February 2014

February was boring. There is nothing to report that you would care about. :)

So, instead I will tell you about the Little Rock Marathon which actually happened in March. 

I ran the half marathon. This was my second half. I am taking a break from distance running for a little while to let my body have a break! It will also be nice to not have my whole Saturday morning taken away due to running for a while!

The theme was epic- so there were a lot of superhero costumes. I was Supergirl and my running partner was Wonder Woman. The purpose of this picture is for you to see my socks!  They had little capes on the back of my calves. I thought that was appropriate considering this was a race!!

I got this sweet medal! It is a little ironic that the race had to be rerouted due to lightning. Ha. 

We finished in 2:52. Which I am happy with considering our less than faithful training. Our goal was to finish in under 3 hours, which we certainly did. I have two more 5ks this month. My goal is to get faster by running shorter distances, and then maybe work my way back up to longer races again. 

January in Review

Y'all. What is going on? A monthly update a week after the month is over?  Who am I? Ha. You have the snow day (AGAIN) to thank. Maybe I am slowly getting back into the blogging groove. 

I spent New Year's Eve with a few friends by eating at Bonefish and then going back to someone's house for a game night. There is some video evidence of the rock band... However that will stay hidden as blackmail. Ha. 

I finally got my car back from the body shop due to the deer running into the side of me. It was there for three weeks, and when I got it back, the battery was dead. Nice. 

I saw this on Pinterest and it thought it was pretty funny. My name is Muscular Ass. What's yours?

January was super busy but not that exciting, so I don't have a lot of fun pictures. This is the third time this month that we have had a snow day. I am so over it. 

Here was my street last night after the snow had been falling for a couple of hours. 

At least we haven't lost power yet. I get a little bored stuck in the house all day! At least there are more options when the power is on. 

I am glad the Olympics are on so I have something to watch if I am stuck inside!  Go USA!

The end of 2013

I wasn't planning to write a post today, but I can't stand to look at that picture of myself as Michelle Duggar any longer. Ha!

Some of my friends and I went to Festival After a Dark benefitting CARTI. We had a blast!

They had a photo booth there and we had fun with that!  Photo booths definitely bring out the kid in you. 

I went to Iowa to visit my friend Catherine. We took a tour of the state capital. 

We went to the mall and there was a photo area in Crate and Barrel. 

My great great aunt turned 90 so we had a big party in Kansas City. 

For Thanksgiving I made these rolls that I found on Pinterest. They were easy and so cute!

One day as I was driving to the post office on my lunch hour, a deer ran into the side of my car. Everyone in the car was ok, but it was scary.  And the deer (which luckily was small) did $1800 worth of damage to my car. My car has been in the shop for almost 3 weeks, so hopefully I will get it back soon. 

Christmas came and went. Those two big green gifts are dog beds. It figures that the dogs in my family would get the biggest gifts. 

See this black sweater? It seriously cost like $7 and they accidentally left the security tag on it at Old Navy. I don't know why they feel the need to put a security tag on such a cheap item. Luckily I found a YouTube video for how to remove it. I think you can find anything on the internet. Ha. 

My mom gave me this medal hanger for Christmas. Now all my medals are on the wall instead of thrown in the closet. Hopefully in March, there will be another LR Half Marathon medal on there. 

After the LR half, I am going to switch to shorter races and try to work on my speed. I am tired of every Saturday being dominated by long runs. I need to get faster anyway, so I figured this was a good time. Hopefully one day I will go back to distance running, but I just need a break for a little while. 

Halloween and Soaring Wings

This year I had a hard time coming up with a good Halloween costume.  I loved my costume last year (Honey Boo Boo) so much that I was having trouble thinking of something to top it. Considering my love of reality tv, one of my coworkers suggested that I dress up as Michelle Duggar. 

It was fun, but still some people didn't know who I was. Also, I have never worn a baby carrier before, and I didn't expect how hard it was to eat, etc. I am glad that my office allows us to dress up. Here is a picture of some of my coworkers. 

Also in October, my friend Elizabeth and I ran our first half marathon- the Soaring Wings Half Marathon in Conway. We trained a very hilly course, and we were well prepared. The thing we didn't prepare for was the cold. All of our training was so hot, and this race was freezing cold! We were having minor aches and pains, until about halfway when Elizabeth really got hurt.  We were able to finish, but much slower than we could have done, and we did not meet our goal.   Here we are before and after:

Since we didn't meet our goal, we decided that we needed a do-over. We are training right now for the Little Rock Half Marathon in March. Hopefully we will improve our time a little. I don't really care that much, as long as we are not last. :)

Now I am only 2 months behind! Ha. 

October 2013

October was a strange month. I am a state employee, but apparently in a federally funded position. Therefore, I was furloughed for the first part of October due to the government shutdown. I was on vacation with my family when I was notified via email that I couldn't come to work until further notice. That really put a damper on my vacation. Not knowing when you will get a paycheck again is very stressful!

We stayed in a house in Navarre, FL.  We had a good time and made lots of treats! This is a s'mores pie. Yum. 

There was a sand sculpting festival in town while we were there. I had no idea about sand sculpting, but these people had some serious skills!

We went to the Track to ride go karts and also to the Navarre Beach pier. 

My sister made me jelly fish toast. I did not eat that. :)

We set at Fudpuckers and the table we set at had this written on the wall!  So I suppose one of my ADPi sisters from my Arkansas chapter has eaten at this same table. Ha!

We got our picture taken holding an alligator, and also fed the alligators. 

We went to the Gulfarium and saw lots of animal shows. 

I had a birthday and turned 28!  Some of my friends organized a painting party for me!

My friend Ashley's daughter picked me out a birthday card! Ha. Who doesn't love pink glittery my little ponies?

My stepmom ordered me a cake from Baskin-Robbins. I feel like this one should be on cake wrecks. I always thought I had a pretty common name. I guess not. Ha. This was their second attempt too. 

I broke my new lawn mower. Luckily a $25 part and my dad was able to fix it. 

I hosted a baby shower for my friend Liza and her baby Asher! At least I was able to clean my house during the furlough. Ha. 

This cake was a total mess. I had a totally different plan in mind, and it did not work out at all. So I had to make an emergency trip to the store to buy some fondant to salvage the cake.  I think it turned out cute for a disaster. :)

My friend Ashley made this diaper castle and it was so cute!

My church had a pumpkin patch as a fundraiser for the youth group. I worked one day during the furlough. 

I finally got to go back to work, and my coworkers had decorated my office since my birthday was while I was out. I also went to the state fair. Who doesn't like apple pie funnel cake and pig races?

My mom and I did race for the cure. I am aware that I look a hot mess. It was cold and I didn't care. 

Technically, Halloween and my first half marathon happened in October as well, but those will have to wait for the next post. 

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...