Random Photo Post

I was travelling last week and have just random photos I want to share.

First, Sarah sent us a Christmas package/baby Paige package. We were allowed to open our Christmas presents early (separate post). This is my new mug!

Daniel and I had a date night at a Turkish restaurant two Saturdays ago.

This was the tub at the hotel where I stayed. It was really big and deep and I was pretty careful getting in and out.

I was at a womens training last week, which meant lots of girl talk and lots of Starbucks!

Back in my city, I took some friends to the Toys R Us here. I saw this. It was near the baby bathtubs. 

There really are no words.

Our city just got a GAP....like a reallllll GAP!!! It even has a baby and kids section, and totally felt like being in America. This was the babyGap.

I was away for our 3 year wedding anniversary, but these greeted me when I came home!

We went out for dinner this past Saturday nite to celebrate. There is this amazing italian restaurant in our city that is our fave. But we got there and it was a special reservation only wine tasting set dinner. We ended up going to a restaurant near our house instead. But we plan to re-celebrate in a couple of weeks.

love

laura

Anniversary Recap

Yesterday we went to class. I only have 1 class on Mondays, so I got done at 10:30. I came home and ran real quick, then we ate lunch, studied some, then took off for a massage!
(sidenote: massages are way cheap here. But they're also not like what you think. You keep your clothes on the whole time, and you're out in the open. It's also really loud, kind of like an asian mani/pedi place with a TV going and lots of people talking.)
Here we are:

How handsome is he??!!?!?!

We decided to get a foot massage too. Yay for hot water when it's practically freezing out!!

After the massage, we came home to change and head back out for dinner.

Here we are starting out the night!

In order to save a bit, we took the bus instead of a taxi. We went to a new italian restaurant in town, and it might be my new fave.

I ordered salmon.

Daniel ordered a penne pasta:

After walking around a bit, we went to Starbucks to get a drink and dessert. We don't have the normal holiday drinks that ya'll have in the States, but they do have a few special ones here. Daniel got the dark chocolate cherry something something (gag me) and I tried the Toffee Nut Latte. It.was a.maz.ing.

LOVE this drink. I almost repented after drinking it, it was that good.

My love:

We spent a lot of time talking about how this anniversary compared to last year's and our actual wedding.

We came up with this list (all of these are in reference to our anniversary day or wedding day):

This was the first year we rode the bus to dinner.

First year we were in the actual city we live in.

First year we went to class.

First year we got a massage.

First time we didn't have wedding cake for dessert.

First time I didn't wear a dress to dinner.

First year we didn't do presents.

First year we ate leftovers for lunch.

First year we rode bikes.

First year I ran.

I'm sure there are more but you get the idea :)

Even though our anniversary was a little different, we had a great day! I'm so thankful for these past two years and so hopeful for the remaining ahead.

love

laura

Happy TWO Year Anniversary!!!

Today is our 2 year anniversary!!!

Here we are two years ago today!

I thought I'd do a photo recap of our last year together.

Here we are one year ago celebrating our 1 year anniversary.

This is one of my favorite pictures of us. We were about to go run in freezing temperatures. We didn't even make it a mile that night.

January-Celebrating my birthday at a JJ Heller concert.

February- a random ( not the best) picture

March-celebrating a friend's wedding in Arkansas

April-random pic, i think this was date night

May-Roadtripping it up at Lambeau Field!!

June-Leaving America

July-Enjoying the local sites

August- Enjoying a trip to the mountains!

September- First day of School!

October- At our marriage conference

I'll post more later!

love

laura

play by play of the 7.2

I went to bed last night at 9. I prayed myself to sleep, asking God to give me strength, endurance, ability, and will power to get up early the next day and run 7 miles.

Last week my 5 miler was awesome. the 6 the week before....mmmmm not so much. so i wasn't going to be surprised if i had a bad run today. but i prayed.
and i woke up at 4:30 from the excitement and nervousness of it all and laid there till the alarm went off at 6. I hopped out of bed, grabbed the frozen water bottle, and was running by 6:18.

It was still dark.

it was really hard.

at least the first half. i really think it's mostly mental as to why the first few miles are always the hardest for me. while i'm running i can't really 'pep' myself up or congratulate myself on just hitting 1.5, when i know there are 5.5 more to go. it just sounds lame and discouraging.
so i continued to pray and started asking God to provide a sprinkler or something, i was SO thirsty. He didn't answer me. oh well!

so i try to think about other things.....like the cat that randomly followed me for a while this morning. and wonder why i'm seeing dozens of cats that i never see when i run in the neighborhood. maybe they're more nocturnal than i thought?
and then i am reminded that i don't like cats. they're pretty much my least fave animal. sorry.

my route for the 7 was 2 loops of 3.5 miles. i hide my water at my starting point and pick it up halfway through.

about mile 3, when i'm close to getting my water......it happened. that feeling you get when you need to "go" the bathroom. this has never happened before during my runs. i wished i was backoverseas with my antibac and tissue.

sadly, no such luck. there's a 7-11 nearby, and i plan to pick up my water then get to that 7-11 ASAP. as i'm rounding the corner....who do i see???

MY SEXY HUSBAND!!!!

he was waiting for me and was going to run the second half with me. honestly, if he hadn't been there i might've quit. i was SO dehydrated (my fault i know) and so tired. i didn't know if i had anything left, let alone ANOTHER 3.5.

before getting to Daniel, i yelled "i have to go the bathroom!!!!'

home is close, so we took a few minutes break.

sidenote: i walk back into the house and what do i see?!?!?!

we've had all these frames FOREVER and i keep telling Daniel that we need to go thru the wedding pics and decorate the house so it looks like we're married, ha! seriously, we keep talking about putting pics up for months now!!!

sidenote: today is our 9 month anniversary!!!

so i get really excited that Daniel surprised me with the pics and frames and tell him happy anniversary.

blank stare.

Daniel: 'oh yeah it's today!"

wow. oh well that just means he was being sweet for no reason!! :)

after taking care of the bathroom biz, we headed out again. my first half was exactly on pace-12 min/mile. so i was excited to see how the last half would go.

one funny thing, is that on the second loop, i kept noticing things i hadn't seen the first time, mostly because i ran in the DARK the first mile and a half!! it was a little creepy.

the last half was amazing!!! having Daniel next to me made such a huge difference. the last half was great!!! it seemed to go by so much faster and i felt really good the whole time. i could've probably done 8 today.

total time: 90 minutes exactly. i feel good about this time considering i stopped once to fix my shoe, and technically ran more than 7 miles:)

ALSO, the 15k is coming up in a few weeks, and guess who's running?!?!?!?!

DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as mentioned before, Labor Day aka September 6th is dad's 55th birthday!!!! what better way to prove you're still young than running a 15k with your 2 daughters???

sarah & dad also ran 7 miles today in Fort Worth. we all ran about the same time so it was like they were running with me.....

woo hoo!!! it will be dad, Sarah, and me running on Labor Day. can't wait!!!!!

p.s. Daniel and I are eating out tonight at our fave Indian restaurant, i've already warned Daniel i'm going to put away a lot of food. no shame, it's why i run :)

have a good weekend!!!!

love

laura

weekend rewind-play by play edition

i don't even want to talk about it.

Not Valentine's...but the Olympics.

Okay, so you already know that we go to bed early. For me to stay up past 9 takes effort or caffeine. So when i'm getting all excited about the Opening ceremonies, i didn't take time into consideration, because i thought the thrill alone would keep me awake.

hardly.

First, Daniel and I were right in front of the tv at 6:30pm sharp friday night, like we were supposed to be.

(after eating our Zuppa Toscana soup!) mmmmmm

 We didn't realize there was an hour and half of coverage before they actually started!!! After the teams walked in i laid on the couch till 10 with my eyes closed. I claimed i was 'listening' to it. I was SO determined to stay up till the torch was lit. But after fighting sleep for an hour, i just went to bed. When Daniel came to bed later i asked who lit the torch, but fell back asleep before he could answer.

So friday did not live up to my expectations. Saturday and Sunday EXCEEDED them!!!

sidenote: I did wake up on Fri to a card made by Daniel, asking me to be his Valentine!! (i said yes)

Saturday  nite we had a SS party for church. We don't really know anyone, so we were excited about having a chance to mingle outside of SS. We had the best time!!!! We went to a couple's house for dinner (which was decorated with flowers, decorations, and fine china!). We really enjoyed getting to know the other people in our class and learning more about their story.

Sunday...

We woke up and it was snowing. This was not in the forecast nor was it expected. But by the time we left for church, there was a nice covering of white stuff all over.

It was also V-day (and our 3 month anniversary!)

Daniel made me breakfast-scrambled eggs w/ cheese and toast! yummmy!!!

We had leftovers after church on Sunday, but used the fine china and lit every candle in the world to make it romantic :)

Sunday afternoon I lounged on the couch complaining that the only thing on was the Biathalon. Daniel and I agree that this is a competition...not so sure if it qualifies as an Olympic sport in our mind.....

We exchanged presents (we're on a budget, so we got small gifts). I got Burt Bee's calming leg and foot lotion (since my legs are now sore from learning to be a runner!!!) and a couple of new lip balms i've been wanting. I gave Daniel a tracker book he wanted and The Economist mag.

(ok don't let the double chin throw you, Daniel isn't chubby)

Ok, so the good part....DINNER!
We went to a local Indian restaurant, which we both l.o.v.e. LOVE!!! We had samosa's (not mimosa's), wine, tandori chicken, chicken tikka, dal, naan, lamb, and some potato stuff that i can never remember the name of.

can we say 'delicious?' 

I know it sounds like a lot of food, but we had no problem cleaning our plates!!!

THEN we got home and Daniel had more surprises!! He made me dessert- Valentine Tarts. Ummmmmm......probably my new fave dessert, which is saying a lot!!! Words can't describe the delight my tastebuds received from devouring the yumminess!

it's like a choclately pudding goodness, with whip cream, strawberry, and yes, you do see chocolate lace!

THEN....Daniel got out his guitar and sang me a new song he had written for me. (Daniel has written me 2 songs before for our 5 month dating anniversary.) OF COURSE...i cried :) It was the perfect way to end the day :)

Is it weird that i post about almost every meal i eat?? i think i just want the blogworld to feel involved...hmmmm


love
laura