August 2013

So we have made it to August. 

I was in a flash mob at Dickey Stephens park (where the Arkansas Travelers play) with a group of Komen volunteers. 

My friend Karen and I did the flash mob together. We may not be the best dancers, but we had a good time. 

My church gives a loaf of homemade (church made??) bread to all first time visitors. Most people probably think it is a group of little old ladies slaving away over the bread- but really it is me and my friends! One of the girls bought us these aprons so we had to take a picture to send to her of the first time we used them. 

I had my 10 year high school reunion. I had a hard time finding something to wear, but I finally found this dress that I loved at E.Leigh's!

Friday night of the reunion, we went to the Flying Saucer for a low key meet and greet. My friend Louisa and I went together and I am glad we got to see each other. Even though we live in the same city, it is hard to coordinate our schedules so we don't get to hang out as often. 

Saturday morning, we went to our school for a tour and group picture. 

Apparently my class had this tiger statue restored as our class gift? I had no idea, but I took a picture with it..

Obligatory picture in front of the school. (Taking this picture made me think of all the tourists we used to see when I was in school!)

Group picture (although obviously missing a whole bunch of people):

Saturday night, we had a dinner at the Statehouse Convention Center. It was good to see everyone! 

I went to Fayetteville for bid day.  I saw my dog nephew. 

Taking a picture in front of my beautiful sorority house!

And with the letters! I don't remember having such elaborate letters when I was in school. Maybe we did, but I just don't remember it. 

Um. Woah. Pledge classes are giant now. 

Some of my favorite people were there too!

Supporting the hogs at my running group on the first day of football season!

My sister and I went to a free Christian music festival in Benton. It was a fun and free, which is always good. They had fireworks and a bunch of well known contemporary Christian artists there. 

My favorite Oreos of all came out!  Y'all. You should try these if you haven't already. And if you don't like them give them to me. :)

One of my coworkers and I went on a site visit (which we never did find). This was the road. I was not really excited about getting axe murdered. 

I bought Ruger a woo pig sooie cookie from a local dog bakery to celebrate football season. 

We had such high hopes for this year's football season. Oh well, maybe next year. We went to both Little Rock games this year at War Memorial Stadium. Here's the big A! One of my favorite parts!

We watched one of the football games where the cable was having issues and it looked like the smurfs were playing. That was a fun day on Facebook. :)

Well I think that captures most of August and even September. Next up, Florida and furlough...

Another attempt to catch up...

I am still iced in my house... 66 hours and counting of being cooped up in this house by myself. I am so over it. 

My friend Lyndsey and I ran the Cancer Challenge 10k in Bentonville in June. It was hot. And I ran slow- but I was not last and that is all that matters to me. :)

I left from NWA, and went straight to meet my family at the lake in Missouri. I had a terribly stressful drive. The tire light came on in my car and I freaked out. I stopped to check the tire pressure and my tire gauge blew apart and I couldn't find all the pieces.  So, I had to go buy a new one, and the pressure was fine, but I was still worked up. Luckily I made it to the lake with no problems. The light that came on was just for maintenance because the car dealer forgot to change the indicator when I got my tires rotated. This was my stress-eating on the drive:

We carved a shark out of our watermelon. 

I went shopping at the outlet mall, and my snow cone came in a Chinese take out box? That is a first. :)

I made this cake for my family. I don't really like it, but it is their favorite. I don't get in the lake, or really like fishing. So, I spent most of my time cooking. 

This was my favorite thing I made! Watermelon cookies for the 4th of July. I especially like the one that looks like it has a bite out of it. Ha!

We had a cactus dog competition. You are looking at the two time champion. Ha. A cactus dog is where you take a hot dog and cut it with a knife and then boil it. The idea is for it to look like a cactus when it is done. 

I volunteered at Vacation Bible School and got to wear this awesome outfit. 

Remember when I won that competition at the Museum of Discovery? My sister and I made this lemon clock (my prize). 

We have almost made it through the summer. Next up- my class reunion. 

Did you forget about me?

I have not fallen off the face of the earth.  :) I have been pretty busy, and obviously blogging has been at the very bottom of my priority list. I am iced in my house with no hope of going anywhere soon due to the look of my driveway and street. So, what better time to catch up on some of the last 7 (yikes!) months.

In May, my friend Shannon and I ran in the Warrior Dash. It was so much fun and we definitely got dirty.  We climbed cargo nets, swam, ran over cars, and jumped over fire, among other challenges. Luckily neither of us got hurt... I have already registered for the 2014 race with one of my coworkers! I am excited!

 

Here we are muddy and tired, riding back on the shuttle to the car. 

While we were running, my mom came over to my house so that my new French doors could be installed. I swear I measured several times, but the door ended up being too big for the hole, so they had to cut away some of my house to get it to fit. I didn't think this would be such a big job, but it took the guy two half days to finish. Definitely looks better and much more user friendly than the old ugly sliding glass door that I had before. 

My cousin Megan graduated from high school in May, and my cousin Erin graduated in June. 

I loved this dress that I got to wear to the graduations! 

I went to Riverfest a couple of times. Of course I had to take a picture with the mustache. 

I went to an adults only event at the Museum of Discovery with some of my coworkers. I have gone a couple of times in the past few months. Katherine and I each won a prize in one of the games. 

I also went to New Orleans for a business trip. Two other coworkers also went and we had a good time.  They had a minute to win it game championship at the end of the conference, and we won! The prize we ended up with was a $50 gift card and a trophy, which now decorates my office. 

Well- I have caught up through half of the summer. I will try to do better and not wait 7 months before I post again. 

Random Catch Up!

It's time for a random catch up post where I tell you about all the things that have gone on that weren't important enough for their own post.  :)

After the Boston Marathon trajedy, I got together with some runners at my favorite running store for a run/fundraiser for a charity in Boston, and to show our support.  They had some shirts made, and I got one.



I babysat my grandmother's puppy (Charlie) for a weekend.  I was thinking about getting a dog, and have started some necessary renovations to my house (easier back door and fixing the fence, etc)- but after a weekend with a puppy I am not sure that I am quite ready!  I definitely did not realize that dogs came with so much stuff!!



Charlie was not exceptionally well behaved, and so he had to wear a doggie diaper most of the time he was here because I had to clean the floor one too many times!  I was thinking that I wanted a puppy, but now I am thinking I may need an older dog without so much energy!!

I got hit with a major case of seasonal allergies.  It was terrible.  I am usually lucky and don't have too much allergy trouble, but unfortunately not this year.  I had to give a presentation in a town about half an hour away, and to make this sickly girl even more unhappy, it was after hours.  Working 12.5 hours (as opposed to my normal 9) was not what the doctor ordered.  I tried really hard to have a fever so I didn't have to do it.  Ha!  This was when I was trying hard to convince my boss that I was too sick to go.  As a side note, I am loving all the neon colored clothes out lately. 



There was a Turkish Food Festival close to my house, so my mom and I went.  Here's what I ate (minus some delicious chocolate cake and also baklava):


I think they were expecting about half as many people to show up than actually did.  There was not a lot of available seating and the lines for food were long.  But everything was good and I would definitely go back next year.  I also signed up for some Turkish cooking classes and they said that they would send out an email before the next round of classes, so hopefully I can fit the classes in my busy schedule!

My church had a talent show/fundraiser on May 5.  The "celebrity" judges were Miss Arkansas, a local news anchor, and the head basketball coach of UALR.  It was a fun time!  It was like a dessert theater and several people in our church baked items for the dessert time during intermission.  I made luau cupcakes:


I also got my picture taken with Miss Arkansas and Steve Shields (the basketball coach).  Bob Clausen ran away right before the picture so he missed out.  :)



I bought some tulips for myself, and they finally bloomed.  Unfortunately they didn't last long.



I think that's enough randomness for one night.  Ha.  Next up will be an update on the Warrior Dash I ran in Amity (don't feel bad if you don't know where that is, because I have been there and I still don't know where it is haha!) last weekend with my friend Shannon!

Hogeye Marathon

A couple of weeks after the Poker Run, I ran in the Capital City Classic 10k. It was a nice flat course and I beat my previous 10k time by a couple of minutes. It was a great race and I hope to do it again next year.

The following weekend, I went up to Fayetteville and ran in the relay of the Hogeye Marathon with three other girls. I had the last leg, which was supposed to be 6.7 miles and ended up being 7. That little bit normally wouldn't matter that much, except that Fayetteville is so hilly! The worst was at the end, right before the finish line, there was a giant hill that we had to climb. It was hard for me and I can't imagine how hard it was for the people who actually ran the whole marathon!

When I left for the race at 5:45 in the morning, it was dark so I didn't even think about sunscreen. I got so terribly sunburned! Next year, I will have to remember that for sure! I have a really random tan line, and the craziest thing was that i got sunburned around my chip timer! we had to wear a velcro strap around our leg so that we could all four share the chip timer. I learned a lot about how the relay works this time, so we would do much better next year. I had about 3.5 hours before my leg started so I went to Walmart to use the bathroom (better than a porta-potty) and then cheered for some of the 5k and half marathoners.

I ran into quite a few people that I hadn't seen in a long time, so that was fun. I wish I could have run a little faster, but overall I was definitely proud of our team!

Poker Run

Back in March, I ran the Poker Run 5k with Lyndsey. She has her act together a little better, and posted about this a while ago. :)

This was pretty much the worst 5k I have ever run since I have actually been running. I think I was around 35ish minutes but honestly I didn't really care about the time, because I was just so glad to be done! Lyndsey warned me about the course but I thought she was just exaggerating. She wasn't. This was pretty much the most hilly course you can imagine. I am not in terrible shape, and I had to walk the last 2 hills because I couldn't breathe. I was wheezing- and I don't have asthma or anything. It didn't help any that the temperature so freaking cold!

When we got to the race and checked in- we had a while to wait so we ended up in my car to stay a little warm.

The race was neat because at each kilometer, we got a playing card. There were prizes for the best hand and the worst hand, as well as door prizes. Lyndsey won the worst hand and I got a door prize. I am glad that we both won something! She got baseball tickets and I got an insulated bag filled with a bunch of samples.

Lyndsey is super fast at running, at least compared to me. She was finished and waiting at the finish line for me with some of her family who came to cheer her on. So I was lucky to get a few pictures of me crossing the finish line!

After the race, we went to the pizza restaurant/bar that was sponsoring the race. We got pint glasses instead of t-shirts at the race and we could take our glass to the restaurant and get beer (or diet coke like me! Ha!). Lyndsey's mom and son came to eat with us, and we had a fun time!

This race made me so scared for the Hogeye marathon relay that I did this past week (I promise I will try to be more timely with that post...), but even though the Hogeye was more than twice as long, it was no where near as hard as that poker run! I don't think I will sign up for the poker run again, just because it was so hard, although I did have a fun time!

On Sunday, we had to leave a little early because it started snowing huge snowflakes! I was scared to wait any longer because there are so many bridges along I-540. We made it home without incident, thankfully. And funny story- we stopped in Alma, AR at McDonald's for lunch, and I ran into the lady who cuts my hair in Little Rock! What a small world!

I am still not sure how to handle these pictures while posting from my iPad, so if anyone has any tips, please let me know. Otherwise, they will just all be at the end. I am sure you can figure out which picture goes with which part of the story. :)