Independence Weekend

Headed to Dewey Beach for what is quickly evolving into a yearly tradition for the July 4th weekend. Fireworks with Jill's family and lots of bar hopping again. Plus a weekend-long celebration of Gabe's 25th birthday!

Enjoy some Regina! "I've got a perfect body, but sometimes I forget.

I've got a perfect body cuz my eyelashes catch my sweat."

B+ 5K

Yesterday I ran the Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation for Pediatric Cancer Research's 5K race on SavannahStrong's team. SavannahStrong is an phrase created when Savannah Pauley was diagnosed with bone cancer in August 2008. Savannah passed away last September, but her memory and spirit live on through SavannahStrong. Jill and her family were the ones who introduced me to the group. I did some research and found out that while this little 10 year-old had cancer, she also raised over $6,500 for the Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation and raised $1,000 by asking for donations in lieu of gifts for her 10th birthday. She was quite an impressive little girl.

The race brought in over 2,300 runners and $110,000 for the B+ Foundation! It was perfect weather (sunny but not too hot) and a pretty decent course with a killer hill at about 2.5 miles. I clocked in at 22:36. I haven't run a race since college, and after having so much fun yesterday, I am ready to sign up for many more.

Sand in Our Toes, Love in the Air

Jill and Tommy were married on May 22 and I was lucky enough to be there to celebrate with them! It was a ton of fun and Jill looked BEAUTIFUL. This is my favorite picture from the whole day:

At the reception afterwards - Flip flops and sand - I couldn't have been happier!

Travel Buddies

On the day we left Key West from Jill's bachelorette extravaganza Becca and I had some time to bond. The other girls all left for the airport at 8am, but Becca and I didn't fly out until that evening. So we walked down to try to eat at this restaurant "Blue Heaven" that everyone raves about for breakfast. The wait was way too long though, so we settled for a place down the street, "Colombian Grace." It turned out to be delicious, fresh Colombian breakfast food. (They serve lunch and dinner as well.)

Our empty plates:
Deck seating...


And they serve the bill in this cool little box!
After our breakfast we did some shopping, talked about life and the pros and cons of natural childbirth (I'm sold), and had a poolside lunch. Finally we left for the airport, flew to Miami, and got stuck there for what seemed like days. I hate Miami International Airport with a passion. At least, I hated the part we were in. There was nothing worthwhile to eat, nowhere to really sit, and no shops! We settled on Pizza Hut (ew) and made some friends while we ate it. Becca met a couple, and I met this guy:

He works overseas for the government doing top secret stuff.

I loved him and asked him a lot of inappropriate questions that he couldn't answer because it was classified information. It was fun.

Becca and I also held our own airport yoga session to help stop the Pizza Hut grease from forming a death grip around our arteries.

People thought we were crazy.

So did my dad when he called and I said I couldn't talk because I was doing yoga at the gate. Notice I even had my ipod dock and an ipod filled with Yogamazing podcasts!
We finally made it home around 1am the next day.

Bachelorettes, Detour Signs, and Breast Pumps

A little over a month ago my friend Jill (my first real friend in Wilmington)and eight of her closest friends and female family members took a trip to Key West, Florida for her bachelorette party. Boy was it a party. Most of the extended weekend's events cannot (should not) be documented. But there are a few choice stories I would like to share.

1.) Breast Pumps. I was made to promise by Lauren (see her blog on right - Lauren and Julia) that if I did this certain thing, I would blog about it. So here it goes. Now, to really understand why there were even breast pumps involved in a bachelorette I should explain that Becca and Lauren both have new babies. They're both still pumping and apparently if you stop, the milk stops coming. So they had to "pump and dump" multiple times a day. I learned a lot about having kids that weekend. I know that I want a natural birth, and that I am nowhere near ready to actually have a baby yet!

Here's a picture of the moms:

Lauren is on the left, Becca on the right.

So after one of the crazy nights we went back to the room and the moms needed to pump. And then a few of us non-moms decided (after a night of drinking, obviously) that we wanted to try it. Let's just say that I did NOT like it, and I am NOT looking forward to feeding a kid via boob. Or via machine that was once on my boob. It's painful and scary.

I have a newfound respect for Becca and Lauren.

Other weekend activities included a bar scavenger hunt, laying at the pool, pin the junk on the hunk (where we ended up taking fun pictures of the "junk" - not to be posted here), and a nice sunset booze cruise.

Me and Kristen on the boat.

2.) Naked Statues. Right next to our hotel (The Westin) was a museum that had a bunch of giant, naked, dancing statues. Underneath them all was this guy, staring up at them. It was beyond bizarre. We took some great pictures with them, again, not to be posted here.

This is the creeper statue:

3.) Detour Signs. On the last night, most of the girls went to bed and then Jill, Lauren and Kristen ended up in a bar called "Hog's Breath." I thought I was tired and wanted to go to bed, until I decided it was time to dance! I ran out and met up with them where we proceeded to nickname the bartender "Thunderstrike," dance to the cover band, and steal a detour sign.

This is Jill in her Scavenger hunt T-shirt, attempt number one at stealing the sign:

It took all four of us, but we got that thing about 5 blocks back to, you guessed it, the statues:

Definitely one of the most fun bachelorette parties I've had so far!