The past 2 weeks...

I feel like I haven't blogged in forever! So, here is a very random post with some updates!

- Hubby and I saw The Hunger Games on the opening night. We got there about an hour early and got in line. He was thrilled, let me tell you. Ha! We both loved the movie but I loved the book way more. There are just so many details they have to leave out in the movie. But, it was still very good and stayed very true to the book. My husband even liked it and he has never read the book. The only negative thing I have to say is... I had motion sickness thru almost the entire movie. We were in an IMAX and with the style of filming they used- I was SO nauseous! I had to close my eyes at least 20 times during the movie and convince myself several times not to throw up. I definitely want to see it again in a normal movie theater or just buy it when it comes out (duh) and watch it at home!


-Spring time in Texas is one of my favorite times of year! Everything is so green and all the wildflowers are blooming.




- Our pool is so close to being done! Next up they are pouring the concrete and stamping it then finishing the bottom of the pool and finally the fire pit. We hope it will be ready in the next 2 weeks!


- Just an FYI...gas is CRAAAZY expensive in California! It cost over $80 to fill up my little rental car, Impala!


- This Friday we are off to Augusta, Georgia to spend the weekend with my family and go to The Master's final round on Sunday!! WHOHOO!! My husband is a golfer and over the past few years I have started to love golf (not playing, but going to touraments) so this has become one of our favorite yearly traditions! This will be our 4th year going but our first time going on the final day. We are hoping Tiger is finally back to his old self (minus his terrible choices in her personal life) and can pull off a big win this weekend! How cool would it be to be sitting at the 18th hole of The Master's watching Tiger Woods win?!

Movies you should see & a Half-Marathon recap!

What was supposed to be a normal 2 day weekend ended up being a 3 day weekend thanks to some Mexican food making me sick all day Friday. So, I had a great excuse to lay around and catch up on some movies I have wanted to see!

First, I watched Water for Elephants. Have any of you seen this movie?!?! I absolutely LOVED it! I heard the movie was really good but sad and that turned out to be very true. There were 2 parts that I had to fast forward through...I could tell what was about to happen and I could not stand to watch so I just skipped those parts. I am not telling you what happens but if you have seen it I am sure you know what I am talking about it and if you haven't seen it but you start watching it, you will know it when you come to it. There are a few parts that are really sad and disturbing but this is such a great movie! I loved Rob Pattinson & Reese Witherspoon together in this movie and loved, loved, loved the ending!! If you have not seen this movie yet, you need to ASAP!


Next, my hubby and I watched The Change-Up. HILARIOUS!!!! Anything with Jason Bateman is funny; I love him! Ryan Reynolds plays a single guy who is living the single life...going out every night, dating tons of women, not a care in the world. Jason Bateman is married with twin babies and a 5 year old and his life has gotten a little boring and very routine. Long story short they manage to switch places for several days and go crazy trying to live each others lives. This is a must see if you are looking for a funny, romantic comedy!



Sunday morning I got up bright and early and headed to Humble to meet up with some of my Houston Fit girlfriends to run in the RunGirl Half-Marathon! It is a small women's only half-marathon sponsored by TriGirl. At one point I planning on running the whole half-marathon but I forgot to sign up and due to the insanely busy past few months I did not train properly. So, my friend Robyn from Goldstein's Growing Family ( www.goldsteinsgrowing.blogspot.com )and I decided to do the relay. Neither one of us were really trained to run a full half-marathon but we really wanted to do this race so we thought the relay would be perfect. The 13.1 mile course was at this beautiful park right on Lake Houston and the temp's were in the low 40's. Robyn ran the first 6.55 miles and I ran the 2nd 6.55 miles. I felt great thru the 4th mile then I started having shooting pains come from my left foot up thru my entire leg. A couple times I was convinced I was running with a broken bone in my foot. The pain I felt the last 2 miles was so severe that I considered dropping out of the race...but, I was almost done and I wanted that pretty pink medal so I kept going :) The 4 half marathon's I have ran before were all 20,000 people or more so this was a really nice change...there were only 1200 people in this race! The course was so pretty...we ran along Lake Houston and on winding roads thru the forest, lined with Fall trees. Everyone was saying that this would be such a good race for someones first half-marathon...so, if any of you out there are training or have ever considered running a half, you should consider this one. The next one is a year away though, but at least you would have plenty of training time!





Whohoo! 5 Half-Marathon's (including 1 relay) done! Next up- The Woodlands half in March :)

A fun, Christmas filled weekend!

~ We went to our 1st Christmas party of the season Friday night. It was hubby's company party at Hotel Zaza in Houston and it was so much fun. I love getting all dressed up for holiday parties! We even stayed the night at the hotel because they had really cheap rates for his company. We had a room that was about 20 feet from the pool and if any of your have been to Hotel Zaza in Houston, you know how cool that is :) More pictures to come tomorrow!



~ Saturday we had brunch @ Empire Cafe (one of our favorite's) then knocked out a TON of Christmas shopping. We spent hours in Williams Sonoma, Costco, Pottery Barn and Anthropolgie.

~ Our feet were hurting from not sitting for so long so we decided to go see Breaking Dawn. It was a little slow in the beginning and it was driving me crazy how depressed Bella was throughout the first half but, it got really good eventually. I don't think it is as good as the first few in the Twilight Saga but still worth seeing. Can't wait for the final one to come out...that is when all the big action happens! We went home, ordered pizza, watched football and finished decorating our house and tree the rest of the night.

~ Sunday Chris went to the Texan's game ( WE WON! ) with his Dad and I spent the day cooking, baking and grocery shopping. I made the crockpot Italian chicken & pasta recipe that has been floating around Pinterest- it was DELICIOUS! I made gluten free strawberry & blueberry muffins for breakfast and baked some gingerbread cookies with homemade cream cheese frosting too. Our house smelled like an Italian restaurant and a bakery all day!

~ And last but not least....we got some REALLY, REALLY exciting news over the weekend but I can't share it yet! :) Hopefully in the next week or 2 though!! And NO, I am NOT pregnant!

Weekend Recap

Happy Monday, everyone! Hope yall had a great weekend! :)
Ours was spent once again in town and with no big plans...that would make 4 weekends in a row that we have been in town and not had much going on (that is probably a record for us).

Friday night we were craving Italian food and had a gift card to Carabba's so we had an early dinner there then went home to watch a movie. We had rented "Arthur" with Russell Brand...HILARIOUS!!! I used to despise him and I still do not really care for him too much in general but he is really funny in his movies. Saturday we had breakfast at Lola in the Heights then spent a few hours looking for a bike for me! I have been wanting one for awhile but just kept putting it off but we finally found one! It was pretty cheap and is just a very basic mountain bike but it is exactly what I wanted. My hubby has a bike and always wants to ride together so now we finally can :) We figure if I start riding a lot then we can go and get me a nicer one down the road. Anyways, Saturday night we went to a dinner party/couple's baby shower for one of my best friends & her husband. Their little girl, Ella Victoria, is due at the beginning of October. I am going to post pictures of that this week but our Internet was down yesterday so I did not get to upload them.
We spent Sunday running a few errands, taking a bike ride through Memorial Park, grilling hamburgers and we watched "Tron."

Let me just tell you...I AM SORE from that bike ride. My "sit bones" (that term was used a lot during my many years of dance and when I got my Pilates certification) hurt SO SO bad. Bike seats are NOT comfortable...even a custom one like I got. I have not been on a bike in probably 12-15 years and while actually riding a bike is easy, it is still painful! 1 mile into our ride I was already complaining about my thighs hurting and my wrists hurting! HA! It was really sad. I guess it is like any type of physical activity...if you take a super long break from it, it will be hard and painful the first few times back to it.

Also- If it seems like we have been watching A LOT of movies lately- we have. Our cable has been acting crazy the past 2 weeks and it is too frustrating watching normal shows so we have had to rent movies so we have something to watch until the Comcast people come fix the issue, which will be this week thank goodness.

This week is going to be crazy busy...between Chris & I, we have something going on every single night this week. I will barely see him until Saturday afternoon :(
And today is officially the start of football season, which means many weekends and nights spent at Reliant Stadium and Kyle Field. The first pre-season Texans game is tonight against the Jets. Whohooo- Go Texans!






Hope you all have a great Monday!!

Half-Marathon Training Update & Weekend Recap

Training has gotten off to a bit of a rough start. My week day runs have been slacking (this is always my problem) and it is miserably hot so my runs on Saturday's have been really hard. With only 4 months until my race I have seriously got to step it up.

I love my new group I am running with on Saturday mornings...I have met some great ladies and have found a group that is right at my pace. We are only up to a little over 3 miles but every Saturday the mileage is getting higher. Tempo runs and hill training start this week. Those are on Tuesday & Thursday evenings. You would think that running around 6:30 PM would be better because the temperature would drop...but, nope, not here in Houston. It is still over 100 degrees at that time of the day...so, no matter what time of the day/night you run- IT IS HOT.

Last week I did do Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred EVERY DAY though =) Whohoo! I was sore all week but it felt great to stick with it. Besides running on Saturday, I did not work out at all over the weekend so I am back at it today.

This past weekend was one of the most uneventful weekends I have had in a really, really long time. And I absolutely LOVED it. We had all sorts of plans for Saturday but literally EVERYTHING fell thru. Friday night I cooked a new recipe I found, Zucchini, Squash & Chicken Sausage Pasta (It was delicious...I will probably post the recipe tomorrow) and we watched a movie. Saturday morning I woke up at 5:30 and ran 3 miles with Houston Fit, got a manicure & pedicure, baked a cake, piddled around the house then laid in bed and watched a movie and TV for hours. It was perfect. Sunday, we did more of the same...had breakfast at Hungry's, went to the grocery store then just hung out at home ALL day. Hubby got a deep fryer recently and he fried some catfish for us last night. It was delicious!

We managed to watch 4 movies this weekend! I don't think that has ever happened before. Here they are-

-Limitless- Stars Bradley Cooper...really good movie, definitely recommend it.
-Just Go With It- Stars Jennifer Anniston & Adam Sandler...your typical corny romantic comedy.
-Hall Pass- Stars Owen Wilson & Jason Sudeikis....HILARIOUS!
-Get Him to the Greek- Stars Jonah Hill & Russell Brand...very innapropriately funny.

Saturday night we had plans to go out to dinner at Benjy's then go to White Linen Night in the Heights with some friends. We were mainly going out to celebrate my best friend, Holly's, birthday but she ended up not being able to come so we just decided to stay home.

Hope you all had a fun & relaxing weekend, too! =)