1/2 Marathon #2 Completed!

Yesterday I completed my second 1/2 marathon!  I did so much better this race compared to the last one I ran and I was extremely happy with my finishing time and pace throughout the race!

I had THE BEST support staff in the world! Chris was AWESOME!  He took me at 7 a.m. in 33 degree weather to the race and he even had the car running to warm it up before we left the apartment!

He took some fun pictures throughout the race and when I was finished, he had my gatorade and food waiting!

He helped me take my shoes off and put comfy ones on because my hands wouldn't work!  He basically was awesome :)

I don't know if it was the super cold weather that made me immune to any pain, or my cheer staff, but somehow this race was just awesome!  So much fun...

Random Catch Up!

So here's a summary to catch my blog followers up on what's happening here in KY.

Social:

First off, God is Good.  We have had SO much fun getting to know the other couples in our Community Group.  This past weekend we just had a Community Group Couples filled weekend!

We went to dinner and then the U of L vs Rutgers game with Chip, Lauren and Stuart (Taylor had work stuff :( ). 

Saturday we went over to Taylor and Stuarts, watched FSU play and ate yummy yummy food.

Fitness:

Half Marathon:  My half marathon is THIS SUNDAY! EEEK!  The longest run I've done in this training is 10 miles.  I did it last Sunday and it went really well.  But we shall definitely see.  I just want to finish it running. I've had fun training for it!  It was great motivation and a super cheap way to keep me accountable to running!

When it's over, I don't know what I'll do...  I really need to start incorporating weight training in my workout schedule.  I'd love to get to where I do Cardio 4 days/Week, Strength 3 days/week and Yoga 1 or 2 days/week.  Womenshealthmagazine.com has good workouts so I'm thinking I'll make a schedule based on those.

In the Kitchen:

Since my mom has been here, we've been SET!  With her frozen staples, pintrest and our newest kitchen addition (thanks to mom): a BREAD MACHINE!!!  We made our very first homemade loaf of bread this week.  SO yummy!!

I also made an awesome dinner Thursday night: Crock Pot Mac N Cheese and then a Garlic Butter Breaded Baked Chicken and Green Beans.  It was SO good!!

Wedding:

Bridesmaid's Dresses are Chosen and being ordered STAT!  My girls are going to look absolutely GORGEOUS!  Bella Bridesmaids has been a fun place to pick out their dresses.  Jamie, the one I've been working with there is awesome.  Not to mention she is getting married the same day I am AND is marrying a DENTAL student! How weird is that?! Anyways, we've had fun getting to know each other. 

Also, having a planner is the BEST thing I have done wedding related to date!  My lovely planner is Christina Gillon at Fete Events  and she is wonderful.  Right now there's a misunderstanding with the caterer, etc and I do not have to worry about it because SHE is.  So nice!

I'm compiling all of my DIY's that I want to do for the wedding....  It's going to be such a fun Christmas break :)

Random:

I want to be intentional about doing my best to get to know the wholeness of my God.  I feel like I haven't been intentional in digging deep in my daily time with Him.  So, I am going to begin reading through books of the bible at a time.  Matthew is up first!  

Fall is GORGEOUS here!! We are enjoying it to the fullest :)

FOUND MY WEDDING DRESS and Best Day with Mom EVER!

(Now the background to the story is that we had been given a wedding dress by a close family friend and it had fit me beautifully, and I was happy with it, but mom was going to make a few adjustments.  So we went dress looking just to make sure the dress we had was my dream come true and what I wanted done to it.....)

Mom and I made MOVES.

Her first full day being here, after class we drove up to Cincinnati OH to do our first dress hunt trip.  I had heard they had an awesome Wedding District but didn't really know anything about it.  So we googled "Wedding district, Cincinnati OH", got the address to a place there, and plugged it into the GPS.

It led us here!

So we went into the cutest Boutique we could see:

And began pulling dresses.  I showed the cute lady working (Stephanie is her name, we became BFF) some pictures I had been thinking I liked and she showed us a few more to try on.  

So we spent the afternoon playing in wedding dresses! It was wonderful!  When I put mine on, I KNEW! It wasn't like the majority of pictures I had showed her and it didn't have lace, but it was gorgeous, fun and SO ME!

After finding "the one" we went to lunch to mull it over.  This lunch place is brand new but OMG it's SO good.  We got the veggie pita and I almost cried when I tasted it.  They homemake the pita bread!

Then we went around to a few other stores, walked and walked, and then ended going back to Carrie Karibo.  I tried on my dress again and KNEW!  

Then we started the hunt for mom's Mother of the Bride dress.... 

This isn't a picture of the one she ended up getting but I just liked mom playing dress up.  So we have tons and tons of pictures of both of our dresses but they're a SURPRISE!!! You'll see them  March 17th!

In true mom-Jenny style, we celebrated with Tea, Coffee and a decadent dessert at a cute restaurant Trio:

It could not have been a more perfect or more fun day.  AND I found the dress I'm going to marry the LOVE of my life in!  

I now can NOT wait for March 17th :)

Wake Forest Road Trip

After our extremely intense week of tests, we came home, packed and then took Annabelle to Christin, my sorority sisters house or *Camp Boggs* as we called it.  They have 5 other dogs, so Annabelle was in HEAVEN!

Once we dropped her off, we made our way from Louisville KY to Winston-Salem NC.  We arrived around a 11 p.m, EXACTLY when Josh, Bill and Sarah arrived from tally. 

The 5 of us shared one room that had one king sized bed!! I thought it was going to be much worse than it was but it was a good weekend to be a girl because the girls  got the bed while the boys slept on air mattresses:

   The next day we woke up all pumped for the game.  We had our gameday attire on and were ready.  

Its was such a fun game until we lost.  And that's all I'll say about that :)

After the game we went to O'Charley's and had dinner while the boys watched all the other games that were on:

That night we did my most favorite thing ever! We played Settlers of Catan! Another friend Megan came over to play with us and OMG Most FUN and addicting board game ever!!  But you need 4 players to play so it's a special thing nowadays to get to play it.... Needless to say, we had a ball.  We also stopped to get milkshakes from this "Amazing Milkshake" Place CookOut.  They were really yummy!

The next day we drove over to Durham NC so that Bill, Josh and Sarah could hang with Megan, I could see my bestie Ashley who's going to Duke and also so that I could meet Chris's long time bff Kyle and his wife Megan.  Kyle was the last of the groomsmen that I hadn't met.  They have lived in Alaska for the past 4 years, so there's a good reason why!  

Anyways, we went to lunch with Kyle and Megan and they were amazing.  Such a fail that I didn't snap a picture.....

After lunch, Ashley and I went on our merry way.  We started out by her showing me around her new home.  OMG it's amazing!  It's a JOKE that she goes to school at that gorgeous school.  

 After the campus, we went to the hospital.  We almost got lost!  How hilarious is this? We found this mini door that saids "Ninja Exit"! 

Then we went to the Gardens. It was out of this world.  Huge, magical, gorgeous, serene.  What a treat!  There are multiple trails and fountains and ponds.  Absolutely something out of a book!

Then we had MANDATORY retail therapy.  We jackpotted it at J.Crew but then toyed with our emotions by going into Pottery Barn Kids and another homie interior design place.  I'm thinking that like I had the 10 year rule about not marrying Chris til we had dated for 10 years and that went out the window, that my 10 year rule of having our first baby 10 years after we're married will go out the window.  Especially if I go back into Pottery Barn Kids!!

Anyways when we were done with the shopping bliss, we continued the bliss by going to Sugarland on UNC's campus.  It's a delightful cupcake and coffee shop and we spent nearly 2 hours there just slowly enjoying out little pieces of heaven and talking through everything.  Its so weird how some subjects are not talkable over the phone. Ashely and I keep up pretty well I thought but when in person, so much more is said.  It was a vacay for my soul to have that blessed conversation with her!

Then the rest of the troops came to join us and we went back to Winston-Salem.  We played Catan one more time and I won!  

The next morning Bill, Josh and Sarah left super early.  Chris and I were close behind them.  

It was SUCH a fun relaxing weekend with FSU and good friends.  Hard to beat that combo! I'm so thankful Chris and I are blessed with good friends... It's going to make life so much fun together :)

BACK!

Last week was absolutely CRAZY!  And for some reason I wasn't expecting it....

I had a Biochem test Thursday

A supplemental Biochem test Friday

And a presentation on "Differentiating the Off-Target Effects of the siRNA Pathway"

Chris had a HUGE Physiology test Friday so we had a lot of fun studying together for our tests.  

When the tests were over, we headed to WINSTON-SALEM to watch the FSU v Wake Forest game....  Next post will be recapping our wonderful weekend.