Holiday Season 2016

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season! After many holiday parties and festivities, I got off work on December 16th with two glorious weeks off! It is my favorite break of the year, so I had to celebrate accordingly.

Therefore....I went on a cruise to the Caribbean! My sister in law and I went out of Fort Lauderdale via Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas for a relaxing 6 day adventure.

Grand Cayman Island

Costa Maya, Mexico 

Cozumel, Mexico

I lounged A LOT, got a lot of sun, played a lot of trivia , ate a lot of food and read a lot of (3) books!

Then I spent Christmas with my favorite niece, June!

We snuggled a lot...

Since then, I have visited some friends, met a lot of babies, watched TV, run and will be enjoying a low key New Years! Get ready for my year end book list coming tomorrow!

#Thankful

I am so sad the long Thanksgiving weekend is over! It was full of family, food, drinks, games, running and fun! Here is a snapshot of some of the events...

After a leisurely morning/afternoon on Wednesday (I love how we get the day off work), I picked up my new kitten! And ,no, she still does not have a name. I am simply calling her "baby cat."

Still no name!!! She got so much love from her family over Thanksgiving!

Then on Thanksgiving morning, my siblings and I ran our annual Turkey Trot 10k! It was hilly, but I did a course PR and the course is beautiful. However, every year I do this race I am always surprised at how hilly it actually is...I need to remember this better.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out, eating and playing cards/doing tequila shots:)

Friday was gorgeous, so we did a walk along the river and into Belle Isle. We also went to Triple Crossing Brewery and an awesome dinner place called Family Meal before going home and playing more cards and taking more tequila shots...

Saturday was full of football and small business Saturday, and we even got started on our 2nd puzzle of the week. I think we are obsessed.

On Sunday I introduced my kitten to her big brother, Tony Romo, with limited luck and got to see my friend Emily's new baby!

High school friends!

As least Romo is staying in the room instead of running away...

The next few days will sure be an adventure in new kitten adjustment at my place (any tips?)! And the next few weeks are full of fun holiday events, and I am excited about being done with classes for the semester in a short 9 days (December 8th!) :) Hopefully work will go quickly this week, and I am entering it feeling very thankful for the wonderful people in my life! Too bad I did not sleep as much as I intended to...why does that always happen?

How was your Thanksgiving?

I'm Alive! And I did more traveling...

Hey there! How has August been going for you? I, once again, after a week and a half of actually working and doing normal life things, went away again for ten days! I just can't sit still in the summer:)

I went on an impromptu trip to NYC the first weekend of August to visit my friend Jessica, who is getting married later this month, because I had to miss her Bachelorette due to being in Alaska!

I took the train from Richmond-> NYC, which is about 6 hours and includes a pit stop in Union Station (D.C.) where we have enough time to get off and walk around. I love D.C.!

Right when I got to NYC, I saw that Gotham was filming by my friend's apartment! No celeb sightings, but it was very cool to see the set and this cool car. She lives right by Wall Street.

Amongst other things, we went and visited the new World Trade Center building and memorial. It was very moving and a completely different site from when I first visited in April 2002.

We had an awesome dinner for restaurant week at Park Ave Summer and saw this nice sunset with our drinks afterwards:)

On Saturday, after a great morning run along lower Manhattan (I haven't been to the financial area in a while, so it was fun to stay down there and explore-> she just moved there), we explored Brooklyn for the first time! We walked around and went to a great pizza place.

I got home from NYC on a Sunday night and headed to Duck (Outer Banks) the next morning! It was my dad's birthday! He celebrated like a boss.

The weather all week was perfect- low humidity and sunny. Such a nice treat for August! AND I got in all my training runs, including a 16-miler!

My friend and her kiddos came to visit for a few days:) We loved on baby Everett!

Friends for over 10 years!

We also did puzzles! Took us 3 days with 5 people contributing...

These sunsets over the sound NEVER get old...

 SERIOUSLY. I can't even.

I am coming to grips with the fact that my big summer travels are over, but I am trying to be optimistic about some fun weekend getaways and school getting underway. Classes at VCU start this week and teachers come back to work soon, so things will be back in full swing, which I am excited about. To me summer is all about traveling, so working has been hard, but once fall rolls around, I tend to enjoy normal life stuff a little more. I am looking forward to cooler weather on the horizon, too, and not having to do long training runs on my own:) Doing a 12, 14 and 16 miler without a training team was not as fun!

What have you been up to?! 

Chi-Town

I had a great weekend in Chicago! I would describe the city as very "livable." I love big cities, obviously NYC, D.C., and San Fran are some of my favs, but so many of them seem very hard to live in due to cost of living and jobs. Chicago didn't feel that way- it is very affordable, easy to get around, and super-clean! The weather was also great, so I didn't experience it in the dead of winter, but I think I could totally live there. It was a great weekend.

We landed from Dulles at about 10:30 on Friday and made our way to our Air B & B in Boystown on the El. Immediately we got organized and went back downtown and had Deep Dish Pizza. Priorities people. It was amazing!

Being touristy around Millenial Park and Michigan Ave. Notice that all the flowers and trees were just starting to bloom, so it was beautiful!

View of the city from the John Hancock building where we were in a bar on the 95th floor!

Pretty river! The Trump building is behind me in this picture- it is massive!

Our great brownstone from Air B & B! It makes you feel like you are more of a local than a hotel and it was fun to explore the neighborhood it was in and all the bars/restaurants nearby. It was also half a mile from Lincoln Park running trails along the lake! 

At the end of the night we went out to eat and I got a free donut from a local shop after having such a hard time deciding which one I wanted- I was PUMPED. I also was out until 1:30 AM Chicago time after having gotten up at 5:30 AM Virginia time...so needless to say I was tired!

Day 2 (Saturday) I was on my own as my bro and sis-in-law went to an EIGHT HOUR PLAY. Crazy, right? So after a great 5 mile run along the lake, I went back downtown for more exploring and the Chicago Art Institute! It was a HUGE museum (you could spend an entire weekend there), but I saw the main things and made my way through in a little over an hour. I am definitely a museum "walker" in that I don't stand and stare at stuff- I slowly walk through. The Impressionism rooms were great, and I saw a lot of famous paintings!

Then I ventured around the museum to a park and walked around.

Oh, and this thing called the NFL Draft was there all weekend?!

Guiliana and Bill Rancic's restaurant!

We stayed less than a mile from Wrigley Field. A game had just finished when I walked there so the streets were a mess of drunken people. It was awesome.

I ended the night with my group in a dive country western bar. It was ridiculous. And I stayed out until 4 AM! This was not my usual lifestyle, but I did it!

A $10 Polaroid from an old guy at the bar?! And me and my awesome bro!

Day 3 was a little more leisurely. I started my day off (late) with a run and then we went to brunch and explored some new areas. I tell ya, staying out late and getting up late really messes with my internal clock-> I felt "off" all weekend! Ha.

Harpo Studios!

Being silly waiting for the El after we had watched a guy modeling in the street outside a bar...

Nearby DePaul University and Lincoln Park Zoo

Just an awesome skyline!

We ended our last night at a cuban restaurant before flying out early Monday morning (the traffic at 6 AM getting to the airport was ridiculous-> we actually almost missed our flight due to that and the long security line. We had to run to the gate and boarded with less than 10 mins until pushback). But, it was an awesome weekend, and I am so glad I got to see Chicago. The food everywhere was great (especially deep dish pizza and Argo Tea-> we need to have that in Virginia)! Perhaps I can work there once I get my PhD....? :) We'll see!