Wordless Wednesday

Happy New Years Eve!

This pic best sums up the highest of highs in 2014. 

Hoping for all the best in 2015!

Furry Friday

Happy day after Christmas!  On this day after, I will be spending the day with my fantastic Mom, as we brave the shopping mall to try and find some day after deals!

I hope yesterday brought you lots of happiness with your loved ones.  I am so happy to have spent the day with mine, and am just happy to be on the East Coast enjoying this whole week with them.

Today, I'm sharing a Puppy Cam link!  My boss has been fostering a Mama (whom she became a foster fail as she's already adopted her) and her 3 puppies from a great rescue group here in Colorado, Rocky Mountain Puppy Rescue.

Last week she stumbled upon this gem on their website and shared it with the office - from playing pups to sleeping pups, I cannot stop watching!

RMPR Puppy Cam!

The countdown is now on to 2015...which also means my Disney Half is just around the corner as well!  I cannot wait!

Are you ready for the New Year?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!  I hope St. Nick was good to you last night, and you a wonderful day with your family and friends!  I know I will be cherishing my day!

 

Wordless Wednesday

Merry Christmas Eve!  Hopefully you have all of your gift purchasing complete and wrapped so you can enjoy this evening relaxing before the craziness of Christmas day tomorrow.

...I wonder what Mickey is doing... ;)

Furry Friday (12.19.14)

...for some reason this didn't post on the 19th so here it is a few days late!

Today I'm traveling back to Philly for Christmas!

I am SO excited to see my family - especially my Mom - mainly now that I can't just hop in a car and see them whenever I want to.

For today's Friday Furry, I'm sharing a lovely post from Bark Post regarding people being gifted a PUPPY.  The hubs currently has an IOU for me in regards to us adding a 2nd furry member to our family (finally!) so I'm hopeful that one will be joining us in 2015.

You've been PUPPIED!

...I would love to be filled receiving a surprise puppy - the joy I would exuding would be cray cray.  haha

As a note though, a puppy should never be frivolously gifted, as it is a big responsibility and life change.  More importantly, please remember to not shop, but adopt for your new 4 legged friend as there are many, many, many well deserving animals in our local shelters and rescues that would love a new home for the holidays.  No matter what size, color or breed - just check out Petfinder.com to find your new friend. =)

I also want to give a shout out to my Dad - it's his Birthday today, and I lost him this past summer very suddenly.  It honestly still doesn't feel real, and given my distance from "home" I feel like I've been able to not have to truly face his death.  This is going to make the holidays harder this year, but I know that he's still with me, and watching over me always.  I got my love of animals from him, and I couldn't thank him more for it!

Love you Dad. <3

http://makeagif.com/i/OXzRKG

Holiday Card Swap!

While I am newer to blogging, part of the reason I decided to doing was from reading other people's blogs. In preparing for my RunDisney half, I found a lot (and I know there are many more!) of people logging their training and runs all around the country. 

One of those blogs is Fairytales & Fitness.  I enjoyed their site as they share my love for Disney runs and always have a great and thoughtful blog posts that I've really enjoyed reading over the past few months.

When they posted they were doing a Holiday Card Swap, I thought that sounded like a fun holiday activity. A few weeks after signing up, I got the name of a fellow blogger, and another fellow blogger got mine. 

Coming home from Disney, I checked the mail and found a card address to me from Virginia. 

I received a very sweet card from Stacey over at Running Muffin. She wished me well in my first half next month and included my first piece of racing swag, the infamous 13.1 sticker!

Thank you so much, Stacey for the thoughtful card and inspiration for next month...I look forward to checking out your blog moving forward and wish you well in 2015!

Have you ever participated in a card swap?  

Wordless Wednesday

A sneak peak of my Epcot trip this past weekend. This was the shot after out France drinks were consumed. ;)

Furry Friday

Today I'm jetting off for a quickie trip to Disney, where I will be drinking around the world in Epcot tomorrow with friends and flying back home Sunday morning. 

I.Can't.Wait!

In the meantime, please enjoy Toby's annual picture with Santa!

Every year since I've had him (7 crazy years!) we have visited at least one Santa during the Christmas season. It was originally a local pet store chain, Cutter's Mill, that did it with Polaroids - but then became Petsmart. One year I even took him to King of Prussia Mall and he got to meet a REAL Santa in a fancy mall. That is probably the best photo I have...but the tradition of going to Petsmart and getting some random guy (and one year it was a woman) dressed up like St. Nick has a certain charm to it. 

In addition, Toby always gets some new Christmas accessory to wear for the photo. This year, The hubs picked out a cute Santa harness for him. :)

Fun times in the car!

This year we went to our neighborhood Petmart here in the Denver area and they DIDN'T have a Santa!  Even though they advertised it, they only had options with a background filler...like Olaf from Frozen. Sorry, that is not my tradition!  

Luckily, we went down the road to Petco and they DID have a Santa and all was right in my Christmas tradition. I'm use to showing up at these events with lines of other customers and dogs and it's a chaotic situation. We were the only ones there, and they gave us awesome customer service to get the best pic possible (Toby was not thrilled being held by a stranger). 

Merry Christmas from Toby - 2014

I guess people here aren't as excited to have their pooches photo with Santa as they are in PA. That's ok though, tradition complete! ;)

Do you do anything fun with your pets for the holidays?

Wordless Wednesday

I said Amanda, not Mandy. 

But I became Manny!

Not Manny. Manny!

#starbucksfail

The Secret Stash - Crested Butte, CO Dining at its Best! Part II

After licking my wounds and taking a cat nap we decided to head into the quaint downtown area of Crested Butte for some dinner. We we're told that The Secret Stash was the place to go if you'd never been before so that made that decision very easy (and given I love pizza and that was their specialty, it was a no brained!)

Not too far from our hotel was a bus stop that was free transportation around the local Crested Butte area. We had just missed a bus but didn't have to wait long for the next one to show up and we were off!  

Even in the dark, the main street downtown was still quite cute and, even though the shops we're closed, we did a lap around just to see everything before heading to our destination. While we did have to wait about 10 minutes for a table, it was fine as they have a small little gift shop we pursued and I hopped I hopped on Yelp to see what people recommended. 

The decor at The Secret Stash is awesome! Much of it comes from the travels of the co-owner who traveled the world before settling down in Crested Butte to open her restaurant. There are many India influences and relics and I kept spotting something different as I looked around during our meal. 

The guy tossing the pizza behind the counter was so much fun to watch!

Thanks to checking out Yelp, we ordered the Crack Fries as a starter...and OMG were they amazingly good. The mix of truffle oil and parmasan cheese was out of this world good...and we gobbled them up, almost wanting more!  We hadn't had much to eat that day (a bagel on the go in the AM and then a waffle post snowboarding) so we were quite hungry. 

Before *drooools*

After.

Finally our Hamptons pizza arrived. I liked this not only because of what came on it, but also because of its origin. East Coast baby! :) Though we subbed in the corn meal crust and it was so fab. 

SO.GOOD.

Add the 'lemon crown' as the final touch!

For as hungry as I was I only had 2 slices...but knew this would be a great late night Thanksgiving snack since we were having an earlier dinner, so it all worked out. :)

Before heading back to the hotel, I decided it is never too cold for ice cream and we made out way over to grab some yummy sweet treats (chocolate covered pretzels and more!) and I got a yummy cookies and cream ice cream cone to enjoy while making our way back to he hotel.  While cold, it definitely hit the spot!

Feels like 16 degrees...so what!?

What yummy treats have you found on vacation?

Week in Review x 2

Ok, so I clearly slacked on this last week. 

Another fail.  But work is a bit crazy right now...and it wasn't really post worthy. 

The only thing to note last week was my make up for the previous week of being sick, and running 11 miles. It was a weak, weak run. I was disappointed with myself and it showed me how imports the conditioning during the week is to keep your stamina up. My time was just awful considering my 9.5 mile run previously and what I was aiming for...though, to be fair (and to my failness), I basically walked the last 2 miles and just wanted to be done...so I knew what I was in for. 

Ignore Mile 10 and 11...

This past week was much of the same in regards to a lack of conditioning, but my 12.5 mile run yesterday went great!  In basically the same amount of time I did 11 miles, I ran 12.5. Still a run/walk mix...but much more running and I didn't fully walk any of my miles. I also didn't feel any hunger pains...though was definitely ready for hydration by the time it was all over. 

Success!

I was shooting for 2:45...and while I was a tad over that was happy with my performance given the lack of running during the week and the vast improvement from the week prior.

I'm hoping to get back into hot yoga this week...but will have to change things up a bit as I'm coming into work early this week and next week. I think it's doable and given the leg pains I'm feeling today, I know my body could use it!

Only one more month until the Disney half!! Time is flying!  I'm anxiously awaiting them to release the corral information so I can see what type of a lead my 10k has given me...hopefully it will be enough for many picture stops. :)

How is your Disney training going?!

Thanksgiving in Crested Butte, Colorado! Part I

It's hard to believe that it's been a week since Thanksgiving. Time is going so fast right now, it's almost crazy. It also means I'm that much closer to running my first half next month (hello December!) which I'm super duper excited about...especially as we work to finalize our running outfits. ;)

Here is the first installment of our trip last week!

The hubs and I decided to travel roughly 4 hours outside of Denver to enjoy a relaxing Thanksgiving alone in the mountains of Crested Butte.  All I knew of it was it was a quaint ski town, and that it was the original home of Heidi Montag (because The Hills was my show back in the day...and I still love seeing what Lauren Conrad continues to do with her life today.)

Lucky for us the weekend prior they got HAMMERED with snow, so driving through the mountains on Tuesday to ge there was beautiful, and at times slow and a bit treacherous, but we made it!  While we arrived before check in to our hotel, Elevations, they were able to not only get us a room but a bit of an upgraded on at that, so it was quite nice!

After unloading our belongings we quickly suited up in our snow gear to hit the slopes!  The great event for us is that since it was Opening Day, lift tickets were free!  Unfortunately I do not own my own gear BUT we litterlslly went 20 feet out out hotel and the rentals were right there. Not to mention we were also situated right at the ski lift...so I highly recommend our hotel! (We found them via a Groupon deal...money well spent!)

While the hubs has his own snowboard, I have only been a few times and am still unsure what my status is with snowboarding. It is quite a love/hate relationship at this point - and after last week is leaning more towards hate.  However, I could tell he really wanted me to snowboard with him, so I agreed to strap that board to my feet for the day. 

I'd be lying if I told you I knew this was a mistake almost immediately. My one boot was uncomfortable no matter what I did and my right leg (not attached to the board) was in pain from supporting my body. While we didn't have far to go to get to the lift, the lines were long (see: free lift tickets and also best Opening Day conditions in years) and there was much waiting to be had. 

I was anxious most of the way up the mountain, dreading getting off. And, in true form, had a horrible exit off the lift. I quickly had to get over that and prepare myself for what was going to turn into the never ending mountain. This took awhile given the various people surrounding me, but eventually we were off. 

I'm hopeful that if I were to take actual snowboarding lessons (clearly I am self taught thus far) I would perhaps fair better. A Colorado mountain with real fresh snow is quite different from the mountains I've skiied in the Poconos back in PA - which are typically icy and artificial - so compounded with everything else maybe I shouldn't be surprised at the nasty spill I experienced not 5 minutes into my travels down ge mountain.  Face first (well, I guess chest as my face never touched snow...) into the powder. 

Having NEVER had a fall like that before I was hurt (physically and emotionally lol) and was SO over it at that point. However, this board was my only was to get down...so I had to get over it and make the best of the situation. I felt so bad for my hubby because I wanted him to enjoy his ride down, but he was concerned with me and trying to give pointers to help make it down the mountain. 

I was a lost cause at that point. haha. But I love him for caring so much. :)

After many stops (my thighs burned the whole time, which has never happened to me before when I've boarded and think may be running related...so I needed the breaks) I finally made he grand descend back towards home base. The hubs had gone ahead towards he end and was waiting patiently for me.     I couldn't WAIT to get us strapped from my board!  I encouraged him to take at least another run, but he said once was enough for him too, and he'd rather relax with me. 

Before heading back to return my board (yes after only one run which my husband had predicted!) we picked up a yummy waffle to enjoy while watching the other patrons enjoy the mountain. The last time I had a waffle like this, I was visiting a friend in Denmark over Thangsgiving break in college, so it was quite lovely. 

After our waffles and people watching we  returns my board and retreated to our room for an afternoon snooze before a night out on the town. 

Have you had any bad spills doing a winter sport?

Wordless Wednesday

An early morning potty break for Toby lead to a beautiful skyline.