Good Day

I never remember to blog, but I had to write a little something about my day yesterday. I am a pretty new runner, but I run just under 5 kilometers 3 days a week, and yesterday we made our best time ever...25minutes, 43 seconds. Very exciting! Also, I have had a leaking, totally rusted disposal in my sink (garbarator for my Canadian friends/relatives...really, does "garbage disposal make ANY sense? Is food garbage?) for quite a while, so I bit the bullet and bought a new one and installed it myself. I may have had some very frustrating moments, and I was shocked that I had to actually connect the cord to the wires on the unit, but I did it, and it works, and nothing leaks, and my kitchen won't stink anymore! It was a proud moment! :)

Good-byes

Gainesville has been an awesome place to live, with a major drawback...this time of year a lot of people finish their school or training or whatever and move away! We have had many goodbye get togethers lately, and it is pretty sad...
We had a goodbye "tea" for the members of the Rx group moving on: Sandra, Heather, Janene, Aimee and Stuart. Julie did such a great job, the black, white and pink theme was so cute!

 

This wasn't really a good-bye, but I am including it anyway...it turned out to be a sort of birthday get together for me. :)

 

A goodbye potluck for the Smith families and Parry's, amazing pictures courtesy of Gretchen...

 

 

We went to an indian restaurant earlier this week to say goodbye to Rachel, who left today! :(

 

The Halls are also leaving the end of this month, so we said goodbye to them this week as well!

 

The Smith boys will really be missed.

 

 

None of these girls are moving, but what a great picture! We will really miss our friends that are moving away, but we will definitely keep in touch! “Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.” Dr. Seuss

Girl's Weekend 2010!

This has taken me a while, but I had to collect pictures from as many sources as I could first! At the end of March 14 super fun girls (myself included) took a road trip down to Daytona beach for the weekend! It was so fun, and went by to fast! Friday night we stopped at Outback to grab something to eat before we braved taking a look at our inexpensive hotel, that I was pretty nervous about, having booked it. :)

 

Not too bad...the bright colors were a bit much, maybe, but all in all, it was clean, cheap, on the beach, and was charming in it's own way. This is the whole group: Janene, Sonia, Amelia, Amber S., Keri, Gretchen, Jessica, Rebecca, Me, Kylie, Starleigh, Emily, Bree, and Heather. (With some of the lovely decor'")

 

I had to include these pictures...we had such a great time looking at each others photo albums, talking, laughing, hearing entertaining stories, like the hilarious one it appears Amber is telling here. :) Oh, and I need to mention the prize drawings, which Janene won first prize, of course!

 

 

Saturday was such a beautiful day to spend at the beach. After 3 hours of sleep in the non-sleepy room, a few of us went for a run, followed by Rebecca's boot camp. (Wait, that was just me doing that ab work with her...and she convinced me to run without shoes that morning with her and speedy Jessica!?? Rebecca can talk me into anything!) So, Saturday was a pretty good workout for me, but most of the day we just hung out on the beach, so I was able to pair my sore muscles with a sunburn. I consider it a sucessful weekend, don't get me wrong! :)

 

It is tough to figure out where 14 people want to eat, but we chose a local favorite, Aunt Catfish's on the River, which I had joked about because the name is so funny, but Janene looked into it, and it had some great reviews. I think we all liked it, for the most part! Way to pick, Janene!

 

 

It is one of the greatest blessings in my life that I have had great friends wherever I have lived, and Florida is no exception! You girls are the best, and I look forward to many more GNO's! What a fun group!

 

Dress Contest on NurtureMama

I entered a contest today to win a gift card for a Mika Rose order, and this is one of the things I will order if I win! Hurry and enter the contest before Friday at midnight...you can enter if you are Canadian as well!

Make sure you check out my friend Kristi's Blog, she has really great ideas for parenting...her kids are the nicest I know, so I consider her an authority on these things! :) Read her post about the contest, check out the Mika Rose site, and then comment on her blog, and you will be entered!
http://nurturemama.blogspot.com/2010/03/giveaway-free-dress-from-mikarose.html

Thanks Kristi!

Nu Nu 5K

 

I guess no one liked my idea of looking like we were running into the finish line.

 

I have always said that I wouldn't join in the running craze, because I couldn't believe when people said they enjoyed running. I have to say, I am loving it! The 5K was really fun! I don't know if I should record this or not, but my time was 33 minutes, which felt fast to me...I didn't walk at all, and I even sprinted at the end. So exciting! It has been really fun to run with my friends and I look forward to doing a 10K next! :)

Blog World

I often think about the time of blogging at we live in, and while it is awesome, don't get me wrong, some days it makes me feel like there are so many perfect people out there. I was starting to feel like a bit of a loser this morning thinking that I have way too many perfect friends with their immaculate houses, gourmet meals (complete with beautiful pictures of these meals including the faded out background showcasing their picture taking skills, of course. ;) It seems like many people are constantly taking studio style pictures of their kids, doing cool crafts with them, crafting genius parties/playdates etc., etc., so I had an idea, and I ran around the house quite excited about this idea. I was going to post (poorly taken as usual) pictures around my house. It is really messy right now, a definite low point. I have some great (crappy) pictures, and I think it was going to be really funny, but when I thought it through, I realized that while I have no problem making fun of myself, I maybe shouldn't embarrass my family. (Mom, you did your best, I wish I had turned out to be the perfect homemaker like you!) So, I will opt out this time, and just say that I have nothing but admiration for my perfect friends (and relatives) and your blogs inspire me to be a little better...off to clean my house!

Sea World Fun

 

 

 

 

We are loving our Sea World Passes! We have been able to go a few times, so it has been really worth getting annual passes! I had to put the last two pictures in because the contrast between Autumn and Porter's tolerance for affection is hillarious! Plus, David looks so handsome. :)