I love weekends

I'm so excited that it's Friday. We don't even have anything planned for this weekend (except for a 9 mile run Sunday morning at 6:30) but I'm just so glad it's here. Last weekend was pretty productive for us. Tom worked a lot on his thesis project at lab and I cleaned and organized a bunch of my stuff.

I went to a wheelchair basketball tournament at Lakeshore Foundation Saturday afternoon for a little bit. It was awesome! They had all different age groups but the college teams were my favorite to watch. Some of the guys had upper bodies/arms/chests bigger than anyone I know! And they were ruthless! They would just crash into each other and their chairs would turn over and they would just hop back upright chair and all using just their arms. It was really fun to watch. There is a quad rugby tournament there in March that I can't wait to go to.

It's really amazing that the Lakeshore Foundation is literally right down the street from us and it's 1 of only 5 or 6 official Olympic and Paralympic training sites in the whole country. They do a lot of cool research there too. They just did a study on power soccer...which is people who have significant physical involvement/disabilities and use their power wheelchairs to play soccer. Physically, their bodies are not really moving at all, just their power wheelchairs, but the study they conducted found that power soccer had a positive cardiovascular effect on these patients. That's just really amazing I think and has huge implications for the benefits of recreation and physical activity even for people who physically may not even be able to move anything below their neck! Sorry, I'll get off my PT soapbox now :)

It finally got cold down here again....30's and 40's. I hope it's not too cold for the Mercedes 1/2 marathon in February! Although anything can be better than running a marathon with 100% humidity and temps in the 80's! Not that I'm complaining.......... ;)

Stromboli!

Oh my gosh! I just made the BEST STROMBOLI EVER tonight! Actually it's more like a stromboli-calzone. I forget what the difference is between the two, but I only put pepperoni and mozzarella and ricotta cheese in it (b/c I'm super picky) so I think that makes it a calzone. Anyways it came out awesome. I'm so psyched too because I've been craving a good calzone ever since I left Philly and I haven't had anything that compares so far....until tonight :D Actually, I don't think I've had any calzones since I've been down here! There are no good Pizza places and the ones that I've heard are good aren't close to our apartment!

Running is spreading like a disease through the Bodenstine household. Guess who ran 7 miles this morning with me?! Tom! We're both going to run the Mercedes half marathon on February 11th. 4 weeks to go! I think the only way to guarantee that I keep running is to keep signing up for these races. I know the Nashville 1/2 marathon is in April and I hear that's a fun race. We'll see :)

I know, who puts a picture of themselves pretending to eat a stromboli on their blog?!

More Pics

I DID IT!

I DID IT!! I ran 26.2 miles! And on that note...I AM SO SORE! Haha. It was amazing! (And sooooooo HOT with 100% humidity!!!!) There were 16,000 marathoners in all and about 2,000 of us were TNTer's! (Team in Training). It was so inspiring to see all the other purple jerseys while running and read the backs of people's shirts. And it was even more inspiring to see how many people were cheering for Team in Training!

Our Team from Alabama/Gulf Coast met in our hotel lobby at 3:10 am on Sunday to board the bus and go over to the start together. Around 5 they headed us toward our starting corrals and we started at 6 am! We ran through Epcot for the first 3 miles, then headed up to Magic Kingdom which were miles 9-11. Then we ran this long (boring) stretch on this back road from Magic Kingdom down to Animal Kingdom (at which point I thought I was going to die from miles 14-18). Then we ran on some highway but it was kind of cool because at one point we looped back around so we were passing by runners coming the other direction. Plus there were some people cheering at this point too (miles 19-22....unlike miles 14-18). Then we entered MGM studios around mile 22.5. I was looking forward to that the whole run and by this point I was pretty proud of myself for already running 22.5 miles! I figured if for some reason I didn't finish, at least I've run over 22 miles! Then around mile 23 an EAGLES chant broke out (thankully they won last night!!). Then we left MGM and ran through some nice resort area on the way back through Epcot. There weren't as many people in Epcot cheering as I thought there would be. I ran into a guy that I trained with around mile 24 and ran with him for a little bit. Then mile 25 hit and I was so excited! Around mile 26 you could start to hear the people at the finish line and when I finally went around the curve and saw the FINISH line I think my heart stopped! ;) I carried a disposable camera with me and took pics the whole way so I'll post them on my webshots page as soon as I get them developed...I even got my picture with Safari Mickey while running through Animal Kingdom! ;)

All in all it was awesome...very very very very very difficult and exhausting...I know at some points I was being carried through the race by spirits, energy, and prayers instead of by my legs. Not sure if I'll ever run another one. If I do it will be one where there are people cheering the whole way (those back roads between parks where there weren't any spectators were tough....it's amazing how easy it is to run when people are cheering for you - my name was on my race number). The training was extremely time-consuming and the soreness I am currently experiencing is excruciating at times, but that high you get during the end of the run and when you cross the finish line is exhilerating! (way too many words starting with "E" in that sentence!) Here are some pics! More will be up on webshots soon. Only 5 weeks til the Mercedes half-marathon! (I may have recruited me some company during that race...... ;)

Pic Tom took of me at mile 13....too hot....need powerade....

Tommy and me after the race. I saw him at miles 4 (he didn't see me though!), 9, and 13!! And bless his heart (that's SO an Alabama saying) he had to be on the bus to epcot at 4:30 Sunday morning because they closed down the roads for the marathon so there was no other way to get to the parks!

Superhero pose with my cape cooler thingy. Did not need that AT ALL as it was ridiculously hot all day!

Pluto, Me, and Goofy at the TNT Victory Party!

Happy New Year!

So I'm sitting on the couch, enjoying the new year by watching football and basking in Penn State's bowl win when I realized I haven't blogged in a long time! The past couple weeks have been such a whirlwind! We went home for Christmas, which was really nice. We stayed at Tom's parents for a couple days, then went up to my parents for Christmas (watched the Eagles win!!!!!!) and then came back to Tom's parents again before flying back to Bham. Then I went back to work and I had to work Saturday and Sunday too so I've been extra busy. We had some people over last night for new year's eve. We had a blast but can I just tell you how weird it was to celebrate new year's in a different time zone?! We watched the ball drop but it was only 11! Then when the ball dropped for our midnight it was kinda anti-climatic because we already saw it drop ;) Ok, I need to get back to the couch before my imprint goes away ;P I'll update more later and post some pics. Marathon is in 6 days!!!! Ahhhh!!!!! :)

So excited for Christmas!

I can't wait! We fly home on Saturday and are going to spend a day or so in Philly at Tom's parents before heading up to the LBG to see my fam. Christmas Eve is always fun....we go to my Uncle Dan's (same uncle that hosted the rehearsal dinner) and hang out there for a while after church....usually my brother does or says something stupid to entertain us....ahhhh, some things never change :) And Christmas day the EAGLES are on! I don't want to jinx them but they've been lookin' pretty good! I was so psyched when they beat the giants because the first time we played the giants Tom and I went to this sports bar down here and if you recall the game at all....the eagles were winning going into the 4th and then blew it and the giants came back in OT and won. Anyways there were these completely obnoxious giants fans at the bar...and when we were leaving they were like "good game" to us (they weren't saying it to be nice, they were saying it because they won and were trying to rub it in). Anyways on Sunday when the Eagles kicked some giants butt I was sooooo happy :) I don't know where those giants fans were, but I know they were watching and hopefully thinking of what jerks they were being several months earlier :) ANYWAYS, CHRISTMAS! I can't wait! Here's a pic of downtown Bham....all lit up for the holidays :)

I did it!

I ran 20 miles! It was so hard but I did it! We ran up some killer hills too. Ugh, I HATE hills! Disney only has one tiny hill and it's actually an on-ramp to the interstate. I guess it's a good thing though because the Mercedes Half in February is going to have a few hills. And my fundraising is finished! I've raised $3,215 total! Thank you SO MUCH for donating to such a worthy cause! I'm so excited! Less than 3 weeks! Disney does this really cool thing where they put a chip in your racing number that can be tracked when you cross certain points in the race. If you'd like to track me and get updates on my time at various points in the race or just get an update when I finish the race, follow the instructions below to sign up via email or text messaging on your cell phone.

Go to http://www.disneyworldmarathon.com
Click on "2007 Walt Disney World Marathon"
On the right, under "Event Info" click "Live results"
Click "Track a runner today!"
Then just enter your info online
Don't forget my new last name is "Bodenstine" when entering my name!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We got our tree!!!! Yay! I love it. There's a few pics below! My big 20 miler is this weekend! I'm so nervous. I know I can do it, because I did 17, so what's 3 more, right?! Ha.....we'll see! I'm trying to surround myself with any motivation I can think of because I'm running a little low in that department right now. We've got a lot going on this weekend too! But hopefully it will keep my mind off of being nervous about the 20 miler (think positive, think positive, think positive). Anyways I can't really think of much else that is going on right now. Running has consumed my mind, body, and soul, and will keep it for the next 26 days so I apologize if I'm a little spacey or not updating as much!

Our TREE!!!!!!!

Tom decorating our tree

Tom and I in front of the Poinsettia tree at the Botanical Gardens

One month to go!

My marathon is officially ONE MONTH FROM TODAY (the 7th!!) Ahhhhhh!!!! I'm glad it's only a month away because I'm kind of getting bored with running but I'm also very scared because I don't know if I'm prepared for it! I'm sure I am....I did 17 miles a couple weeks ago and in a week and a half I'm going to do 20!!! That'll be my longest before the marathon. And everyone says if you can do 20, you can easily do 26.2. And I feel like if I can do 17, I can do 20....so we'll see!

Last night I ran with a girl from work and with a group of people that meets every wednesday at the Trak Shak (a local running store). We did 5 miles through a residential area in one of the suburbs. It was good because there was a huge group of us, but it was dark and it started to HAIL during our run!!! But that only lasted like 60 seconds. Everyone always says "If you don't like the weather in Birmingham, wait 5 minutes!" We are learning that is very true!

I'll leave you with a pic of Santa Chin. I was bored the other night and found this hat in one of my boxes of Christmas Decorations :) (It must of been during half-time of the Eagles game ;)

Third Annual Holiday Weekend!

Well, technically it's the fourth. A few years ago some of my good friends from college started coming down to Philly to visit the first weekend in December. We made it an annual event, and would go out in Philly, exchange Secret Santa gifts, eat a lot and drink a lot :) When I told everyone I was moving to Alabama they said we were going to do holiday weekend in Birmingham this year....so we did! Brie, Margaret, Carrie (all bridesmaids) and Carrie's husband John were all able to come down. Carrie and John flew in Friday morning and Brie and Mags arrived Friday night. We had such a GREAT weekend! It was so nice to see everyone and Tom and I are so grateful to them for taking the time and money to come visit us! We explored some of Birmingham's finest attractions and of course, ate and drank a lot :) Pics will be up soon!

Ok, so after Brie and Margaret flew out on Sunday, we had a few hours before John and Carrie's flight left. John LOVES to explore and check out new things and loves to cram 18,000 things into their vacations :) So he picked up a "2006 Birmingham Activity Guide" and we went exploring :) Actually, we just went to this one place, which was an old mansion from the 1800's that was supposed to be all decorated for Christmas (I forget who lived there....I think the cousin to the guy that shot Abe Lincoln???). Anyways, so we went and it was kinda decorated for the times, not anything too spectacular to put us in the Christmas mood. They did have yummy hot cider and snacks at the end though :) Ok, POINT OF THE STORY, so John and Carrie say they initiated our Christmas season and we have to do something "Christmas-y" every weekeend between now and Christmas. Which is fine with me because I LOVE doing Christmas-y things. Sunday night at the mall, you could bring your dog or cat and get it's picture taken with Santa. Tom and I thought about bringing the chins for like a millisecond but then decided against it. ;) This weekend we are going to get our Christmas Tree on Saturday! I can't wait!! Decorating our tree will be our Christmas-y thing we do this weekend :) Here are a few pics from Holiday Weekend :)

Everyone at dinner in the Lakeview District

The girls at the Rare Martini

Sunset at the Vulcan

Gorillapod holding John's cam to take our "artistic pic"

Painting

So Saturday night Tom and I were sitting in our living room, hanging up Christmas lights, and something just didn't look right. We decided we had too much "white" in our apartment. I suggested the idea of painting one wall and having an "accent wall".......half joking/half serious. The more we thought about it.......the more we liked the idea. So Sunday morning (after my 17 mile run!) we went to Lowe's, got some paint, and came home to paint our accent wall :) We needed the color to be something dark and bold to get the full effect of the accent wall, and we have a lot of tan and brown in our living room so we opted for dark brown. We LOVE it! I think it turned out so well because we painted the wall that has our doors to our balcony on it, so the accent wall is accented nicely by the white doors :) There are a few pics below.

Me painting

The finished product :)

So yeah I ran 17 miles on Sunday! It was hard, but not too bad. My legs hurt more than anything else. I think that has something to do with the fact that my current running shoes have over 400 miles on them since April....TIME FOR NEW SHOES! My team in training coach was actually surprised that I haven't injured myself yet running in my shoes because they were so worn down on the inside. So I have new shoes now so hopefully I'll be as good as new on my 15 mile run this weekend. I've also almost reached my fundraising goal!! Thanks to EVERYONE who has donated! I think I have like 20 more dollars to raise to meet my goal ($2800). Unfortunately, I have one more person that I would like to run in memory/honor of. Tom's nephew Michael's good friend, Nick, just passed away from lymphoma. I think he was only 20 or 21. Hopefully he passed peacefully and painlessly. Please keep his family and friends in your thoughts and prayers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Unfortunately, Tom and I were not able to make it home for Thanksgiving this year so we had our own little Thanksgiving....just the two of us. We even cooked a turkey....and it turned out yummy!!! Everything actually turned out really well except this one dish that I tried to make....it kind of tried to explode (ok, not explode, boil over) in the oven but it still tasted good :) And we went for a nice run in the morning too so we didn't feel guilty about stuffing ourselves. I tried to trick Tom into running 6 miles....but he kind of figured it out.

Today we got up at 4:45 to hit the Black Friday specials (If you don't know me too well, I'm kinda obsessed with finding really really good deals on things)....like for example.....my 200GB Internal Hard Drive that I got today for only TWENTY DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!! My computer won't know what hit it! (which I'm kinda worried about....hopefully it will still function after I install it). Ok, enough of that :) Tom came with me this morning but slept in the car while I faced the masses and waited in line FOREVER! But well worth it. Oh yeah, did I mention the weather was beautiful yesterday and today? Mid 60's yesterday and low 70's today! Hopefully it will be like that on Sunday morning for my 17 mile run! Here are some pics of us on Thanksgiving....they're not the best quality b/c they were taken with my phone camera and our disposable.....but we shouldn't be having that problem anymore after today's Black Friday sales O:)

Tom carving the turkey

Tom is hungry!

And so am I!!

Tom and I before Thanksgiving Dinner!

Weekly ramblings

I can't believe Penn State's football season is over! Except for their New Year's Day bowl game in Orlando, of course :) Too bad Tom and I don't have a lot of money and I don't have a lot of paid-time off at work or we would go to the PSU game in Orlando Jan 1 and stay there for the week for my marathon on Jan 7! Oh well. Next year hopefully we'll go to a BCS game and then we'll go to that :)

I ran 15 miles yesterday with Team in Training! I actually ran the last 2 miles by myself because yesterday I happened to be the only one there training for Disney (everyone else was training for Mercedes which is a month later) so they were only doing 13 and our Team in Training coach ran an ultra-marathon (40 miles!) on Saturday so he only did 13. And I think he was ready to stop after 7 but the rest of us were afraid we were going to get lost on the 13 mile course because I had only done it twice and everyone else had only done it once. Anyways, 15 miles was a pretty big accomplishment...but we do 17 next week!!

So we don't have a dog yet ;) IF we get one it probably won't be until the spring or summer anyways. We'll see. The chinchillas are doing well. I think they're getting fat. We let them out to play last night...we let them run around in the one bathroom and close the door so they can't get out. They like to think that they are participating in the X games or something because they always like side-jump off of the walls and stuff. It's cute. They also like to hide in things that we put in their cage....Tom will use cardboard and make a little house for them. Here's a pic of Chimu who decided he wanted a window in their house so he chewed through the cardboard. They are so cute but such brats sometimes :)

Happy Anniversary to us :)

Yesterday was our Five Year Anniversary from when we started dating! Unfortunately, we didn't do anything to celebrate because I had a casting lab at work until 6 and then Tom had a dodgeball game at 7:15 and I had to train as well. But I think we're going to go out to dinner tonight :) I'm not sure how much longer we'll celebrate our dating anniversary now that we are married but we thought 5 years was special.

So we went to the Gala last Friday night and had a fabulous time! They had all these decorated christmas trees up in the lobby area that people could buy...they were pretty. Guess what? I bid on something at the silent auction! And guess what?! I won!! :) Haha, it was this really cute little doggy water and food bowl that was in the shape of a dog (painted black and white-just like a border collie!) and said "Merry Christmas" on it. I bid something really low...and really I just bid on it just for the heck of it. After dinner, we went back to the silent auction before it closed and only one more person had bid on it and only $5 more than my bid. So with 8 seconds before the auction closed I made an impulse bid (that was only $10 more than my original low bid) and I won! Here's the best part....after winning I realized that I had won more than just the really nice food & water dish....I won a certificate for a free annual checkup for a dog and free vaccinations for 1 year! Now, some of you may be saying "But Anne and Tom don't even have a dog." Well, you're right.....but I really really really really want to get a border collie and now we can take it to the vet for free! Plus on the SPCA website the feature dog is a border collie....coincidence? Plus my brother just got a really cute border collie from his local animal shelter too! Since our certificate to the vet is good for a year, we may wait until the spring or summer to consider getting one. We'll see :) Oh yeah, here's another best part about my silent auction bid. When you went to pay and pick up what you won, it gave you the retail value of the item....My bid was 80% off the suggested retail value!!!!

Ok, so that was just all the news about the silent auction. After dinner there was a live auction as well. Ok, let me back up...the whole reason we got to go to this Gala was because The Lakeshore Foundation buys a table every year and donates some of the tickets to the PT/OT department at Children's. The Lakeshore Foundation is this really amazing place that is a paralympic training site as well as a recreational facility for children and adults with physical disabilities (and it happens to literally be right down the road from our apartment). Anyways, sitting at our table were two people from Lakeshore...one of them one of the administrative directors and the other a paralympic world champion in water sports! He actually owns his own non-profit business, Adaptive Aquatics, and teaches kids with physical disabilities how to water ski and stuff. Amazing. Anyways one of the prizes up for bid in the live auction was a one-week trip to some resort in Colorado for 7 people. Rhonda ended up bidding on and winning this trip! It was crazy....it went for like $3600!! And when she was bidding she kept looking at us asking if we "were in" or if we "want to go." And we are all sitting there thinking "Um, does she want us to go in financially or is she just being nice and inviting us along?!" Haha. I think she was just inviting us, but not seriously. We'll see....my boss that was there with us has her email address. We took pictures with my new digital camera (aka disposable camera from walmart) so as soon as I get them developed I'll post them. I'll leave you with a pic of Haleigh....my brother's new border collie :)

Gala

I'm such a bad blogger...no posts in over a week! People are going to stop reading because I don't update enough (or at least that's what Tom says ;).....j/k). Anyways, I've been keeping really busy, work, run, eat, sleep, sometimes run, work, eat sleep.......but my days have been consisting of some variant of that schedule. We ran 11 miles last week for our long run....we do 13 again this week. I also think that I'm going to run the Mercedes Half Marathon here in Birmingham. My full marathon will be in Disney on Jan. 7 and the Mercedes isn't until Feb. 17 or something like that. It'll give me an excuse to keep running but I'll have enough recovery time in between the two events. Plus I know a lot of people who are running the half so it should be pretty fun :)

And now for more exciting news. Every year Children's Hospital has this really fancy Gala that they put on and each year the Gala benefits something different with the money that is raised. There is dinner, a live band, a silent auction (I've never been anywhere with a silent auction before!). This year it benefits surgery at Children's I think. Anyways here is the best part. Tickets sell for $125 PER PERSON but Tom and I get to go FOR FREE :D One of the PT's husband's company buys enough tickets for a table every year and then donates the tickets to the PT/OT department. On Tuesday she still had 3 extra tickets so Tom and I get to go! It's Friday night at The Sheraton downtown. We can't wait! Maybe I'll bid $5 on something at the silent auction just to say I bid on something at a silent auction! (Apparently last year a dinner for 10 made by a chef at your house went for $1800.....some doctor's wife bid on it and won).

Unfortunately, my camera broke so I'm not sure if we will have pictures of the event. Seeing as how I'm photo-obsessed I'll probably buy a disposable before we go. Maybe Santa will bring me a new camera for Christmas......or Black Friday ;)

Go State....Beat The Owls!

P.S./Head's up: Next year PSU plays Temple IN Philly. We are definitely going up for the game and making a weekend out of it.....two of our favorite things in the world in one place....Penn State and Philly :) Now if only the Eagles play at home that Sunday...........

Happy Halloween!

The Matrix

Roller Derby Girl and.....Girl

Happy Halloween everyone! My first Halloween down south! How exciting (well, technically my 2nd since I was down here visiting Tom last Halloween). Anyways the Halloween festivities have started and will continue through the weekend! Working in a children's hospital on Halloween is like the best way to spend the day. There are A TON of activities set up for the kids (including trick-or-treating!) and they really all enjoy themselves. Plus all the little ones are dressed up in those little full body costumes like dragons or lions or turtles and they are so cute!

Tom and I are going to a Halloween party tonight and are dressing up like Neo and Trinity from The Matrix. I'll post pictures as soon as I get them up (which reminds me, Kansas pics are now up http://community.webshots.com/user/awesomeanne Page 3, "Kansas and Joe & Laura's Wedding). And we're having a "Post-Halloween" Halloween Party on Friday night. I'm going to be a roller derby girl and Tom's going to be a girl. Should be a good time.

My running has been going pretty well. I guess it's decided that I'm going to do the full marathon because I ran a half-marathon (we ran 13 miles) on this past Sunday! I didn't know if I was going to finish or not around mile 6-7, but I felt great when I finished! We drop back to 11 miles this weekend so that will be nice to look forward to!

Hope everyone has a great Halloween!

We're not in Kansas anymore!

Actually....we are. Our flight was delayed 3 hours (grrr!) so I'm blogging live from the KCI airport. Tom's best friend from home (Joe-who now lives in Kansas) got married this weekend and Tom was in the wedding. We had an absolute blast. We all stayed at this ranch (Circle S...highly recommend if you're ever in Kansas!). Anyways it was like a giant farmhouse with probably about 10-12 rooms and the wedding party, Joe & Laura, and their immediate families all stayed there. The guy that owned it was like a real cowboy too. And they cooked all of our meals there and there was an awesome hot tub in the back of the house. It was also in the middle of nowhere with no tv's and no one got cell phone reception (Imagine us trying to find out the score to the PSU game on Saturday!) Ohh yeah and they had a herd of buffalo! Apparently there was a peacock too but we didn't see him. The wedding itself was beautiful (even though it POURED rain the whole day) and the reception was a blast. The whole weekend was just amazing. The travel was (is) a pain in the butt but well worth it!

Since I missed my team run this weekend, I had to run when we got out to Kansas on Friday. I did 10 miles! Ok, also, I always hear how flat Kansas is and in my head pictured absolutely no hills, so I was pretty mad when I decided to run through Kansas University only to discover that it was ON A GIANT HILL and I almost died twice trying to run up those stupid hills! Haha, enough complaining. The university was actually really pretty and the town of Lawrence seemed pretty cool too.

As always I took a ton of pictures and I will post them on my webshots as soon as Tom and I get home and unpack and settle in(which at this point I'm not even sure we'll get home today!)

Whirlwind travel!

So Penn State on Saturday was an absolute blast (would have been better if we won, but considering the facts that 1) we were down to our 3rd string quarterback, 2) We held michigan to 17 points when they're averaging 30+, and 3) we only lost by a touchdown, not too shabby).

Saturday was my cousin Andrew's 21st birthday, so we started off downtown at a few bars before we headed up to tailgate. Let me just tell you that having a bloody mary on the trip up to PSU from my parents house and 3 beers without eating breakfast isn't such a good idea! Happy Birthday Andrew! Then we went up to tailgate and were able to see a lot of our friends that we haven't seen since the wedding...so that was really fun to see everyone and hang out before the game.

The traveling on the other hand was absolutely horrible. Never again will we drive 3 hours to Nashville, fly to Philadelphia, & drive 3 hours to Lewisburg....no matter how cheap the flights are out of Nashville. Waaay too much of a hassle! Anyways here are a few pics from the game! This weekend Tom's best friend Joe is getting married! Tom's in the wedding so it should be a good time! Hope everyone has a great week and weekend!

The Girls!

Game

Getting all bundled up for the game!

Slacker

Hi everyone. Sorry I haven't blogged in so long!!! Running and fundraising is like having a second full time job! My running has been going pretty well. 9 miles on Sunday! That was pretty exciting for me. Fundraising is going ok too...although I'm a little concerned about reaching my goal of $4000....but there is still some time left. The Jim 'N Nick's fundraiser went pretty well I think. I still don't know how much money they are going to donate (I tried calling the manager on Monday, he didn't have the totals then, I didn't want to seem pushy so I didn't call him back until Wednesday...he wasn't at the office). Hopefully I'll know by tomorrow! I raised $120 with just the raffle!


So, I have to blog about this one Sonic commercial that is on down here. If you don't have Sonic near you, you probably haven't seen it....Sonic is like a fast-food restaurant that is famous for their desserts/milkshakes. So anyways, there is this guy and girl in a car and they are drinking some milkshake and talking about how good it is and the conversation goes as follows:
guy: "I think I'm going to have to blog about this so all of my loyal readers can know about it!" girl: "all of your loyal readers? So you mean like, your mom?"
guy: "My mom's neighbor reads my blog too"
girl: "Score! Your mom's neighbor!"

Haha, I guess that doesn't really do it justice...you kinda have to see it. But it's pretty funny and it reminds me of me and my blogging.


We're going back up to PA this weekend for the PSU-Michigan game. We were able to get an unbelievable deal on flights out of nashville, and we have tickets to the game, so we couldn't turn it down! Plus it's PSU vs. Michigan and it's a NIGHT GAME :D If you're gonna be up there, let me know! Can't wait to be back in Happy Valley!

Fundraiser

Hi everyone. In order to raise more money for Team in Training/Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I decided to see if a local bar/restaurant would donate a portion of their proceeds from Happy Hour one night to LLS. So Jim 'N Nick's, a really yummy bar-b-q restaurant/bar down here agreed to help me out. I have been soooo busy trying to promote this event and advertise for it. I could never do this full time! It is stressing me out like crazy. I'm sure it will be fine, but I'm just worried that no one will show! One of the radio stations agreed to help me out, and my Team in Training coach sent an email out to everyone on his list-serv......so I feel like at least 500 people have to know about this by now.....I'm just praying that enough will show so Jim 'N Nicks will generously donate a big portion of their proceeds to LLS!
I'm also holding a raffle at the happy hour.....so far I have a $45 gift card to Outback Steakhouse, a $20 gift card to Locos Restaurant & Bar, a $15 gift card to McAlister's, some gift cards to Planet Smoothie, & 5 free cone certificates to Ben & Jerry's. I'm only going to sell the raffle tickets for $1 each so hopefully people will buy a lot! So if you randomly happen to know anyone in Birmingham, send them to Jim 'N Nick's in Five Points this friday from 4-7!
Anyways keep your fingers crossed for me that this goes well! I'll keep you posted and let you know how the happy hour goes!