Turkey trax 2011 recap

Thanksgiving morning I ran my first race since July (I think). I was definitely itching to race.

At the beginning of this year I set a goal to run a sub 25 minute 5k. The race I ran on new year's eve 2010 was in 26:08 so I thought knocking just over a minute off my time shouldn't be too difficult. Well, here it was the end of November and I was still chasing that sub 25. I ran a St. Pat's race where my Garmin said 24:55, but my chip time was 25:08....wah! wah!

The weather was going to be wonderful for the race this year. I remember last year being fuh-reezing. It was in the low 30s or high 20s (I can't remember). This year was expected to be in the mid 40s. Perfect. I ended up wearing capris and a long sleeve tech T under a short sleeved shirt. Well, the mid-40s didn't come around until later in the day (even though the forecast said mid 40s at 8:30am when the race started). So I was a bit chilly, but even 40* is better than low 30s. :)

My dad ran this race with me and my mother-in-law walked/ran it also. It's great to do these races with other people. It's much more enjoyable to me.

Me, MIL, Dad

I knew my dad would beat me, that's no secret. He is a speedy guy! We still lined up together to start. This was a huge race. Prior to this one - St. Pat's is usually has the most participants with less than 700. There were more than 1000 people doing this 5k on Thanksgiving. That's crazy to me. I was happy to hear the guy on the PA system pre-race instruct the walkers and folks with strollers and dogs to start near the back. This usually helps some of the congestion at the beginning. Of course, there are people who ignore that, but every little bit helps I think.

So, we start out (no starting mat for timing, FYI). It's pretty congested at the beginning, but the street is pretty wide and everyone was able to spread out since there was no traffic.

There wasn't anything particularly interesting or noteworthy about this race. I thought it was fairly hilly, but my dad disagreed. About mile 1-1.5 (or maybe more) was a gradual uphill. That wears you out eventually. I did get passed by a lady with her dog during this hill. They were really moving and it made me wish my dog would run with me for that extra push. I remember last year getting passed during that hill by a guy pushing a double strollers...so I guess this is a win for me this year. :)

My pretty girl, Lucky Anne.

Luckily, after that gradual hill it was pretty flat for a mile and then a VERY steep hill at mile 2.4(ish). It wasn't very long, but at the point in the race it felt like we were going straight up. It kicked my butt.

Once we climbed that hill - we had just over a half of a mile to go and almost a quarter of that was on the track. I tried to really kick once I got the track (less than .25 of a mile left), but I only made a decent sprinting effort for about 100m and slowed a bit for about 200m. That 200m felt like forever so when I got to the final straight away I tried to give it hell.

I still missed my sub 25 even though I felt like I really pushed myself. Bummer.

Some stats:
Garmin time - 25:26 (I forgot to turn my watch off of a couple of minutes so this is my "moving time")
Garmin pace - 8:17 ("moving pace")
Official time - 25:15
Avg pace - 8:07
Overall place - 176/904
Division place - 10/73
Sex place - 55/140

Last year I ran this race in 28:06. So, even though I didn't get in under 25 minutes - I could definitely seem huge improvements in just a year of racing.

For anyone curious, my dad definitely beat me. His time was 22:XX. Maybe someday we can run a 5k at the same pace...probably not. Haha. And my MIL knocked 7 minutes off her time from last year so that's wonderful.

No AM group run today.

The group I have been meeting with for a couple of weeks decided we would run Monday and Wednesday this week. We normally run on Tuesday and Thursday, but with Thursday being Thanksgiving - we just adjusted.

There was a discussion on our FB group page about running this morning. It seemed like a few girls were on board. When my alarm went off at 5 this morning I promptly checked the FB page because that last thing I wanted to do was show up and have no one there. One girl posted last night that she wouldn't be there this morning because she thinks her hip flexor is jacked (bummer). Another girl's husband is out of town and she has a daughter who she, obviously, can't leave in the morning to run. I knew that another girl was sick yesterday, but she intended to run today. I ended up texting one of the girls because I had a bad feeling that I would be the only one to show up. I'm glad I did because, sure enough, I would have been there by myself. I snuggled back into bed and went back to sleep for a few hours.

So it sucks about not getting a run in this morning, but I think I am going to do some speed work/intervals on the treadmill at the gym tonight. Tomorrow morning or after work I am going to do some cross training at the gym. Wednesday morning we are hopefully still meeting so I can get some easy miles in before the Turkey Trax 5k on Thanksgiving morning.

I did get in a little less than 4.5 miles on Saturday before we started tailgating for the Mizzou game. My 5am wake up call seems to be getting easier and easier each time. I went to the normal spot that I meet our group, but decided it was too dark and uncomfortable to run there by myself. So I drove across town to campus where I knew it would be better lit and more traffic. I just took off and really didn't have a route or a plan in place. I basically just ran until I was running out of time to meet to shower and meet our tailgating friends. It felt pretty good and I ran about a 9:20 pace.

That 5am start to my day really kicked me in the ass about 6 that evening. I was done. A full day of tailgating and watching the football game.did me in. Justin and I grabbed some Thai take out and vegged out the rest of the night. We were in bed by 9:30.

And I will leave you with some tailgating pics. :)

Justin and I showing off our "black out" outfits for the day.
I told him he looked like a cheerleader so we posed accordingly. :)

Justin with his bestfriend's sister who is, obviously, much taller than him.

MIL, Justin, and Me outside of the stadium

Family friends.

Structure? No thanks.

All right, so I'm not going to post a training post and follow it. It's just not going to happen. Instead - I am going to blog whenever the heck I want. Haha. I suck at this blogging thing...and I think that's what the majority of my blog posts have been about this year. I will try. No promises.

In recent running news - I started meeting with a very casual running group. It's a group of girls that live on my side of town that meet at 5:30 in the morning on Tuesday and Thursdays. A few of them get together on the weekends for longer runs too. I say it's very casual because it's just a group put together by some girls on FB and they have each just invited some friends to get the word out. There is not a strict schedule, a coach to push you along, etc. You just come when you can and someone picks a route to run. I have only gone twice, but I'm loving it so far. I will definitely need the accountability in the winter months. :)

I have also amped up my cross training a bit. I need to get a bit more structured with my cross training, but I figure something is better than nothing. I have added speed work. It's all on the treadmill, but I'm doing it. It's also not very structured. I usually warm up pretty slowly for a half mile and then do one minute of just a bit faster than 5k (goal) race pace and then 2 minutes of a little slower than half marathon goal pace. I do this alternating for a couple of miles and then do a slow half mile cool down.

My next 5k is the Turkey Trax on Thanksgiving day. It will be my 1 year racing anniversary. I am pretty excited about it. :)

On the house front - our house is on the market!! No bites yet, but we are trying to stay optimistic since this is a slow time for home buyers.

Last thing - (Just) Trying is for little girls is doing a pretty sweet giveaway. Keep the faith creations has some really cool pieces of jewelry that are very runner friends. Check out her blog, the giveaway, and keep the faith creation's website.

St. Pat's 5k Race Recap

I don't have any pictures to go with this race recap so I'll just get on with it....

The St. Patrick's Day 5k in Columbia, MO was my 3rd race in as many weeks. The weather was predicted to be about 40*. Not horrible, by any means...but I was hoping for about 50. Picky.

I tried to get Justin or my dad to do this race with me. Justin was on call so he couldn't and my dad was busy with my brother's baseball and a school fundraiser.

I had read that this 5k was one of the largest in Columbia. I was pretty excited to be apart of that. I love seeing large races with people out there being healthy and having a good time.

Unfortunately, Justin had a case the morning of my race so he was not able to come with me. So I had to go by myself. This wasn't the first race that I went totally on my own, but I'm still not a fan. I knew a couple of people running as well, but there were so many people that I only saw one of them after the race.

I wore capri length tights, a short sleeved wicking shirt, a 3/4 zip up fleece shirt, and gloves. I was pretty comfortable through out the entire race. I was so glad that I remembered gloves. I bought cute St. Pat's socks to wear at this race, but that didn't happen due to the cooler temperatures.

They didn't roll out the starting line/pad thing until literally just before starting. So I didn't have any idea where to line up or stand so I didn't get stuck in the back. Well, I guessed wrong. I got started in the middle towards the back. This isn't a huge deal because this race was chip timed. However, with this being such a large race (520+ participants) - it took me a while to hit my stride and my pace. There were so many people to pass.

A little note to people new to racing - if at all possible, please don't walk/run/whatever more than like 3 people across the road. It makes it very difficult to get around you. I would have never known this prior to running in a race, but if I can help one or two people then so be it.

It was literally .75 miles before I hit a pace that I was comfortable with. My first mile was at 8:29 pace. Not bad, by any means, but definitely not on track for a PR. I kicked it up a notch after the .75 mile mark in hopes to PR.

Prior to this race - I would look at my garmin and see a pace that I thought was way too fast for me (basically anything less than about 8:15/mile) and slow down a bit. I always say to myself, "there is no way you can keep that pace for an entire 5k so chill the eff out." This race I looked at it a little bit differently. This race I said to myself, "just maintain this sub 8min/mile pace (!!!!) for as long as you can. If the wheels fall off - at least you gave it a shot." Imagine my surprise when the wheels did not fall off. I was doing it!!

When my garmin beeped that we were two miles in I felt myself slowing down a bit. I had to give myself a little pep talk. I thought I should be struggling after just running a 7:55 mile (I think my fastest, ever). I thought wrong. I was feeling good. I just had to convince myself of that and keep on moving at this pace.

At this point I was 16:24 minutes into the race. My previous PR was 26:08. So I knew I had a fantastic shot at getting a PR. And holy shit! I have a good chance of a sub 25 minute 5k.

A lot of this race was on sidewalks. You could run on the road, but the road wasn't actually blocked off. So you ran at your own risk. The sidewalks got a little crowded at times.

The 3rd mile of the race I was running near a mom, dad, kid (like 9 years old), and a couple of kids that were about 14. The 14 year old boys kept speeding up and slowing down. I was getting so frustrated. They would pass me and then slow down and I would have to maneuver by way around them on the tiny sidewalk. The father and son running were sort of similar. The little boy would fall behind with the mom while the dad went ahead. The dad would notice and slow down with the boy. It was a fight for about .5-.75 of the 3rd mile. And then the race opened up. The road was all ours and I was off. '

I looked down at my race and it was about 2.6 miles into the race. I knew I only had half a mile to go and I had to kick. I picked up my pace and went after it. I saw the finish line after I turned the last corner. I looked down at my watch and I had to get to the finish in just under a minute to get a sub 25. I sprinted my ass off.

As soon as I crossed the finish line I stopped my watch. 24:55!!!!! The clock at the finish read 25:03 or something like that. I wasn't too worried about it because I knew they started the clock a few seconds before I was able to start.

I was over the moon. My runner's high was through the roof. But, as I said, I was there by myself so I had no one to share this with. I immediately took my phone off of my arm and called Justin. I went ahead and walked to my car to leave because what else was I going to do? Before driving away I updated my FB status and posted a pic of my watch. SO EXCITED!!

I stalked the Columbia Track Club's website for race results all day. The last time I checked it was about 4pm and still nothing. So I figured I would check Sunday because we had a fundraiser deal to go to for my brother's school.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of checking on my phone while at the fundraiser. 25:08 WAH!WAH! I was crushed. I told Justin and he showed a little sympathy and we went about our business. It bugged so much that I went to the bathroom and cried. Wow. Who cries over 12 seconds??? Ridiculous. 25:08 is a FANTASTIC time (for me). An entire minute PR, even. It was just a huge blow. I had thought all day that I ran a sub 25 5k. I put it all over facebook. I mean, jeeze.

I have since relaxed a little bit about it. I am so close to that sub 25. That was my goal for 2011 so to be less than 3 months in and already be that close - I am a little more at peace about it. I also heard that other people thought the timing chips were a little slow too. So maybe I did run a sub 25, maybe I didn't. I am going with the chip time, I guess.

Just to give some perspective to anyone starting out racing and/or just running in general....
My first 5k was on Thanksgiving (2010) and my time was 28:06. Since my first I have run about 3 more before St. Pat's. I hoovered around the 26:30-27 minute mark. I had a great race on New Years Eve that gave me my PR of 26:08. And here I am like 5 months into racing and I have knocked 3 whole minutes off of my slowest (and first) time.

Running is discouraging and very difficult at times. That's normal. My advice is to just stick with it and keep working. Your hard work will pay off. You will get faster and you will get stronger. And, as you can see in this recap, running is a huge mental game. Your own inner voice is half the battle. Running is so mental.

The deets of my St. Pat's race:
Total time - 25:08
Avg pace - 8:06 (OH.EM.GEE!)
98th place out of 523 participants
4th out of 56 in my age/gender group (3rd place was 21:something...so I wasn't even close ha)

Holy catch up!!

Five months without blogging. How did that happen?? Where does the time go?? I will do a fairly brief catch up post and then probably go into more detail on the individual things. Otherwise, this post might take hours to write and read.

Here we go....

-To start, I will say that we are still living with the inlaws.

-Justin and I are both still very happy to be back in Columbia. And we are both really liking our
new jobs.

-The month of May was fairly uneventful. We went to a lot of my little brother's baseball games. It's great being back and barely missing a game.

-June was a bit more eventful, I guess.
--We went to St. Louis for a weekend anniversary get-a-way. It was very nice (pics to come in a later post.
--I had an impromptu reuniting with some very close friends. Unfortunately, it was not
under good circumstances. One of my very bestfriend's mom lost her battle with cancer.
--We made a trip to Kansas City to watch the Cardinals and Royals play baseball. That was a
good time because it was a reuniting with friends under much better circumstances.
--We watched a ton of little league baseball in the month of June as well.

-July....
--We housesat for my mom for a week (EXCITING STUFF, PEOPLE! :)). As little of a detail
as that seems - it was great to stay a week away from the in-law's house. I am sure they
appreciated having their house to themselves for a week as well.
--I visited my pal Abbey and her family at the Lake of the Ozarks for the 4th of July. It's
always a lot of fun with Abbey and her fam. Good people.
--I began the south beach diet towards the end of July. I am still on it...and this will definitely
have its own dedicated post.

-The only big thing that happened in August was that I started on the evening shift and started
taking call at work. I miss being on days, but I have to work my way up the ladder.

-September was, of course, the beginning of football season. We also house and child sat for my
dad and stepmom a week in September. My little brother is 12 so it was kind of training for the
day we decide to have children...kind of.

That has brought us to now. That's where my time has gone in a nutshell.

I wonder if anyone has noticed my absence from blogging. I also wonder if anyone will notice that I am back to blogging. Leave a comment if you are reading this to let me know that/if someone is actually still interested.

Edit: UGH, I see blogger still sucks at formatting. Sorry for the wacky format here.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's day to everyone. I hope that you have been surrounded by friends, family, spouses, children, and whoever else you love today.

Unfortunately, I only got to see Justin for 30-45 minutes today. I went to St. Louis with the girl for the Mardi Gras celebration (like I did last year). I will dedicate a post specifically for Mardi Gras later this week.

On our way back home (to KC) this afternoon, we stopped in Columbia so I could say hey Justin and the family. It was tough leaving, but I will be there for good later this week.

I have never been big on Valentine's day. While I enjoy there being a holiday to celebrate the love in your life...I just don't get the overpriced candies, flowers, and waiting hours just to have dinner that you could have in half the time the following day.

Enjoy the ones you love today (and everyday).

Happy holidays!

I hope that everyone is enjoying their holiday season. Justin and I had a great Christmas with our families. Hopefully it is our last one that we have to drive from KC to Columbia. *fingers crossed*

We both had to work Christmas eve (2-1030 for me and 830p-7a for him). That's just the joy of being hospital employees. We drove home after Justin got off work on Friday morning. The drive was not fun - it was through a snow storm. We made it though.

The entire weekend was BUSY. We had about 6 different Christmases with different families. Unfortunately, for us, the holidays means lots of running around to different places. We never get to spend as much time with each family as we would like.

I just have a few key points from this holiday....

1. I drove about 80 miles through a snow storm down i-70 on Friday morning. For anyone that knows me or my mom - you know that is a MAJOR accomplishment. I absolutely hate driving in the snow. I freak out.

2. Oreo balls are my new favorite thing. I am trying to figure out how I made it this far in my life without discovering them.

3. Board games with the family might be my absolute favorite thing to do. Board games with anyone, really. I love them. Apples to apples, Taboo, Catch Phrase, Guestures...any of them. We had a big (12 person), 2 hour game of Guestures on Friday night. That was a blast!

Again, I hope that everyone has had a great holiday season. You may (or may not) be pleased to find out that one of my new year's resolutions is to blog at least 3 times a week. I might need anyone who reads this to hold me to it. Feel free to ask questions in the comments on topics that you might want me to talk about.

From the Foster's, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Alive.

We are alive and well. It might be hard to believe since my blogging has been awful lately. It's just "that time of year." We are buuusy. I think we have spent a total of about 4 weekends at our house in KC over the past 6 months or so. Kind of crazy.

Lately we have been busy with football season. Season tickets at Mizzou (which is 2 hours from where we live now) makes for lots of time out of time, traveling, and just being tied up for an entire Saturday (love it!).

Now that (college) football season is coming to a close, the holiday season is upon us which of course means parties, family gatherings, shopping, and never-ending traveling.

I have also started the Couch to 5k running program. I usually go to the gym when I get off work at night (1030 pm) so I don't typically have time to blog after work. I will blog more about that training program later...I have quite the list to blog about actually. Many happenings over the last couple of months (football pics, my father-in-law's surprise 50th bday, etc.).

The great news that I have to share is that Justin got a job in Columbia (our hometown). We are VERY excited about this. In the very near future I will devote an entire post to this....it's very much deserving of its own post, I think. :) Needless to say, I am incredibly proud of Justin and I am so anxious to get the next chapter of our lives started in Columbia.

I hope some of my followers are still reading my blog when I finally do find the time to write. I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season. And season's greetings from the Foster's. :)

Poor timing.

All of the patients that I have done x-rays on today must think I am the most annoying person on the planet. It is towards the end of my shift and I have caught myself saying something in affect of, "oh, this injury/illness/ect. probably couldn't have come at any worse time for you? I am sorry this happened to you so close to the holiday."

After recognizing that I had said it to the last couple of patients, I thought back...yep, sure enough, I must have said it to 80% of my patients. I feel like an ass. Not that there is a good time to get sick or hurt, but obviously around the holidays makes things even more tough.

With that being said, we were busy as heck tonight. We had a broken humerus, a broke wrist, a broken neck, and some very sick people. It makes me incredibly thankful for the health of myself and my loved ones.

Happy thanksgiving everyone. I hope you get to eat lots of great food and spend some good times with your families. Much love to all of you.

Happy Halloween!!

As I said in my last post, I am not a huge Halloween fan. When I was younger, all of my costumes were store bought. I think if there were some creativity involved, then I might have enjoyed the costumes a bit more.

We basically went to Walmart a couple of weeks before Halloween, got a random costume, trick-or-treated the night of, and had candy for months.

There was no real thrill for me...except in kindergarten when I was PeeWee Herman. I loved that costume. All of the pictures are at my mom's otherwise I would share them. I used to LOVE PeeWee. I may or may not still rent the movies from time to time.

As time went on, Halloween still wasn't a big deal for me. When I got to college, it was a HUGE deal amongst many of the people I went to school with. I don't even remember dressing up for Halloween in high school so I was pretty surprised when I realized how big of a deal Halloween was in college.

However, Halloween was a big deal because girls got to dress in the most sluttiest (word? or no?) outfits and call it a costume. There certainly was NO thrill in that for me. I preferred to keep my TnA covered, if ya know what I mean. First of all I don't have T to flaunt so that takes away that option. I do have the A, but I like it clothed.

Really?? Does she have to have to have that short of skirt on? Granted, she has the body...which 80% of the time the girls in these costumes most definitely do not.

Some of the girls I played soccer with and myself decided that we would create/buy the most conservative, goofy, and dorky costumes ever. My freshman year, we were clowns. We bought costumes that came with a big hula-hoop thing so we would have very round middle sections. I will post a pic of that some other time (I am stuck at work right now with no facebook access...oh the horror!!). We had a blast being the only girls not dressing skimpy. We got some funny looks which was almost the best part. It's like people never in a million years expected anyone to show up with that much covered.

To this day Halloween is just another day for me. I do like going out and being with friends on Halloween. I like seeing the creativity in some people's costumes. I just hate seeing girls in skimpy outfits...especially the ones that really should not be in skimpy outfits.

Creative? VERY! Hilarious? VERY! Slightly disturbing? Maybe a little. :)

I will admit that my costume for tonight is a bit more skimpy than any other costume I have had. The skirt is a little short, but I have very opaque black leggings to wear. I am going to be a punk rocker. Should pictures be taken, I will post them. Unfortunately my camera and the camera on my phone are both broken so I will not be taking any photos tonight.

So I hope this Halloween blog post finds you well, on a sugar high, and decked out in an amazing costume! Enjoy! Happy Halloween everyone!!

This weekend.

I cannot even being to tell you how excited I am for this weekend!! I have so much to look forward to...I cannot wait.

First of all, I am off on Friday so I have a short work week and a long weekend. That is always nice. It's too bad I have to use vacation time in order to have off on Friday. Oh well, it will be worth it.

When Justin gets off of work on Friday we will head home to Columbia. He will either be off the entire day or he will only have to work 0600-0900. Either way, we will be home about mid-day/early afternoon on Friday.

Friday evening my BFF, Katie, is coming to Columbia. I am super excited about that because since she has moved away I only see her about every 3 months or so.


Friday night we have a game night planned with my family and Justin's family. I am about the biggest fan of game nights ever. I love board games. My favorite right now is Apples to Apples. If you have never played, add it to your list of things to do in the near future. It is a blast. Game nights are always a good time...I am excited to have Katie join us for this one. :)

Saturday is 4th of July (duh!) aaaannnddd my mother-in-law's birthday (how cool is that??). I am pretty sure for as long as Justin and I have been dating, we have gone to his grandparent's for the 4th. They live on a private lake that is very fun. We will be going to their lake again this year. I am pretty excited for some time in the sun and on the water. I have all appendages crossed that it will not rain. That will definitely put a damper on my weekend.

Last year I brought a little concoction I like to call the Paint Can to your 4th of July/MIL's bday celebration. I believe I have started a new tradition. I definitely plan on bringing the ingredients to make 2 or 3 of these Saturday. They are great on a summer day. :) Plus, I love me some Vodka so that makes the paint can just as good for me.


Happy 4th of July to everyone! I hope your work week goes by quickly and that you have good weather for whatever you are doing to celebrate.

April Fool's Day.

I wish I had some great April Fool's joke to post on my blog, but I am not feeling very creative today.

I considered posting a picture of a positive pregnancy test, but when I checked my blog roll I realized that LJKC had already done this. I wanted to be original...again, no creativity cloud above me today.

I did, however, send a picture of a positive pregnancy test to my bestfriend (katie) in an e-mail. I am pretty sure she didn't even believe me from the get go. She made me "swear on our friendship" - she always gets me with this one, ugh. I, of course, couldn't do that. I tried to be all dramatic and say that I would not put it on our friendship because that would mean it was real. I acted completely freaked out and not wanting it to be true, blablabla. I concluded that I was over-dramatic and that killed it. She assured me that she knew right away I was playing a prank because I would never e-mail her with news like that. She is right. She would be one of the first people that I called. Oh well. That was my attempt at an April Fool's joke.

I have done the whole pregnancy thing on Facebook and telling our parents over the last couple of years so that is pretty much played out. I am hoping that when we do find out we are pregnant that it will be around April Fool's Day so no one will believe me.

I have to start brainstorming now for next year. I need new material. :)

Does anyone have any good stories about this year's April Fools or even pranks played in the past??

Weekend recap

We had a wonderful and relaxing weekend...much needed after a work week from hell for both of us.

After my pit stop to pick up Justin's valentine's gift; I came home from work to a vodka and Red Bull waiting for me. We sat at our kitchen table playing Nertz (best card game, EVER!), drinking some adult beverages, and eating chips with dip until about 3AM.

We slept late on Saturday to catch up on a little bit of sleep. Soon after Justin got up, we decided to make pizza for lunch. Quick and easy dough from the box and sauce from a jar. We continued our Nertz marathon as we ate lunch. We played for another 3 hours or so when we decided to take a short nap before dinner (yes, lots of relaxation!!).

For dinner, we went to Longhorn Steakhouse because we had gift cards from Christmas (we are in money saving mode). We both got the white cheddar and bacon stuffed filet. It was soooo good!!!

After dinner, we came home to play more Nertz...believe it or not. Luckily our Nertz marathon was broken up because we might have played for hours. :) Rick and Amy came over to play some games and have a couple of drinks. We played quite a few games of Apples to Apples, which is my FAVORITE board game ever. Very fun. We went to bed soon after they left and slept late again today.

We had no real plans for today (love that!). Our big trip for the day was to the grocery store (ugh). Our big task for the day was to mate the huge mound of socks that has been piling up above our washer and dryer since we moved in. It feels so much better to have that shelf cleared.

Lots 'o socks to mate.

And for my Valentine's Day gift from the hubby:

Pretty flowers!

Please note the beer glass that they are placed into. Very fitting for our Valentine's Day weekend. I also got conversation hearts (my fave!) and a wife card (yay!!!).

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's weekend.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!!

We have never been big VDay people. The first couple years we went" all out", but it has tapered off dramatically. This dramatic tapering I speak of will be demonstrated CLEARLY in my recap of some of our Valentine's Day celebrations...

• Our first Valentine's Day was very typical of seniors in high school. He got me red roses, a stuffed bear (I think), and a card. I really can't remember what I got him, but I am sure it was lame (Ha, oops). I specifically remember this year because I bought new black dress pants and a red, sparkly tube top to wear to dinner. Note to self: February 14th in the midwest is typically not a time to wear a cute little tube top. This year was no different. I froze my butt off!! Dinner was nice even if I had to wear my coat the entire time. :)
• We continued our typical Vday celebrations with flowers, cards, stuffed animals, etc. For our 2nd or 3rd Vday together, I got him a red, stuffed bear that was holding a heart that says "I love you." I am not sure why I got him a stuffed animal; he definitely never got any use out of it. Not to worry, I soon became an indian-giver and took back the bear. It is the bear that I have slept with for the last 5 or 6 years. :)
• When we were in college, we had NO money to celebrate Vday (this is where the tapering starts). One year, we decided to go the mucho cheapo route and go to Pizza Street. It's a pizza buffet in the KC area that only costs $3.49 for all you can eat (annoying jingle!!). Great idea, less than 10 bucks and we were celebrating Vday. Yeah, great idea until you get there to realize it is "kids eat free night." That was miserable. Needless to say it was not the most romantic Vday.
• Now, jumping to this year. Here is what I got my husband for our first Valentine's Day as husband and wife

30 of 'em. Cans even. So classy and romantic. He loved it though. :)

I hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day with their loved ones. Have a great day and a wonderful weekend!!