Last day of vacation :(

It's amazing how fast the time went. I don't want to go back to work AT ALL. I'm sad to leave the Pacific Northwest - especially since I don't have a set time when I know I'll be coming back. I'm sad that I won't be able to see my parents for an unknown period of time. Probably not until the summer at best. :-( It's hard living so far away.

I am looking forward to seeing Andy (he flew back yesterday) and all of my friends, yay! I'm glad I'll get to have a car again. And also happy to return to the club - working out at LA Fitness in Washington is actually pretty decent, but there really is no comparisson to the club - especially their Zumba classes!

Here's a review of my last few days in WA:

- More exercise: A couple DVDs (thank you SO much Sarah for letting me borrow those!) and a spinning class with Andy

- More shopping: I've made it to Ikea, Lululemon, Costco, and Nordstrom - and we're planning to go to REI later this afternoon. Life can continue.

- More puzzle: We FINALLY finished it!

1,000 pieces from Hell

- Bingo Party! My parents, Andy, Nicole, Matt, and Matt's friend Josh. We didn't win, but we had a lot of fun!

This girl can play a lot of cards!!

B-I-N-G... O crap someone got it already

- The Bingo Party morphed into a Casino/Roulette Party! My Mom and I both hit it big by betting on Andy's lucky number 20!!

It's all about the Benjamins baby - woot woot!

- Last minute rush job to finish my 2011 running scrapbook. Thanks for helping me Mom!

- Weight Watchers meeting

Another 5 pounds gone! Finally under 160!

Plans for the last half of day I have here are: renew my driver's license, eat lunch at Taco Time (it's a must), trip to REI, and then pack pack pack. I did get new luggage from Costco, so hopefully I'll be able to cram everything in!

It's been a good trip. I'm sad it's almost over. :-(

Vacation Day 8

The day started off with a trip to LA Fitness with my mom and Andy. I think there are special running super powers in my new ring because I did run/sprint intervals on the treadmill for 30 minutes and felt totally fine (I felt pretty tired later in the day though!). Then we got cleaned up, had some lunch, and headed off to Seattle!

Our mission was two-fold: See the King Tut exhibit at the Science Center and hit up the Nordstrom Half Yearly Men's sale. Why couldn't it be the women's sale?!?! Oh well. We parked by the Space Needle, and then since the King Tut exhibit was sold out until later in the day, we hopped on the monorail (sort of like a "sky subway") to go shopping!

Space Needle during the day

Riding the monorail

Heaven

Both my dad and Andy had success at the Men's Sale. Then it was time for an early dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant. Yay for Phad Prik King!!

After dinner we took the monorail back to the Space Needle.

Space Needle at night!

The King Tut exhibit was actually very cool. It took us about 90 minutes to make it through the entire thing - we saw a lot of statues that sort of told the story of ancient Egypt, but then it got to the good stuff when we got to see actual statues/furniture/gold/jewelry/etc that was all found in King Tut's tomb... including an exact replica of his mummified body! Cooool. It was visually interesting and I also learned a bit too. Good exhibit!

That pretty much ended the night. We just hung out watching tv for a bit before heading to bed. All in all, a good day!!

Vacation Day WHO FREAKING CARES - I'M ENGAGED!!!!!!

Yay!!!!!!!

I give it a thumbs up!

Andy got into Seattle on Christmas Eve, right around lunchtime. At some point during the afternoon he asked if I wanted to go for a walk after dinner. Ok... sort of weird because it's raining, it would be dark, and he doesn't typically ask to "go for walks" but sure, I'm game. Well after dinner we drove to my favorite running trail - it was pitch black and there was fog which upped the creepiness big time. No walk. Not there at least. We headed back to my parent's neighborhood and ended up going for a walk around the neighborhood looking at the Christmas lights on all of the houses. It was pretty cold, the lights were ok, the end. He suggested instead we go for a run in the morning. Sure sounds good.

So Christmas morning arrives. He wakes me up a little before 7 asking if I still wanted to go, but that I didn't have to if I wanted to sleep in. Knowing we'd be eating a ton of baddies all day I figured I should probably go out and do it, so I got up and got dressed (thank goodness I didn't sleep in!!!). We waited a bit because it was still dark, but once there was enough light to not seem dangerous we drove back to the trail. I didn't want to be gone for long because, hello... there were presents waiting back at home, haha... so we decided to just do two miles. We ran out together for a mile, turned around, and then with about half a mile left he said he was going to push it and go faster. See you at the end!! I kept my nice pace, he was out of sight pretty quickly - and then when I finished we high-fived/hugged. I've actually never been on that trail in the winter - the weather was crisp and cool but not too cold, the sun was coming up, there were birds and ducks starting their day... it was a really nice run.

Of course, what do I say once the run is over? "Take my picture for my blog!" Haha. So this happened...

My favorite trail :-)

And then this happened...

Didn't notice his eyes were closed... wonder if he is nervous here!

And then it happened!!! He said he had a Christmas present for me, and sitting on the roof of the car was a tiny box! To be 100% completely honest I started telling myself in my head "they could be earrings, they could earrings, earrings could fit in that box" just because I didn't want to get my hopes up. Haha. They weren't earrings!!! He picked the ring out all by himself. :-)

I've been able to share a lot of my running experiences with you all through this blog, but I must say that a little ol' two mile run will probably be one of the most memorable runs of my life. I could not think of a better way to get engaged. And on my favorite trail (which is where I first started and learned to love running in the first place) to boot. Good job Brown Pants!!!

I'll just give a bullet list of what else has been going on since I haven't updated this blog in a few days:

- Lots of shopping
- More exercising
- A trip to the casino (I did not win)
- Christmas Eve Dinner

KFC - our Christmas Eve tradition!

- Lots of presents (new running shoes!!!)
- Christmas night hangout with Sheena!

We are both pretty bad at pool

How cool that Sheena is the first friend I see after my big news :-)

Sidenote on Sheena's behalf: Even though she looks just fine in this picture, she is pretty sick and typically looks much more radiant. ;-)

I'd say this has been one heck of a Christmas Vacation!!!

Ok, time for lunch - our fridge is STUFFED with leftovers so I will do my part to make a dent. But not too much of a dent, I mean, hello... I'm getting married! Let the diet begin!!! Just kidding. Sort of. Ok, not really at all but I'm just going to keep doing the Weight Watchers thing and maybe try to tone my arms a bit. ;-)

Vacation Day 3

Another sticker!!

The morning started off by going to a Weight Watchers meeting. Not only did I get a sticker for losing 5% of my body weight, I also got a free insulated lunch bag for bringing a friend! Thanks for coming mom!!

I love getting stickers :-)

The meeting wasn't very good to tell you the truth... probably because they figure with Christmas around the corner, there's not much of a chance people will be motivated to stay on track, haha. Mostly she just tried to remind us why we track what we eat - I guess in hopes that once Christmas is over we'll get back to it. I'm happy to say I've had a super healthy vacation so far, but I'll be putting that on pause for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. :-) But until then - healthy healthy healthy and right back to it on the 26th!

I still wish I had a more normal relationship with food, but Weight Watchers has been really good for me. I don't worry about how much or when I eat as much since I can have as many fruits and vegetables as I want. I also am no longer weighing my fruits/vegetables (yes, I used to) - at first that was really scary, but obviously the process is working so I feel a lot better about picking up a handful of grapes and not worrying if I'm eating 3.9oz or 4.0oz of grapes. Moving in the right direction!

After the meeting we hit the mall! In an attempt to find one item for my dad, I left with 5 new shirts and a pair of jeans, hahaha. The sales were so good! And my mom is also very good at picking out cute things that I like. I blame her for my success. And no... we did not find the thing we were looking for for my dad. Guess that means another shopping trip! ;-)

Later in the afternoon my mom and I went to LA Fitness again, but this time I did 15 minutes each on the rowing machine, elliptical, treadmill, and bike. I wasn't feeling the need to kill myself and it was a good chance to show my mom how to use all of the machines.

Dinner last night introduced a new food to the parental unit again - this time it was quinoa stuffed acorn squash! I invented this recently thanks to a delicious frozen quinoa blend that Andy and I like to get from Trader Joe's. Since we didn't go to the Trader Joe's in WA, I made a quinoa vegetable mix from scratch - it wasn't as good as the Trader Joe's one, but my parents still seemed to really like it. Yay!

The night ended laying on the couch watching tv/working on the puzzle/going to bed early. I'm still not quite used to the time change, although to be honest, I don't want to get toooo used to it because that will make getting back on East Coast time very hard.

Vacation Day 2

My second full day in WA looked very much like my first. I started the day off working out - my Mom recently joined LA Fitness, so she was able to get me a guest pass for a week. Yes! We went to a Zumba class together in the morning (it was good, but I'm pretty spoiled with my regular classes sooo.... haha), then once we were back home I popped in a Jillian Michaels DVD that Sarah let me bring with me (thank you!).

Later in the afternoon my mom and I were back out shopping for gifts. Somehow we happened to end up in a running store!

They used GU Packets as ornaments! Genius!!

Then I went tanning (I know I know, it's bad for you, blah blah). There's some new ridiculous body wrap thing you can do at tanning salons now that claims to burn tons of calories. This sign was hanging in my room...

Check out the second thing listed under activity...

I think the person that made this sign tanned so much that their brain got fried. 1) I am amazed you can run a marathon in an hour. 2) I'm also amazed that running 26.2 miles only burns 1,186 calories (rather specific for something totally untrue - this also means I probably need to return my Garmin because I'm pretty sure I burned a little over 3,000 calories when I ran my marathon). 3) But wait... how can walking for an hour at 3.5 mph - which would be walking 3.5 miles - burn 350 calories, when covering 26.2 miles in an hour only burns 45% of the calories/mile. I cannot count the ways at how mad this sign made me. Why run a marathon when you can just do one "Formostar" session?!? Maybe they don't hand out medals for that thought...

Back at home I made dinner for my parents. My dad is always "scared" when I take over the food in the house because he thinks he's going to starve. And I suppose I've gotten used to eating some things that aren't incredibly common, but I am excited to say my introduction to spaghetti squash in place of pasta went over well! :-) They are both good troopers.

The rest of the night was spent pulling our hair out over the world's hardest puzzle.

It kind of looks like my mom is praying that she will find a piece, haha

We made some good progress, although I'm not sure it really looks like it!

Vacation Day 1

First day of vacation was a good mix of relaxing, exercise, shopping - success!

I started off noticing something was different about our Christmas tree this year... For a long time we've had this ladder that leans against the tree with three little elves (one for mom, dad, me) climbing to the top.

My elf is the one on the bottom

Well... all I can say is... Andy joined the ladder this year.

Damn he's hot! lol

Well played parents, well played.

My parents have a treadmill in their garage, so I hopped on that after my elf discovery. Holy cow that garage was cold. It took me two miles to finally feel "warm" (and by that I mean to finally feel my toes). I knew if I got off I'd never get back on, so I just stayed... for a long time.

Apparently our treadmill shuts down once you reach 100 minutes

I did a mixture of running and walking (mostly running). Once I got to 100 minutes and the treadmill automatically stopped, I decided to just restart it and finish off that last mile. Day one of vacation = 10 miles! Woohoo!!

I spent the afternoon showering/doing laundry (I brought home some dirty clothes)/wrapping presents/working on the world's hardest Christmas puzzle ever... then my mom came home from work, so it was time for shopping!!! We got some things for my dad, and then headed to Mongolian Grill for dinner. I love that place. Why don't they have Mongolian Grills in Western NY?!?

The night ended with a much needed trip to the grocery store. You've always been able to buy wine in the grocery stores in WA, but now... you can buy liquor there too! Liquor in grocery stores... legalized marijuana... this state's going to hell!!! ;)

Let the Vacation Begin!!!

Greetings from the W(B)est Coast!!!

Since I've only been awake for two hours there's really not much to say about being in Washington other than the water tastes good and my egg whites turned out perfectly this morning because my parent's have an awesome pan. It's the little things...

So backing up - here's how the rest of my day went down yesterday. I managed to get everything packed over lunch, took Katie and Scott to the airport, then made it back to the office for the "Secret Snowflake" party. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but miniature fruit kabobs and eight different vegetables on an assorted veggie tray. Ok, maybe there weren't eight different vegetables but I was trying to stay true to the original line... But friends! Of course there were lots of baddies but for once there were actually goodies at an office party!!!

Our festive conference room

I scored in the secret gift exchange - we had filled out surveys about our likes/interests and my Secret Santa did a good job... I got a healthy cookbook and a jar of peanut butter! Score!! Thank you Secret Santa whoever you are... I'm sorry I doubted your taste (as I basically doubt everyone's taste that I work with haha). Then we played a "reindeer game" where we had to find 9 reindeer that were hidden throughout the office. No one had a chance against me. I took off RUNNING and found 5 - so I won a gift card to a restaurant!! I also was suuuper sweaty for the rest of the party haha.

Rebecca and I also exchanged gifts since we actually like each other. ;-) Ever since my marathon she's mentioned that there was something she wanted to get me but had only seen at the store once, didn't get it, and then could never find it again. Well thanks to the internet, she found it...

RUNNER BARBIE!!!

How cool!!! My first thought was to attach her to the hood of our van for the Seneca 7 Relay, haha. Or maybe I will just proudly display her next to my 1st place trophey I got for a 5k in Texas (it was Texas... it was a small race... and my time was over 30 minutes haha... but I still got a trophey!!). Decisions decisions... I don't want to make you guys jealous, but... she came in a Downton Abbey tote bag. ;-) JEALOUS?!?!?

Anna and Lisa also got me awesome gifts - Anna ordered a Washington State necklace for me that is sooo neat and actually hilarious because I saw it online and ALMOST ordered Illinois ones for them both. Great minds think alike! And Lisa got me an amazing gift from Sephora... all different shades of Stila lip glosses (that is my favorite lip product... pretty much the only one I ever wear besides chapstick!).

I feel so freaking spoiled and so lucky. I have amazing friends that all know me very well. ;-) Thank you friends!!!

Then it was off to the airport - pat on the back to me for eating healthy during my travels. My layover was in Minneapolis and I was very impressed with the terminal I was in... instead of rows of chairs at the gates there were booths (sort of like at a diner) and on each table were two iPads. There had to have been hundreds of iPads. It was really cool. So I played on one of those until it was time to board and then - miracle of miracles - I had the aisle seat in an exit row, and NO one was in the middle seat. *angels sing* I managed to sleep the entire flight!

Side note: I'd like to give a shout out to my Lululemon Vinyasa Scarf. If you don't own one, you should. It is the best travel accessory you could have... use it as a blanket, ball it up for a pillow... the possibilities are endless. Go buy one.

All in all my traveling was pain free until the conveyor belt at baggage claim shut down and I had to wait an eternity to get my suitcase. By the time I finally got in bed it was 1:00am pacific time (so it felt like 4:00am). The beauty of the time change is that it felt like I got to "sleep in" this morning and I was still up suuuper early. :-)

K - I'm off to enjoy my first day of doing nothing!! 

Friends in Flight

Let's hope all flights go smoothly today - I am flying to WA, Andy's flying to New Mexico, Katie and Scott are flying to Oregon, and Anna and Bipul are flying back from NYC. That's a lot of friends in the air!

I'm on the last flight of the day, which means I am "working" at job number one today. I put 'working' in quotes because I'm not done packing so I will have to sneak back to my apartment to finish that, I am taking Katie and Scott to the airport, and then the last two hours of the office are our "Secret Snowflake" office party. Why do they make us pretend like we like/care about each other? "Oh hey, we're going to lay you off the week between Christmas and New Years so you're going to be extra broke, but why don't you go ahead and buy a gift for someone you would try to avoid if you saw them at the grocery store. Thanks!"

This morning before the madness of work/travel set in, Sarah and I had our last partner training session with Vinny of 2012. Last chance workout!!! They're getting harder. I had sweat rolling down my face. While we were doing this ridiculously impossible "mountain climbers on crack" move, I watched sweat drip repeatedly off my nose. Hot. Best part of training today? Not running 6.0 mph at a 5.5 incline... no that was not the best part. The best part was wearing my new shirt from Sarah!!!

Do you even realize how perfect this shirt is???

Alright I have 6 hours and counting until I head to the airport so I better get busy. Next time you hear from me I'll be in the Evergreen State!

Reindeer Cheetahs

Reindeer Cheetahs? They exist. Their names are Sarah and Babs.

Reindeer Cheetahs

Saturday morning was the first ever Reindeer Run 5k - I haven't really been running much (only about once a week) so I wasn't sure how it was going to go. Since Sarah had already won a race, she didn't feel the need to be greedy and win back to back races, so she said she would run with me. Yay!

Look at all of the antlers!

I knew running with a cheetah would get me to go faster, but I didn't know how fast, or how long I could manage a cheetah pace. The agreement was if I felt like I was going to puke, I'd tell her to slow down... otherwise we were just going to run! I only looked at my watch to see the distance information. I knew if I saw what pace we were going I was likely to freak out. I'm glad I didn't! Sarah was the best running coach/cheerleader/friend a girl could ask for. She kept me going, kept encouraging me... with about half a mile left she told me we were on track to beat my fastest time, but it wasn't until we got closer to the finish line that I realized we were going to crush my fastest time! Friends - we finished in 26:29, an 8:31 pace (my previous fastest time was 27:06). That's over 30 seconds off! And in a short race, 30 seconds is a big freaking deal. :-) PR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's my PR smile!!

THANK YOU SARAH! I hope you realize I will want you to run every race with me from now on. Unless I'm feeling lazy, haha.

Saturday actually was sort of a Sarathon (that's Sarah and marathon combined, duh). That evening we went to a dance recital for a studio that she teaches at - it was actually really cute. We sat in the front row so I felt like we were judges on a reality show... or watching a live episode of Dance Moms, haha. Either way it was fun. Then we headed to her friend's birthday party celebration which was also fun because those girls are SO nice. And finally the night ended at our trainer's 30th birthday party.

That's Vinny - he tries to kill us once a week.

Vinny's party made me start thinking about how I want to celebrate my own 30th birthday that is coming up in a few months (*cry*) and also wondering what Andy would want to do for his, which happens even sooner. Man I feel old...

So anyway, Saturday was very busy, very fun, and veerrrry long - I was up at 7:00am and didn't get to bed until about 2:30am. Yikes! It's no wonder I slept through my Weight Watchers meeting on Sunday (oops). There's not much to report about Sunday. I slept in late, went to a super fun Zumba class (I think people must of had some cocaine for breakfast or something because they had TONS of energy), and then headed out to Buffalo to see Andy's family before heading to Washington.

Now I have about 24 hours until I head to the airport and my list of things to do is out of control. I'm either going to end up in Washington with nothing to wear or it's going to be a LATE night. Wish me luck!

Fish is gross

Lutefisk (Norwegian) or Lutfisk (Swedish) or Ludfisk (Danish) is a traditional dish of the Nordic countries. It is made from aged stockfish (air-dried whitefish) or dried/salted whitefish (klippfisk) and lye (lut). It is gelatinous in texture, and has an extremely strong, pungent odor. Its name literally means "lye fish."

It looks like I'm not the only person in my family eating vomit for dinner lately. I talked to my parents last night while my dad had his traditional holiday dinner at Ikea. He was kind enough to send me photos.

Lutfisk...

... and smorgasbord

Don't feel sorry for him friends. He chooses to do this every year. You see, when I was little we had Christmas Eve dinner at my grandparent's house (Dad's side) and they would make lovely Swedish delicacies like... oyster stew. Barf. My Grandma would buy buckets of chicken from KFC for those of us that didn't inherit Swedish taste buds. Now they live in Texas so Christmas Eve is just the three of us (four this year with Andy!). Thankfully my mom is sane and does not make barf food for Christmas Eve dinner. We Larsons have upheld the KFC tradition! But my dad still gets his lutefisk once a year at Ikea.

I actually had nasty fish for dinner last night too. It was called tilapia, haha. Every so often I think, "Fish isn't that bad and it's good for me so I should have some." WRONG. It is bad. It is always bad. I wish I liked it but I just don't.

Yesterday was actually pretty good although I was not feeling well all day long - my stomach hurt, my ear hurt (weird) - and that made me cranky. I have a gajillion lists going on right now: my Christmas list, what to get others, things I have to do at work, things to pack, things to do when I'm in WA... but I got a lot of them crossed off, which always feels good. I ate well all day long. I went to Zumba. I went to bed at a decent hour. Go me.

Today kind of blows. Since I am running a race Saturday morning, I had to do some shift trading and I am actually having to work job number two again tonight. :-( That means a looooong day and late night. Boo. But! It's the last time I have to work at job number two until 2013!!! I will try to keep that in mind while I'm pulling my hair out trying to stay awake.

The train did not derail!

Good news! I did not derail my healthy diet last night!! I figured if I went home after work I'd probably snack myself into oblivion, so instead I went to the grocery store so I could set myself up for success for my few remaining days here. I was suuuuper hungry so I bought an apple to eat on the way home. An apple! Not a cookie. An apple! Go me.

Last night for dinner I made Indian food - Andy and I found out earlier in the day that Ravi Shankar had died so it seemed fitting to celebrate his life with a little Indian food. For those of you that might not know, Ravi Shankar is probably the best-known contemporary Indian musician... check out his music, it's great! I actually tend to listen to a LOT of Indian music (love that sitar) while I run. Anyway, back to dinner. I decided to try something new - spinach dal. It tasted about as good as it looked (which is pretty bad). Sorry Ravi... you deserved better than that.

Spinach Dal - aka Baby Poop Dinner

After our unsatisfying dinner, Andy and I headed to the club to meet Katie for a workout party!!! We watched the funny shows while we worked out (Modern Family is my favorite) and Andy managed to try Jacob's Ladder during a commercial break.

He was hauling on that thing

So I'm happy to report my successful night to you all. Today should be good too. I've packed a good lunch and healthy snacks for job number one, I'm going to Zumba tonight... My only complaint is that my stomach didn't feel very good last night and it doesn't feel any better today. I really hope I'm not getting sick... :-(

Put on your yamaka...

Last night at job number two I got to participate in Hanukkah by putting a candle in the menorah!!

Shalom!

It was fun to be fake Jewish - I felt very rich. ;-) 

What else is there to report... not much. Since we will be travelling soon, Andy and I are trying not to buy groceries so we don't come back to a fridge full of spoiled food. That also meant I had no lunch to bring to job number one today. I've managed to stay fairly healthy with my purchased foods today, but it sure is hard when everything looks so delicious. I'm just going to have to break down and go grocery shopping - there's no way I can last 5.5 more days and maintain my willpower while eating out. 

Thankfully I'll be able to combat some of today's splurges (ok ok I had a chocolate-dipped biscotti and a latte if you must know) with a treadmill party tonight with Katie. Woot woot!! And perhaps boxing before, although Rebecca seems on the fence about going to class tonight. Lord knows I am not going without her! I'm pretty sure half of the people in there have probably been to jail. Although the majority of our stagehands at job number one have been to jail so.... haha.

Wish me luck with food for the rest of my day. I am determined not to let my delicious coffee shop trip derail the rest of my day! I promise to give an honest report tomorrow of how I did.

One week until I bust this joint!

That's right... I'm heading home to Washington for the holidays!!! And guess who's going too???

Searching for plane tickets

Andy booked his ticket last night! He won't be there quite as long as I will be, but I'm glad he will be able to come out - plane tickets this time around were ridiculously expensive so I wasn't sure if he'd be able to make it happen (thank you Mom and Dad for mine).

Before the plane ticket excitement my day was pretty standard. I worked job number one, then went to Zumba. After class I did a quickie DVD at home that promised to give me amazing abs (they should be here any minute now... I haven't quite seen them yet, haha). And then it was time to make dinner. I can't even remember what Andy and I used to eat before Trader Joe's opened here. Almost every single thing we eat now comes from Trader Joe's. It's nice not to go to Wegmans quite as much!

This morning Sarah and I had partner training with Vinny. He did not kill us, but he tried. I'm not sure if it was any harder than normal, but for some reason I was extra sweaty... I could feel it rolling down my face. Is it wrong that that made me happy? Haha. I never like to get sweaty because it means I'll have to take another shower, but once I actually get sweaty I say bring it on! Did you know a treadmill can go up to a 30.0 incline? It does. I learned that the hard way today. :-) But seriously... when my alarm goes off I'm always sleepy and not really sure I want to roll out of bed to head to training, but I always have a lot of fun once I'm there (it helps that Sarah is a good sport with my gym clutziness).

The rest of my day today is unremarkable - job number one and job number two. At least I get to see Katie and Kristin at job number two on Tuesday nights, which makes the long day more enjoyable.

Alright it's diet coke time. Hope you all have a good day!

The holiday season is in full swing

Yikes, it's been awhile. Sorry friends (all 2.5 of you that probably still check this blog, haha). It seems when one aspect of my life starts to go downhill, the rest follow, and sadly the blog fell victim during my journey to Chubsville. But good news! I've been back on the healthy wagon since Thursday so hopefully I'll get back on track with regular updates as well. :-)

Here's what I was up to last week:

Tuesday
Worked both jobs, although my time at job number two was cut short so that I could attend the front desk holiday party/meeting. Once a month we have a front desk meeting, and to make the December one more festive we met offsite, had food and drinks, and did a "naughty Santa" gift exchange. Here are pics from the party/meeting... and a chance to see some of the lovely people I work with!

Kristin, Stephanie, Bridget, and Laura :-)

Ahmad explaining the rules to "Naughty Santa."
That's my boss, Nancy, in the background.

Katie got a bottle of bubbly!

You will see in Wednesday's pictures what I got for my gift. ;-)

Wednesday
Worked job number one and had what felt like a thousand hours worth of meetings. Dreadful. At 4:30pm, Lisa picked me up from the office and we were headed into the hood to do an outreach presentation to some kids in an after school music program. It was my first visit to the program (will soon be a regular thing in my schedule) so I was sooo glad that I had Lisa with me. It's much better to feel out a new situation with a friend. Lisa was great with the kids and they were all very fascinated with her (and for some reason very concerned that her feet hurt, haha).

Lisa with her little fans

After that longer than long workday it was time to have fun. Good thing I was hosting a Hood to Coast watching partay!!! Hood to Coast is a movie about a relay run from Mt. Hood to the Pacific Coast. Two reasons I like the movie, 1) It's about running, duh, and 2) It takes place in the Pacific Northwest and I like to look at the scenery. People came, we ate, we drank, we watched the movie, and then we busted out the present I got from the Naughty Santa gift exchange.

Twist the dial on the nose and the mustache and brows move!!

Sticker mustaches!!!

World's Best X-Mas Photo EVER

(Just so you know it is basically impossible to wear a mustache and smile at the same time)

Unibrow... you can tell I was really liking these sticker mustaches lol

Thursday
Thursday was awesome because I took the day off of work and focused on getting back on track and relaxing. Sarah and I went for a 5 mile run in the morning (that was a terrible run for me, but I'm glad she was there to make me do it). I don't really remember what I did during the day... just that I enjoyed my day so much I remember thinking how much I wish I never had to go to work. At night I went to Zumba. All in all a good day.

Friday
Started the morning off with partner training. It was a really good workout and I felt a little like I was going to puke by the end of it. Then it was back to job number one, but since it was Friday (and I could wear jeans!) it didn't seem so bad. That night Andy and I went to see the last Twilight movie!! Andy has been dying to see it for about a month now, so we decided... haha just kidding. He was a good sport and came with me (and was also very excited it was the LAST movie). I read all of the books so I feel compelled to see the movies. I can recognize that they are pretty miserable movies, but I still liked it!

Saturday
Super boring/uneventful. Worked job number two. Did a little Christmas shopping (not much). Made dinner. Stuffed inserts into concert programs for job number one.

Sunday
Returned to Weight Watchers! Last weekend's Toronto trip got in the way of WW and this week was pretty busy so I couldn't find another meeting that worked in my schedule. I was up 1.4 pounds from the last time I was there, but I was not surprised AT all. In fact, it wasn't nearly as bad as I felt like it could have been considering I was on the train to Chubsville for a solid week. But the meeting was good and made me feel motivated to keep up with my healthy ways. :-) After that I did a quick workout DVD and then had to work the kids concert for job number one. The concert was good, but the theatre was packed full of kids and they wouldn't shut up. Ugh.

Children's Holiday Concert - my view from my box seat (fancy fancy, haha)

The rest of the night was spent making dinner, doing laundry, and worrying about my mom. I got a call from my dad who was at the Chicago Airport waiting for his flight home - my mom wasn't feeling well and ended up calling 911 and heading to the hospital. I felt so bad that she was alone. :-( And worried that my dad wouldn't be in touch for 4 hours while he flew back. Anyway, my dad called around 1:30am with news that my mom had been released from the hospital and they were heading home. Phew! I'm super glad I'm heading home soon!!

Congrats! You made it to the end of my week. I promise to be better about updating this week so you don't have to work your way through a novel every Monday. ;-)

A Night at the Museum

Last night was job number one's holiday party. Typically it's held in an awkwardly small section of a restaurant, but this year it took place at the science museum. The food was catered by Mario's (pretty good Italian spread) but the best part was that we had the whole museum to ourselves to check out the exhibits - this also means we had space to escape being forced into awkward conversations with members of the board. Bonus!

We didn't even make it to the bar or to get food before we were lured into the beaver exhibit.

 Oboe and English Horn musician: Anna. Director of Education: Babs
All profession - All the time

Eventually we got drinks and food and had a few mandatory awkward conversations with important people. Then it was time for more exploring! The special exhibit right now is "Sue," a T-Rex. As a big fan of dinosaurs as a kid (my favorite is stegosaurus) I was excited to see it - I'd actually never seen a big giant dinosaur skeleton in person before.

Andy and Lisa are fascinated too!

Sue, the T-Rex

Help!!! Someone get Sue some Mario's pasta!

Right as we were about to leave, Andy, Anna, and Lisa spotted something strange. Could it be true that things come to life inside museums over night??

What??

It's Alive!!!!!!!!!!!

So yeah. We had fun. :-) Tonight is job number two's front desk offsite holiday "meeting" which is really just a chance to go to one of our deskies super nice houses to eat food and do a white elephant gift exchange. I still don't know what food or gift I will bring! I better get that figured out...