Happy Birthday to Me!.....and.....BIG NEWS!

I last wrote a week and a half ago that I woke up in a great mood, and there was a very specific reason for that.   That wonderful Friday morning at 6AM I found out that I was....

Can you believe it????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   I knew that May was my favorite month for a reason!!!

Here's how it all went down.  Mike got up for work at 5:30 like always and I layed there in bed pretending to be asleep.  I had already decided the night before that if I woke up and still didn't have my period I was going to take a pregnancy test.  Friday was Day 30 of my slightly irregular schedule, so I figured it was late enough to give it a try.  I wasn't expecting anything though, so I waited for Mike to leave because I was sure it would look the same as all of the others.  But it didn't!!!!  I saw that plus sign and I was too stunned to move for a second.  I thought if I so much as blinked it would disappear.  But it didn't!!!  (The test above was a different brand that I used the following Monday, just to be sure.  After I took tests on Saturday and Sunday too of course!  Haha!)   Here is the original test that I took.

So, the line was kind of faint on this one, but make no mistake, it was the first hint of anything positive I've ever seen!  I was beyond elated!  I can't even describe the feeling.  Here is a pic of me right after I found out. 

I was home alone, so it was one of those take a picture of yourself things.  But I had to capture the moment, home alone or not. 

Next up, I called Mike while he was driving to work and delivered the good news.  No cute delivery of the message or anything like that.  I was too excited for that; I just blurted it out!  And he was so excited too, which was awseome.   So I proceeded on with my day trying to think about anything else, but let me tell you it was NOT easy (or very successful!).  I didn't blog about it on that day, because I wanted to keep the news to ourselves for a little while.  Not that that worked either.  I pretty much immediately called my sister and told her.  She was screaming and saying how excited she was for us too, which I loved!  Then when I thought about it today, I thought "Why not post about it?"  The only two people that know about this blog are my husband and my sister, and those were the first two people to hear the news! 

Mike and I left for Asheville after he got home from work and here is a pic of us in the car on the day we found out I was pregnant.

Not the greatest picture (especially of me, eww), but it's the only one we have of both of us from that day.

I brought some extra pregnacy tests along on the trip because the faintness of the positve line made me nervous (I know, I know, paranoid much?)  I mean there are three in a pack, so you should use all three just to be sure right??  That was my rationale anyway.  Haha!  So I took one Saturday and I got positive result number....

And then again on Sunday, for positive result number...

 We went to Asheville with the same couple that we went to Nashville with, and the girl kept asking me if I thought I was pregnant.  I wasn't drinking, but then again, I never really did during the two weeks a month that it was possible I might be pregnant.  I stayed strong and didn't tell her....until the last day of vacation (Monday).   I just couldn't hold it in any longer!  Plus, she is one of the very few people who knew that Mike and I were trying.   I didn't tell her about our fertility struggle until February, but I definitely unloaded on her then.  The fact that we had "only" been trying for 7 months might not make it a fertility issue by the books, but it definitely was to us.  She knew about all of the discouraging months we've had since last June, and I think that made me even more excited to share the news with her.  She was sooooo excited for us, and wanted to talk about it nonstop, which was fine by me!

Mike and I ran the Biltmore 15K on Sunday morning, which was really a beautiful course.  I have never done the 15K distance before, and it was great because it is around mile 9 of a half marathon that I start to get tired.  Mike didn't want me to run it because we already knew I was pregnant at this point (but we hadn't told my friend yet).  He thought it wasn't good for me, blah blah blah.  But he gave up after I told him that I promised to be careful, and I was gonna just stay with him and run/walk.  I promised that I would listen to my body and walk when I was getting too out of breath.  I did, and it was fine, but it was tougher than I thought it would be to walk during a race.  It's all a mental game, and I have had it engrained in my head since high school that during a race (or any run for that matter) walking is NOT an option.  But I wasn't gonna let my crazy head keep me from doing the healthy thing for my baby.  So I ran/walked the race, and Mike and I stayed together the whole time which was nice for a change.  I normally blow him out of the water on the long races, haha!  Here's Mike before the race started.  Remember how much he LOVES getting up early to run.

And here we are together....

Looking a little perkier at this point!

So, all in all it was a fun weekend in Asheville.  On the ride home I wanted Mike to stop at a Barnes and Noble so I could get some pregancy books, because we all know how much I love when I have something to study up on.  But he refused, and said I could wait until we got home.  I told him that the three hour car ride was the perfect time to start reading up on things, and he countered by telling me that I had 9 months to read up on things.  Humpf.  Cruel I tell you.  So all of 5 minutes after we got home I got back in the car and hit up Rite Aid for just one more box of pregnnancy tests (a different brand this time of course) and then Borders for some reading material.  

My next post will be about my books and what I think of them, as well as some of the symptoms I've been experiencing so far.  I am currently 5 weeks and 6 days pregnant, and I plan to write in this blog least once a week throughout my pregancy with what I've been feeling and going through that week.  Until then I will leave you with a few more gems.  I was picture happy I know.  Can you blame me??

You can see in the second picture that the inital test that I took had more of a faint positive line, and as the days went on it became more distinct!  Monday when we got back I bought the Clear Blue tests and took one that day and the next one this past Sunday.  So all in all I have taken 5 pregnacy tests since Friday May 14th, and gotten 5 positive results!  Mike and I are through the moon with excitement!!!  Happy Birthday to me!  Date night dinner and a movie with my hubby tonight!   Yay!

Broad Street Bound

The Philly Broad Street Run.  It's the biggest 10 mile race in the country with 30,000 runners, and my sister was signed up to run it this year!  It was the first weekend in May, and I had no plans so I bought a plane ticket and decided to head to Philly to cheer her on.  I haven't been on the sidelines of a race in a long time, and I thought it would be fun.  Wellllll, then a few days before the big race I get a text from her saying that one of her friends bailed, and would I take his place and run it with her?  So, of course, I said yes.  Secretly I'd much rather run than be on the sidelines anyway!

So that Friday morning I flew up and she picked me up at the airport.  Her first Friday off as a part time accountant!  That was a big step for her, becoming part time in accounting to make more time for photography.  So, she picked me up and little did I know, I was in for a full day in the car.  First we picked up our race packets, which, let me just say, was a chaotic mess.  The room that they had it in was NOT big enough to accomodate that many people.  The only good part was the free Dunkin Donuts samples while we waited in line.  Anyway, then we met my best friend in Kutztown for lunch so her and Tina could talk "branding".  Then we headed out for a nice little 3 hour car trip to South Jersey for a photoshoot.  Finally, home to Philly for some sushi!  Yum! 

Then on Saturday we lounged around a lot before heading into the city to go to a Phillies game that a high school friend got us tickets for.  It was a gorgeous day and we had a blast.

We both bought these sunglasses the day before at the expo!

How good were our seats?

We finished off Saturday with the obligatory pre race pasta dinner at Bertucci's with Mom, Sarah, and J.  Delicious as always!

So that brings us to race day.  My job was to take pictures and video along the way, and I took my job seriously.  I think I took 11 videos and who knows how many pics.  Tina was sooo over my picture/video taking by the end.  But she told me to do it, so I obliged.   Haha.  Here are some shots from the day.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the race shirts were the ugliest thing EVER??  Oatmeal and purple....seriously?

Tina promptly threw hers out and traded it in for this...

Note my I-Fitness belt.  Some may call it a fanny pack, but I love that thing.

The beginning...talk about crowded!

Go Bean and Sarah!  Still feeling good at this point....

This run was pretty cool, because you ran from one side of the city to the other, on Broad Street the whole time.  It started in North Philly by Temple, went through Center City, and ended in South Philly.

The crowd heading toward Center City

It was HOT on this day, so the city opened up the fire hydrants along the way for runners to cool off.

Halfway point!  We made it to Center City!

One more mile!  The end is in sight!

We did it!  The three of us stuck together the whole time, and I am so proud of these two.  It was the furthest they have ever run and they never gave up, despite the heat.  Congrats girls!  You should be proud!

Mom came out to support us!  Too bad she missed us finish...despite the fact that we saw her and were calling her name!  Haha!  Poor mom and her bum leg.

View back to the city on our way to the car.  Man, we just ran twice that distance!

I had a great time in Philly that weekend!  It's always fun hanging out with my sis, and it always makes me wish I lived closer so we could hang out more often.  She is my best friend and I miss seeing her on a regular basis.  But alas, she has her life in Philly, and I have mine in NC.  Someday maybe, we'll live closer to each other. We'll see.....

It's a Beautiful Day!

Woke up in a great mood today!  We're heading to Asheville with some friends for the weekend to run a 15K on Sunday.  I'm so excited to go!  But first I wanted to write a new post with some of the things that I've done over the past 2 months (besides racing that is).

Mike and I had a St. Patty's Day party at our house, which was a blast.  One thing about us is that we love having people over.  We'll use any excuse to have a party, small or large.  Our house is really conducive to parties, especially in the warm weather because of our large deck in the back.  It is a three tiered deck with a hot tub on the top tier!  We had the deck redone and added the hot tub this past summer, and we love it!!  Then, of course the kegerator in the garage doesn't hurt the party atmosphere either.  

Went home to PA for Easter and tagged along with my sis on a photoshoot of the blooming trees in the Parkway.  I like to think that I "helped", but I think I was just keeping her company.

I hung out with my adorable kitty when I went home too.  Mike gave her to me when I had just graduated college and I was lonely in DC.  She was great company, but after several years my allergies to her were getting worse and worse, so my mom adopted her.  Thank goodness!  I still get to see my little Kayla whenever I go home.

Daisy and I did a 3K dog walk in April with some friends and their dogs.  Mind you, I took Daisy on a 6 mile run BEFORE this dog walk, thinking that I would tire her out and she'd be semi-calm.  Ha, what a joke.  She was her usual wild self (as you can tell from the pic!).

Mike and I went rollerskating (yes, rollerskating) with some friends from work on a random Wednesday in April.  So fun!  I have not been rollerskating probably since.... ohhh sixth grade.  But it was fun to do something different.  And there are definitely some interesting people at a roller rink.  We'll leave it at that.

I also went to a wine tasting festival in Raleigh with some friends from work in April.  Gotta love quality time with your girls and some wine!

And last, but not least.....Nashville!  We were loving all of the bars on Broadway downtown. 

Like this sign for example.  Inappropriate?...Yes.  Hilarious?... Absolutely!

So, I'll leave it at that for my conclusion of March/April.  Next post...Philly Broad Street Run recap!  Off for a quick run, and then packing for Asheville!  Happy Friday!

Back on the Blogging Saddle!

Man, it really has been forever since I've posted anything.  I'm gonna blame it on the fabulous spring weather and the crazy amounts of races I've been doing lately.  Let's see... I had a St. Patty's Day race in the beginning of March, a 5K at the end of March, a half marathon at the end of April, an impromptu 10 miler at the beginning of May, and then I have a 15K this weekend and then another 5K in the middle of June.  Whew!  That is a lot of racing for this little girl.  But I really love it, and I've been feeling so good lately!  Keeping up with Body Pump twice a week and then running about 3-4 times a week.  I'm pretty proud of myself, I'll admit :)  Here's a recap of my races.

St. Patty's Day Run:  Here was my outfit for the race.

And you can't really see it, but there was a little picture of Kermit the Frog on the corner of my pants and it says "It's not easy being green".  I loved that!  This run was an 8k, which is a distance I haven't done before.  I really liked it, but this course in downtown Raleigh kicked my ass.  Very hilly, and hills are my definite downfall.  But Mike and I finished in a respectable 46 minutes, so I was happy with that.  And I was even happier with the good times at the bar with our friends afterwards :)

Next up was a 5K in Raleigh at the end of March.  I ran this with a friend from work, and we did it in 25:28!  That is my best 5K time since high school!  It was really cool, because we both got second place in our age groups!!  My friend who worked the event called me afterward to tell me that I got second place in my age group and he had a gift certificate to give me.  Are you serious???  I have NEVER placed in a race since high school, and I must admit it felt damn good!  No pics from that race unfortunately.  It was unseasonably cold that morning and maybe that's why we were so quick....we just wanted to finish it as fast as possible!

Then came one of my favorite races to date so far.  The Nashville Country Music Rock and Roll Half Marathon.  I loved loved loved this race!!  Mike and I and another couple went to Nashville for a few days and all four of us were gonna run this race, which was fun because the other couple hadn't ever run a half marathon before.  Nashville is a great city and I truly had a blast there.  Fun bars with great live music and no cover charge....does it get any better?  I think not. 

Anyway, on Friday we went to the expo and picked up our packets, which was pretty cool.  Very organized for an expo for 32,000 runners.  It didn't take long at all to get our numbers, and everything was alphabetical by last name, which was nice. 

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I had a slight mishap with my ankle on Thursday night (race day in T-minus 36 hours at this point).  Walking back to the hotel from the bar in my high heel wedges and I stepped off the curb (Ok, I may have danced off the curb, but whatever.), and my ankle rolled.  It definitely hurt and I began to panic that I wouldn't be able to run on Saturday morning.  All I kept thinking was that after all of these months of training, and being in the best shape I've been in in a loooong time, I sure as hell better be able to run this race.  Or shit was gonna hit the fan.  So I iced it on Thursday night and Friday at the expo they had people that were wrapping knees and ankles, so I got it wrapped.  I really think it helped because I was able to run with no problem, thank goodness!  The injury obviously wasn't that bad to begin with, because I could barely feel it anymore on race morning.  Let me tell you though, that ankle tape was looking (and smelling) pretty rough by Sunday night when I finally took it off. 

So anyway, we are all laying in bed on Friday night before the race and this obnoxious alarm starts going off throughout the hotel.  Everyone went out in the hall and no one knew what was going on.  All we could think of was "Crap, is this a tornado alarm?"  Because all day we had been hearing about the tornado watch for Saturday morning.  The weather was supposed to be horrendous for the later part of the race.  So bad, in fact, that if you were doing the full marathon, and you weren't on point to complete it in 4:30, they were going to divert you to the half at mile 11.2.  How much would that suck??  You have been training for months for this, and just because you aren't some Olympic caliber athlete, you can't complete the race?  I felt so bad for those people.

Mike at 4:45 AM race morning.  Can't you just feel his excitement?  Haha.

I was the drill sergeant this morning to keep everyone on time.  I got up 5 minutes before everyone else and got the coffee started.  I made sure my outfit and everything I needed was nicely layed out the night before, so that I didn't have to worry about forgetting anything.  I woke up happy and excited, because like I said, I love this!  There were shuttles from the finish line to the start line and our hotel was only about a mile from the finish line, so we decided to walk there to avoid all of the traffic (Excellent idea, as the line of traffic was intense.  I really think we were walking faster than the cars were moving.)  The last shuttle left at 6AM and I wanted to make sure we were there in plenty of time, so I told everyone the night before "This train leaves at 5:15.  You can come with me or come later if you want, but I am leaving no later than 5:15."  Just wanted to put it out there, you know.  But I give our group props, because they were ready and we were gone at 5:15.  I was pleasantly surprised.

We all started together in corral #16, which was the 2:15 pace group.  Our friends were originally in a slower corral and I was originally in a faster one, but we all wanted to start together, so we started in Mike's corral.  Looking back on it, if I was really looking to push harder, I think I'd stay in my original spot.  It was kind of hard weaving around people, but I do have to say that it felt good to be passing people the whole time instead of the other way around! 

There were a lot of people in front of us, and ....

a lot of people behind us. 

It's almost our turn!

Here we go!

Saw this sign at about mile 9...great motivator!

I did it! A PR by 2 and a half minutes!  Next goal...you got it.  Under 2!

Official time: 2:02:20!

Found him!  He finished in 2:20:59, and he didn't have to walk at all which was awesome!

So proud of us!!

The medal!

I had such a fantastic time in Nashville!  I just can't say enough about it.  The course was great, the spectators and volunteers were awesome, annnnnd...the weather held out for us, thank goodness!  I waited for my friend to finish, and when we were about a block from our hotel it started to rain.  Perfect timing (for us anyway....poor marathoners!)  Then we all proceeded to take a 4 hour nap before heading out on town for our last night.   All in all a great trip!

So I think that is enough for one post.  I'll blog on my impromptu 10 mile race and some of the other random things I've done over the past 2 months in my next post.

But let me conclude with saying that May is one of my absolute favorite months (and no, not just because my birthday and my anniversary happen to fall this month!).  There are so many reasons to love the month of May:

The cold weather is finally gone for good ! 

Spring is here!

Summer is just around the corner!

Pools open May 1st!

First beach trip is usually in May (if not April!)

Picnics and barbecues!

Flowers!

Finally getting to see your neighbors again after months of hibernating!

Running outside without the misery of being freezing for the first 15 minutes!

Outdoor concerts!

And last but definitely not least.....Strawberry season!!!  There is nothing better than fresh picked strawberries to put a smile on your face every time!

This was my breakfast this morning! 

Cheers to the wonderful month of May in good ole' North Carolina!

Runnin' on Empty

Last week I was a complete slacker with my working out at the beginning of the week thanks to a St. Patty's Day party at our house on Saturday night, which inevitiably took me days to recover from.  Damn that keg of Dogfish Head.  So my brilliant self decided to make up for it at the end of the week, and now my legs are officially dead tired.  Here's my workout schedule from last week.

Sunday- recovering from Saturday night

Monday- still recovering

Tuesday - ?still recovering....or just lazy

Wednesday- run 4 miles with Mike and Daisy, and 1 hour body pump.  My half-ass attempt to stick with my training schedule went like this: 
Schedule: jog 15 minutes, then run 1 mile at "push it" pace, jog for 2 minutes; repeat speedy mile/recovery combo for total of 3 times, then jog 15 minutes. 
My actual workout looked like this:  Jog 5 minutes; fast mile/recovery combo x2 (we couldn't possibly drag our asses for a third fast mile), then jog until we reached our 4 mile goal.  Blah.  Not what I was hoping for.

Thursday - slackin' again

Friday- Run 5 miles with Mike and Daisy.  Again, couldn't maintain the schedule. 
Schedule: Jog 15 minutes, then run at the fastest pace you can maintain for 4 miles, then jog for 15 minutes
Actual: Jog 5 minutes, attempted to keep decent pace for 2 miles, then couldn't even trick myself into believing we were still keeping up any sort of "fast pace" anymore as I drug myself through the last 2+ miles.  My legs felt like lead and i was literally not sure if I could complete this 5 mile run.  What is wrong with me this week???  Let me just rant for a minute.  First of all, I like this training plan that I'm working with, but seriously, jog 15 min at the beginning and 15 min at the end?  Thats's a full half hour... of just warm up and cool down.  Puh-lease.  Not gonna happen.  It's hard enough for me to just get the workout in; I'm not about to throw in an extra half hour of warm up/cool down.  Which brings me to my next point....  Now I'm sore.  Lack of warm up/cool down, you say?  Don't get me started.  Moving on.


Saturday- Thought maybe I'd redeem myself and pound out a nice, strong 8 miler.  Never mind that I haven't run 8 miles in one clip in literally a year.  No problem, right?  Wroooong, oh so wrong.  My eight miles of misery looked something like this: 

Started out with Daisy in the neighborhood and all is well. 

About a mile and a half later we arrive at the Greenway where Daisy decides it's a free for all.  She's pulling me in every direction.  It's hot and she won't drink from my water bottle (P.S. coming from a girl who never carries a water bottle...Damn, those things get heavy when you're carrying them for 8 miles!). 

I decide I'm gonna let her get a drink from the creek. 

She notices that we're going in that direction and flies like a bat out of hell, which causes me to have to make a split second decision:  face plant into the creek or...let go of the leash.  Sigh, I picked the latter.

She proceeds to go tearing around with her leash flapping behind her in the creek/mud.  Does she come when I call her?  Of course not; this is all a fun game.  I'm not laughing.  In fact, I'm tempted to just keep running at this point and leave her to her games.  But alas, I call Mike in a rage telling him to come and get HIS dog, because she's a nuisance and an embarassment...and a muddy mess. 

So I manage to step on her leash as she's flying past me and grab her to start heading back to the beginning of the Greenway where Mike will pick her up. 

She conveniently picks this time to shake her mud all over me.  Thanks dog, that just added to the delightful feelings I have toward you at this moment. 

We head back, and once Mike is in view I promptly hand over our wet, muddy, piss ant of a dog and proceed on my way.  I am only 3.5 miles in at this point, mind you. 

As soon as Mike and Daisy are out of sight I have to run up a long, steep hill.  I huff and puff, and shuffle my way to the top of that hill (looking like an 80 year old lady at this point...and not even caring). 

Jog another few minutes, and once my Nike plus lady says I've completed 5 miles I stop and walk for a minute to have my Gu.  Oh, did I say a minute?  Oops, that was the plan, not reality.  Walked for a good 5 minutes while I ate my Gu and drank way too much water.  Yay me.  I did feel better after the Gu though.  Is it all in my head that those Gu things work?  Perhaps, but it helped nonetheless. 

So I powered through miles 6 and 7 ("powered through" with times of 10:10 and 10:30.  Ha! I told you it was rough!) 

Slugged out the last mile and I am done.  An hour and 35 minutes later.  What a joke. 

So there you have it.  My workout week.  A sad state of affairs if I do say so myself.  Blah.  Then yesterday I did an hour of body pump followed by an hour of zumba.  If only there was a video camera...but thank goodness there wasn't.  Me doing salsa, hip hop, etc, was a sight for sore eyes I'm sure.  But I did it with a friend and it was our first time, so we just had fun with it.  I would try zumba again.  It's pretty much just dancing around to fun music, and it's a different (albeit, amusing) way to get your cardio in. 

Now it's Monday, and my knees are screaming "Give us a break!!".  They are definitely sore, so I'm going to be smart and just rest and ice today.  That's hard to do when you have a "training plan" that you're trying to follow.  I'm one of those people that is do or die with the training plans.  I do it if I'm sick or tired or sore.  And I think after all these years I've finally learned that that is not the way to train.  I need to listen to my body and what my body is telling me.  Mine is politely telling me (or, like I said, screaming at me) to lay off the working out for a day.  So for once in my life, I'm going to listen.  Training plan be damned, my body has it's own plan!

Here we go again...

Alright, so in my first entries I mentioned (or perhaps droned on and on about) my questionable fertility issues, and by the end of 2009 that was a big stressor for me.  Then Mike and I took a break for these last few months, which I knew was neccessary to keep me sane.  I feel soooo much better about the whole thing now than I did then, and we are at a place where we are going to start trying again.  I didn't want to be pregnant and due right around my sister's wedding, so we decided to take the winter "off" from trying.  Well, now spring has sprung... 

I had an appointment with a new ob/gyn today, which I booked as my yearly exam.  Well, it hasn't been a year since my last one, so insurance wouldn't cover that.  Therefore we changed the name of the appointment to...fertility consult.  Scary.  I thought I would just pop in for my appointment and then casually mention that we were trying to get pregnant and see if the doc had any tips.  Not so much.  No exam...just a "fertility consult".  For some reason those words made me so nervous as I was sitting in the exam room waiting for the doctor.  But it all worked out fine.  I really liked this doctor because she was so easy to talk to.  I told her that we had tried for about 7 months without success and she gave me some valuable advice and info.

Number one goal for me is: don't stress!  That was a big problem last time, which I know.  She recommended not taking ovulation tests and making it such a chore.  Just relax, listen to your body and enjoy the process.  So that is what I'm going to do.  No, really, I am.  Also, after this next half marathon, I'm gonna cut back on my running mileage, because that may be affecting my ovulation.  My frequent switching between night and day shift at work probably affects it too, but there is not a whole lot that I can do about that except try to sign up for more day shifts.  Before I left the office I also got blood drawn for rubella titers, thyroid levels, and prolactin levels.  My cycle isn't entirely regular (anywhere from 25-36 days), so they wanted to check my levels to see if there is a reason for my slight irregularity.  She also mentioned that with my longer cycles of 35 days I probably didn't ovulate at all those months, which I didn't know.   She then said that even if I did ovulate on some of those months, the egg was probably pretty puny and not likely to get fertilized.  Probably 1/3 of my cycles are about 35 days, and if I don't ovulate in those cycles, then my chances of getting pregnant were smaller than I thought.   Sounds scary when I write that, but oddly this info comforts me.  Because I know what I can do to try to fix it.  Decrease stress, decrease running mileage, more consistent schedule...  So I am excited to try all of these things and see where we end up. 

So we'll see.  But all in all I truly feel a lot better about the whole thing now than I did three months ago.  My doc told me to just relax for the next six months while trying and if I'm still not pregnant, then I'll go back and talk to her again and go from there.  We have every reason to believe there is no problem though.  Mike and I are both healthy and young, and we have no family history of infertility or disease.  So, here we go again... but this time I'm determined to enjoy the ride!

Florida....Sun?

I got back last week from my annual trip to the east coast of Florida to visit my grandparents, and it was wonderful and relaxing, as always.  It was also not great weather.....as always.  I know this year the weather in Florida has been unusually cold, but it's nothing new for my mom and I.  We always joke that the bad weather down there waits for us to get there.  They often get a "cold snap" or it rains (or both!) when we go down to visit.  It used to be so annoying, but now we just laugh about it.  We have fun down there no matter what, and now we say if it happens to be good weather, then that's just an added bonus.  We are in Florida, hanging out with family, and not working...that's what we came for, and that's what matter the most; not the weather.  Here are some shots from our trip.

The view from my grandparent's balcony (note the shuffleboard at the bottom...love it!)

The four of us at Animal Kingdom  (all wearing coats...we are in Florida for crying out loud!)

Loved the gorillas!

How beautiful!

They had this new Mt. Everest "roller coaster" that was definitely fun!  Nothing crazy as far as roller coasters go, but I liked it....and Mom tolerated it.

Like our shades?  Mom and I getting ready for the "Bug Eyed" 3D show

Yay!  We got one day out of the seven that we were there where it was warm enough to lay on the beach

We had a great trip all in all.  We watched the Olympics, visited with my Mom's Aunt and Uncle, went to Animal Kingdom, had some good seafood, went to the beach (even if only once), and mom and I worked out diligently.  Now this last one is nothing new for my mother (my sister and I affectionately call her the Workout Nazi), but as we all know it's a hit or miss for me.  Mom pointed out that last year I didn't work out with her at all in Florida.  Not once.  Well, this year I stepped it up a notch.  Truly, I feel so much better these days.  I'm running faster and feeling stronger and more energetic.  Here was our workout schedule for the week:

Thursday: Run 4 miles

Saturday: Ran 6 miles and 10 minute total body workout from a magazine

Sunday: Ran 30 minutes and did 100 crunches

Monday: Ran 4 miles with 4 30 second strides (pretty fast pace)

Tuesday: Fitness magazine strength exercises and ran the stairs at the condo

Wednesday: Ran 30 minutes with 2 miles at a quicker "race" pace (had a PR of 8:37 for one of the miles!)

Not bad huh?  And Mom did all of these workouts with me, which helps a lot.  The only day that we didn't work out was Friday, and that was because we were walking around Animal Kingdom all day.  I found a half-marathon plan in Fitness magazine that I liked and I'm going to try to stick with this plan as much as possible.  I want to try to get faster, and this plan incorporates speed work, which the previous training plan that I've used did not.  I am definitely faster than I've been since high school and that feels great! 

So another trip to Florida came to a close.  Mom and I had a great time, and hopefully some year soon my sis can come!  She is an accountant and can't take vacations during busy season, but she's trying to veer away from accounting and into photography, so someday we hope she'll join us for our annual trip to Florida!  Ta ta for now!