Carefree weekend

You know those weekends that you can't remember everything that you did, but you know it was a lot of fun?  My cheeks are sore from laughing and giggling so much over the weekend and it's a wonderful feeling.  Laugh lines are about the only thing that show my age.

Stocking up on bright colored running gear - Check!

Quality times with the hubs - Check!

Grilling outside - Check!

Silly Boston Terriers - Check!

Gorgeous flowers - Check!

Pinkness overload - Check!

Monday came too soon - CHECK!!!

Where does the time go?

Last April one of my friends went into labor a month early.  It was a tense time where emotions were mixed between being deliriously happy for her and being extremely worried that her little guy would be okay being four weeks premature.

5lbs and 9 ounces later he came screaming into this world.  While his feet might have not initially fit in his socks because he was so tiny, his footprint has been gigantic into the hearts of those around him.


I'm not even a mom and I can't comprehend all the magic that has happened over the past year.  Where did this little guy go?  This guy who had an emergency return trip to hospital because he was so little?  The same tiny guy who didn't fit in any newborn clothes because they were too big?  The same guy who wasn't allowed to have any visitors who had any type of a cold because his wee little immune system couldn't handle it.

Seriously, where did he go?

Right before he was born my friend asked me if I would mind taking a few photos of him from time to time.  Well, that turned into taking formal pictures of him every three months.  His first birthday party was this past weekend and it was insane to see pictures from his first week, first month, three months, six months, and nine months lined up along a single table.  You could see his little features grow into the adorable kid that he is now.  You know, the little guy with teeth running and crawling around the party like a wild man.

I made a gigantic cupcake for him for his smash cake. No worries, I used a gluten free recipe and sugar free frosting!  Okay, there's probably sugar in the sprinkles, don't judge me!

Instead of a little baby there's a mini person there!  This guy has personality. He has teeth! He makes funny faces! 

He's inquisitive! 

 He can mash and throw cake! 

Did I mention he's spunky? That little guy has grown up and quick! He's wearing 18 - 24 month old clothes now and he's going to be tall just like his daddy, but with his mom's adorable and curly blonde hair. 

It's mind boggling. When I'm finally lucky enough to have a kid I'm going to want to take a picture of them every single day so I can track the changes in their faces, in their hands, heck even in their feet!



The hubs was under full knowledge that there was going to be lots of cute and adorable kids at the party.  I don't think he had any idea that there was going to be a ginger baby with chubby thighs that just happened to have the hubs icy blue eyes.  Seriously, we could have taken that kid home and totally passed him off as our own.

This was the first little kid's birthday party that wasn't for a family member. I've never spent so much time around a kid that I wasn't directly related to and it's been amazing. We've officially entered the stage in our lives where we have more baby/kid related events than wedding events.  Instead of having a kitchen plastered with Save The Dates we've got cute baby pictures every where we look.  I have another baby shower to attend this weekend.


I just hope that by time the hubs and I join the baby parade all of these cutie pies in our lives will still want to play with our baby.  Hopefully, ginger haired and all :)

Photo of the week: March 27, 2012

I'm definitely a few weeks behind on photo of the week postings. I hope to catch up soon!

Here's a photo of a cruise ship going past my hotel room while I was down in San Juan a few weeks ago.

Exposure - 1.6

Aperture - f/5.6

ISO - 400

This was a hard shot to take because it was at night, my camera was fogging up from the humidity, I didn't have a tripod, and the boat was moving. However, out of the few pictures I took I think this one came out the best. I could have zoomed in closer, but I then I would have lost the waves crashing in the foreground. Night photography is something I definitely need to get better at!

This was a lot of fun because I had to use my manual focusing rather than auto focusing. That was definitely a challenge with a moving boat.

Cherry Blossom 10 Miler: 2012 Edition

As usual I look like a hideous freak in all of my on-course photos! It's the curse that never ends!!! The only decent photo is from the pre-race when I was making my way over to the start line.

On Sunday I met up with 15,000 runners in our nation's capital to run the 40th edition of the Cherry Blossom festival. I don't know what the final breakdown was on the 10 miler runners versus the 5k runners, but it was a ton of runners!

As usual, it was a girls weekend with my bestie, B. We really do need to find a hobby that doesn't include waking up well prior to the crack of dawn, physical pain, and sheer exhaustion. We picked up food from Whole Foods, watched Like Crazy, and gossiped :)

We also got me fitted for some new kicks on Saturday at B's running store. I've made the switch to Saucony Glide 5 and did what you're never supposed to do when making a switch to a new shoe - I raced in it the very next day.

Whoops!

I wanted to run 8:45 miles for this race, yet I committed another deadly running mistake and went out too fast. B and I got separated prior to the start of the race and then when the wave that we were both in walked up to the start I saw her ahead of me. Like an idiot I tried to catch up to her so that I could say, "see you later!" Dumb move on my part. I did feel strong during the first half of the race and actually had to keep reminding myself to pull it back. I looked down at my watch during mile 4 and saw that I was doing a 7:40 mile and I really had to focus on slowing it down.

Here's my splits for the day. I'm happy with the splits, I just wish they would have been in a different order. I would have loved to have that 8:04 mile be around miles 7-9. I think my mile times definitely came down in the second half of the race because that's when I started to stop to take water and I still have to walk through the water stops in order to get any water down. I'm defective that way.

Post-race B and I met up with some of her running group friends. I was psyched because I wasn't the slowest person in the group! I've meet her running group a few times in the past and it was actually really cool during the race because we would cheer for each other. That was a new experience and I rather enjoyed it.

B freaking killed it during the race! She ran 7:45 miles, which is awesome.

Of course, my bestie freaking loves pink and worse, loves to throw it in my face. I hate the color pink. I figured B would have given me crap when I got fitted on Saturday and the salesperson put me in a pair of pink Sauncony's. I told her they were comfortable, but there was no way I was walking out the door with them in that color. B just snickered.

In case you couldn't tell, my leg is the pale one on the right!

It might just be that my giant feet don't look good in pink. B's freakishly small feet can pull off the bright colors, but mine just can't.

I'm extremely happy that the Cherry Blossom organizers re-worked the lottery this year and made the change that if a runner had been shutout by the lottery in the previous two years that mean the runner gained automatic entry into this year's race. That's how I got in! I'm excited because that hopefully should mean that I'm guaranteed to run the Cherry Blossom every few years.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the weekend played out. I got to spend some quality time with my bestie, ran faster than I wanted to, and most importantly I got all the bad ju-ju out of my beloved 2011 Baltimore Half Marathon Shirt. That shirt is perfect to race in and I'm glad to have it back in my racing attire.

Anyone else run the Cherry Blossom?