the new space, the new place.

what a difference a year makes! i look back to what i was doing this time last year and i barely even recognize it. so many amazing things have happened and i am so grateful for each and every one of them:)

with all of these changes and new fantastic things going on it is time to find this new home on a clean slate. i realize i should have made this move quite some time ago, hindsight is 20/20 you know, but now is just as good a time as any. last weekend i crossed a finish line that changed my life (yes it will be detailed to no end in a post soon:)) and i have been floating on cloud nine ever since! this time just 1 week ago i became a marathoner. i joined an elite club of only 1% of the world that i hold incredibly dear to my heart:) its still a little hard to believe i actually did it. that i went four years ago from the girl who hadnt run a mile to the girl who had just completed her 1st 1/2 marathon and said she would never, ever run a full marathon to the girl who crossed the finish line of her very 1st full marathon. its moments like these that makes 1 year ago almost unrecognizable. 


in a new site also comes some new things! i have added a few pages to the top.
   *hi y'all! is a little bit more about me and my story. 
check it out when you have time:)
   *runner girl is the tale of how i became a runner if 
you havent heard it already!
   *coaching is my newest endeavor! 
let me be part of your running story:)

enjoy the new site and share with your friends. and get ready for new posts! sooo as the title above says...
see where my running and life adventures take me next!! 

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!!

thankful thursday #1

november is a time to remember to be thankful and i have been trying to figure out how i really want to do that! then i saw this post from betsy and knew it was perfect...so here it goes:)

1. my family

we have always been incredibly close and there for each other. through this tough time they have been there even more than i could have ever asked for! willing to fly out and kick ass if i needed, let me move home, help me with that move, and check in on me when i least expect it but need it most. i am so blessed:)

 

 

2. my friends

they are often our extended family and mine are no different! we are there for each other and often able to pick up right where we left off no matter how long its been in between conversations. they make me laugh/smile and know me through and through. you may not get to choose your family, but you do choose your friends and i have some amazing ones:)

 

3. plans

november was already going to be a busy month and know i am even more grateful i have so many things going on.

11/9/-11/10-ragnar las vegas (a 200 mile relay with a 12 person team in 2 vans. i cant wait!)
11/17-11/18-scotts wedding weekend (i have known him since he was in kindergarten, now hes getting married. hes like my brother from another mother:))
11/20-11/24-thanksgiving weekend (hello delicious food and amazing family in california)

having so many fun things to look forward to really helps those tough moments. not to say they go away, but fun plans are important for the soul!

my brothers:)
dang im short.

4. my job

i may not love it everyday, but am so so blessed and lucky to have one! and the people i work with are out of this world. they keep me coming back everyday!

5. being of able body and mind

this may sound silly, but we often take for granted the things we are able to do everyday. i am so grateful that my body allows me to push it further and mind is able to keep up with all the things i put it through on a daily basis.

 

stay tuned for next week!!

the san francisco adventure part 2

so we left off sunday night with all of us turning in. my parents headed out the early the next morning to the airport but luckily jessica was staying around for a good part of the day. we decided that meant it was time to finally ride the cable cars! so we trekked down to union square to pick up the famous powell and hyde line that would take us by all the good stuff.

we finally get to have post-race coffee together:)

we landed at the bottom and conveniently stumbled upon the buena vista. this was actually the place we were planning to go for breakfast sunday but just ran out of time before my grandparents came into town. apparently it has a very famous irish coffee so we saddled up to the bar and ordered some coffee, our 2nd of the day hehe. it was delicious and so cool to watch the bartender make tons of coffee for awhile. turns out they actually go through about 80-100 bottles of whiskey on a weekend day! omg thats a lot.

yum!

afterward we explored fishermans wharf a little while and people watching of course. which of course means the sea lions! jessica was very excited and im pretty sure she was scheming ways to take 1 of the little guys home:) we settled on in-n-out for lunch, which i realize isnt very san francisco, but it is very california. and man it was GOOD! i havent had anything like that in months. yum.

lombard street!

it seemed sooner than we both would of liked but we needed to head back to get her to the airport and us to our afternoon tour. we got back right on time and soon jessica was on the bart on her way to the oakland airport. i hate it when we have to say goodbye:/ richard and i hopped on the nearest street car that would take us all the way around to the pier to hop on our cruise to alcatraz! i have always wanted to go there and finally was able to fit it in. as we got closer and closer i started to get worried about the time since you need to arrive 30 minutes before the boat leaves to board. just as we got to the ferry building our driver informed us this would be his last stop since one of the front doors was broken and we would have to wait for the next car behind him in about 5 minutes. so we hopped off, did we really have a choice, and began waiting for the next one. richard started getting more and more upset at this point that we would never make it and now we wasted our money. now when people in san francisco say 5 minutes i swear they really mean at least 30 minutes. by this time we had more than missed our boat and wasnt sure we would be able to get refunded. i decided we should still go to the dock and see if theres anything they can do. richard decided he was fed up waiting and walked down to the pier as i waited for the street car. he apparently needed to blow off steam from something.

finally the street car arrived and i took it down to pier 33 to met him. we went to the window and the lady was amazingly nice, gave us our tickets, and told us we could do stand-by anytime tuesday. she gave the advice to be there for the early ones because they were the easiest to get on. this meant no tour tonight and no plan. after hearing all about how his plans never pan out and no one wants to do the things he wants when he wants to we decided to go see the painted ladies instead. luckily i still had a few maps in my purse, so i set out to figure out the easiest way to get there. it was also getting dark and we needed to get going if we wanted to see them in the daylight! turns out it was actually pretty easy and made it there just after the sun had passed over.

ill be moving in tomorrow:)

it was about dinnertime then and we were both hungry. after a few failed attempts at finding somewhere there, we seemed to keep getting into not such good areas we shouldnt be in after dark or really in the daylight either, we headed back to union square to find a diner instead. it turned out to be delicious and we headed back to crash for our early rise the next morning, determined to make it to alcatraz on the 1st boat out!

already knowing where we were going and how long it would take us to get there we made it in plenty of time to be 1st in the stand-by line tuesday and hopped on to the 1st boat no problem! its a quick trip to alcatraz and there was just a little bit of fog to make it a beautiful morning:) once we got to the island you here some quick safety tips from the park ranger then you are free to explore anywhere you want. get to the top of the hill, which equals a 13 story climb ps, and you get to the jailhouse and you can take an audio tour which we did. it was soooo cool! a little creepy, i wont lie, but very cool. i had no idea there was so much history to it!

the bay bridge.

spooky.

how did we get in here!

the view from alcatraz.

i seriously love divider plates!!

we made it back to the main land about 1230p and headed to pier 39 for lunch. it was finally time for a seafood lunch and the pier is the perfect place! the weather was fantastic all day and after lunch we walked around the shops a bit before grabbing some ice cream and heading back to the hotel before our next tour. i was actually able to sneak in an hour nap in the meantime!

found at the chocolate store at pier 39!

right on time, earlier than we probably needed but we didnt want to be late, we headed to the bart station directly outside to chinatown for our culinary tour. my parents took a culinary tour a few years ago in seattle and still rave about it. so when researching tours in san francisco i found one for chinatown and little italy and with just a little bit of convincing i was able to get richard on board pretty easily! our guide was great and there was only 1 other couple on our tour so it wasnt huge. we started with a tea tasting with all kinds of different chinese tea leaves then headed down back alleys of chinatown i would have never found on my own. next we stopped by a real fortune cookie factory and actual saw the little chinese man making the cookies and putting the fortune inside! i really wanted a picture but didnt have any change to give him:/ but we got to try a chocolate fortune cookie and our guide gave each couple a huge bag to take home!

next we got to taste dim sum at an eastern bakery that apparently bill clinton frequents when he visits haha. it was all kinds of different options and so much food! note to self:: next time i go on a culinary tour go really, really hungry!! luckily we got walk a bit and there was quite a bit of time before our next food stop. we wandered through chinatown and before we knew it we were in little italy. i had no idea they were so close. our guide was awesome and pointed out all kinds of history things along the way. we ended in a little pizza restaurant for some amazing pies and wine! the pizza was like wafer thin and had sooo much flavor. the owner was from rome and you could tell she made each pie with a lot of love:)

afterward we wandered around little italy a bit and found a cafe to have a cup of coffee in. it was delicious and the streets were so alive with people at 9pm on a tuesday night! man i would live in san francisco if i could:) we headed back soon after to pack since the next morning we were heading home. i was kinda sad to leave in a different way since we were able to spend so much time in the city on this trip. we had an amazing time and i am soooo grateful to my parents and jessica that came out to support too! to have so many faces travel with you and cheer you on such a big race is more than a girl could ask for:) till our next group adventure!!

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.