Milspouse Virtual Career Fair!

Log on to this link on May 7th for a virtual career fair just for Milspouses!
http://veteranscareerfair.com/index.html

Back from Hiatus!

Hope everyone out here in bloggieland is doing well! I have lots of catching up to do! Grad school took over my life again, but I'm off for the summer, so now I can have some fun! Recap if the last 2 months: -Survived the 15 mile run, the weather was brutally cold, but there was only minimal complaining (cursing) -Signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon- my first full! -Went to Nashville for one of my best friend's bachelorette party -Planned, designed, and baked for her bridal shower too! (details of both to follow) -Currently reading "Outlaw Platoon" by Sean Parnell. The publisher was nice enough to send me a copy and he's from my area! I also gad the pleasure of meeting him yesterday at a charity event which was fantastic. I will review when I finish. -Dan and I will be becoming an Uncle and Aunt within the next two weeks -This weekend we will be traveling to Lincoln Nebraska for the National Guard Narathon and the competition for the All Guard team. Let's go Team PA! What's new with you all? Jules

Fifteen

This weekend I will be running 15 miles. FIFTEEN! Thats 1.9 miles farther than I have ever ran before lol. Luckily, Emily will be right by my side and our friend Amy will be joing us for 10 miles.  The race we are doing is kinda of neat. Its a 5 mile loop and you get to show up and run how many laps you want (10,15,or 20 miles).  The race is called the Spring Thaw and of course, despite our nice temperatures in the 40s and 50s this week, its going to snow on Saturday morning. Now if you have read my race recaps before, you will know If I'm not going to get a PR I'm really just in it for the medals. Well there is no medal for this race,there are gloves. So yeah I'm going to run the farthest distance ever and get gloves! I did make the hubs promise to take me to a whiskey bar that just opened up sometime in the near future as my reward.  I shall post my recap afterwards!

Dinner Party

    I hope all of you had a wonderful Valentine's Day! Instead of going out together, I told Dan I wanted to stay in and have a dinner party for those we love. I decided to make it a dessert central meal, so the dinner we had was light.  I made Ina's Parmesan Chicken and served it with artichoke ravioli that we got in Costco's freezer section with a garlic and olive oil sauce.  If there is a Costco near you, you must pick them up!
    I did not take nay pictures of the meal but the chicken was easy and delish and I made it for 3 days after that because I bought too many ingredients ha and we did not get sick of eating it!
    I set up a little dessert bar in our game room (aka Dan's man cave) and it was so much fun! For it I made:

• Martha's Fudgy Brownies cut into hearts
• Cotton Candy with Edible Glitter
• Marshmallow Stuffed Hearts Covered in Chocolate with Edible Glitter (these were a pain)
• Mini White Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream
• Pretzel Chocolate Pudding Tarts

 Our house is not exactly ideal for entertaining so I had to sit people at the coffee table too (classy right? lol) but here are the centerpieces we did.

Sorry for the pic, camera hates candlelight: 3 vases of carnations on a tray

carnation heart on mirror

 I should have taken pictures of our guests to prove that we do have friends :)
What did you all do for Valentine's Day?

Olympic Marathon Trials and the Houston Half Marathon and Marathon

    Well the Guard team provided us with another awesome opportunity yet again!  We were lucky enough to travel down to Houston, Texas and watch the Olympic Marathon Trials and then we ran our race the next day.  They were kind enough to put us in a hotel right next to the Houston Galleria (squeal). That mall is pretty much everything I could ask for.Anyway...on to our journey.
    We started our journey on Thursday night and of course there was a snowstorm in Chicago where our connecting flight was. Luckily we only had a short delay and made it to our hotel around 1am Friday morning.
 I was super excited to see that our hotel had a pair of swans living in it! Kind of odd but it was super cute to see them everyday.

On Friday, the coordinator of the Guard team asked Dan to accompany him to a meeting with a bunch of race officials to help brief the team of  their duties.  They got to escort the elite athletes and help form a finish cute to separate the female and male runners...what a cool experience! We went to the expo and for an awesome oyster happy hour date at Danton's. The had raw oysters for 75 cents and they were huge!!!! Afterward we headed to the hotel happy hour and chatted it up with the other members of the team. We all hit the hay early because they had to report down to the race early in the morning. I amused myself until the start of the race by waiting in a super long Starbucks line.  Then it was time for the fun! Please pardon the awful pictures.  There was so many people it was hard to not have faces or heads in my shots.

Here are the guys starting to line up. Michael Wardian (in white hat) World Champ Silver Medalist 100k

 Michael ran the trials on Saturday and ran the regular Marathon on Sunday with two amazing times!

all lined up!

and they are off!

they came around again after a 2.2 mile loop

<3

here come the ladies!

our friend and fellow Guard Team member Emily qualified for the trials at the Marine Corp Marathon

 She is awesome and we were happy to be able to cheer her on!! The race started with the men, then the women started 15 minutes later. There was a 2.2 mile lap then three 8 mile laps so you got to see the runner many times which was great. It was really exhilarating to be there. Ok I'm sure you all do not want to see a million blurry pictures from the runners other laps sooo here is the end lol.  I missed Meb but I did catch Dan's bf Ryan Hall coming in second place!

Ryan Hall

shortly after that Emily came through and had 1 more lap to go

After that I changed my position because I knew Dan would be standing somewhere along the finish route.   I found him and was super excited (like he was winning the race or something lol)

he actually looked thrilled most of the time

here you can kinda see what their purpose was

he cheered for every runner that came passed!

I actually came across a picture of Dan on another blog I read. We had to be standing 20 feet away from each other. you can catch his better side over at Marathon Sweetheart haha

Kara Goucher coming in for third place

Team Picture

all done :)- Dan sacrificed part of his nip for a PR!

Myself and Dan with Josh Cox- American Record Holder 50k

the medals were very cool- I especially liked Dan's

 All in all we had a great time down in Houston.  Dan came out of the race with a @:52:50- a new PR for him.  He hopes to get into the 2:40s when we return to the Lincoln Marathon in May (where he must qualify yearly for the Guard Team). As for my race...it was weird. It just kind of happened. I didn't feel good, I didn't feel bad, I just was there..on the upside I was pretty pleased with my race outfit ha! That night we went out and seriously gorged ourselves at Truluck's. Everything was so delicious but I guess Dan's stomach couldn't handle all that rich food after the marathon because around 10pm he started puking until about 5am, so that was a blast.  This meant I had to listen to him puke all night since we were in a hotel room.  Luckily he felt better enough to catch our flight the next day (and run 4 miles- weirdo!)

A week later its back to reality and snow boooo. We do not have any exciting races coming up though I will be running a 15 mile race in a few weeks with Dan and Emily (different Emily than above). This will be the farthest Emily and I have ever ran so that is kind of a milestone! I have also convinced Emily to do Marine Corps Marathon with me in the fall. This will be our first full marathon!!!  Lets hope we get in! Anyone doing any races in the near future or want to do Marine Corps?


I am on a break from Grad School right now and I have been cooking and baking up a storm so I will actually have posts for you all to enjoy more frequently :)   I made this for dinner tonight and it was pretty amazeballs.  Hope everyone had a good weekend!

The Hawaiian Recap Part 2 (better late than never!)

Hi Everyone! It feels so great to be back at blogging!  Grad school has been kicking my butt, hence my absence, but I just took my last final a few hours ago! This time next year I will have my MBA! Its snowing here in PA so lets take a trip back to Hawaii... You can read the first recap post here. 
    Ok so the next morning we were up early to run the race! It was very well organized but it was definitely the toughest course either of us has run but it was so beautiful I just decided to take it all in and go with the flow.  I wish I had brought my camera on the course!  Here are some pictures from the finish line.

The LT and his wife..he carried a flag the whole course!

Dan and I very happy to be done! Take a look at the background!

The PA team

Our All Star Emily's prize for taking first in the half marathon! She will be heading to the Olympic trails in Houston!

Bart Yasso and Dan- He was on our flight home too- he is very nice!

The National guard relay team (with two PA members) took first!

Most of The National Guard Team!

Most of the PA Team with Dean Karnazes

    Overall for race goals, I just barely made mine, which was to get under 3 hours, with a 2:59:25 and Dan was disappointed with his time (even though I think its pretty good!) with a 3:19:15- this included him having to stop at a med tent to get cramps rubbed out of his legs! He learned he reallllllly doesnt run well in the heat.

    After the race and we were all well hydrated again, we headed to Kalapaki Joe's which was hosting a post race party.  They had food and drink specials and everything was delicious! For the rest of the day we just relaxed by the pools and packed up our stuff. 

    The next morning we headed out on an 8 hour adventure tour with Outfitters .  It was expensive but well worth it! Truly one of the most amazing experiences of my life! We did the Kipu Zipline Safari and it was everything they make it out to be.  We started with a kayack and then we hiked a bit.  A huge tractor picked us up and took us the rest of the way up the mountain.  The tours guides were filled with tons of knowledge about the island and would tell us fun facts about the local plants. They even picked guavas off the tree for us to eat! The ziplines were incredible (even though I was terrified) and we got to see some amazing site along the way. A lot of movie and commercials had been filming on that part of the island so we got to see some scenes from Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, and Indiana Jones. They said the Chase was filming a commercial just a week prior and I saw the commercial on TV (its the second one) a few months later.  After ziplining and hiking we stopped at what they call the Bamboo pool. It is surrounded entirely by bamboo and they had a zipline into the water and you could also jump in from a platform. 

Us kayaking..we sucked at it ha

pool from Pirates 3

Dan on the rope swing

Us on the tractor ride

Guava tree

Fresh Guava!

all geared up to zipline!

me being super graceful on the zipline

our second zipline

zipline into bamboo pool

Afterward we came back to our hotel and had a romantic dinner before our 10pm flight out of Lihue Airport.  I hope we are lucky enough to go back again next year!!!! The 12 hour travel is most definitely worth it!

I Totally Feel This Way

 

 Haha anyone else feel this way?