready to celebrate! richard kept telling me we had somewhere to be on the strip at 730p so we needed to dinner early. so we decided to on red lobster (after many hints from him about crab legs) and it was just as good as always! and seriously who can resist those cheesy bisquits:) we hightailed it out of there later than he was hoping because he got caught up talking to the waiter about who knows what.

now i was sure this whole time i knew we were going to see a cirque de solei show. richard talks about wanting to see one often (i do too) but i was really hoping for something different. as were driving i notice we keep passing all the ones i was pretty sure he wants to see. we pull into caesars and again i am sure i know what we are going to see, celine dion. i love her, its true, but i have seen her once already. she was amazing just not what i was hoping for. then he totally surprises me with il divo playing that night instead!! they are an amazing opera/pop/broadway type foursome from all over the world, literally. they had an amazing orchestra for this us tour and it was so different than i even imagined. i had seen commercials that they were coming to town and told richard i would love to see them, but it was something i never expected! seriously people, if you havent heard of them or have skipped out on seeing them you need to asap.

afterward we walked around for a bit stopping in the nike store to check out the olympic stuff in which i proceeded to buy another tank top (but i am in love). next we stopped at the cheesecake factory to take home some dessert. i was wayyy too full after dinner to have anything, but a few hours later i was ready for something sweet :) we took it home and enjoyed it in our pjs after a insanely long line to get out of the caesars parking lot. check out my absolute favorite song by them :)

sunday i slept as long as possible and then we decided to venture out to see the new spiderman movie. omg was it good! kinda long, but you dont really notice until you get out of the movie and look at the time. the theater was pretty empty which was nice and we could pick our seats. that night we picked up pei wei on the way home and i noticed i had only really eaten 2 meals at home all weekend. something i was definitely ok with :)

as wednesday came i started to get a little nervous in giving richard his present. you see i wasnt totally sure what to get him until early the week before. and when i tried to add on in the nike store he immediately said no, i apparently had told him no clothes. then i really started to get nervous. he was very set in that he didnt want it until our actual day, which really meant he couldnt have it until he got home that night. waiting seemed to take forever! earlier that day when i returned to work from lunch i had the most beautiful pink roses waiting for me :) they smelled fantastic!

be-a-utiful.

finally richard came home and immediately tore into his present sitting on the couch. the smile on his face when he realized it was the shoes he had been eyeing from adidas for the last month made the wait definitely worth it. i knew i had made the right choice.

source

we have come a long way, he and i. there have been ups and downs, crazy adventures, changes for us both, and more laughs than either of us knew when we started this thing 3 years ago. happy anniversary to us!

love. love.

the phoenix wedding reception.

last friday richard and i headed to the airport early to fly to phoenix for one of my college roommates wedding reception. kristin and her now husband had been married 3 weeks earlier in hawaii with just a few close family and friends, so now they returned meaning it was time to celebrate! we were both super excited to get out of town and be with some of the people we love the most. it turns out that now my best friend and richards best friend now live in phoenix as well so we would be surrounded with great people all weekend. 

my best jessica picked us up at the airport in mesa friday late morning. we flew allegiant air which meant we were headed to a tiny airport on the outskirts. note to everyone, do not ever fly allegiant unless you have to! they have terrible customer service, tons and tons of fees, and that $25 flight they tell you it is will be $130 by the time youre finished. anyway jessica collected us and we immediately headed to my favorite place from college, oreganos! seriously, its like an institution in flagstaff and they have a few in phoenix which meant that was the 1st place we went to for lunch. it was just as delicious and amazing as we remembered! 

alfredo the dark!

afterward we hung around downtown tempe and mill avenue then headed to a bar to watch the suns basketball game. we stopped in a candy store and bought bertie bots to try and gross each other out with jelly beans that tasted like dirt and earwax! it was great to walk around and just hang out with jessica. that evening we headed back to mill avenue with some of jessicas friends to celebrate her birthday that was actually the day before. since graduating college we havent seemed to be in the same place for each others birthday, so of course we had to celebrate. that night richards best friends mike and lora also got to join us! it was seriously fun night:)

happy birthday to my spouse!

cute, cute!

my love.

saturday morning i woke up and got a few miles in before everyone was up. we met jessicas family at a great mexican restaurant not long after for her birthday lunch at a great mexican restaurant. i hadnt seen her family in quite awhile so it was fun to see them again :) afterward we headed to a huge mall nearby to just walk around for a bit. we had such a huge laugh in 1 of the accessory stores where jessica and i, even richard tried on ridiculous headpieces and funny headbands. we may have spent a little too much time there because after grabbing richard wayyy too much chick-fil-a we were a bit short on time to change and get to the reception on time. 

we arrived maybe a couple minutes late, but luckily it didnt officially start for a bit after 5p. none of us were exactly sure how the night would go, i had never been to only a reception before so i was interested to see the whole evening. kristin had made the best guest book i have ever seen and something that was sooo her. she and sean were dressed party clothes and were walking around to greet everyone:) there werent assigned seats so we could sit where we liked and watch all the people come in. they started with a fun game to get everyone going and get the order of tables going to eat where a member from each table had to grab something from the audience like a salt shaker or a mans tie. each time the participants went to grab something a chair was taken away so in the end there was only 2 left. jessica was our representative and lasted a few rounds, but not quite to the end. 

the super cute guestbook!
each person gave a thumbprint to look like a balloon
all to follow the volkswagen:)

dinner was delicious plus we got to see the bride and groom of course. the mood of the whole evening was light and airy plus everyone seemed to have a really good time. dancing soon began which of course always a good idea. we all joined in and danced the night away bringing back lots of college memories:) on our way home we decided to go see american reunion, omg hilarious! it was great to be with 2 of my favorite people to see such a hysterical movie. 

the first dance :)

roomies!

photobomb.

sean, our honorary roomie, hehe.

my date:)

more photobombs, ha!

too cute!

the next morning we met mike and lora for breakfast at the waffle house! it was sooo good and we got to spend time with everyone. we headed back to mike and loras after to spend the afternoon with mike while lora went to work. although we didnt really much, if anything at all, it was sooo great to just hang out. all to soon we had to head to the airport to come home. this weekend was so many things for both of us. spending time with such great friends made both richard and i remember to always make time for the ones we love the most:)

phoenix friends = best friends!

the day of mushy, gushy love stuff

happy valentines day! i know it was yesterday but i couldn't tell you all about the day before it happened, duh. we did an extended day of love because of work schedules and it being on a tuesday. which was of course is ok with me :)

we decided to really celebrate sunday because it was the only day we actually had to ourselves. it was very low-key and that was plenty good with me. in the spirit of valentines day richard let me pick a girly movie to go see and then we were going to dinner after. i had told him weeks before that i wanted to see the vow and he had agreed, but i kinda kept waiting for him to take it back haha. i mean it is really girly. he stuck to his word and after a very lazy morning of sleeping in (i love sundays) we headed over to town square to catch the last matinee of the day.

source

the theater was a pretty full, lots of couples lol. it was really good and i definitely cried. hopeless romantic, what can i say. plus we saw good previews, a new nicholas sparks movie that richard is not super excited about lol and a really funny one with jason segal and emily blunt, that one he actually suggested we should see.

we had decided on cheesecake factory for dinner since we hadn't been in a really long time and by the time we got there i was starving. it was almost 8p and i was ready for dinner. i even branched out and got something new (that's a big deal, i tend to order my usual, whatever that is at that particular restaurant)! of course saving room for cheesecake to take home with me.

yum yum!

once full from dinner we just went home and watched the bachelor. serious bonus of living together, when you have nothing else to do you can always just stay home or go early and still be together. it was the perfect way to end the weekend and celebrate the day of love!

i had bought richards gift on a whim thursday evening last week. i was trying to rack my brain hard for ideas, boy are really hard to buy valentines gifts for! after wandering around kohls on my lunch break i went into the kitchen section and saw a small deep fryer. now the entire time we have been dating he has been dreaming about owning one. he always talks about it in a longing way when we go into the kitchen places. so i went back to work and read some reviews to find that people didnt have great things to say about it. instead i did some more research and decided to go to target on the way home. i found a great brand, double the size, and on sale for the same price, sold! friday evening i took it into work with me to hide it under my desk all weekend because there wasnt anywhere to store it at home. 

monday night richard informs me that i have to wait for my present until valentines night when he gets home because he has to go out and get it during the day. needless to say i was not super excited about this idea. i was at the point where i was questioning (come on you all do it) about getting the right thing. plus this meant i had to wait until at least 11p before he got home anyway. 

valentines day seemed to go by very quickly and i only saw richard for a few minutes in the morning. long enough to wish each other "happy valentines day" and be off to work. afterwards i came home and decided i was actually going to wrap the sucker, it was huge, to pass my time till he got home. that night he came busting in the door ready for something haha. his gift was sitting on the ottoman, there was no hiding it, and he wanted to open it right away. as soon as he tore into it i saw his face light up and get so excited! i knew i had the right gift. and then he went into listing all the things he could now deep-fry, it was hilarious.

told you it was a big one!

finally it was my turn and after closing my eyes for awhile and hearing him scavenge all over the apartment i opened them to wayyy more then i was expecting! first there was a card (last year, no card, not ok) that was sooo cute and funny. and there were flowers! he has been getting my hints more and more ;) i got another princess towards completing my train, shes beautiful of course. and to top it all off...real chocolate! i had hinted suggested asked for real chocolate this year. as much as i like hersheys and ghiradelli, i wanted the good stuff. the things you cant buy at target or the grocery store. and man did he come through! chocolate-covered strawberries and a hand picked box of ethel m chocolates, my favorite. let me tell you, they are amazing! i will make those last as longggg as possible. 

aurora:)

any card that starts out with "hey, gorgeous"
is ok in my book!

this was a great valentines day for us! after all the holiday craziness, i loved how low-key it was and it was just the 2 of us. plus we got to stretch it out as long as we wanted :) i am seriously the luckiest girl, baby i love you.

the 2012 real life preview.

so after looking at my running preview for this year i got super excited. then i remembered all of the other things im also doing this year and had to share them with you of course:) now there are more things being added all the time for this list just like the running one. but here are the things i have so far!

3/17/12-3/26/12 : england!!

one of my best friends from undergrad is getting married! he traveled to england to earn his masters and fell in love with an amazing girl, whos name is also katie, she has to be cool then:) so we are heading across the pond to celebrate their wedding! i am seriously soo super excited. i cant wait to head back to england and do the tourist thing with friends from college. richard is unfortunately not going to be able to make it, but i am going to meet friends when i get there.

after getting married in a church,
this is where the reception will be!

source

3/30/12 : 1/2 way done!

i will be officially half way to my masters degree!! that will end my 5th class and i have ten total. oh i cant wait:)

4/14/12 : kristin and seans wedding : phoenix, az

my senior year i got to live the 2 best roommates, jessica and kristin. there was another one, but she was nuts, so we just talk about the fun things with the 3 of us lol. while distance definitely hasnt been on our side we have all stayed friends since. finally her awesome fiance sean popped the question and they are getting married! they decided to do a destination wedding to hawaii with just their immediate families and best man/maid of honor. but 1 month later we are all heading to phoenix(where they live) to have a big reception! i cant wait to see them and hang out with jessica for the weekend which also happens to be her birthday weekend! richard is for sure coming to this one and we have already booked our plane tickets to head to the party:)

standing outside san felipes at 530am for tequila sunrise!
homecoming 2007.

6/2/12 : andrew and stephanies wedding : reno, nv

i first met andrew and stephanie at mike and loras wedding in august 2010. they were so cool and live in reno. it was fun to have another couple around. soon we found out they were joining us on the hiking adventure to the grand canyon. they were coming 1 day after, but we would be able to hang out down there and head out of the canyon together. during their 1st day we hiked to a few waterfalls and they had a moment together right next to a beautiful waterfall. i look up in the next moment and andrew is on one knee with sparkly ring in his hand asking stephanie to marry him!! it was seriously so awesome to be part of that moment:) so we will be headed up north to celebrate their wedding!

she said yes!!

6/8/12-6/10/12 : san francisco, ca

the next weekend (tentatively) i will be heading to see my grandparents in benecia, ca just outside of san francisco. richard and his friends are going to this huge festival called edc here in vegas and i have been really wanting to go visit my grandparents on my own. so since its a 3 night festival and he will sleeping during the day/partying at night and i wont see him anyway, i think its the perfect weekend to get away:) they live in the cutest town and its only a ferry ride to the city. plus my grandma is a fantastic cook so i will be eating a ton while im there!

when richard and i visited them on our trip to
san francisco in 2009.
i was sooo sick in this picture haha.

new years-tba

after wandering the strip this year and seeing all the tourists here we started thinking about maybe going somewhere new. or at the very least doing something totally new. weve talked about warm places or even getting a room on the strip instead. definitely want to shake it up!

maybe here...

or here...

this is going to be a big year, i can feel it! there are so many exciting things lined up for richard and i this year:) i cant wait to share them all with you guys!