-Emily got us these beauties from Las Vegas; however we didn’t technically ingest them until SoCal, so I counted them as part of the Cali portion. Now I’m not going to lie, when it comes to the sweet pastries, I’m a donut person all the way (as you’ll see later in this post), but these cupcakes were AMAZing!!!
-Soaking up as much sunshine as possible
-This is the ACTUAL #FBF portion of this post. I think we spent two or three nights watching old family movies. Sorry for the crappy photo quality, but talk about guilty pleasures, watching old movies of yourself as a child!!! AMIRIGHT??
Left: Myself. Right: My cousin Kate, myself, my uncle Neil, and my cousin Jenna
-Then it was my birthday, I went for a run in the morning and my watch surprised me, thanks polar ;P
-I’m telling you, I. can’t. get. enough.
-Birthday Beach Day!! Huntington to Laguna and a couple stops on the way. Wish I would have snagged a picture at dinner which was with a couple of my favorite Californians, Gianny & Kimmy!!
-It was time to head to Spokane for Blooms day and these guys:
-I felt proud of my splits
-So we celebrated with donuts on the way back to Seattle
Pretty amazing spring break! Still missing it in a massive way, but reminiscing felt pretty awesome 🙂
It feels like Vegas was sooo long ago 😦 I’m hoping that this recap will take me back to that place.
First things first, I feel as though I have excellent packing skills. My OCD leads me to plan my whole vacation in outfits, albeit I usually end up buying clothes and then not wearing half of what I packed. I always have the best intentions though.
It wasn’t as warm as I thought it would be in Vegas, but it was nice and sweltering in SoCal. Every time I go to SoCal I think, ‘I want to live here,’ this has happened to me since I was young. I feel like one day it will come true.
First full day in Vegas was beautiful out, but first things first, let’s eat breakfast!!! We went to Hash House a Go Go, and it was sooo delicious! I can’t believe all the delicious food in Vegas, I wish more of those chefs (e.g., Gordon Ramsay) would spread their love up to Seattle. At any rate, here are some pictures of our yumtastic breakfast:
Biggest pancake ever!!!!Yes that biscuit was as delicious as it looked!
During that first full day in Vegas the sun was shining! We walked the strip (probably 8 solid hours of walking), which was awesome and tiring all at the same time.
Love these girls!!!!
When in Vegas you must walk around with your alcoholic beverage
However, be careful not to drop the best part of your bloody mary!
😦 😦 😦
I appreciate that my mom didn’t actually sit in this disgusting looking chair, but I still had to post the picture, because it’s perfection.
We finished the night off with the Circ show, ‘zarkana.’ My favorite part about the show was the sand lady (click to here to see a video), which was super amazing!! I love watching the acrobats, but sitting in the audience watching people do that stuff gives me the itch to move. It’s probably why I don’t watch sports (outside of hockey). My preference would be to see how they train (so I can too)! The best part was my crew
Kate and Emily….beautiful!!
The next morning was followed by what was the most expensive smoothie I’ve ever had! $12!!! It was pretty good, but it definitely didn’t fill me up like Dave’s do (I was hungry an hour or so later). Also, the people weren’t attentive, they didn’t ask Kate if she wanted any added boosters, no flax for her 😦 On the positive side, they did have some yummy looking options, and if we would have drank more alcohol they had fresh juice beverages with option of adding shots (YUM).
Vegas was fun times…well, until Charleston!! I still have some pics from SoCal to share with you, so stay tuned.
Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you all about my new toy!!!!! Dave and I went to the REI gear sale last week (I know, you go in for socks and you come out with shorts, a new watch, and shoes). I’m sooooo super stoked about my Garmin Forerunner 220 (full review post to come). I did my first ‘training’ workout with it, and it was awesome. It was a 4 mile tempo run and I tried to do mile 1 (pace 9-9:30), mile 2 (pace 8:30-9), mile 3 (pace 8-8:30), mile 4 (pace 8-9). For the most part I stayed within my pace ranges, it was really nice having the watch buzz at me when I went to fast or slow. I LOVE it!!!!
And yes, those are my new Mizuno wave inspire 10s, and yes, I love them!!!!
Well, it’s been quite some time since my last post, but…
Nicole’s here!
I want to give a recap of the last few weeks, because they’ve been soooo amazing!
1.) I went to Vegas/SoCal with my cousins, aunt, and mom and had a ton of fun. I will be doing a full recap in an up coming post. I’ll start you off with a picture of the most amazing bloody mary you could ever find:
It was build your own!!!!!
I just can’t say no to a delicious bloody mary!!
2.) I’ve been hard at my training and I completed my second half marathon (the Kirkland Mother’s Day Marathon) last Sunday. Having it on Mother’s Day was adorable, seeing moms running with kids and/or dads+kids meeting mom at the finish line was sweet–Dave said, “I’m sorry babe I won’t be meeting you at the end, I’ll be running it with you.” 🙂 We completed the half in 2:19, which is 5 minutes faster than my time when I was 23, WOO HOO! The best part about the whole thing was that after I was done I thought to myself, “I wanna do that again…..but faster!” So that’s just what we’re going to do (and maybe a full marathon too). We’ve already signed up for Seattle Rock n’ Roll half (June 21st) and I’m eager to see how hard I can push myself.
I love a good finisher’s medal 🙂 The only thing about this particular race that bummed me out (similar to race for the roses in Portland), was that even after I signed up for a women’s sm shirt they didn’t have my size. I feel like when you pay an $85 sign up fee, you should get your shirt in the correct size. Otherwise the course was lovely and the run was nice/easy-gotta love training.
3.) I felt like working out the DAY AFTER my half marathon! This is really important to share because I’m so proud that my body is eager for this kind of activity 🙂 So I grabbed a kettlebell and did a really great workout.
4.) Dave and I tried acro-yoga on Tuesday and it was very fun!! It’s definitely more difficult than you’d think, we’ll be back to the class I’m sure, hopefully one day we can do it out on the water:
5.) I made the most awesome inside out peanut butter cups! I have almost perfected the recipe, well suffice to say I perfected it and then burnt some of the peanut butter. So once I make it without burning it, I’ll post the recipe!
6.) I decided to get my belly button pierced once again. This was my reward (I know, I guess my definition of reward is different than most peoples) to myself for feeling good about my abs. Nothing like a little bling to motivate some ab workouts!!
7.) I completed the fastest run I have ever done (in my LIFE). No where to go from here but up, or down, if you’re thinking about race time.
Splits don’t lie!
8.) Last but definitely not least, my blog has a new look AND a new name. The name was inspired by my all time favorite book, “The Art of Racing in the Rain.” The author is from Seattle and it’s a book from the perspective of a dog — how could this dog lover say no. It will make you laugh, cry, and want to play with/squeeze your pooch 🙂 Check it out! Also, I changed the ‘racing in the rain’ to ‘running in the rain,’ since it’s kind of what you need to learn to do living in Seattle.
Well, I’ve missed the blogosphere, I promise not to be gone that long again!
Hope everyone had a great weekend! Mine was a mixture of all different kinds of amazing. Here are a few of the highlights:
Dave made his ‘Tortilla espanola” and it was delicious! Here’s a peek at it:
I’ll post the recipe and his process in an upcoming post. (Hand model = Tara)
Tara came and we had a wondrous time: cribbage was played, snacks were consumed, dog parks were adventured to, breakfast was eaten, and so much more.
Charlie
I’m going to admit to you all that it was REALLY hard to motivate myself for the 9 mile run on Sunday. As I felt the lack of motivation, I turned to my regulars (Pinterest, runners world, blogs etc.) to try to find a little somethin’ somethin’ to help me pump up my jam, but nothing was doing it. I’m thankful to have Dave giving me a little extra inspiration; however, I want to be able to muster it all on my own (you know, I have to run a long run without him). Now I turn it to you readers, what do you do to motivate yourself for a workout? Do those “reasons to be fit” images do it for you?
The trail I found, it kept me going 🙂
I will admit that the following quote really does help me (and I thought about it sunday): “You only regret the workouts you don’t do” -not sure who said it, but it’s all over Pinterest and runners world
Last, but definitely not leasts, our friends held a ‘Game of Thrones’ season premier party and it was AMAZING! The hosts went above and beyond and made Westeros style food (they even had mulled wine). Everything was delicious and we watched the show with happy full bellies.
Well that’s it for my weekend.
I wanted to share a little bit about the other part of my life, my job. As I mentioned in my about I’m a speech language pathologist. I work part time as an early intervention specialist with a particular interest in Autism. I also work part time as the owner of a private practice, “Little Peeps, inc.” (www.littlepeepstherapy.com). Today I wanted to share with everyone my four favorite early intervention materials:
1.) Bubbles. Can’t say enough about the amazing power of bubbles! First of all, the phrase “ready, set….” (let the child fill in ‘go’), is the most amazing language facilitation technique I’ve ever encountered. Keep in mind that you may need to use the phrase until you think you just can’t take it anymore. Some of the important early developing skills I’ve seen bubbles elicit include: joint attention, turn taking, requesting, commenting, and exclamations. Not to mention all the early developing sounds: /m/ (more), /b/ (blow, bubbles), /p/ (pop), /d/ (dip). Lastly, WHO DOESN’T LOVE BUBBLES????
2.) Toy food. Pretend play is such an important skill! It’s great to work on feeding others, feeding self, cutting food, making meals, etc. I feel like the one thing that people don’t always realize about pretend food is just how much vocabulary you can use with it. For example, you can talk about what it tastes, smells, and feels like. You can introduce words that are related to the food: pot, pan, spoon, fork, knife, sink, stove, etc. It’s also a great opportunity to just follow your child’s lead. See what they want to explore, go with it, and expand on what they’ve said.
3.) ClearPlastic Container. Okay, okay, I know, this isn’t really a toy. But if you have a game (e.g., Mr. potato head, puzzle, doll house), and you keep all the little items in a plastic container then your child will have to ask for them. Now we’ve got some requesting going on. You could even place the plastic container up on a shelf and see if they will point at it to request. Once they have the container (which they hopefully cannot open), wait and see if they ask you to “open,” or say “help.” A skill that might come before saying “help” would be handing the toy to you (it’s the nonverbal version of saying “help”). Oh I could go on for days about the amazingness of containers and, in general, keeping most toys out of reach (to encourage requesting), but I’ll leave it there for now.
4.) Books. I bet you thought I was going to say the iPad? Well I do love the iPad (hey maybe I’ll do a post on my favorite therapy apps), but nothing beats a good book! Board books are the best for this age. I like to let my kiddos pick from a set of two (choices are another great way to elicit language). I like to ask some simple wh– questions (what, where); however, if answering questions is difficult then I may prompt with a phrase (e.g., “I see a”). I love bringing stuff to my mouth to show the child what the word looks like on my mouth, it’s more fun when I have props that go along with the book. I’d say the two biggest things I adjust with this age is SAYING LESS, and WAITING.
Lately I’ve been highly addicted to a site called bloglovin.com It’s been a fabulous way to keep all of the blogs I love to read very easily at my finger tips. Here are a few blogs I’ve been into:
Just to name a few! It’s quite nice having them all in one convenient location.
I think I have caught the blogging bug, I mean I guess that’s what you call it when you start thinking about your life in blog form (I’ll need advice from the pros on this one). The other day I walked into the gym and thought I should take a before/after pic of my 8 mile treadmill run because that would be a fun thing to post, but there was a girl and her trainer in the gym before and I felt goofy taking a selfie in front of them. Needless to say I ran 8 miles on the treadmill, which I feel is a pretty big feet!
Later I decided to make some spaghetti squash, I just love how easy this stuff is to make, and how much of it you end up with (left overs for days!!).
I’m excited to begin a blogging journey, I feel like it’s a great way to keep me motivated toward my fitness goals (half marathon/marathon training) and share some of my recipes and healthy living tips.
The Art of Running in the Rain 